Has there been a concerted effort to attack, subvert, or break Bitcoin? One way to test that it is secure from attack would be to actually try to undermine it, by double-spending coins, creating fake coins, posting false transactions, etc… and if flaws are found, better that they are found now than later, when the bitcoin economy is potentially larger and there is more to lose.
I agree. We the software needs to be vetted.
For one thing, I just ran across some rates to rent time on a supercomputer:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Rent-Your-Own-Supercomputer-for-2-77-per-Hour-82166.shtml
$2.77 / core / hr
I don’t know a lot about breaking secure encryption and out hashing a proof-of-work, but Satoshi said in his paper that as long as no more than half of the network was owned by an attacker it could not be broken.
I wonder if someone could rent this super-computer or one bigger and theoretically undermine bitcoin for only the cost of renting the machine for an hour.
Based on my rough calculations, if 2200 machines like my duel core were owned by an attacker he could theoretically take down the network for only about $12,000 USD.
I hope I am wrong. Someone who is more knowledgeable should comment here.