1. Long range attack is only viable against New Nodes on an ISOLATED network and can be completely eliminated with proper TAPOS accounting. Under TAPOS it is possible to know what percent of the stake has directly confirmed the chain without going through intermediate witnesses. A long-range attack would have to gather keys of individual accounts, not just keys of witnesses.
And is TAPOS implemented?
What about keys to the past attack?
2. Potentially reversible simply means that they are subject to the longest-chain rule. If a longer chain were to be produced that built off the last irreversible block then the node would automatically switch over to it.
Why is the 33% important here, not 50%?
3. The blockchain would not be recoverable if the reason the hash power was taken off line was due confiscation of mining hardware at large centralized farms (bomb, fire, law) and the chip manufacturers were shut down.
Of course it would! You could turn every single piece of mining equipment into a unicorn and the chain would still be recoverable! Since bitcoin is permissionless, anyone can mine.
4. I was not referring to negative mining attack, I was referring to buying loyalty by guaranteeing an 2x increase in profits to existing miners which. Profits are different from Revenue.
Lets stick with plain facts here, though. Speculation doesn't win arguments about security.
5. Assuming a connected network, no node will automatically switch to any fork that branches prior to the last irreversible block. To reverse that block would require all of the passive observers to manually intervene. If the witnesses are compromised they could attempt to produce an alternative chain, but it would not be recognized as legitimate to active full nodes no matter how long it got. All users of the blockchain would know the proper chain. Compromise of 99% of the witnesses is like the 51% attack on Bitcoin so such an extreme case isn't generally considered possible.
What passive observers are you referring to here?
How would all users of the blockchain 'know' the proper chain without an objective measure of what it is?
Another point: how do you answer the accusation that DPOS is currently in danger of an 85% attack: right now 1 account could vote out the majority of witnesses and vote in his own colluding witnesses and bring the chain to a complete stop?
btc38-public-for-bts-cold has 278M BTS, and 21/27 top witnesses have less than that amount voting them in.
ref:
http://richlist.btsgame.org/http://cryptofresh.com/witnessesWhat measures are in place to prevent this? At least in bitcoin, people switch pools when one has dominant power.