Bitcoins's Strange Block 7438 and the 185 Billion Possible Payoff: Steemit Investigative Report pt.1

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On August 15 2010 Nakamoto Satoshi wrote:

overflow bug SERIOUS
August 15, 2010, 07:04:11 PM

seems a block at height 74638 has expoited a bug in the net. It uses an integer overflow to make a negative total transaction.

The two transaction outputs are:

out Value:92233720368.54(7ffffffffff85ee0) out Value:92233720368.54(7ff
ffffffff85ee0)

We need a fix asap

(satoshi)
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https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=823.0
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ONE HOUR EARLIER Jeff Garzik Posted

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Strange block 74638
August 15, 2010, 06:08:49 PM

The "value out" in this block #74638 is quite strange:

Code:
{
"hash" : "0000000000790ab3f22ec756ad43b6ab569abf0bddeb97c67a6f7b1470a7ec1c",
"ver" : 1,
"prev_block" : "0000000000606865e679308edf079991764d88e8122ca9250aef5386962b6e84",
"mrkl_root" : "618eba14419e13c8d08d38c346da7cd1c7c66fd8831421056ae56d8d80b6ec5e",
"time" : 1281891957,
"bits" : 469794830,
"nonce" : 28192719,
"n_tx" : 2,
"tx" : [
{
"hash" : "012cd8f8910355da9dd214627a31acfeb61ac66e13560255bfd87d3e9c50e1ca",
"ver" : 1,
"vin_sz" : 1,
"vout_sz" : 1,
"lock_time" : 0,
"in" : [
{
"prev_out" : {
"hash" : "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
"n" : 4294967295
},
"coinbase" : "040e80001c028f00"
}
],
"out" : [
{
"value" : 50.51000000,
"scriptPubKey" : "0x4F4BA55D1580F8C3A8A2C78E8B7963837C7EA2BD8654B9D96C51994E6FCF6E65E1CF9A844B044EEA125F26C26DBB1B207E4C3F2A098989DA9BA5BA455E830F7504 OP_CHECKSIG"
}
]
},
{
"hash" : "1d5e512a9723cbef373b970eb52f1e9598ad67e7408077a82fdac194b65333c9",
"ver" : 1,
"vin_sz" : 1,
"vout_sz" : 2,
"lock_time" : 0,
"in" : [
{
"prev_out" : {
"hash" : "237fe8348fc77ace11049931058abb034c99698c7fe99b1cc022b1365a705d39",
"n" : 0
},
"scriptSig" : "0xA87C02384E1F184B79C6ACF070BEA45D5B6A4739DBFF776A5D8CE11B23532DD05A20029387F6E4E77360692BB624EEC1664A21A42AA8FC16AEB9BD807A4698D0CA8CDB0021024530 0x965D33950A28B84C9C19AB64BAE9410875C537F0EB29D1D21A60DA7BAD2706FBADA7DF5E84F645063715B7D0472ABB9EBFDE5CE7D9A74C7F207929EDAE975D6B04"
}
],
"out" : [
{
"value" : 92233720368.54277039,
"scriptPubKey" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0xB7A73EB128D7EA3D388DB12418302A1CBAD5E890 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG"
},
{
"value" : 92233720368.54277039,
"scriptPubKey" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0x151275508C66F89DEC2C5F43B6F9CBE0B5C4722C OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG"
}
]
}
],
"mrkl_tree" : [
"012cd8f8910355da9dd214627a31acfeb61ac66e13560255bfd87d3e9c50e1ca",
"1d5e512a9723cbef373b970eb52f1e9598ad67e7408077a82fdac194b65333c9",
"618eba14419e13c8d08d38c346da7cd1c7c66fd8831421056ae56d8d80b6ec5e"
]
}

Jeff Garzik, Bloq CEO, former bitcoin core dev
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https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=822.0

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LESS THEN 10 MINUTES LATER THEYMOS WROTE

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Re: Strange block 74638
August 15, 2010, 06:28:56 PM
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This could be a serious problem. Bitcoin's printblock also shows it:
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CBlock(hash=0000000000790ab3, ver=1, hashPrevBlock=0000000000606865, hashMerkleR
oot=618eba, nTime=1281891957, nBits=1c00800e, nNonce=28192719, vtx=2)
CTransaction(hash=012cd8, ver=1, vin.size=1, vout.size=1, nLockTime=0)
CTxIn(COutPoint(000000, -1), coinbase 040e80001c028f00)
CTxOut(nValue=50.51000000, scriptPubKey=0x4F4BA55D1580F8C3A8A2C7)
CTransaction(hash=1d5e51, ver=1, vin.size=1, vout.size=2, nLockTime=0)
CTxIn(COutPoint(237fe8, 0), scriptSig=0xA87C02384E1F184B79C6AC)
CTxOut(nValue=92233720368.54275808, scriptPubKey=OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0xB7A7)
CTxOut(nValue=92233720368.54275808, scriptPubKey=OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0x1512)
vMerkleTree: 012cd8 1d5e51 618eba
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TO PUT THE TIMELINE INTO PERSPECTIVE

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In old/corrupt chain:

Block 74637 has timestamp of 1281891763 (Sun Aug 15 11:34:43 CDT 2010)
Block 74638 had timestamp of 1281891957 (Sun Aug 15 12:05:57 CDT 2010)
Block 74639 had timestamp of 1281892233 (Sun Aug 15 12:10:33 CDT 2010)

This means the malicious event occurred between 11:34:43 CDT and 12:10:33 CDT on August 15th 2010

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THIS WARNING WAS ISSUED

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DO NOT TRUST ANY TRANSACTIONS THAT HAPPENED AFTER 15.08.2010 17:05 UTC (block 74638). We are investigating a problem.

Nakamoto Satoshi shares more info about this "bug" 24 hrs later

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satoshi
Founder
Sr. Member

Re: overflow bug SERIOUS
August 16, 2010, 12:59:38 PM
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It looks like we overtook the bad chain somewhere around 74689. 0.3.9 and lower nodes have been responding with the current block number for some hours now.

That means it's no longer necessary to delete blk*.dat before upgrading. You can just upgrade and it'll reorg away the bad block chain.

Thanks to everyone for the quick response

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=823.60
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This is now known as the value overflow incident

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident

Block 74638 contained a transaction that created 184,467,440,737.09551616 bitcoins for three different addresses

Part 2 in this exclusive Steemit investigative report will focus on how the 185 Billion Bitcoin Overflow Incident and Bitcoin Cash fork are linked.