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j"1LAnZuoQdcKCkpDBKQMCgziGMoPC4VQUckMÅ<div class="post">I think the idea of "super nodes" or hubs will help limit the possibility of a split. The more connected the network is the less the possibility of a split. I know not everyone can run a node that supports 7000+ connections but, if there were some highly connected super nodes running 1000 or so connections and these nodes could be inter-networked with each other this would allow for a stronger connection. Even if a node is at a connection limit and doesn't connect to the super node, it would be probable that one of the other nodes would be connected to a super node. The down side to running a super node is you spend more cpu time and bandwidth making connections and less cpu time generating. These losses may be small but, I don't know yet. I plan to compile a super node later on tonight and fire it up and the test network later on tonight. I will try and do some testing to see how the number of connections affects cpu and bandwidth usage.<br/><br/>Also I was thinking that if country A goes to war with country B both countries will still most likely maintain a connection to country C, D, E, and F which can maintain the network and prevent a split. If country A blocks all internet access and country B does not then Country A looses because, Country B still connects to C,D,E, and F; Therefor country A's block chain will be shorter. If Country A and B both block internet all together they both loose because C,D,E, and F have the longer block chain. IF A, B, C go to war with D,E,F and they block access to each other on the internet then we have two bit markets now.<br/><br/>I agree that if the world goes to hell in a hand basket a network split would be the least of our worries and it is probable that a split would not likely be due to war. I would think a network split is more likely to be caused by a country with an over zealous government repressing their own citizens via their national firewall. Another possibility would be a mass technical problem such as the rapid undersea cable cuts in 2008 (see <a href="http://www.dailytech.com/Bad+to+Worse+Fifth+Undersea+Cable+Cut+in+Middle+East/article10598c.htm">Here</a> or <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/01/internet.outage/index.html">here</a>) that cause some countries internet connection to slow to a crawl. The worst case scenario I can think of is that a large number of under sea cables or other link failures segment a large chunk of the worlds computer. The nodes outside the segment keep going like nothing happened and the same is true for the nodes in the segment. At some point we have the networks links fixed (would probably less then a week or so for another link to be established be it other land links come online or satellite links take over more bandwidth and a month at most for a more permanent fix.) I would guess that the network with the larger chunk of nodes would win out and the smaller segment would loose. The biggest problem would be that in this type of split there is not much time to try and work out a solution. Though it could be possible that in this situation if there were a super node or two in the segmented group it could still be able to make a connection to other super nodes and keep a split to a minimum.</div> text/html