Rise of Evil Crypto: DDoS Coin
An interesting cryptocurrency proof-of-work has emerged that would allow miners to prove their contribution to a DDoS attack against specific servers.
More specifically:
"This proof involves making a large number of TLS connections to a target server, and using cryptographic responses to prove that a large number of connections has been made"
Signatures would be created upon confirmation of TLS connections.
Hackers could then trade DDoS coins for other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or perhaps Ethereum.
Academics Eric Wustrow and Benjamin VanderSloot who designed this proof-of-work, intend to create a platform that would allow TLS Web servers to be targeted.
You can find their published research here.
The picture below illustrates the cryptocurrency's design:
No more evil than any other tool. It's not the tool that's the problem here. It's the users.
There are very legitimate uses for this coin. Imagine being able to load test your site under a real DDoS for instance?
There are no evil tools nor are there evil people. Just people with Ill intent.
Very good point. Thanks for that. By evil though I did mean it would facilitate malicious behavior.
Evil is the right word.