Bitcoin Forum

can you please explain me the point of the word phrases of the clients and hardware wallets?

shouldn't it be way to easy to get access with a dictionary attack?

Let's say you got 1000 words, which is still on the low end. I think there are many thousands of words per thing? Anyhow, let's take the 1000 words per dictionary example.

If you got a word phrase of 10 words, that makes 1000^10 possibilities. 1000 = 10^3, so that makes 10^30 possibilities... Just for your information, that's: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities. If you could check a QUINTILLION possibilities per second, which is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 , it would still take 10^12 or about 1 trillion seconds (= 30,000 years) to arrive at the right phrase.

So, I wish you good luck with:
1. Making a computer that can try each word so many times per second.
2. Living for 30,000 years.
3. Getting your victim not to change their passphrase for 30,000 years.
4. Making Bitcoin (or your wanted cryptocurrency) survive for 30,000 years.

Regards,
Trump

thanks trump,

this sounds good to me.
one thing, if i got it right you are calculating the time to hack one specific wallet.
along the way another random wallet should open first, right?

From the opposite point of view. Take the "100/number of possibilities" and you have the percentual chance hitting already used wallet.

True, but how would you be checking each of these wallets?

Let's say you can check 10 time per second (just as example). You could choose to guess the passphrase of 1 wallet 10 times or the passphrase of 10 wallets 1 time (or 5 times of 2 wallets... Etc etc!)
Obviously, that would mean it doesn't matter.

Note that this is just my understanding of this and it might be inaccurate, though I highly doubt a system could be devised that can check multiple wallets in 1 guess, as that would obviously make hacking millions of accounts childs play.

The point is extra security on top of your PIN or encryption. If you were speaking about Trezor specifically then you should know that they have an additional two safety features present.

1) Can add a passphrase (so even if got seed they also need the passphrase which is next to impossible)
2) Every wrong pin given you have the wait increases by ^2. One wrong answer is a few seconds, twenty wrong and its a week, thirty wrong its 17 years. As you can see this is quite secure

so the hardware wallets are safe.
easiest would be to guess the 12 words electrum seed phrase.
if the phrase exists its wallet is owned by the hacker.
possible word combos / existing wallets.

check this out :o
https://lbc.cryptoguru.org/trophies

word phrases are the secret word to get you access on your bitcoin wallets. without this (secret word) theres a chance to get you hacked, or loose your bitcoin in an instant. its too impossible to get you hacked or hackers get access to your wallet with a dictionary attack, because the 12 word phrases are random characters from some of things we knew in this world so its a big puzzle to solve before they got you hacked (you bitcoin wallet)

what are you talking about ;D we are a long time and many posts beyond that point :P
check out the link and understand. someone is already doing it!
he has a own thread @ bitcointalk for his project, too.