bitaddress.org and other address generators

[btcminer021]

https://www.bitaddress.org

I'm assuming the algorithm used on this website DOES NOT check that an address it generates is in use, correct? So what's to stop two people from generating the same address, and then having their funds mixed? Same goes for the bitcoin clients. How do they prevent duplicate address generation?

[Gabi]

Nothing, just the fact that generating the same private key takes like what, more than the life of the universe?

[flora_digitalis]

That is an interesting service - thank you for this link!

[odolvlobo]

Nothing, just the fact that generating the same private key takes like what, more than the life of the universe?

Perhaps this is a better comparison. What's the worse thing that could happen if you generated an address that is already in use? What if you would die as a result?

Let's assume there are 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) addresses in use currently (it is most likely much less). The chance of generating a address that is already in use is then 1,460,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The chances of any particular person in the U.S. dying in the next second are about 1:3,000,000. So,

an average person in the U.S. is 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more likely to die in the next second than to generate an address that is already in use.

I think you are pretty safe.