Will Bitcoin be 'hacked' by September 2015?

[blatchcorn]

I went to Inside Bitcoins this week.

There was a cryptographer (http://insidebitcoins.co.uk/london2014/speakers/#p2887 ) presenting and he predicted this:

"The digital signature scheme of bitcoin with SHA256+secp256k1 ECDSA will be broken before 1 September 2015 by cryptography researchers.
The attack should allow to forge digital signatures for at least a proportion of 1/1 million bitcoin users and steal money from them.
It should be done faster than 2^100 point additions total including the time to examine the data."

You can see the details of it here:
https://www.betmoose.com/bet/bitcoin-cryptography-broken-in-2015-791

What do others think of this?

[1713891509]

1713891509

[stdset]

There was a cryptographer (http://insidebitcoins.co.uk/london2014/speakers/#p2887 ) presenting and he claimed Bitcoin's encryption will be hacked by September 2015.

Bitcoin doesn't use "encryption", unless you are talking about wallet encryption.

[blatchcorn]

There was a cryptographer (http://insidebitcoins.co.uk/london2014/speakers/#p2887 ) presenting and he claimed Bitcoin's encryption will be hacked by September 2015.

Bitcoin doesn't use "encryption", unless you are talking about wallet encryption.

Sorry that was my mistake - updated the original post

[protokol]

Well. This guy seems to have pretty good credentials, but I think I'm gonna have to bet against this. Is there a video of the presentation anywhere, I'd love to see it.

Seems like a good bet actually, because if the cryptography survives then you win, if it fails then there's a good chance your BTC are worthless anyway (unless a quick fork occurs).

[stdset]

I'm not a cryptographer, but at first sight it's a joke. 2¹⁰⁰ is a huuuge number, let's assume he performs 10⁹ point additions a second, it will still take him more time than the Universe already exists to perform 2¹⁰⁰ operations that he needs.

[Mybitcoinz]

Maybe he only wanted to buy cheap coins... it's impossible to "hack" the bitcoin at the moment.

[Bit_Happy]

Will Bitcoin be 'hacked' by September 2015?
As long as the BTC price stays above ~$25/BTC (for example) you know that "the market" still has confidence in Bitcoin functioning properly and securely. As soon as it is proven (if ever) that BTC can be 'hacked', then the price will be virtually worthless. I hope the FUD never comes true and someday we will see prices much higher than today. 

[juju]

I went to Inside Bitcoins this week.

There was a cryptographer (http://insidebitcoins.co.uk/london2014/speakers/#p2887 ) presenting and he predicted this:

"The digital signature scheme of bitcoin with SHA256+secp256k1 ECDSA will be broken before 1 September 2015 by cryptography researchers.
The attack should allow to forge digital signatures for at least a proportion of 1/1 million bitcoin users and steal money from them.
It should be done faster than 2^100 point additions total including the time to examine the data."

You can see the details of it here:
https://www.betmoose.com/bet/bitcoin-cryptography-broken-in-2015-791

What do others think of this?

The speakers at that conference look pretty reputable, with that said I am skeptical that their will be a complete compromise of the scheme that Bitcoin uses, maybe a small subset of addresses. If their appears to be a larger weakness with the current scheme, we will just update the project to solve this problem wether it be: increasing the key space (Longer keys) or possibly using an alternative method of encryption in place of the weakest of the two.

Its a matter of time before weaknesses are discovered, but these scenarios have been thought out well ahead of time. At some point I expect everyone will have too generate a new address with stronger forms of cryptography.

[redsn0w]

I went to Inside Bitcoins this week.

There was a cryptographer (http://insidebitcoins.co.uk/london2014/speakers/#p2887 ) presenting and he predicted this:

"The digital signature scheme of bitcoin with SHA256+secp256k1 ECDSA will be broken before 1 September 2015 by cryptography researchers.
The attack should allow to forge digital signatures for at least a proportion of 1/1 million bitcoin users and steal money from them.
It should be done faster than 2^100 point additions total including the time to examine the data."

You can see the details of it here:
https://www.betmoose.com/bet/bitcoin-cryptography-broken-in-2015-791

What do others think of this?

I think this is possibile , but  not later than 2017 . 

[cr1776]

...
What do others think of this?

Extremely unlikely.  It is a very good bet to take too since they are taking them in bitcoin: heads you win, tails they lose.

[leex1528]

Right now we don't have the computers to handle that kind of power.  Basically the sun would explode before any computer we have would solve this at the moment.  Now, who knows what might come out in 10 years and be able to calculate things way faster, only time will tell...

[counter]

Interesting prediction but I have know doubt Bitcoins security is at the top of the list of priorities to the development team.  I'm not going to take any stock in some fortune teller speculating when something like this could happen.  If anything this is a heads up to the crypto community that will change the very unlikely outcome as far as I can tell..

[obocaman]

No fucking what, these guys are just FUDDING trying to get cheap coinos.

[RodeoX]

I don't know enough about it to say there is no risk. It's certainly not impossible, but if SHA is broken then bitcoins will be the least of my worries. Much of the internet is secured with this same encryption. What about the money I have in the bank?

It might also be quite unprofitable. The moment no one knows who owns what coins is the moment no one wants bitcoin. The attacker may just end up with 21 million worthless brokencoins.

[Verse]

A "breach" will likely come in the form of a research paper instead of an attack on the network, which should give developers plenty of time to secure Bitcoin - whether that's a different encryption scheme or longer keys. There is no fundamental flaw in the Bitcoin network (debatable on PoW) because the Bitcoin core can be changed, and will be changed for the good of the stakeholders.

Also:

It might also be quite unprofitable. The moment no one knows who owns what coins is the moment no one wants bitcoin. The attacker may just end up with 21 million worthless brokencoins.

Although some might try to break Bitcoin for t3h lulz, their expenses will likely be prohibitive. Quantum computers have been discussed as a threat because of their potential to crack encryption, but you won't see a quantum computer outside of a lab for years after these flaws have been discovered and addressed. Additionally the resulting price crash would ensure that any assets seized are worthless, at least until the problem is fixed. Hell, the core developers could even organize the network to ignore blocks containing hacked transactions if there's too much contamination. They could probably republish legitimate transactions from any omitted blocks.

Bitcoin's just a secure, public ledger after all.

Overcoming a serious threat through collusion could even serve to reinforce the world's faith in Bitcoin as a currency.

[kwukduck]

It's quite sad that we start to see this kind of fear mongering FUD from people with credentials now, all too sad they missed cheaper coins it seems...

In my view it's very unlikely the signature scheme will be compromised in any relevant way the coming years.
Also, these weaknesses come in gradual steps, its not like all of a sudden it's all broken, things may become a few magnitudes easier to compromise, but at the magnitudes we are talking about here that's not very threatening.

We have plenty of time to switch algo's long before there is a serious threat.

Bigger problem is mist if other internet security, most will be vulnerable, including bank and government systems.

[master-P]

This is some next level speculation.

[bornil267645]

just think about what's going to happen next in 2014!

[btcpokerface]

FUD, FUD everywhere, but it's funny to see how it will end.

[R2D221]

How can somebody even predict a cryptographic algorithm will be broken? It's either broken or it's not. You can't predict something with no proof, but that proof would mean the algorithm is broken already.