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5.1.2 Invisible Majority Hashrate Attacks
5.1.2 Invisible Majority Hashrate Attacks

The majority hashrate (aka “50+%” or erroneously “51%”) attack which orphans some or all of the minority’s blocks is not objectively distinguishable from a random result. Some blocks are orphaned and others are not, yet there is no way to objectively prove from the information stored in the blockchain that a 50+% attack was present. Clues might be indicative of a 50+% attack such as a higher orphan rate, but this can also be caused by network delays which is what the 50+% attack masquerades to other mining nodes. Tracking down nodes which are participating in the attack is not plausible because IP addresses and even pools can be a Sybil attack.[^detecting] There can’t exist an objective perspective in the Byzantine Generals Problem (aka “BGP”) without a total perspective.[^self-referential] Yet a total perspective is not a BGP.

Unless a minority hashrate miner has, or is in a pool that has, at least ¹/₃ of the systemic hashrate, they won’t be able to triangulate to differentiate between random bad luck or a 50+% attack. Even if they do have sufficient hashrate to probabilistically distinguish, they can’t necessarily convince the rest of the minority, because it is not objectively provable by anything that can be put on the blockchain. Propagation is not proof because every node’s perspective of propagation is different, i.e. propagation is Einstein’s special relativity.[^relativity] Who is telling the truth? This is the self-referential insolvability of the BGP.[^self-referential]

PoW allows insidious attacks that no one can prove nor disprove. What better financial weapon could one design to aid the gazillionaire capitalists who don't want their power and actions to be observable.[^666]


[^detecting]: Ittay Eyal, Emin Gün Sirer. How to Detect Selfish Miners. Hacking, Distributed blog, Jan 15, 2014.

[^self-referential]: Shelby Moore III. Self-referential insolvability of the Byzantine Generals Problem. Bitcointalk.org, “Satoshi didn't solve the Byzantine generals problem” thread, post #119, Feb 9, 2016.

[^relativity]: Shelby Moore III. The Universe. Unheresy.com blog, §Observer invariance, Jul 19, 2013.

[^666]: Shelby Moore III. Bitcoin: The Digital Kill Switch. Bitcointalk.org, MarketOracle.co.uk, Mar 29, 2013.

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