{
"subject": "Re: Where is the separate discussion devoted to possible Bitcoin weaknesses.",
"content": {
"format": "html",
"body": "<div class=\"post\">It doesn't have to be such a breaking change. New nodes could accept old transactions for a long time until most nodes have already upgraded before starting to refuse transactions without PoW. Or, they could always accept old transactions, but only a limited number per time period.<br/><br/>I've thought about PoW on transactions many times, but usually I end up thinking a 0.01 transaction fee is essentially similar and better. 0.01 is basically a proof of work, but not wasted. But if the problem is validating loads of transactions, then PoW could be checked faster.<br/><br/>A more general umbrella partial solution would be to implement the idea where an unlikely dropoff in blocks received is detected. Then an attacker would still need a substantial portion of the network's power to benefit from a DoS attack.<br/><br/><div class=\"quoteheader\"><a href=\"https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=788.msg8761#msg8761\">Quote from: gavinandresen on August 11, 2010, 04:10:56 PM</a></div><div class=\"quote\">Bitcoin's p2p network is subject to various kinds of denial of service attacks.<br/><br/>There, I said it.<br/></div>+1<br/><br/>Any demonstration tests at this point would only show what we already know, and divert dev time from strengthening the system to operational fire fighting.<br/></div>"
},
"source": {
"name": "Bitcoin Forum",
"url": "https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=788.msg8804#msg8804"
},
"date": "2010-08-11T22:40:25Z"
}