Cause of the botnet ( DEBUNKED )

HiDevin

A user created a program called sPlotter, which is xPlotter,
but it automatically creates small plots without overlapping till the drive is full,
if the owner of the " pajeet " account used this, and distribute it throughout every machine, with a certain size and with blago's miner, I think this is the cause, or just a step towards it.

https://www.burstnation.com/wbb/index.php?thread/2907-splotter-burst-plotter-that-automatically-creates-small-plots/
( not saying that this program is bad! I'm starting to love to use this program though :)

edit: also not to blame the guy, I use this program too, and i'm thinking to donate to him for that :P

Marc

@HiDevin Hi Almost 15year old..

If what you state is true. about the splotter. that would mean at least carnage on the AE if not worse, despite from the possible botnet factor - which pool owners could cope possibly and thus id ignore so far.

But at the end if someone really found a way to plot more efficient - common state so far was creating 1 big plot file no matter Harddisk size 8TB or whatever is the best, but now someone found a way getting more eff. by creating xxx (x) small files - it prob. wouldnt kill the coin or the protocoll as such - but at least all mining assets would suffer seriously as they have to replot their whole stuff to Keep up competition?

haitch

@Marc Single big plots will always be more efficient than a bunch of small ones - less hard drive seeking. However if you're writing a botnet, being able to write a bunch of small plots lets you manage used space by deleting or adding more small plots.

aitor

Has it been confirmed that it has been with a botnet? Is there any record of multiple ips or similar?

haitch

@aitor The owner of the pool he was mining on said his logs showed around 15,000 unique IP's submitting to the pool.

HiDevin

@haitch why don't it say on the website that small miners benefit from this algo :?

haitch

@HiDevin because they don't benefit from it - a single large plot is much more efficient than a whole lot of small ones.

edit:
Compare these two mining processes:

single large optimized file:
Open File
Seek to first nonce
read the next consecutive nonces
close file

multiple small optimized files
Open File1
Seek to first nonce
read the next consecutive nonces
close file1
Open File2
Seek to first nonce
read the next consecutive nonces
close file2
Open File3
Seek to first nonce
read the next consecutive nonces
close file3
Open File4
Seek to first nonce
read the next consecutive nonces
close file4

.... repeat for as many small files you have.

Which one do you think will mine faster ?

HiDevin

@haitch ffs my spelling is bad let me show u

on the offical website it says the algo favors smaller miners by design. ( ?? )

darindarin

@HiDevin i knew i shouldnt of bought 100tbs :P

haitch

@HiDevin Not sure what that is trying to say. Larger capacity will always relate to higher earnings, but small miners always have a chance.

HiDevin

@haitch oh ok, I just thought small miners have small plots, which the website says the algo favors by design :P

Energy

I understand that this refers to someone like me with 5TB can find a block and that with the same investment for BTC is impossible

Marc

@haitch My Question stays if this stuff is just a botnets case - which I think pool owners will be able to cope with one way or another (at least I hope), or if there is serious doubt about the way mining is possible as such in the way it is currently done - if not with the consequences I described above.

15K botnet abused clients sounds much - and is much for Burstcoin at a first glance but we all know is not that much, theres Botnets out there Controlling 10-100, prob. 1000 times of that. Just a matter of how much youre willing to throw in.

eg. I stumbled about a botnet for the few qnaps Im Controlling couple of weeks ago where an exploit was used to create virtually processes which in the end were mining BC/Alts due to an glitch of the qnap updating process (still unclear in detail but would lead too far here now). Now, oc I know that the current prob is not attached to 15K qnaps out there being abused to mine Burst, but whats your opinion of hidevins post and the link and the sw behind?

Evo

@haitch, I believe what they are questioning is the statement in the BN post that says that nonces found near the end of a plot file algrothmically return lower deadlines. So nonces in a very small file are always closer the the end than nonces near the beginning to middle of a very large single file. They concede that reading will be slower, but they make it sound like the deadlines will make it worth it.

Can anyone intelligently comment on the position of a nonce in a plot file influencing a deadline? I am under the impression that a nonce is a nonce is a nonce.

@HiDevin, I'm pretty sure by small miner they mean any single miner by himself. This points out a key difference between Burst and Bitcoin: it's very difficult to mine bitcoin profitably anymore without expensive ASIC boards that also cost a bunch to run. Wealthy individuals, large organizations and governments can afford to set up the ASIC farms that mine most of the bitcoin now. You and I couldn't. Burst is ASIC resistant though, meaning the well off have no super advantage over a kid in his bedroom with a bunch of hard drives.

captinkid

Honestly I think the "favors smaller miners by design." is BS. Like any token you're just trying to find the solution for that round before anyone else, the more competition the less likely that you'll find the solution as the difficulty rises.

Yes it's possible a 1GH BTC miner could find a block, though it's highly unlikely to ever happen. Likewise it's possible a 1GB BURST miner could find a block, but with a high difficulty they'll only rarely see low and competitive deadlines.

Being small gives you an advantage in read times. Your 1TB can be read in 3 seconds, whereas a large miner might take 60 seconds to read their PB. But that advantage doesn't really mean much in the long run.

haitch

@Marc That plotter would be useful to a botnet, but not for a dedicated miner. See above for why.

@Evo A scoop is a scoop is a scoop. Each nonce is a hash of the previous nonce. The hashes in the scoop number are then combined with the previous blocks gensig, and hashed again, then computed against the block target height. A scoop at the beginning of the file is just as likely to win as the last scoop.

daWallet

@HiDevin said in Cause of the botnet ( in response to " pajeet " exploit ):

Big miners have an overhead: They have to buy new equipement, new HDDs and have additional operating costs (electricity).
Small miners can simply use their existing non-used resources to mine Burst. No overhead in investment and probably a non-measurable rise in their electricity bill. Additionally 5 small miners have a better read time than one big mining machine.

Small miners certainly get more Burst compared to their costs.

Botnets and malicious software is nothing new to crypto. Many times botnets mined bitcoin or other coins and even android apps were mining on the phones of their victims.

captinkid

This post is deleted!

Evo

@haitch said in Cause of the botnet ( in response to " pajeet " exploit ):

@Marc That plotter would be useful to a botnet, but not for a dedicated miner. See above for why.

@Evo A scoop is a scoop is a scoop. Each nonce is a hash of the previous nonce. The hashes in the scoop number are then combined with the previous blocks gensig, and hashed again, then computed against the block target height. A scoop at the beginning of the file is just as likely to win as the last scoop.

That definitely sounded like an intelligent comment. And that's what I thought, though I didn't know the underlying mechanism. Thanks again!

haitch

@captinkid My phone with 120GB won a block. Small miners might have a small chance of winning, but they have a real chance. A small BTC miner has effectively a 0 chance of getting a block, a small Burst miner has a realistic chance of winning.