Alerts mailing list
The Bitcoin Protocol specification supports the broadcast of Alerts. An unofficial email relay is now provided that rebroadcasts these block chain alerts via subscription to the bitcoin unofficial alert mailing list [1]. Alternatively, to subscribe via email send an email to bitcoin-unofficial-alerts+subscribe@googlegroups.com [2] and you should receive an email asking you to verify your subscription.
Verify alerts and obtain the latest status information
If you receive an alert you should immediately verify it is official by running "bitcoind getinfo" (but see notes below), go to bitcoin.org [3] to obtain more details and background, or join the #bitcoin IRC channels on freenode to obtain the latest information.
Notes
- Alerts are bitcoind are sent to a specified range of bitcoin versions. The email relay uses a specially patched version of bitcoind that should report and therefore relay any alert broadcast for any version.
- Alerts are also independent of blocks or transactions, and have a defined time-to-live.
- The email relay polls bitcoind every five minutes and will continue to (re-)email alerts every five minutes until the alert is ended by the core bitcoind Developers.
Feedback
Please send any comments or requests to Gary Mulder [4].