how does redeeming private keys on mtgox work anyway? when i type in 'frozen' it actually does correspond to an address. but it doesn't start with a 5? and i thought keys had to be in hex format or something?
Well this is somewhat disturbing....
please explain. i am just a currency trader, i know very little technical information about the 'features' of bitcoin. /cryptocompsinewbie
Well, first, the negative sentiment wasn't directed at you, but rather at Mt. Gox.
Full disclosure: I don't use Mt. Gox, and am not fully aware of how their private key redemption works.
But from what I could tell from your comment, they seem to be translating simple strings into private keys (hashing them, perhaps?) and then giving you the public address to put money into.
IF that's the case then it means they've set up a system where casual users can use simple, short strings to represent their private keys.
I find that possibility disturbing, because while it would certainly be convenient, I would think it would result in an unacceptable number of private key collisions. That would seem irresponsible, IMO, on Mt. Gox's part.
I'd recommend not using single words or short phrases as your private key. It's just a bad idea.
Assuming that that's what's actually going on there, of course. (I would have thought someone who actually used Mt. Gox would have commented by now if that wasn't the situation though. Perhaps they still will?)
