(note: this is a temporary file, to be added-to by anybody, and deleted at
release time)

0.8.7.0 changes
=============

As you MUST be well aware.. we have a problem with LONG BLOCKS, caused by EXTREME HIGH DIFFICULTY brought on by 'The Conspiracy' (drive-by-hashers) throwing MAD HASH at us and then going away. This is about to be rectified and will be announced soon.  This gives us the opportunity to make specific changes that also require EVERYONE to update (HARD FORK), so we want to see what you think about this idea:

We're implementing DobbsShield after experiencing the threat that drive by hashers ..or maybe even multi-pools posed to us when they start mining (BOB) at a very low difficulty in relation to the net/pool hash, which - for a short time allows many coins to be quickly and easily mined before the difficulty increases.. but once the difficulty increases the pinkboy/multi-pool leaves, dumps the coins on the market, and screws us all dedicated miners for the next "BOB" knows how long ..with a very high difficulty and very few new coins to be mined.  This of course leads to a drop in interest, out of pocket rental mining fees to get us back on track, and frustration among the committed 'SubGenius community' members.

DobbsShield protects the (BOB) Dobbscoin against this threat, and helps ensure greater confidence by allowing the difficulty to rise and fall almost perfectly in sync with increases or decreases in the net hash of a coin.  The secret to DobbsShield is an asymmetrical approach to difficulty re-targeting. With DobbsShield, the difficulty is allowed to decrease in larger movements than it is allowed to increase from block to block. This keeps a blockchain from getting "stuck" i.e., not finding the next block for several hours (or days) following a major drop in the net hash of coin. It is all a balancing act. You need to allow the difficulty to increase enough between blocks to catch up to a sudden spike in net hash, but not enough to accidentally send the difficulty sky high when two miners get lucky and find blocks back to back. The same thing occurs with difficulty decreases. Since it takes much longer to find the next block, you need to allow it to drop quicker than it increases.

In summary DobbsShield is a balanced asymmetrical approach to difficulty re-targeting. You don't want to let the difficulty go too high too fast, but you need to give it enough room to catch up quickly. The same thing goes with down swings, since it takes longer to discover new blocks you need to give it more room to go down, but not enough to send it to the floor. DobbsShield is by no means the absolute "perfect" solution to the drive-by/multi pool difficulty problem, ..but after a month of getting raped by The Conspiracy.. something had to be done.

Thanks to a dedicated Slacker from Cleveland Ohio (Earlz of earlz.net)'s assistance in this project for porting DigiByte technology.
