<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">I've just demonstrated how an attacker can perform a man-in-the-middle attack which lets them publish a malicious key under a name that the victim assumes is theirs. You don't care?</div><div class="">An attacker who can mine a Namecoin fork in Alice's view of split-brain world could convince Alice she's successfully claimed the name.</div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What you are describing implies a persistent, 24/7 MITM on Alice’s network, waiting for Alice to register her name (assuming she hasn’t already).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That already, by itself, is pretty much not going to ever happen simply because it is too costly. There are far cheaper attacks this adversary could do to Alice.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So I put such targeted attacks on a local network outside of the realm of practical feasibility.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Also, even if this happened, Alice’s client could detect the attack the second she moved outside of the MITM’d network.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, the only real option left is for a persistent, 24/7 global MITM. At that point you are no longer dealing with the Internet anymore. You might as well smash Alice’s computer with a brick and declare a successful “attack” on Namecoin.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">This is particularly easy right now because very few people are mining Namecoin. Since there's so little actual Namecoin mining going on […]</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Namecoin is merge-mined with Bitcoin.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">- Greg</div></div></div></div></div><div class=""> <br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none;" class="">--</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none;" class="">Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none;" class=""> with the NSA.</span> </div> <br class=""></body></html>