Bitcoin Forum
May 13, 2024, 11:48:47 AM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 27.0 [Torrent]
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register More  
Pages: « 1 2 [3]  All
  Print  
Author Topic: Can my Bitcoins be stolen?  (Read 12805 times)
Jim Hyslop
Member
**
Offline Offline

Activity: 98
Merit: 20


View Profile
April 04, 2011, 03:35:59 AM
 #41

What if someone else just so happens to randomly generate the same keypair and someone else?
As 'error' noted, it's extremely unlikely to happen. If by some chance it did happen, then any bitcoins sent to that address would appear in both users' wallets. When one of them spent the money (even partially) the entire amount of the original transaction would disappear from the other person's wallet.

Quote
Like what if someone were to setup their machine to do nothing but generate keypairs until they found one that matched an account with coins in it?  Hell, while your at it, same all the keypairs you make and check them periodically for matches.
The entire science of cryptography is geared towards making sure that kind of attack is computationally infeasible. For you and me, "computationally infeasible" essentially means "impossible."

Like my answer? Did I help? Tips gratefully accepted here: 1H6wM8Xj8GNrhqWBrnDugd8Vf3nAfZgMnq
Pages: « 1 2 [3]  All
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!