Author

Topic: ASIC's (and the wider network) as encryption crackers. (Read 3420 times)

member
Activity: 81
Merit: 1002
It was only the wind.
Unless someone hashes passwords with sha256d, which would be REALLY stupid, nope, ASICs cannot be used in that way.
Even still, ASICs used for bitcoin mining couldn't be used to find a password even if it was in SHA256d. IIRC, ASICs take the input variables, and internally increase the nonce range +1 and rehash until they're done, and then return the results. For a single Avalon or ASICMiner chip at about 300MH/s, this takes about 14 seconds. During those 14 seconds, you don't send any new data, the chip just hashes away. This design really doesn't work for password cracking.

Good point. I hadn't thought about that.
newbie
Activity: 50
Merit: 0
Keep mining and if you wanna smoke pot get from silk road and pay in bitcoins.

- Head of Satoshi Government Brute force operation -
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
Unless someone hashes passwords with sha256d, which would be REALLY stupid, nope, ASICs cannot be used in that way.
Even still, ASICs used for bitcoin mining couldn't be used to find a password even if it was in SHA256d. IIRC, ASICs take the input variables, and internally increase the nonce range +1 and rehash until they're done, and then return the results. For a single Avalon or ASICMiner chip at about 300MH/s, this takes about 14 seconds. During those 14 seconds, you don't send any new data, the chip just hashes away. This design really doesn't work for password cracking.
sr. member
Activity: 399
Merit: 250
No, and no.

wow, that was a pretty impressive response with as little words as possible.

+2

Yep but the noob completely missed the point... and possibly the links....
hero member
Activity: 728
Merit: 500
Crypto-ideologist
not asic,
(maybe future quantum computer? Huh)
KSV
sr. member
Activity: 398
Merit: 250
SVERIGES VIRTUELLA VALUTAVÄXLING
No, and no.

wow, that was a pretty impressive response with as little words as possible.

+2
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
CAUTION: Possible noob question ahead.
Was satoshi a government op with an ingenious plan to make the crypto community undermine their own methods or should I just stop smoking so much pot and getting paranoid? (Joke, obviously gonna carry on)

Lol good for a laugh.
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
Cheers for your informative response bro. I'm glad you contributed.
hero member
Activity: 630
Merit: 500
Bitgoblin
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
CAUTION: Possible noob question ahead.

My technical understanding here is limited, so please forgive my ignorance if this is a stupid question.

As I understand it, bitcoin (and altcoin) mining involves cracking sha256 (or other) encryptions by brute force, does this not mean that a huge amount of effort is being poured into highly efficient brute force encryption crackers (ie ASIC's)?

Furthermore, and probably even less likely, is the network as a whole not just one big super efficient encryption cracker? Is there any way that it could be exploited to be used in this way?

Was satoshi a government op with an ingenious plan to make the crypto community undermine their own methods or should I just stop smoking so much pot and getting paranoid? (Joke, obviously gonna carry on)
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