AGD
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Merit: 1164
Keeper of the Private Key
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December 03, 2014, 02:28:53 PM |
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[Pic of the sun with explanation how difficult it is to crack a random private key]
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"Your bitcoin is secured in a way that is physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter a majority of miners, no matter what." -- Greg Maxwell
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allthingsluxury
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December 03, 2014, 03:21:25 PM |
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I believe this to be very unlikely, I'm sure some could be found, but certainly not all.
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Gold & Silver Financial News: Silver Liberation Army, Gold & Silver News, Geopolitical & Financial News, Jim Rickards Blog, Marc Faber Blog, Jim Rogers Blog, Peter Schiff Blog, David Morgan Blog, James Turk Blog, Eric Sprott Blog, Gerald Celente Blog
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FUR11
Sr. Member
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Activity: 378
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FURring bitcoin up since 1762
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December 03, 2014, 04:24:55 PM |
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You are more likely to catch a fish that swallowed a USB drive with an unencrypted BTC wallet on, than come up with a valid method of cracking private keys.
This is an awesome analogy! I really wonder whether there are flash drives that have been swallowed by a fish. Maybe even with a private key stored on them. I think the best chances are in dumping the contents of old hard-drives and trying to extract unencrypted Bitcoin private keys from them.
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johnyj
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Activity: 1988
Merit: 1012
Beyond Imagination
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December 04, 2014, 04:53:41 AM |
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Lost somewhere in the galaxy 18...
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thms
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December 04, 2014, 05:00:54 AM |
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Is there any chance to find those lost BTCs' private keys? Lots of early BTC adopters lost their private key and thousands of BTC is now useless...
It is possible but you would need a huge amount of luck.. It's better to just play the lottery because the chances of winning the lottery is higher and the prize is probably higher too.
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Ron~Popeil
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December 04, 2014, 05:02:27 AM |
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Math makes it incredibly unlikely but anything is technically possible. You would make more btc hitting faucets a few times a day.
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Flashman
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December 04, 2014, 11:58:37 AM |
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True, faucets, expected return per man hour spent, about 2000 satoshis or so, h4xx0ring teh gibson blockchain or private keys, expected return per hour invested 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 satoshi
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TL;DR See Spot run. Run Spot run. .... .... Freelance interweb comedian, for teh lulz >>> 1MqAAR4XkJWfDt367hVTv5SstPZ54Fwse6
Bitcoin Custodian: Keeping BTC away from weak heads since Feb '13, adopter of homeless bitcoins.
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shorena
Copper Member
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No I dont escrow anymore.
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December 04, 2014, 06:44:57 PM |
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-snip- Sure. Just like if you can guess where pirates buried treasure a few centureis ago, and dig there, you would have access to the booty. So, yeah... "good luck" with that one.
Chances to find a lost chest a pirate burried are higher than finding a private key that has coins. please provide your analysis on that probability. Just a wild guess, but given that the propabiltiy of finding a private key for a certain address (e.g. one that has coins) is roughly the same as finding a single bucky ball [1] within the earths crust I am pretty sure it stands a deeper analysis. Didnt watch it fully, but I like it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene
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Im not really here, its just your imagination.
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hhanh00
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December 05, 2014, 04:05:30 PM |
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The main issue I have with all these 'proof' of difficulty is that they assume it's perfectly random. In fact, they ignore the type of encryption used and focus exclusively on the length. 256 bits then 2^256 possibilities. Way higher than the age of universe to hack - agreed. But then why is a PGP 256 bit key (RSA to be pedantic) completely unsafe but the Bitcoin 256 bit key safe? Reference Cryptographic key length recommendations: http://www.keylength.com
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jonald_fyookball
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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
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December 05, 2014, 04:41:23 PM |
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The main issue I have with all these 'proof' of difficulty is that they assume it's perfectly random. In fact, they ignore the type of encryption used and focus exclusively on the length. 256 bits then 2^256 possibilities. Way higher than the age of universe to hack - agreed. But then why is a PGP 256 bit key (RSA to be pedantic) completely unsafe but the Bitcoin 256 bit key safe? Reference Cryptographic key length recommendations: http://www.keylength.comYou answered your own question partially. It's all about the type of encryption and how many bits of security it really provides, not the key length. And this in turn is based on the kinds of algorithms that can find a solution most efficiently. Elliptic curve cryptography is excellent because it it only requires 2 characters for each bit of security. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography: Since all the fastest known algorithms that allow one to solve the ECDLP (baby-step giant-step, Pollard's rho, etc.), need O(\sqrt{n}) steps, it follows that the size of the underlying field should be roughly twice the security parameter. For example, for 128-bit security one needs a curve over \mathbb{F}_q, where q \approx 2^{256}. This can be contrasted with finite-field cryptography (e.g., DSA) which requires[17] 3072-bit public keys and 256-bit private keys, and integer factorization cryptography (e.g., RSA) which requires a 3072-bit value of n, where the private key should be just as large. However the public key may be smaller to accommodate efficient encryption, especially when processing power is limited. So you get 128 bits of security with Bitcoin. This is further increased to 160 bits for an unspent address because of RIPEMD-160 hash.
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redsn0w
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Activity: 1778
Merit: 1042
#Free market
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December 05, 2014, 04:43:20 PM |
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[Pic of the sun with explanation how difficult it is to crack a random private key]
Do you mean this :
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LewiesMan
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December 05, 2014, 04:45:12 PM |
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All the better for the economy.
Less supply
=
Scarcer resource
=
Price up
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hhanh00
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December 05, 2014, 06:10:45 PM |
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The main issue I have with all these 'proof' of difficulty is that they assume it's perfectly random. In fact, they ignore the type of encryption used and focus exclusively on the length. 256 bits then 2^256 possibilities. Way higher than the age of universe to hack - agreed. But then why is a PGP 256 bit key (RSA to be pedantic) completely unsafe but the Bitcoin 256 bit key safe? Reference Cryptographic key length recommendations: http://www.keylength.comYou answered your own question partially. It's all about the type of encryption and how many bits of security it really provides, not the key length. And this in turn is based on the kinds of algorithms that can find a solution most efficiently. Elliptic curve cryptography is excellent because it it only requires 2 characters for each bit of security. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography: Since all the fastest known algorithms that allow one to solve the ECDLP (baby-step giant-step, Pollard's rho, etc.), need O(\sqrt{n}) steps, it follows that the size of the underlying field should be roughly twice the security parameter. For example, for 128-bit security one needs a curve over \mathbb{F}_q, where q \approx 2^{256}. This can be contrasted with finite-field cryptography (e.g., DSA) which requires[17] 3072-bit public keys and 256-bit private keys, and integer factorization cryptography (e.g., RSA) which requires a 3072-bit value of n, where the private key should be just as large. However the public key may be smaller to accommodate efficient encryption, especially when processing power is limited. So you get 128 bits of security with Bitcoin. This is further increased to 160 bits for an unspent address because of RIPEMD-160 hash. Hehe - I know, I have to admit I was trolling. Now that you confirmed that. What about the following picture which has fancy words like 'thermodynamics', 'dyson sphere', and my personal favorite - "the laws of the universe" - mmm? Though it's a nice photoshop and I'm sure it won't be the last time it shows up.
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Flashman
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December 05, 2014, 07:44:45 PM |
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You are more likely to catch a fish that swallowed a USB drive with an unencrypted BTC wallet on, than come up with a valid method of cracking private keys.
This is an awesome analogy! I really wonder whether there are flash drives that have been swallowed by a fish. Maybe even with a private key stored on them. I think the best chances are in dumping the contents of old hard-drives and trying to extract unencrypted Bitcoin private keys from them. Then there's the other more profitable activity, standing in the back yard with your mouth open, waiting for a meteorite to land on your tongue.
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TL;DR See Spot run. Run Spot run. .... .... Freelance interweb comedian, for teh lulz >>> 1MqAAR4XkJWfDt367hVTv5SstPZ54Fwse6
Bitcoin Custodian: Keeping BTC away from weak heads since Feb '13, adopter of homeless bitcoins.
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canary
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December 06, 2014, 12:42:41 AM |
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I wish I had a way to gain those missing BTC back to the market, I mean back to my pocket.
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