A Bitcoin node is a pivotal piece of the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol. For dangerous actors, attacking nodes and bringing them offline is a sound technique to undermine the community’s resilience. For one British Bitcoiner, such an assault occurred, because the actions of his feline buddy rendered his Bitcoin node “unreachable.”
Bodl_hodler (who needs to stay nameless) instructed Cointelegraph that he “began operating Raspberry Pi as Umbrel node January 2021,” as he wished to contribute to the general decentralization of the Bitcoin community.
Beneath is an image of node in query earlier than the assault. Discover the air vents on the node —an important ingredient of the saga.
Bodl’s Bitcoin node. Supply: @Bodl_Hodl
The node ran easily since connection, confirming Bitcoin blocks on common each 10 minutes as per the problem adjustment. Nonetheless, in late Could 2022, when the worth started to tumble underneath $30,000, Bodl “Went to log into the node for the primary time shortly and it couldn’t be discovered on the community.”
“So I pulled it out from behind the couch solely to find it was lined with a crusty layer of baked on cat sick.”
To his horror, Bodl found that his giant black cat, Pablo, had vomited on the Bitcoin node. The “soiled protest” had affected the node’s potential to hook up with the web and run. Bodl explains, “The vomit obtained via the vent slots and took the node offline.”
Pablo the Bitcoin node attacker and cat. Supply: Bodl
Certainly, if a Bitcoin node goes offline, it not contributes to the safety of the community, probably jeopardizing the Bitcoin protocol. Bodl jokes that “Possibly he [Pablo] mistakenly thought it was operating a dog-themed shitcoin,” and “could not abdomen the volatility.” Bodl is a Bitcoin maximalist who has no time for the likes of Dogecoin (DOGE).
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Luckily, it is usually very straightforward to show the node again on and to catch on the lacking blocks. Bodl stated he “eliminated the facility, plugged it again in once more, fortunately it powered on positive and took a couple of minutes to re-sync so as to add all of the blocks that it had missed.”
The node was instantly introduced again to life, confirming transactions and securing the community. “Tick tock, subsequent block,” has turn out to be a well-liked catchphrase amongst node runners as a result of regularity of the Bitcoin blocks.
By the way, operating a BTC node is more and more straightforward and permits Bitcoin customers to simply confirm their transactions. Bitcoin hobbyists can now run Lightning nodes whereas some hope to earn passive revenue alongside the best way. As for Pablo, he now has the corporate of a brand new kitten known as Lottie who has lately joined the Bodl household.
