>While I don't doubt that there exists an obscure client vulnerability that could be patched, it seems far-fetched and alarmist to categorise this as a "bitcoin exploit".
it meets all of the criteria to be called, bluntly, a remote financial attack/exploit that much of the network is vulnerable to
not theoretical https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/issues/3243 - i've attacked several of my own nodes. anyone could launch a botnet against the actual network
>to cause a specific target networked Bitcoin node to consume quite a bit of bandwidth by returning blockchain data to the attacker.
correct
>It doesn't seem like this would have any effect on the Bitcoin network at large
until a botnet or botnets make huge swaths of the mining network unprofitable https://bitnodes.io/nodes/#networks-tab
>While I don't doubt that there exists an obscure client vulnerability that could be patched, it seems far-fetched and alarmist to categorise this as a "bitcoin exploit".
it meets all of the criteria to be called, bluntly, a remote financial attack/exploit that much of the network is vulnerable to