IOTA Cryptocurrency Shut Down Its Entire Network After a Wallet Breach (zdnet.com) 20
The nonprofit organization behind the IOTA cryptocurrency shut down its entire network this week after someone exploited a vulnerability in their wallet app to steal funds.
ZDNet reports: The attack happened this week, Wednesday, on February 12, 2020, according to a message the foundation posted on its official Twitter account. According to a status page detailing the incident, within 25 minutes of receiving reports that hackers were stealing funds from user wallets, the IOTA Foundation shut down "Coordinator," a node in the IOTA network that puts the final seal of approval on any IOTA currency transactions.
The never-before-seen move was meant to prevent hackers from executing new thefts, but also had the side-effect of effectively shut down the entire IOTA cryptocurrency...
IOTA members said hackers used an exploit in "a third-party integration" of Trinity, a mobile and desktop wallet app developed by the IOTA Foundation. Based on current evidence, confirmed by the IOTA team, it is believed that hackers targeted at least 10 high-value IOTA accounts and used the Trinity exploit to steal funds.
Sunday the team released "a safe version" of their Trinity Desktop "to allow users to check their balance and transactions. This version (1.4.0) removes the vulnerability announced on 12th February 2020..."
Their status page advised users to contact a member of the IOTA Foundation if their balance looks incorrect. "Please be aware that there are unfortunately active imposters posing as IOTA Foundation personnel on our Discord. Therefore it is important that you directly initiate contact with the IF or mod team yourself..."
"The Coordinator remains down for now as we finalise our remediation plan. You will not be able to send value transactions."
ZDNet reports: The attack happened this week, Wednesday, on February 12, 2020, according to a message the foundation posted on its official Twitter account. According to a status page detailing the incident, within 25 minutes of receiving reports that hackers were stealing funds from user wallets, the IOTA Foundation shut down "Coordinator," a node in the IOTA network that puts the final seal of approval on any IOTA currency transactions.
The never-before-seen move was meant to prevent hackers from executing new thefts, but also had the side-effect of effectively shut down the entire IOTA cryptocurrency...
IOTA members said hackers used an exploit in "a third-party integration" of Trinity, a mobile and desktop wallet app developed by the IOTA Foundation. Based on current evidence, confirmed by the IOTA team, it is believed that hackers targeted at least 10 high-value IOTA accounts and used the Trinity exploit to steal funds.
Sunday the team released "a safe version" of their Trinity Desktop "to allow users to check their balance and transactions. This version (1.4.0) removes the vulnerability announced on 12th February 2020..."
Their status page advised users to contact a member of the IOTA Foundation if their balance looks incorrect. "Please be aware that there are unfortunately active imposters posing as IOTA Foundation personnel on our Discord. Therefore it is important that you directly initiate contact with the IF or mod team yourself..."
"The Coordinator remains down for now as we finalise our remediation plan. You will not be able to send value transactions."
Bitcoin is a better Gold vs FIAT currencies (Score:1)
Decentralization: one player: Bitcoin. The goal is to take over the Gold market cap.
Centralization: an infinite number of players: The incentives are to create new FIAT currencies. The goal is to dump the FIAT currencies on the newcomers.
As Voltaire famously said, 'Fiat currency always eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero.'
If they can shut it down, it's not decentralized (Score:2)
Decentralization ends with Bitcoin (Score:2)
Anyway, you could fork the Bitcoin repository, but you can't copy the decentralization, the store of value properties, or the Ethos (Cypherpunk..). The repository, is mainly a set of cryptography tricks, utterly worthless without the dece
Re: (Score:3)
Gold was a shit currency, so being more like gold is a TERRIBLE for a currency. We moved away from gold for reason, it was not just structurally problematic, it was unstable as fuck in price and caused major bankiing crisis like 2008 every 5 years.
Government Agencies (Score:1, Troll)
So what use can government agencies make use of crypto when it comes to analysing where it came from and who it went to. Don't think just the NSA and CIA but a whole planet full of agencies, what can they do with crypto, well, apparently a whole lot of tracking can be done, especially when they start spending it to buy stuff. Shuffle it around to pay for criminal activity not in the enforcing role but the espionage role.
Here is a something people never think of, why do foreign governments want to track loca
To shut down a decentralized network means (Score:5, Insightful)
A: it wasn't really a network
B: it wasn't really shut down
C: it wasn't really decentralized
I'll cast a vote for "C"
Re:To shut down a decentralized network means (Score:5, Informative)
IOTA isn't fully-decentralized. It has a 'Coodinator' node:
https://domschiener.gitbooks.i... [gitbooks.io]
Eventually, the IOTA Foundation plans to remove the Coordinator from the tangle. And it isn't really shut down, either . . . you just can't get any transactions approved by the Coodinator.
Re: (Score:2)
What exactly would make it centralized after removing the Coordinator node? Care to educate us?
Re: (Score:1)
A summary of the economic reality by Saifedean Ammous: A shitcoin is anything promoted as a form of money whose supply is easy to increase. In other words, anything other than gold or bitcoin.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yes, let's attack other projects that have nothing to do with IOTA, and then use the word "we" to try to pretend that everyone agrees with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Still, at this point, I wouldn't trust this cryptocurrency for one... nevermind.
Centralization = same properties as a database (Score:2)
How to explain that everything is about decentralization
Censorship resistance, immutability and scarcity are emergent properties. Properties that emerge on Bitcoin as a global decentralized system. The Bitcoin network as a whole, is more than the sum of the parts. Bitcoin is a genuinely decentralized system, where people from different backgrounds, and with different goals, but all, following the 'don''t trust verify' mindset, agree to follow the same set of rules writt
Judean People's Front or People's Front of Judea? (Score:1)
Bitcoin is alone in this world
Yes, yes, absolutely alone. Now just for the sake of clarity, are we referring to Bitcoin core, Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin gold or Bitcoin 'Satoshi's vision' here?
Re: (Score:1)
As Voltaire famously said, 'Fiat currency always eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero.'
Re: (Score:2)
They didn't solve it, they just acidentally sidestepped it with a solution that costs money (ie to buy enough hashing power for a 51% attack). In reality though this creates a situation where we get an systematic maximum valuation of Bitcoins. (Once the cost of bitcoins costs increases enough that a 51% attack is offset by the cost of computing power to do it then the valuation can't go higher)