Has the NSA already broken bitcoin?

[elor70]

Not yet...

[hashman]

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.

That's an idea but not real sweet honey.  After all your bombing could also lead to increases in their budget so why bother stopping you?  If you are actually looking to make a test, include some real actionable high-stakes financial insider info and watch the futures market to see if anybody read your shit. 

[TippingPoint]

Sending false messages is right out of the NSA's playbook.

http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/battle_midway.shtml

... in mid-May the commanding officer of the Midway installation was instructed to send a message in the clear indicating that the installation's water distillation plant had suffered serious damage and that fresh water was needed immediately. Shortly after the transmission, an intercepted Japanese intelligence report indicated that "AF is short of water." Armed with this information, Nimitz began to draw up plans to move his carriers to a point northeast of Midway where they would lie in wait. Once positioned, they could stage a potentially decisive nautical ambush of Yamamoto's massive armada.

[Carlton Banks]

I understand that NSA is doing their best to attack everything and i probably won't trust SHA-3 for some years, but to say that NSA is better than the rest of the world at breaking encryption algorithms is too much. Russia, China, India, Europe and whatelse so far didn't break them and NSA can break everything?

Probably they are trying to get laws to request keys, infiltrate everywhere and modify the implementations of the algorithms

Indeed. So, Edward Snowden already knew how effective NSA are at code-breaking and how pervasive their surveillance is, and yet he still managed to use e.snowden@lavabit.com to e-mail Glenn Greenwald for a Hong Kong meet, catch a plane to Hong Kong (the story goes that he only had a passport in his own name), and only once it was on every hourly newsreel did they start to try and apprehend him? You'd think that a highly paid contractor with high levels of access and clearance would have been getting watched as a matter of routine. Reality does not fit the story properly.

[TippingPoint]

You'd think that a highly paid contractor with high levels of access and clearance would have been getting watched as a matter of routine.

He was small potatoes.

[Carlton Banks]

You'd think that a highly paid contractor with high levels of access and clearance would have been getting watched as a matter of routine.

He was small potatoes.

Well, are the consequences of publicly disclosing state protected secrets serious or not? That's not how the justice system (or the extradition authorities) see it. If staff need to know sensitive information to do their jobs, they need to examine the staff with as much scrutiny as they do all the safety procedures that allow the staff access to this stuff. The details of what Snowden put out there was definitely not small potatoes, those were some pretty large, pretty hot potatoes. Hence the worldwide media coverage and political outrage and hostility? Oh no, I forgot, it was all small potatoes really.

[TippingPoint]

They made mistakes that gave Snowden access to more material than was necessary.

[rix5]

is this related?

"Skynet rising: Google acquires 512-qubit quantum computer; NSA surveillance to be turned over to AI machines"


http://www.naturalnews.com/040859_skynet_quantum_computing_d-wave_systems.html


snowden is a shill btw. The hunt was an actors-piece. I call Snowden a 'limited hangout operation'
-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

[skull88]

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.

can anyone think of a lower risk way to test...?

Someone in Germany sending encrypted messages to go walking near a secret US military facility and try taking photos of NSA spies in their natural habitat should do the trick. It's not enough to lock you up but enough to lift you out of your bed to ask you some questions.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/us-military-and-german-police-respond-to-facebook-post-about-nsa-walk-a-911451.html

[tkbx]

Just read this disturbing article, based on recent leaks from Snowden:

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption

The article talks about the NSA responding to the rise in popularity of internet encryption by, among other things, deliberately weakening the algorithms in use to give themselves a back door to decrypt data. Bitcoin relies on SHA-256, originally created by the NSA. Perhaps there is a weakness that an organization with the resources of the NSA is able to exploit.

If so, that would explain why the major governments around the world seem to tolerate bitcoin. They know they can break it whenever they want. Preferable after the cartels and terrorists get comfortable and start relying on it.

I don't see there being a weakness in SHA256. Here's why:

huTyEjKPdHtx0W9TQRAiF641lHS2W5OyGC3yWrmOjqDwayWJxkxeXN7QtHnrQPTY2PGCfafs0CWeMEd qMXx0dZSfkA6ZCqwES8gk8gARLEmufO68vOtKz78mGry5378iH7t7eBxWif6ITDNy3nG5yagcdeeb2B xHfE4HFa8HJjLNZxPJgl5lZyycgA6MQy3wG9Kch1pkELC0SY7Uwtru71bZZkT9IhpkieadeXNM37Ew6 1mVQUJRj6Kol090oD6TCZZNyptkD3PMzcy7bAKjQctJDzkdFwVEE2FCLhm5Z8TakWqlEujJaDe8IfEA f6QRHGu7QKIpv7Q8CggfmZ2JkxeeHzhcu5BhxKCZt3vX9FYiZMtVhHJrg5AkF1xZwtxLBKtJOMYwJXL kJ6pLyTKKEupjKgOs4iDJouaAk7Fd2EAL8SahXmdUiOdDYw0DGSOqfkQuFRQbH3MRok1wtQeiiGsKNO gnBm0wl01MHMKiiEjOYkNxrqqrTi1oYIcMudJKn5qmoOqhcaADKry5ft2fKfIb8ynOFvV6kTNB6Uj9R ed1TuN1ikNfq7Iwniiq2aOAowNVWA6Hla5ppva07eBkmUtADxne9nYcy5MkHDXrrdKmSncqQMbahtSO M9SNjlom5IXropvZHniUc1gOMByKtRiJjghVXbRxn9yWH6Gx1gY3RJIxh0E3ZnEqHAaPuqGjP9GSvcf eksleJaQminAhemgBlSypeSPmVvD17DywFKDYebRlk6UGt0IQVCA7SNr8djsfNC55bvYSX33nqO9vBl DTTnVD8UMziV0irk3Wjer5bcEAKTbGE2hX3CxPEOZgrpy9qTSHK9t31MxoZXVcgEDc42rVHMy2xiEjv 0caHoPSCV1KfixfRqTziNhNcOVqK7VmeiFz4SVVshzyTZ9LtGr8nKVcwVhKH9bmohZifyiN1FWrLyhj bGEdr9ADLkpp6QjluSQK0ybb0odGuk2iTsFIPKAXouM67r7ZC2pH

Hashes to:

f32a214d8ade97871c0832d51bda85ed95b7efa0224e8fa5d6e4b030ab861d7d

Billions of things also hash to this. It's not like there can be extra info we're not seeing, it's all there in those 64 characters.

[casascius]

Hashes to:

f32a214d8ade97871c0832d51bda85ed95b7efa0224e8fa5d6e4b030ab861d7d

Billions of things also hash to this. It's not like there can be extra info we're not seeing, it's all there in those 64 characters.

Breaking a hash doesn't just mean recovering the original data.  It also includes being able to find alternate data that hashes to the same result (which is guaranteed to exist, it's just presumed impossible to find).

[Carlton Banks]

They made mistakes that gave Snowden access to more material than was necessary.

Cock-up, not conspiracy? Oh please. Who said that, Snowden himself? Thomas Clapper?

snowden is a shill btw. The hunt was an actors-piece. I call Snowden a 'limited hangout operation'
-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

This is a convincing interpretation. I find it hard to believe that journalists are not amongst those that are watched rather closely by the security agencies of our world, and so the idea that Snowden was able to arrange and conduct a meet and exchange state secrets with a known Guardian journalist (who was said to be initially dismissive of using encrypted e-mail) before getting nabbed, it just sounds implausible. State information protection and gathering agency fails to intercept e-mails from a whistleblower to an information dissemination private professional? Come on. The long list of cock-ups from these agencies is more or less the only information about the operational activities of these organisations that ever makes it into our "reputable" media sources, as if the general impression we are expected to believe of these people is of unprofessional incompetence. The most professional public relations campaign they could conceivably run would involve the successful propagation of such a myth. Not to say they are somehow infallible and omniscient either, as this latest Snowden crypto cracking story is provoking, but that any public announcements either about them or from them should be treated with careful analysis, and certainly not blind acceptance.

[hennessyhemp]

This thread seems quite related to this one:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=288738.20

I'm interested to know what peoples thoughts are about my thoughts on that post regarding Coverity...as it seems like the real question isn't did they break it...it's did they leave a door open within sha-256 and/or within the open source code of QT.  Did QT use Coverity or similar closed source code-checking programs which have been influenced or owned outright by the NSA and/or Homeland Security?

[karlmarxxx]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that there is encryption used on the wallet.dat and that may have a backdoor exploit, or a government could in theory steal your bitcoins while inspecting a laptop during travel if they have a backdoor to the encryption scheme.

[rix5]

you should read up on quantum-computers ... i dont know much about sha-256 ... but when i read stuff like

 "Breaking a hash doesn't just mean recovering the original data.  It also includes being able to find alternate data that hashes to the same result (which is guaranteed to exist, it's just presumed impossible to find)."

i am not sure then if quantum-computers wouldnt be able to do the 'impossible' ?
This technology was a myth up until lately. Those new computers are said to have the 3600-fold power like the best supercomputer when it comes to cracking cryptography ...
The company building those monsters is called 'D-Wave'

"D-Wave, the small company that sells the world's only commercial quantum computer, has just bagged an impressive new customer: a collaboration between Google, NASA and the non-profit Universities Space Research Association. The three organizations have joined forces to install a D-Wave Two, the computer company's latest model, in a facility launched by the collaboration — the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at NASA's Ames Research Center. The lab will explore areas such as machine learning — useful for functions such as language translation, image searches and voice-command recognition. The Google-led collaboration is only the second customer to buy computer from D-Wave — Lockheed Martin was the first."

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/dwave-quantum-cloud/

'Clock is ticking for encyption':
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/354997/The_Clock_Is_Ticking_for_Encryption?pageNumber=1

is BTC post-quantum-cryptography already? ... i am a bit clueless though since cryptography is normally not my field ... just wanted to bring the quantum computer to your attention. The NSA also has these new monster-computers and is said to crack ANY encryption because of that ... i hope some of you crypto-experts can actually make sense of this and tell us if this is a threat for BTC ... warning: you will barely be able to understand the quantum-thing if you dont have a degree in physics ...

[DeathAndTaxes]

Generally quantum computers do a poor job of breaking symmetric encryption and hashing functions.  Their real threat is against asymmetric cryptography like ECDSA used by Bitcoin for signing and verifying transactions.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm  Shor's algorithm allows finding a private key given a public key in polynominal time which is many magnitudes faster than classical computing solutions.

D-Wave however isn't a general purpose quantum computer, it can not implement Shor's algorithm and is absolutely useless for breaking cryptography.  ECDSA can be broken with a large enough quantum computer but nobody has even broken 16 bit keys using a Quantum computer yet much less the 256 bit ECC keys used by Bitcoin.

[karlmarxxx]

I think the problem here is that governments have backdoor access to your router, your computer OS, and to the encryption schemes used to encrypt your wallet. It would be much easier to get your wallet.dat using these holes and hack that than to hack sha-256. The problem is now bad people also know there is an NSA hole/backdoor and they will try to exploit it.

[Carlton Banks]

you should read up on quantum-computers ... i dont know much about sha-256 ... but when i read stuff like

 "Breaking a hash doesn't just mean recovering the original data.  It also includes being able to find alternate data that hashes to the same result (which is guaranteed to exist, it's just presumed impossible to find)."

i am not sure then if quantum-computers wouldnt be able to do the 'impossible' ?
This technology was a myth up until lately. Those new computers are said to have the 3600-fold power like the best supercomputer when it comes to cracking cryptography ...
The company building those monsters is called 'D-Wave'

"D-Wave, the small company that sells the world's only commercial quantum computer, has just bagged an impressive new customer: a collaboration between Google, NASA and the non-profit Universities Space Research Association. The three organizations have joined forces to install a D-Wave Two, the computer company's latest model, in a facility launched by the collaboration — the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at NASA's Ames Research Center. The lab will explore areas such as machine learning — useful for functions such as language translation, image searches and voice-command recognition. The Google-led collaboration is only the second customer to buy computer from D-Wave — Lockheed Martin was the first."

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/dwave-quantum-cloud/

'Clock is ticking for encyption':
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/354997/The_Clock_Is_Ticking_for_Encryption?pageNumber=1

is BTC post-quantum-cryptography already? ... i am a bit clueless though since cryptography is normally not my field ... just wanted to bring the quantum computer to your attention. The NSA also has these new monster-computers and is said to crack ANY encryption because of that ... i hope some of you crypto-experts can actually make sense of this and tell us if this is a threat for BTC ... warning: you will barely be able to understand the quantum-thing if you dont have a degree in physics ...

When you say "crack any encryption", you actually mean "crack any encryption from conventional computers".

Guess what? Quantum computing makes quantum cryptography a reality. And as D&T says, they're not an effective reality yet, not to mention that the laboratory conditions required for the current generations of QC's makes them unsuitable for field work in intelligence.

[rix5]

good to hear that ... of course this technology is still brand new and not ready yet ... but we should keep an eye on that ... maybe in 50 years everybody has such a thing in his livingroom ... with breaking 'any' encryption was ment the conventional encryption for files - so truecrypt for example would be useless ... further than that: i am not an expert in the field and can not exactly say what they can and cant do. You have to research the stuff yourself if you understand cryptography since i wouldnt be able to answer your questions beyond doubt

[niko]

Just read this disturbing article, based on recent leaks from Snowden:

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption

The article talks about the NSA responding to the rise in popularity of internet encryption by, among other things, deliberately weakening the algorithms in use to give themselves a back door to decrypt data. Bitcoin relies on SHA-256, originally created by the NSA. Perhaps there is a weakness that an organization with the resources of the NSA is able to exploit.

If so, that would explain why the major governments around the world seem to tolerate bitcoin. They know they can break it whenever they want. Preferable after the cartels and terrorists get comfortable and start relying on it.

What exactly are you thinking of when you write "exploit" or "break"? There is no encryption in Bitcoin. There is nothing to "break". They certainly have backdoors in most software, open source included, and in most hardware. All they could do with an undisclosed weakness in sha256 is to start mining faster. Why would they care about being able to mine faster? If they know of a weakness in ECDSA, they could spend my coins. Again, why would they care?