App devs earn Safecoin when their app is used. The more popular the app the more the app is used the more Safecoin the app devs earn. Could a bot army be used to DDOS an app to generate Safecoin?
I suggest you use the search function and read up on one of the several topics that already address this specific question 
This one for example
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Thanks for the link.
I’ve seen this question come before somewhere, no clue which topic 
. But there are some important thing to know… Say you created an App. Where does it run? Not on your computer, not on mine… remember, no central server. So the answer is, it runs on anyone’s computer who is using the App.
So, let’s say you’re a smart person who want to make money on your own App. How would you do that? You would just open your own App (getting it from the network in chunks). Now, you start to reload it, or refresh it or whatever… What happens? You’re 32 nodes are providing you the chunks again and again out of their cache. If you reload to many times, you’ll piss them off. So you can load it maybe a couple of times in a session, but you can’t “loop” it or anything to earn coins. It would only work if you could ask 100.000 users to open and use your App. But hey, good luck with that one 
And when 3000 people start to load your program from SAFEnet. The nodes will just provide the chunks out of cache or from the Vaults. The more people need them, the more it will come from cache…
It would be easy to ask 100,000 compromised machines that make up someone’s bot army. 
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Yeah, but if someone wants to do that they could also farm coins in the normal way. And again, if 10.000 machines would ask for the same chunks, they will get cached.
That’s why it would be better to earn more safecoin by having the bot army request an app instead of having the bot army farm Safecoins the normal way.
Is there something that prevents this kind of attack on the network?
I’ll try to add some insight here. I’m going to rephrase your question.
Can bot accounts simulate popular demand of an APP?
It’s hard to tell how effective this attack will be without TestNet3.
If it were possible, there are alternative solutions discussed on App Developer Rewards (Discussion).
The PUT incentive addresses this kind of exploit. It pays the APP Dev based on Safecoin received from PUTS generated by the APP. In other words, your APP can only make money if users spend Safecoin to use it.
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That’s exactly what I meant.
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Wow, this segues from my previous thoughts about darknet markets (DNMs). DOS is one of their most serious problems, other than be identified and taken down.
But on safenet, that is evidently taken care of by the underlying network.
So cool, and even more reason why DNMs are the killer app.
So… The only feasible DOS would be to take the entire safenet down, and with geographic diversity and a million nodes, that might be impossible.
Double wow… safenet is the new Bitcoin/Ron Paul/cyphernomicon of uber-cypherpunkgasm.
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Yes I think that is the official catch phrase
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I’ll turn the question around: Could you make a safenet app to FUND using both safecoin and/or cpu power a botnet to ddos clearnet sites? So just change your target, instead of targetting a safenet site you target a clearnet site and then use safenet as fuel and/or an engine?
Could you explain further.
How is the APP to get coin if the attack is on clearnet?
Is the (collective PCs running the) APP doing the attack? or a separate botnet?
I’m thinking more like the app’s stated goal would be to ddos a specific website on the clearnet. Users on the safenet would devote computer resources and/or safecoin to support this effort. And in addition with the advent of shared computing over safenet being talked about so much, and this being able to be paid for via safecoin, could this not be one in the same? Someone pays you safecoin, you then use it to buy computing power or use it to host a botnet and then use said botnet to launch an attack on a clearnet site that offends your safenet backers.
Think the hacker version of a mercenary and the botnets are your hired goons. Safenet backers pay for goons to go take down clearnet sites that they find offensive. Thus earning the app money. Granted it would be antisocial but my question is would it be feasible? Because you know if it’s doable someone of course will do it.
Seems possible. If someone will pay you then I don’t see why it could not be done.
Oh for sure, but there are easier ways though. So I doubt it would be widely done, even if the APP was created.
Probably. Not really my area of expertise but it seemed a logical question to ask. Though I can’t help wonder what those easier ways might be lol. Now you’ve got me curious.
The botnet creators have set up systems to bulk email fake emails to trick people into loading a range of malware. One of which allows the PC to be used as a bot. Another is a keylogger. Even though most virus protection s/w will pick these up, the most vulnerable will have none or outdated one that came with the PC and either is not enabled anymore of incapable of detecting newer malware.
Also when a bug in windows or browser is found they set up web sites to use that to install the malware. Sometimes they can simply port scan a range of IP addresses and find some that have not been patch and inject malware through the port
These are fairly automated for them and then they rent out the botnets to the highest bidder. So usually the botnet is used for special case where either profit can be made or a victory won.
For instance some speculate that Poloniex is attacked when some big coin is added to another exchange to prevent the whales from taking advantage of the new exchange till profit is made by those using the botnet.
I think the scheme is feasible but leaves those doing the DDoS open to prosecution because their attacks will be hard to anonymise (being in the clearnet). The attack director would though be anonymous.