Ethereum Classic is ready to implement a new update to its security system to protect itself from 51% attacks.
The MESS system would be able to prevent future malicious attempts to reorganize the blockchain.
The ETC development team claims that the MESS protocol adheres to the philosophy of the law making code.
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After multiple attacks of the 51% , the developers of Bitcoin Revolution are working to make the project network more resistant to exploitations of the blockchain reorganization (reorg).
Proof of work (PoW) blockchains with significantly reduced network effect remain vulnerable to malicious reorg attacks. Malicious actors can indeed acquire the necessary computing power from hash rental services, which allows them to launch exploits .
ETC security update ready to go
In a press release released on September 18, Ethereum Classic Labs (ETC Labs) announced a proposed plan to curb future attacks to 51%. According to the press release, ETC developers have proposed “Modified Exponential Subjective Scoring”, or MESS, a system designed to prevent malicious blockchain reorganizations.
ETC Labs has revealed that the MESS protocol has already undergone a testing phase and will be available within the next ten days. ETC’s development team also revealed that work on the proposed solution included participation from infrastructure companies Web3 Chainsafe and OpenRelay. The MESS would be an adaptation of the “Exponential Subjective Scoring” security framework proposed by the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, in 2014.
According to ETC Labs, the MESS prevents attacks of the 51% by flagging attempts to reorganize large blocs as suspicious. In doing so, these attacks become more expensive to propagate over the network. Indeed, ETC’s development team estimated that the individuals responsible for the August hack would need $ 20 million in rented hash power.
Data from Crypto51.app, a website that shows the theoretical cost of an hour-long operation on PoW channels, shows that the rented hash power worth $ 3,900 at a hash rate of 2TH / s is enough to attack the ETC network for an hour. ETC developers claim that with the deployment of MESS, hackers will need more than 155 TH / s to mount such an attack.
The MESS solution respects the philosophy of “The code is the law”
In addition to strengthening network security, ETC Labs said the MESS program upholds the network philosophy: “code is law”. According to the press release, the MESS protocol allows nodes, or nodes, to favor publicly propagated channels over private channel segments. Thus, secret channels developed by malicious actors will not be viable to effectively finalize any attempt to attack the 51%.
For ETC Labs founder James Wo, implementing MESS will eliminate the need for exchanges to maintain long confirmation times for Ethereum Classic transactions. Regarding the proposed security upgrade, Wo also noted that the MESS will stabilize the network and prevent miners from losing block rewards.