Has the NSA already broken bitcoin?

[cbeast]

no ,

some believe that since the nsa invented sha 2 (secure hash algorithm 2) and then stopped using it , that means well it must be cracked like an egg or they would not have changed to sha 3

Or maybe sha256 is too good and they wanted something with a secret back door.

[photon_coin]

oh I am sure there are many people who have a full time job pushing someones agenda on this forum and others and in social media. 

In fact I would say I guarantee you there are but since my proof is 'indirect' i will leave it at that.

Many people are against bitcoin and want to harm it, many others want to get your bitcion and steal it..... I could go on and on.

Take a scam like ripple for example.

This was started by the same person who opened magic the gathering online.

Now.... I consider it a 100% scam but that is not the topic of the thread. 

Assume for a moment I am correct, would they not pay people to (just like in all other large businesses) go after the competition ??

the banking industry is certainly not happy about bitcoin in general .....

I read an article about a year ago that said walking into a bankers office and saying the word bitcoin was like saying you had a 'bomb'

Also i am not too familiar with other countries but I know for a fact in the Unitied States that the fbi cointelpro program is alive and well
and also since bitcion owners/miners in the united states under current law have bitcion being treated as personal property (something I expect will change in the future either by policy makers or by court challenges) 

So yes there are trolls all over these boards , in particular the alt coin section with all different agendas. 


If sha 2 is broken and you believe the nsa or someone other party has a backdoor into it I cannot prove you wrong but I would ask you to state what technology is being used ?  Saying these guys have a special machine underground somewhere that can just crack it is too much of a stretch for me based on my personal knowledge of cryptography and mathematics.


When Snowden revealed that bulk collection was going on i was not shocked at all in fact i suspected as much for years.
That is because these actions are within the current scope of known technology. 

Take it one step further, if someone had a 'backdoor' into bitcoin since all tx are visible and stored in the blockchain I think it would stand out pretty quick if unusual things started going on.....






If






 

As

[moriartybitcoin]

Nah, sha-256 is definitely NOT broken ... not without a fully working quantum computer (then using Shor's Algorithm, NSA or some other powerful state entity could crack it in seconds)

[2112]

Nah, sha-256 is definitely NOT broken ... not without a fully working quantum computer (then using Shor's Algorithm, NSA or some other powerful state entity could crack it in seconds)

Care to explain how could integer factorization algorithm apply to the cryptanalysis of Merkle-Damagard hash functions?

[BurtW]

Nah, sha-256 is definitely NOT broken ... not without a fully working quantum computer (then using Shor's Algorithm, NSA or some other powerful state entity could crack it in seconds)

Care to explain how could integer factorization algorithm apply to the cryptanalysis of Merkle-Damagard hash functions?

Care to explain how they put a "back door" into SHA256 when the initialization vectors were chosen on purpose to be the totally transparent numbers:

Initialize hash values:
(first 32 bits of the fractional parts of the square roots of the first 8 primes 2..19):
h0 := 0x6a09e667
h1 := 0xbb67ae85
h2 := 0x3c6ef372
h3 := 0xa54ff53a
h4 := 0x510e527f
h5 := 0x9b05688c
h6 := 0x1f83d9ab
h7 := 0x5be0cd19

Initialize array of round constants:
(first 32 bits of the fractional parts of the cube roots of the first 64 primes 2..311):
k[0..63] :=
   0x428a2f98, 0x71374491, 0xb5c0fbcf, 0xe9b5dba5, 0x3956c25b, 0x59f111f1, 0x923f82a4, 0xab1c5ed5,
   0xd807aa98, 0x12835b01, 0x243185be, 0x550c7dc3, 0x72be5d74, 0x80deb1fe, 0x9bdc06a7, 0xc19bf174,
   0xe49b69c1, 0xefbe4786, 0x0fc19dc6, 0x240ca1cc, 0x2de92c6f, 0x4a7484aa, 0x5cb0a9dc, 0x76f988da,
   0x983e5152, 0xa831c66d, 0xb00327c8, 0xbf597fc7, 0xc6e00bf3, 0xd5a79147, 0x06ca6351, 0x14292967,
   0x27b70a85, 0x2e1b2138, 0x4d2c6dfc, 0x53380d13, 0x650a7354, 0x766a0abb, 0x81c2c92e, 0x92722c85,
   0xa2bfe8a1, 0xa81a664b, 0xc24b8b70, 0xc76c51a3, 0xd192e819, 0xd6990624, 0xf40e3585, 0x106aa070,
   0x19a4c116, 0x1e376c08, 0x2748774c, 0x34b0bcb5, 0x391c0cb3, 0x4ed8aa4a, 0x5b9cca4f, 0x682e6ff3,
   0x748f82ee, 0x78a5636f, 0x84c87814, 0x8cc70208, 0x90befffa, 0xa4506ceb, 0xbef9a3f7, 0xc67178f2

[austinsimonson]

If the NSA can crack Bitcoin, it would be in their best interests to have the public believe that they cannot do such things... Anyway personally I think they didn't broke bitcoin yet...

[photon_coin]

sorry to post to this old thread but while I think the future of cryptocurrency is in the sha 3 final candidates ------------ i find it highly unlikely sha 2 is 'cracked' , i won't bore you with pd' files and other references to back up my point,  anyone who understands what I am saying should know those things anyway

[Preclus]

The top 3 mining groups control more than 51% of the hashing power of the network. If you add in the 4th, you are over 60%.

So, if you want to fork the blockchain or do anything else, you don't need to do math.

[cbeast]

I was recently told by a guy who knows a guy in the NSA that they cannot crack Bitcoin.

[thejaytiesto]

I was recently told by a guy who knows a guy in the NSA that they cannot crack Bitcoin.

If they did we would know already, because those things leak. If they break Bitcoin, they can break the entire banking system and everything else too. And what about TOR? they struggle with Tor too. I think Bitcoin is as safe as it gets from 3 letter agencies.

[Mikestang]

I was recently told by a guy who knows a guy in the NSA that they cannot crack Bitcoin.

Oh, a guy who knows a guy, he is the foremost authority on all things that go on inside the NSA! He knows all about 9/11, too.

 

[cellard]

If the NSA can crack Bitcoin, it would be in their best interests to have the public believe that they cannot do such things... Anyway personally I think they didn't broke bitcoin yet...

It's impossible to break BItcoin, it's quantum secure and everyone will be safe once BIP47 is deployed, trying to crack it its useless and a waste of resources, they are losing the antiencryption war

[owm123]

I just dont think there is anyway possibly ?

I think the NSA could be able to de-anonymize users, or large portions of them. Bitcoin is only pseudo-anonymous (http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/), for some organization with resources of NSA and determination they could data mine all their databases for linking bitcoin addresses with emails, user accounts on exchanges, fake darknet markets, online shops, etc.

This is one possible reason, people give, why satoshi hasn't moved any bitcoins from his early addresses. It would be just too dangerous to his anonymity too touch them. 

[Nancarrow]

I was recently told by a guy who knows a guy in the NSA that they cannot crack Bitcoin.

And now, I've been told by a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy in the NSA. Connect the dots, sheeple!

[cbeast]

I was recently told by a guy who knows a guy in the NSA that they cannot crack Bitcoin.

And now, I've been told by a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy in the NSA. Connect the dots, sheeple!

Well sure, of course you should do your own research. There is no plausible scenario that the NSA can crack Bitcoin's protocol and highly doubtful they can overpower the hashrate.

[RodeoX]

When the NSA tries to crack something they do the same things that any cracker does. Typically they are trying to crack passwords or get inside a site to elevate their privileges. So they look for low hanging fruit like stupid users with short passwords and poor practices. They run a dictionary at it then brute force it if necessary. But they do not have some kind of alien technology and are in the same boat as anyone who wants to get it.
This has little relationship to bitcoin, IMO. Because breaking a password may allow access to some individual wallet, but not to all wallets. 

[owm123]

Probably not, but with all the mass surveillance data they have (e.g., access to emails, exchanges, backdoors virtually everywhere, online shops, etc) its very likely that they could identify many bitcoin addresses if they really wanted.  Bitcoin is only pseodo-anonymous (http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/), and for some organization with resources such as nsa and data warehouses full of, well ... data from different places, they could probably cross correlate this information with bitcoin transactions.

[calkob]

This would be pretty easy to test. Just get a bunch of friends to start exchanging encrypted messages about bombing an embassy or govt office. If these douche-bags can break it, they'd be on you like white on rice.

Great idea Einstein    spend 20 years in prison to test if the NSA can break sha256.  Go ahead you first 

[n691309]

This would be pretty easy to test. Just get a bunch of friends to start exchanging encrypted messages about bombing an embassy or govt office. If these douche-bags can break it, they'd be on you like white on rice.

Great idea Einstein    spend 20 years in prison to test if the NSA can break sha256.  Go ahead you first 

They can break if they start using or producing the quantum computers, as these are known as very powerful computers but until now i don't think they brought the bitcoin.