<p​reland:monero.social> Question: assume that Monero is successfully 51% attacked. Assume also that a CEX reveals a certain transaction publicly as laundering or otherwise undesirable. Would the attacker be able to “revert” or otherwise prevent this transaction from occurring or being included on the blockchain?

<3​21bob321:monero.social> L2 when

<j​effro256:monero.social> Yes as long as they maintain 51% of the hashpower, they can include/exclude any transactions they please (so long as it follows consensus rules, AKA no infinite inflation)

<p​reland:monero.social> Ok, thanks for the clarification

<j​effro256:monero.social> If you want to reorg deeper, you need at least 51% hash power of the *cumulative* PoW of the depth of that reorg. So temporary 51% dominance doesn't necessarily mean arbitrarily deep reorgs, but 51% for extended period of time does

<j​effro256:monero.social> Until, at least in the default builds of `monerod`, you hit the last checkpoint. You can't reorg deeper than that

<i​mprevisto:matrix.org> how often are checkpoints set?

<j​effro256:monero.social> Once every release version. Last checkpoint height is 3346800: monero-project/monero #9722/files

<p​reland:monero.social> I’ve spent today hanging around in the Qubic discord channel, and this is my “very official risk assessment”:

<p​reland:monero.social> Odds of Qubic having a significant impact on the hashrate: 100% (has already happened; whether this is smoke and mirrors or not is besides the point: they were able to reach a peak of 10% hashrate).

<p​reland:monero.social> Odds of Qubic reaching 51% territory: coin toss (idk if they currently want to push their network to this, nor do I know if they are actually capable of it. Additionally, it could be possible that they reach 51% on accident by underestimating their network power)

<p​reland:monero.social> Odds of Qubic using 51% to directly harm the network: 10-15% (isn’t in their best interest to do so, but who knows; it’s not like Monero has a lack of enemies)

<p​reland:monero.social> Odds of Qubic indirectly harming Monero: 60%

<p​reland:monero.social> As for what Qubic actually is….from what I gathered, it appears to be a decentralized supercomputer (and I do mean supercomputer; the spec of the protocol requires there to be a minimum of 676 servers, each with a 24 core EPYC and 2 TB of RAM….yeah)

<e​longated:matrix.org> Who actually invests this much ? Seems like a state actor?

<i​mprevisto:matrix.org> thx jeffro

<r​brunner7:monero.social> preland: "Odds of Qubic indirectly harming Monero: 60%" Do you have some particular kinds of "harm" in mind already?

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> 3375700*

Certified by CertiK proudly displayed on their page whom appear 9 times in the Rekt leaderboard rekt.news/leaderboard

Correction, Not an audit, they confirmed a number of transactions happened per second on a testnet, ok

<m​onerobull:matrix.org> with 51% the transaction would still just get mined pretty quickly

<r​ucknium:monero.social> jeffro256: For clarity, cherrypicking RingCT txs would be difficult. Cherrypicking FCMP txs would be impossible. By "cherrypicking" I mean removing one or a handful of txs from some time point `A` in the blockchain history, yet keeping txs that had been confirmed after time `A`. At least that's what I understand.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> In the RingCT case, the entity performing the attack would have to insert one or more valid txs into the correct position in the `A` block to exactly fill the missing set of outputs that the entity had removed when they removed the target transaction(s). Then, the entity would have to do the same for any subsequent transactions that had referenced those specific outputs in their r<clipped message>

<r​ucknium:monero.social> ings, because those txs would be invalid (public keys would not have been the same). The further back the target tx, the more complicated this becomes, and the more "collateral damage" you do to non-target txs that have to be discarded.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> With FCMP, the FCMP Merkle tree would be altered at point `A`, so the input proofs of txs after that point would all be invalid. AFAIK.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> The easy thing for the adversary to do in both cases would be just to mine empty blocks from the point `A` onward, in the attacking chain.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> ^ RingCT tx reference rings by index position in the blockchain. That's why the adversary has to replace the outputs in the exact index position. Otherwise, those later txs would have misaligned RingCT offset indices.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> I don't know what Qubic is doing, but they could be just renting RandomX hashpower, for publicity. They would not even need to be using their network's consensus nodes to do anything.

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> Yeah, their hashrate spikes to "400mh" dont last very long at all

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> maybe a few minutes. Unlike the botnet with 1-1.5gh that would be mining for 12hrs per day

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> matrix.monero.social/_matrix/media/…oad/xmr.mx/hIVEwYVzUbScTAqsEYMxeYrl

<p​lowsof:matrix.org> a graph of said hashrate qubic-xmr-stats.streamlit.app

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> "Pool Hashrate

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> 0.00 H/s

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> "

<p​lowsof:matrix.org> momentarily returning back to our usual status where the top 2 pools combined have >60% of global hash :D

<p​lowsof:matrix.org> kewbic please 'attack' us with decentralised hashes 😭

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> Please, focus on qubic

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> The top pool having 40%? Pay no mind to it. Focus all of your attn on qubic

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> Is talking about qubic, off topic to this group? What is the topic of this group specifcally?

<o​frnxmr:xmr.mx> Yes. Work

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> I am just researching about qubic etc. and it's pretty interesting even if they won't be able to 51% attack Monero - some links if you are interested:

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> iq.wiki/wiki/sergey-ivancheglo

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> iota.org/learn/intro

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> iota.org/learn/focus-areas#digital-identity

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> matildaonqubic.com

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> kv.by/archive/index2000491105.html

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> So the person (if he's actually behind qubic), who co-founded IOTA which main focus is digital identiy and has the WEF as supporting organisation, wants to 51% attack Monero

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> * if this is propped up, it is done well

<s​yntheticbird:monero.social> WEF attacking Monero confirmed

<s​yntheticbird:monero.social> Every anons to their battle stations

<s​yntheticbird:monero.social> The war has begun

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> Maybe, if you have an opinion about this, or know better than me, tell me so if I spead bullshit, I would like to delete my post as fast as possible

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> m-reIay: m-reIay

<r​ucknium:monero.social> maitreyatoaster21: Your deletions on Matrix don't delete messages from the bridged IRC side, nor from the WWW: libera.monerologs.net/monero-community

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> Thanks well than I guess if it's bullshit I am talking, It'll stay out there.

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> 🫥

<r​ucknium:monero.social> Like I said ^, it could be a publicity stunt using rentable hashpower already available. If it's a publicity stunt, they got you ;)

<s​yntheticbird:monero.social> no one said you were telling bullshit

<r​ucknium:monero.social> I guess it's worth monitoring

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> A sharp edge. Talking about it or not talking about it. But yeah, if it's the same guy behind IOTA and Qubic, I too think it's worth keeping an eye on

<r​ucknium:monero.social> A _real_ way to monitor this would be to perform a scan of the Qubic network to see how many nodes they really have. That would put a reasonable limit on the hashpower they could actually be producing with their consensus nodes. Of course, that assumes that each IP address has not more than one Qubic machine behind it.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> And you would want to try to estimate the number of unreachable Qubic nodes, by waiting for them to connect to you.

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> I guess this is not easily done, right?

<r​ucknium:monero.social> Just requires some knowledge and a little time to work.

<r​ucknium:monero.social> Unless their network works in a non-standard way, somehow.

<s​yntheticbird:monero.social> I'm proposing the formation of an intelligence and offensive group dedicated to the protection of Monero's interests from the terrorist threat that is Qubic. This group will be called Monero Security Agency and will be under core team direct supervision.

MSA

Close enough

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> this is a fucking rabbit hole, holy 🫨

<m​aitreyatoaster21:matrix.org> IOTA partner Tony Blair foundation video: "Political leaders have a choice. Disrupt (ChatGPT pic.) or be disrupted (Protest pic.). Join the radical reinvention of government." and so on

selsta part-time monero development (3 months) (17) has moved to funding! ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/selsta-17p.html

<p​reland:monero.social> By “harm” I rly just mean in terms of reputation; it seems like *some people* (cough cough) have been overly antagonistic to them, which is honestly why I even put the odds of them attempting to 51% + trying to use it maliciously as high as I did.

<p​reland:monero.social> Regardless, thanks to the *glowing reception* we gave them, it seems like the community consensus over there is to clown on us

<p​reland:monero.social> They already admitted that a single machine can take up multiple “slots” in the current system (and it is happening already)

<p​reland:monero.social> To be honest, this is a red flag, as their design in theory has Sybil preventions both from a technical standpoint (all nodes have to prove that they meet certain requirements) and from a game theory perspective (a powerful computer earns significantly more as one node than the same computer split into multiple nodes)

<p​reland:monero.social> They are apparently instantly swapping their earnings for Tether, which means as of right now they have earned around 60k USD from mining

<p​reland:monero.social> Which is a lot, but considering how much effort their network is putting into it….I don’t know if this is sustainable for them

<m​onerobull:matrix.org> >it seems like the community consensus over there is to clown on us

<p​reland:monero.social> And as for the sporadic nature of their hashrate, the claim is that they just use excess compute to do it

<m​onerobull:matrix.org> half their network is used to power LLMs to reply with glaze comments on everything the founder (who is of course staoshi) says

<p​reland:monero.social> Funny if true

<m​onerobull:matrix.org> it wouldnt surprise me in the slightest to find out that they just buy the hashrate to further their narrative

<m​onerobull:matrix.org> everything their founder tweets instantly gets a hundred likes :P

<p​reland:monero.social> They do (kinda) through their coin

<p​reland:monero.social> Twitter moment

<p​reland:monero.social> Speaking of Twitter, the undercover glowie of the week award goes to:

<p​reland:monero.social> matrix.monero.social/_matrix/media/…ero.social/iwlMxoNbDJVIWkxMaRDNoFEx

<p​reland:monero.social> This guy, who appears to have started this whole flame war mess

<p​reland:monero.social> (For posterity’s sake: the above was made *before* that guy got light doxxed by the head of Qubic)