Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: BitCoin Confirmation Honeypot
by
casascius
on 21/09/2011, 13:17:07 UTC
I don't think it will help much.  It doesn't take into account the different things a skilled attacker might try.  If someone isn't trying to double-spend, or is trying with a "cheap shot" method a couple seconds later, demonstrating that the first spend succeeds virtually all of the time doesn't prove anything useful.  It would be like trying to prove that a padlock is secure against skilled locksmiths by having you and all of your friends try to pick it and concluding it is secure because none of you succeeded.

Other proposals have been discussed, a notable one of which is to have a third party (call it a "bank") who holds a portion of the customer's balance on deposit provide the service of "guaranteeing" the eventual success of the transaction against the customer's own deposited funds.  If the transaction turns out to have been voided due to a double spend, the merchant collects from the bank, who collects from the customer, making the guarantee pretty much instant.