this text is an organized text of what I was worried about after attending the BitDevs. I've talked about it with many people there, and the concern is confirmed. I'd like to see more awareness about it 😅

I've been thinking about a problem that I believe is becoming increasingly serious for Bitcoin security, and software security in general: the time asymmetry between attackers and defenders, amplified by AI. LLMs are becoming increasingly capable of finding bugs and chaining them into critical exploits. But finding a vulnerability and protecting users from it operate on different timescales. Traditionally, developers could announce a security update, distribute the fix, give users some time to upgrade, and only later disclose the vulnerability. This gave the good guys a temporal advantage. But I think this advantage is rapidly disappearing. Today, even announcing and distributing a security patch might be enough to motivate an attack. Attackers can compare the old and new versions and use LLMs to reverse-engineer the vulnerability. So the good guys might have only a few days, or even less, to update. And here's the dilemma: how do we warn the good guys without simultaneously warning the bad guys? The obvious solution seems to be automatic updates. But in Bitcoin, this could introduce an even greater risk: if an attacker compromises the software supply chain, malicious updates could automatically propagate across the network. I would rather keep control in the hands of individual node operators, but that means accepting a window of vulnerability. And I think the problem will come in waves. Every major improvement in LLM capabilities could reveal new vulnerability chains that previous models couldn't find. Attackers can immediately take advantage of this, while defenders still need time to review, fix, and distribute patches. But there's another concern: nation-state attackers. I'm not worried about kids spending their allowance on LLMs to randomly attack projects in search of a quick buck. I'm worried about skilled, well-funded attackers deliberately targeting specific projects to destabilize them and tarnish the reputation of the only chance we have at independent, sound money. The first scenario is a healthy form of stress for an antifragile system, like being exposed to random risks or catching a disease: we can learn, adapt, and grow stronger. The second is more like a skilled attacker deliberately driving a knife into our heart, or falling from the 10th floor: I'm not sure we can survive that. If Bitcoin becomes a concrete threat to their monetary sovereignty, nation-states might have both the motivation and the resources to attack it. And their funding could be vastly greater than that of the decentralized community defending the system. I don't see a definitive solution, especially for decentralized systems where automatic updates can themselves become a systemic attack vector. Can we reduce this asymmetry without sacrificing decentralization and security? Or are we fucked? 🤔