Do you think that "bad hardware / software" exists and that could make the pool vulnerable?
Like I said, all mining pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks. All pools.
Whether bad software is still out there, I don't know. But as we have seen, it can happen.
Bad hardware is very unlikely. All the ASICs I heard of so far simply look for anything from diff 1 and up. Doing something else would require more logic on the chip.
Okay, I concur all pools are vulnerable to block withholding attacks (currently) .. and established bad software exists, and we can debate hardware concerns pointlessly as a "consumer union" report would have to test different hardware with testcases.
So, given that vulnerabilities exist, do you think it is possible and worth protecting against known vulnerabilities?
Is there a statistical test to say that a miner or group of miners are behaving unusually ... I would think there is.
yes there are tests, but all involve groups of about 100th to 200th of hash.
In bitminter :
group 1 total of 200th
koi ....
Philipma... i agree with you, mostly because I proposed group statistical evaluation and probation.
Do i care if a small miner benefits from bad hardware/software? In theory, yes, but how does one practically identify and enforce?
Well, one idea is go back to grouping the miners together, and paying out proportional to their contribution if it is outside an acceptable statistical mean. You could manage it on a rolling "find" basis. So, for example, if a 200 Th group should find 9 blocks (on average) over a one month period, with a deviation of +/- 1 block, but your group finds 6, that would be statistically abnormal... so the group payout would be less. Likewise, if a 200 Th group finds 12 blocks, you could argue they should get more.
Over time, in the law of averages, it should even out. But if a group is consistently underperforming, then you know you have bad actors (intentionally or not).
It is a completely different way of operating a pool. So, Dr. H needs to buy into this idea and determine whether it is worth his time.