Bitcoin Forum

How bitcoin-qt generate address and how do I know they are really random?

Thanks.

it's Open Source. this means the source code is not a secret and you can assume it is reviewed serveral times from different parties.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/key.cpp

any info about EC_KEY_regenerate_key(..) What is the seed that it gets? from where the random part. the pc is only pseudo random

I guess the random part comes from the OpenSSL lib:

but computer can not generate reall random numbers.. Is there a way to create a bitcoin address that is connected to something I add .. like a string that I can add..?

ask the core devs.

go to http://bitaddress.org/, use the "brainwallet" option.

inb4 inevitable "MY BRAIN WALLET WAS HACKED!"

Computers generate "better" random numbers than humans so leave it be.

using a online website to create an address.. Really?

I realize you're joking there, as you've indicated with your small text. But a lot of users are really confused by this stuff and will actually do this, and over and over again they get robbed.

Desktop computers are actually quite good sources of randomness. They monitor the precise timing between keypresses, mouse movements, disk seeks, network packets, and other sources of enviromental nodes and then they combine this data into randomness pools which are stored by cryptographic hashes so that even if most of the data that goes in is unpredictable, so long as there is only a few hundred bits of actual randomness that makes it in all the output is at least computationally sound.

Bitcoin-qt retains its own randomness pool— really the openssl code— and augments it with further entropy from timing and, on windows, a screenshot at startup.

You can create key pairs manually by throwing dice, if you want...

How can I do it?