Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoin topic on Quora.com
by
riggasconi
on 23/01/2011, 12:02:29 UTC
I have a few thoughts. An attacker isn't likely to want a bunch of services, those can't usually be resold easily. Goods will usually not ship until the next day so the attacker has to overcome the whole network for ~12 or more. Even if he pulls this off people will notice and many will be warned not to ship goods ordered after X time. Gambling sites don't make a great target, because you win bitcoins, which will be devalued if you are successful. The exchanges are probably the most fertile ground, but major
exchanges (where the most money will be available) will have the best detection of funny business.

In addition to all the power that the attacker will have to buy or rent there will be a lot of planning involved. They need to search out what goods will ship fast enough to go out during their attack, if they can't hold on to the network for over a day this will only be certain parts of the world. They need to set up a place or places for delivery, and a way to resell the goods unless they are doing this for their own consumption. They need to find all the little exchanges and make accounts and set up bank accounts to send the money to, under different names I guess. LR makes this pretty easy though.

You can have a fast attack scenario targeting fast-shipping goods and services, and a slow-attack scenario targeting slow-shipping goods and services.

Quote
Do you mean that after an attack people will stop using bitcoin?

No. I mean the FRN/BTC exchange ratio would plummet, therefore goods and service providers will ask for more BTCs for the same goods and services, therefore the purchasing power in the hands of a BTC owner evaporates.