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  • DDoSCoin : Researchers create crypto coin with DDoS puzzle for miners

    http://www.itnews.com.au/news/researchers-create-cryptocoin-with-ddos-puzzle-for-miners-433500

    University of Colorado assistant professor Eric Wustrow and University of Michigan phD student Benjamin VanderSloot have created a cryptocurrency that uses a malicious alternative to bitcoin’s double-SHA256 hash-based proof-of-work, the computational effort required to mine new coins.

    Called DDoSCoin, the alternative cryptocurrency’s “Proof-of-DDoS” allows miners to prove that they have participated in distributed denial of service attacks against preselected targets in order to create more virtual money.

    DDoSCoin operates by miners opening a large number of Transport Layer Security (TLS) connections to target webservers. It would then use the signed responses as proof a connection has occurred.

    Miners with DDoSCoin blocks could then trade these for other currencies, including bitcoin and ethereum.

    This malicious “proof-of-DDoS” model used by DDoSCoin miners works only with sites that support TLS 1.2, but the researchers said over half of the top million websites as measured by metrics firm Alexa support that version of the protocol.

    Bitcoin’s proof-of-work, a mathematical puzzle that miners have to collectively solve before more units of the currency can be created, has been criticised as a waste of resources.

    The paper presented at the Usenix 2016 security conference:

    https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16-paper-wustrow.pdf

    #DDoSCoin #bitcoin #cryptocurrency