# Development of alert system

Post by: satoshi on August 22, 2010, 11:55:06 PM<br>
Last edit: August 25, 2010, 03:57:33 PM by satoshi

I've been working on writing the alert system. &nbsp;Alerts are broadcast through the network and apply to a range of version numbers. &nbsp;Alert messages are signed with a private key that only I have.

Nodes can do two things in response to an alert:<br>
\- Put a warning message on the status bar.<br>
\- Make the money handling methods of the json-rpc interface return an error.

In cases like the overflow bug or a fork where users may not be able to trust received payments, the alert should keep old versions mostly safe until they upgrade. &nbsp;Manual users should notice the status bar warning when looking for received payments, and the json-rpc safe mode stops automated websites from making any more trades until they're upgraded.

The json-rpc methods that return errors during an alert are:<br>
sendtoaddress<br>
getbalance<br>
getreceivedbyaddress<br>
getreceivedbylabel<br>
listreceivedbyaddress<br>
listreceivedbylabel

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Source file: bitcoin-forum-satoshi-nakamoto.tgz

External link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=898.msg10722#msg10722