Phantom hardware - possible bug/exploit

#1

I’m not sure if this is an actual bug or exploit but here’s what I found after some testing.

roughly 36 hours ago I booted a fresh DIY 3node with wiped disks and then a few minutes minutes after bootstrapping was finished, I physically removed the HDD while the node was running.

I then plugged that same HDD in to a different machine, again wiped the disk, and then booted this machine as a fresh 3node as well.

Now 36 hours later, both nodes are still on and the grid explorer still shows the same available HRU for the node that I removed the HDD from.

So it looks like it’s possible to trick the grid in to rewarding hardware that doesn’t actually exist.
Is there any process in place that prevents this type of exploit, or is this just the grid explorer not showing correct stats?

(if anyone would like the node IDs to inspect, please DM me)

#2

Hi @Rasputin_Rick. That’s odd. Can you specify what version of the grid you are booting you nodes to?

#3

Hi @weynandkuijpers I’m booting them on mainnet grid 3

I would assume the missing HDD would be recognized after rebooting the node, but I haven’t rebooted it yet because I’m waiting to see if the grid explorer picks it up.

#4

I just checked again and the grid explorer now shows correctly that there is no HRU available on the first machine.

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#5

Hi @Rasputin_Rick. Okay, so it takes a few “reports” and updates to get the explorer to present the actual situation. I will still want to get an answer my it took the time it took to do so.

#6

Right, understood. I’m glad to see that the phantom drive was eventually detected as missing without reboot. However it’s not confirmed if rewards are falsely generated in this situation or not.

Whether one is trying to exploit the rewards or even if hardware simply fails due to natural causes I think the same situation arises.

Thanks for checking on this @weynandkuijpers.

#7

See here: https://github.com/threefoldtech/tfchain_explorer/issues/226

Anyone with a GitHub account can do this, so please if you have something that you want answers to, logging a GitHub issue is a good way to do that, and keep track of it. A forum post can highlight this to the community.

Happy Saturday!

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#8

Got it. I’ll continue there. Thank you!