Bitcoin hacking, How long would it take?

[helloeverybody]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

[quadriple7]

i dont think it is possible with the computers we have nowadays thats why using bitcoins are so safe in my opinion it would take ages right now to do that theres no need to worry

[FruitsBasket]

You can never know this because in th future the computers may be 1000 times faster, u never know what next is going to be invented. It will take 100 more years at least I think before anyone can hack btc.

[techmanuk]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

I've been thinking the same sort of thing and everyone seems to be suggesting that the numbers still make it very, very unlikely that anything generated will be in use.

Would love to see someone work out the likelihood of finding anything though...

[shorena]

You can never know this because in th future the computers may be 1000 times faster, u never know what next is going to be invented. It will take 100 more years at least I think before anyone can hack btc.

Lets look at those numbers and see what happens. My GPU does up to 37 Million keys per second. Lets assume 50 million to have a round number. Lets further assume everyone on earth has such an GPU running and that checking the addresses for a balance takes no time.

So 10 billion (rounded up) people generate and check 50 billion keys per second (remember 1000 times faster) for 100 years.

A: 10*1000³ 50 * 1000³ * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 100 = 1.5768*10³⁰

B: At the same time we have 2¹⁶⁰ or ~1.4615*10⁴⁸ possible addresses with 2⁹⁶ private keys each.

A/B = 1.0788 * 10^-18. So still a lower chance than winning a 6 of 49 lottery 3 times in a row.

[helloeverybody]

You can never know this because in th future the computers may be 1000 times faster, u never know what next is going to be invented. It will take 100 more years at least I think before anyone can hack btc.

Lets look at those numbers and see what happens. My GPU does up to 37 Million keys per second. Lets assume 50 million to have a round number. Lets further assume everyone on earth has such an GPU running and that checking the addresses for a balance takes no time.

So 10 billion (rounded up) people generate and check 50 billion keys per second (remember 1000 times faster) for 100 years.

A: 10*1000³ 50 * 1000³ * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 100 = 1.5768*10³⁰

B: At the same time we have 2¹⁶⁰ or ~1.4615*10⁴⁸ possible addresses with 2⁹⁶ private keys each.

A/B = 1.0788 * 10^-18. So still a lower chance than winning a 6 of 49 lottery 3 times in a row.

Good show, That put that to rest then .

[shorena]

You can never know this because in th future the computers may be 1000 times faster, u never know what next is going to be invented. It will take 100 more years at least I think before anyone can hack btc.

Lets look at those numbers and see what happens. My GPU does up to 37 Million keys per second. Lets assume 50 million to have a round number. Lets further assume everyone on earth has such an GPU running and that checking the addresses for a balance takes no time.

So 10 billion (rounded up) people generate and check 50 billion keys per second (remember 1000 times faster) for 100 years.

A: 10*1000³ 50 * 1000³ * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 100 = 1.5768*10³⁰

B: At the same time we have 2¹⁶⁰ or ~1.4615*10⁴⁸ possible addresses with 2⁹⁶ private keys each.

A/B = 1.0788 * 10^-18. So still a lower chance than winning a 6 of 49 lottery 3 times in a row.

Good show, That put that to rest then .

Its a simplified view, someone with a better understanding of probability distributions might be willing to correct me, but I think the ballpark will be the same.

[franky1]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

using a computer forget about it..
using a 120petahash mining farm.. well
there are
2000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000. possible private key combinations
vs
120000000000000000000 hashs a second
(lets pretend that the miners are dispursed enough on many fast internet connections to balance check each hash)
s

combinations/hash per second  /60seconds /60 minutes / 24 hours / 365 days

= (upto)
5284965330627430000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000 years..
to check every address

and even the chance that one of the 5mill addresses holding funds may be found early on...

your still hashing for 1 chance in 1056993066125480000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years

so you might aswell use that 120 peta hashs a second and just create a block every 10 minutes and be happy to get 25btc per block.... even just once
because im pretty sure the funds available in that address wont be enough of a reward to try brutforcing for millenia of millenias..

[Zaun]

It will probably take forever, but why would you do this? Doing this succesfully would have a negative effect on more people adapting to bitcoin. They are more likely to hold off and turn the other way instead of joining.

[Graphics]

It's almost impossible and even if somebody does have a super computer to crack the private key, the cost of cracking would outweigh the rewards they're going to get.

[GermanGiant]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

People, in general, are pretty bad in understanding how big numbers are...

[calkob]

the thing is you would be better using your computer power to find blocks(25BTC)  at least then it would be worth something to you.  if you could crack everyones private keys it would make bitcoin worthless anyway and so the time and electricity you used to do it would be pointless....

[helloeverybody]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

People, in general, are pretty bad in understanding how big numbers are...

Seeing all those 0s kind of put in into perspective.  It can be calculated but obviously almost impossible.

[FruitsBasket]

So ive been playing about with the vanity maker and made a few nice addresses but it got me thinking.Couldnt someone just make a vanity checker that cross references every single address it creates to see if theres any balance and if so move that to another wallet? Surely out of those millions of keys your pc can create every second a few of them are going to end up already bening used? Even more so when more peoplke adopt bitcoin?

People, in general, are pretty bad in understanding how big numbers are...

Seeing all those 0s kind of put in into perspective.  It can be calculated but obviously almost impossible.

Never say impossible, u never know what tecniques will be developed in the future. Mayby some super computer which can hack bitcoins easily, although then would no one be safe...
I hope bitcoin will never get hacked.

[lolgato]

It will take along time no matter what it will be nearly impossible to get it.

[Drewski]

I wouldn't know about forever...There's been quite a bit of hubbub lately quantum computing.  That definitely has the potential to cause some disruption.  I know that theoretically it could be used for breaking encryption, not sure if it would work for bitcoin.  Maybe someone with more knowledge of quantum computing can chip in.

[Soros Shorts]

I wouldn't know about forever...There's been quite a bit of hubbub lately quantum computing.  That definitely has the potential to cause some disruption.  I know that theoretically it could be used for breaking encryption, not sure if it would work for bitcoin.  Maybe someone with more knowledge of quantum computing can chip in.

If you never expose your public key, then someone who want to finds your private key from your address would need to "break":

1) SHA256
2) RIPEMD160
3) ECDSA(secp256k1)

before they can get to your private key and spend your coins.

However, if you expose your public key (e.g., by reusing addresses), then all they'd need to "break" is:

3) ECDSA(secp256k1)

You should read up on how much each step is susceptible to quantum attack. I have my own opinions I'll keep them to myself for now since I am not an expert. However there is a general assumption that public key cryptography based on elliptical curves (3) is more susceptible to quantum attacks than hashing functions (1, 2), so it would probably be wise to not re-use addresses if you are worried about this.

[Vod]

It will take 100 more years at least I think before anyone can hack btc.

I think we'll have sufficient quantum computing power in 10 years to crack it. 

[Mr. Forum]

For now, now i do think it is not that easy to have someone hacking the bitcoin. I do believe in the algorithm that was used to come up with bitcoin. In anything that concerns coins that are this highly valuable, there should always be a mechanism to enforce the security measures. Bitcoins is one of the safest system I have interacted when it comes to the computing world, therefore for now i think it will still be stronger that ever before.

[Hashminers]

Well for me doesn't matter how long it will take I just know that I need to be careful that no one will hack  my wallet.
Maybe 100 years to crack my bitcoin than I am fine with it I am already dead when that happens.