Shadow-Bitcoin: Scalable Simulation via Direct Execution of Multi-threaded Applications

Andrew Miller; Rob Jansen

Paper 2015/469

Shadow-Bitcoin: Scalable Simulation via Direct Execution of Multi-threaded Applications

Andrew Miller and Rob Jansen

Abstract

We describe a new methodology that enables the di- rect execution of multi-threaded applications inside of Shadow, an existing parallel discrete-event network sim- ulation framework. Our methodology utilizes function interposition and an application-layer thread library to emulate the ordinary thread interface to the application. Using this methodology, we implement a new Shadow plug-in that directly executes the Bitcoin reference client software. We describe optimizations that enable scalable execution of thousands of Bitcoin nodes on a single ma- chine, and discuss how to model the Bitcoin network for experimental purposes. Finally, we present novel denial- of-service attacks against the Bitcoin software, which exploit low-level implementation artifacts in the Bitcoin reference client. We demonstrate these attacks using our methodology, tools, and models.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Contact author(s): amiller @ cs umd edu
History: 2015-05-19: received
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2015/469
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2015/469,
      author = {Andrew Miller and Rob Jansen},
      title = {Shadow-Bitcoin: Scalable Simulation via Direct Execution of Multi-threaded Applications},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2015/469},
      year = {2015},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/469}
}