Designer Currency for the Modern Bum’s Pocket

In the last blog I started an attack plan against the currency issued by nodes connected together by a common settlement system (SVGRTP) and issuing their own separate currencies. My proposed victim operates in a small region on the planet Federalia in the northeast quadrant of the cluster Globulus. The connected network of Virtual Bum’s Pockets (VBP) primarily settles a local poker game for a few hundred Federalia schniztals every weekend but many of the small shops, bars, and one of the larger food chains also accept the currency. Turnover is steady at almost 10,000 schniztals every week. All currency issued from any VBP have the same structure shown in Diagram 22.

Diagram 22 Currency and its controlling mechanism

I signed the diagram, dear reader(s) to emphasize a point. Send the diagram back to me and claim it is yours. I will buy you a beer if you can prove, using the signature, that the diagram comes from you. On second thought if you can do that, I will buy you dinner and 2 beers, or coffee if you don’t drink alcohol. The point is dear reader(s), I am not attacking the certificates. You might have a good plan for doing so, send your comments or write directly on the blog about how to do it. I, however, am a lazy crook, and want to probe the weaker parts.

I do not want to attack the currency if the issuer did not fully implement all its controls. There simply is not enough money in it, or if there is, I really do not want to mess with that issuer. I want to attack the timing of the verification controls. If I can hit all the currency in circulation at the right time, I might capture all of it and present it to a remote collection point far from the planet, change the currency into a widely circulated one, and disappear. Verification depends on its I/O, the weak link in the chain.

Attacking the region’s power supply will not work; most of the points of presence (POP), have independent power supply and there are thousands of POPs in the 50 square mile main acceptance region. I plan to jam the planet’s communications with the galactic net so the local currency traffic does not interact with wide circulation for at least 5 seconds. Great, I have a method for attack and a window of opportunity.  

Next Blog: Our young hero buys the equipment to implement the attack.