Has the NSA already broken bitcoin?

[zhinkk]

Article doesn't really go into technical details, which is pretty much all that matters. I have faith in sha256.

[mrcashking]

i love conspiracy theories, gives me something to think about.

[no-rice-peas]

i love conspiracy theories, gives me something to think about.

There seems to be overwhelming evidence that people at the NSA have deliberately weakened cryptography several times so that encrypted material would be available them.

Is there any question about this?

[RodeoX]

When thy talk about backdoors  I don't think they mean the encryption scheme, they mean the proprietary software that uses it. For example Skype has backdoors that allow the NSA to eavesdrop on conversations. They are not breaking encryption, they are circumventing it with the help of Microsoft.

[no-rice-peas]

When thy talk about backdoors  I don't think they mean the encryption scheme, they mean the proprietary software that uses it. For example Skype has backdoors that allow the NSA to eavesdrop on conversations. They are not breaking encryption, they are circumventing it with the help of Microsoft.

Many, many articles. Here are a few that are first on a search engine.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/11/nist_denies_that_the_nsa_weakened_its_encryption_standard/

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/nsa-paid-security-company-adopt-weakened-encryption-standards

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/16/nsa-gchq-undermine-internet-security

http://rt.com/usa/rsa-nsa-deal-weaken-encryption-581/

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220?irpc=932

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24165-how-nsa-weakens-encryption-to-access-internet-traffic.html#.VTkzZKpMGns

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

Sha is bullshit.

This is probably common knowledge in government cryptographic circles in various countries and may even be what motivated a Chinese national to create Litecoin shortly after bitcoin.

[ensurance982]

i love conspiracy theories, gives me something to think about.

There seems to be overwhelming evidence that people at the NSA have deliberately weakened cryptography several times so that encrypted material would be available them.

Is there any question about this?

The question really is if they can weaken SHA256 so much that they are able to break the encryption or render BTC useless. There are a lot of mathematical geniuses in the world and the incentive has never been higher to find a loop hole in those encryptions.

[no-rice-peas]

i love conspiracy theories, gives me something to think about.

There seems to be overwhelming evidence that people at the NSA have deliberately weakened cryptography several times so that encrypted material would be available them.

Is there any question about this?

The question really is if they can weaken SHA256 so much that they are able to break the encryption or render BTC useless. There are a lot of mathematical geniuses in the world and the incentive has never been higher to find a loop hole in those encryptions.

I agree that it is good to promote learning, to motivate it.

But there are very few people, none in fact, who have even one percent of the computing power of the NSA.

Should we trust that they are 'benevolent' with their power? Look around the world and decide.

The NSA has a long history of providing the most secret material to dictators and oppressive regimes. A tiny miniscule fraction of its intelligence product is used legitimately to fight objective crime.

Before the dawn of the internet this was not a problem. Almost no Americans knew what was actually being done with the data they collected. Now though the internet has changed things.

It is not a question of 'rendering bit coin useless'. Obviously that would defeat any purpose behind having control of the algorithm.

Imagine a world where only one group of people knows exactly how much money you have and where you spend it.

Now imagine you are in a country with a military dictatorship supported by that group. Your family has been killed. Most of your friends have been killed. There is almost nothing left you can do. But you have enough bit coin to escape...

[justusranvier]

But there are very few people, none in fact, who have even one percent of the computing power of the NSA.

citation needed

[no-rice-peas]

But there are very few people, none in fact, who have even one percent of the computing power of the NSA.

citation needed

http://www.informationweek.com/architecture/nsa-building-$8965-million-supercomputing-center/d/d-id/1097313

One percent of $896.5 million is roughly $9 million.

They have much more than that.

Do you know any people with even $9 million computers loaded with code breaking software?

The point is that the person defending the NSA was offering a false gift, a Trojan horse. Is the NSA secretly trying to help the public learn math? No. That is zero percent of their motive, though a few people may learn a little math by trying to break btc.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Really good govt secrecy from the courts can hide as much incompetence as cool tech.

[justusranvier]

But there are very few people, none in fact, who have even one percent of the computing power of the NSA.

citation needed

http://www.informationweek.com/architecture/nsa-building-$8965-million-supercomputing-center/d/d-id/1097313

One percent of $896.5 million is roughly $9 million.

They have much more than that.

Do you know any people with even $9 million computers loaded with code breaking software?

The point is that the person defending the NSA was offering a false gift, a Trojan horse. Is the NSA secretly trying to help the public learn math? No. That is zero percent of their motive, though a few people may learn a little math by trying to break btc.

If the NSA devoted all that equipment toward Bitcoin mining, what percent of the network hashrate would they acquire?

[BurtW]

In the following thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=289795.0

you will see that we cuss and discuss where the ECC parameters come from, if they were possibly designed to be weak by the NSA, etc.  I even contacted people on the committee that designed the ECC used by Bitcoin and asked them directly where the parameters came from.

I suggest a read of that entire thread.  It is probably the most fascinating thread I have ever participated in.

[no-rice-peas]

Really good govt secrecy from the courts can hide as much incompetence as cool tech.

Incompetence is one way of looking at it.

I was driving a cab many years ago and a lady was in the cab with a kid about 5 or 10 years old. The kid said to his mother something like "mom you have a booger in your eye", and the mother started beating the kid. Not just mild hitting, she was pounding him and he was screaming. I didn't know whether to pull over and break it up, I did nothing.

I don't know much about that kid now. He would be in his 30s. I do know pretty surely he supports the NSA and any other agency without question. Some people are taught one direction, some another.

Incompetence might not be the best word.

[EpicFail]

In the following thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=289795.0

you will see that we cuss and discuss where the ECC parameters come from, if they were possibly designed to be weak by the NSA, etc.  I even contacted people on the committee that designed the ECC used by Bitcoin and asked them directly where the parameters came from.

I suggest a read of that entire thread.  It is probably the most fascinating thread I have ever participated in.

Good thread indeed. I've always been more worried about potential weaknesses in ECC rather than somebody's ability to "decrypt" SHA256.

[no-rice-peas]

In the following thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=289795.0

you will see that we cuss and discuss where the ECC parameters come from, if they were possibly designed to be weak by the NSA, etc.  I even contacted people on the committee that designed the ECC used by Bitcoin and asked them directly where the parameters came from.

I suggest a read of that entire thread.  It is probably the most fascinating thread I have ever participated in.

One thing I have noticed again and again with regard to the integrity of bit coin crypto is a pattern of escalating deception.
Step one / Bit coin is secure because it would take trillions of trillions of years to break it. Once a person realizes that is nonsense they were shuffled to ...
step two / Hi, I am an authority in Cryptography and your concerns are nothing but conspiracy theory. The NSA has messed with software but they would not pollute actual crypto standards. So the media says otherwise > step three?

What is your opinion, derived from the thread you link to? Do you believe the thread points to bit coin being secure?

[ebliever]

But there are very few people, none in fact, who have even one percent of the computing power of the NSA.

citation needed

http://www.informationweek.com/architecture/nsa-building-$8965-million-supercomputing-center/d/d-id/1097313

One percent of $896.5 million is roughly $9 million.

They have much more than that.

Do you know any people with even $9 million computers loaded with code breaking software?

The point is that the person defending the NSA was offering a false gift, a Trojan horse. Is the NSA secretly trying to help the public learn math? No. That is zero percent of their motive, though a few people may learn a little math by trying to break btc.

If the NSA devoted all that equipment toward Bitcoin mining, what percent of the network hashrate would they acquire?

Probably not much. ASICs are what, a couple of orders of magnitude faster/more efficient than general computing hardware? Unless they've been heavily investing in bitcoin mining hardware specifically I doubt even the NSA could tackle the bitcoin mining system. I'd be open to quantitative analysis though. Personally I'd be more concerned about the Chinese government than the NSA. They would have potentially greater motive and resources (via contracts/strongarming of locally based bitcoin mining hardware companies) for an attack on bitcoin.

[Kprawn]

Why go into all the trouble to solve encryption, if they already have access to your device, on a hardware level? It is common knowledge that they have "backdoor" access to hardware and firmware on almost all hardware coming from the USA. {example : Cisco}

Those people using VPN's.... Sorry.. they got you too. 

They inject nasties into almost everything we do... {Quatum / Turbine etc. etc} Not even your phones are safe. {The OS and the service providers are infiltrated}

So just except that your Bitcoin can be compromised, if they wanted to.... but for now, they are supposed to use that data, to fight terrorism / Money laundering / War against drugs etc. etc..   

[S4VV4S]

Really good govt secrecy from the courts can hide as much incompetence as cool tech.

Incompetence is one way of looking at it.

I was driving a cab many years ago and a lady was in the cab with a kid about 5 or 10 years old. The kid said to his mother something like "mom you have a booger in your eye", and the mother started beating the kid. Not just mild hitting, she was pounding him and he was screaming. I didn't know whether to pull over and break it up, I did nothing.

I don't know much about that kid now. He would be in his 30s. I do know pretty surely he supports the NSA and any other agency without question. Some people are taught one direction, some another.

Incompetence might not be the best word.

WTF?
You let the kid get beaten up?

And what makes you so sure the kid supports the NSA now?
Because the NSA can stop bad mothers beating up their kids because she has a booger in her eye?

Apart from that, what makes you think that Bitcoin is not an NSA project to begin with?

[Kazimir]

Apart from that, what makes you think that Bitcoin is not an NSA project to begin with?

What makes you think that, even if that were the case, it would matter at all?

Bitcoin is open source, and clearly documented, and everybody can verify that it does what it's supposed to do, and cannot be controlled by the maker or anyone else.
Whoever made Bitcoin, or why, is completely irrelevant.

And by the way, I still see a lot of people in this thread talking about the NSA (or China or quantum computers or anyone) decrypting stuff, or 'breaking encryption'. Get a grip, people. THERE IS NO ENCRYPTION IN BITCOIN WHATSOEVER. So there's nothing to decrypt to begin with.

[BurtW]

Apart from that, what makes you think that Bitcoin is not an NSA project to begin with?

What makes you think that, even if that were the case, it would matter at all?

Bitcoin is open source, and clearly documented, and everybody can verify that it does what it's supposed to do, and cannot be controlled by the maker or anyone else.
Whoever made Bitcoin, or why, is completely irrelevant.

And by the way, I still see a lot of people in this thread talking about the NSA (or China or quantum computers or anyone) decrypting stuff, or 'breaking encryption'. Get a grip, people. THERE IS NO ENCRYPTION IN BITCOIN WHATSOEVER. So there's nothing to decrypt to begin with.

Maybe it is just semantics but when you sign a transaction with your private key some people would call that encrypting.  These same people sometimes call the process of verifying signed data using the public key decryption.

Bitcoin does these processes, whatever you want to call it.