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Watching IOTA presentation there is a thing that is still unclear for me:

Knowing that IOTA involves PoW but a much lighter one (in order to achieve thousands of transactions per second, but also would not involve a big computational power) and also being every node that includes new transactions into a validator:

  • What will avoid to a spammer/hacker post invalid transactions into the IOTA network? Let´s say, hundreds or thousand of devices starts to include new invalid transactions (transference of tokens or data) that they got confirmed by the other nodes participating in that SPAM process.

This question is based on a IOTA presentation where a demo with a car was shown --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zvrA5KqeYw

I was wondering: What if a malware is installed or starts to get involved into the car transactions, providing information that is not right? Knowing that the nodes that has the car are also TX "validators", could not be possible that they generate such amount of new invalid transactions, validated by itself?

Helmar
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3Chicken
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  • The question doesn't take existence of other forms of PoW (e.g. network-bound) into account. – Come-from-Beyond Nov 25 '18 at 09:10
  • Hi Come-from-Beyond, it is not "network-bound", at the end, some kind of PoW? My question also comes from IOTA FaQ which determines that the protection of the tangle is not only something about PoW algorithm ("network-bound PoW" if you prefer) but more important, number of "honest" hosts, in comparison with malicious hosts.

    This is what I do not understand: knowing that lot of devices that could use IOTA are not prepare to do such PoW (due to hardware not prepare to big amounts of calculations) not sure what would be the element that warranty "honest" hosts over malicious hosts.

     – 3Chicken Nov 27 '18 at 18:38
  • Look at http://wraits09.di.fc.ul.pt/wraits09paperDiogoMonica.pdf or create a separate question. – Come-from-Beyond Nov 27 '18 at 19:58

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This blog explains exactly the main concern here reported:

http://www.tangleblog.com/2017/07/10/is-double-spending-possible-with-iota/

Section: "Doublespending in IOTA"

Basically, the increasing number of hosts also increase the difficulty to perform such attack, due to you need to get "an “omnipresence in the tangle with “bad” nodes, formed as a sub tangle (or parasite chain).". Also, perform double-spending validations require not only be "onmipresent" but very fast.

Recommend take a deep look into that blog ;)

3Chicken
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  • Very interesting blog - especially the emphasis on investor assurance. –  Dec 01 '18 at 20:58