[messaging] Do Blockchains solve Zooko's triangle? (was: Another Take At Public Key Distribution)

[Tony Arcieri]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Tao Effect <contact at taoeffect.com> wrote:

> What you are describing is not an attack IMHO, but the definition of
> first-come-first-served.
>
> It is by no means a real “security” issue for Namecoin.
>

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?

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. This is
particularly easy right now because very few people are mining Namecoin.

Since there's so little actual Namecoin mining going on, the amount of
mining power needed to take control of the network is well within the reach
of a sufficiently motivated and funded attacker.

-- 
Tony Arcieri
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