Topic: Bitcoin and the NSA (Read 5304 times)
I think the NSA has somehow implanted a chip in bitcoiners designed to activate when they become the hot topic of the day.
Why would anybody like the NSA want to destroy Bitcoin? They're probably as intrigued by it as us and would rather want it as secure as us.
Read "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men" for your answer.
yeah man
awesome read! 
guess they'll be building large rainbow tables of everything they'll ever intercept. that will mean to avoid plain text offenders at all cost. ssl needs to be upgraded too right?
i fully acknowledge that there may at some point be some negative attention given to bitcoin from the US government. i laugh at the idea that at this point, right now, bitcoin is seen as such a threat that billions are invested to "crush it".
Or the USG has been anticipating this and is seeking to smother it in the cradle. (BTW I don't think they're that good at planning.)
It's reasonable to assume that if any alternate currency were to really become popular it would get the negative attention of TPTB. Think about it: one day the USG starts to notice an unexplainable drop in revenue. They start digging to find out the cause of this anomaly and find a growing underground economy with a non-USD currency.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
i fully acknowledge that there may at some point be some negative attention given to bitcoin from the US government. i laugh at the idea that at this point, right now, bitcoin is seen as such a threat that billions are invested to "crush it".
It's reasonable to assume that if any alternate currency were to really become popular it would get the negative attention of TPTB. Think about it: one day the USG starts to notice an unexplainable drop in revenue. They start digging to find out the cause of this anomaly and find a growing underground economy with a non-USD currency.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
i fully acknowledge that there may at some point be some negative attention given to bitcoin from the US government. i laugh at the idea that at this point, right now, bitcoin is seen as such a threat that billions are invested to "crush it".
It's reasonable to assume that if any alternate currency were to really become popular it would get the negative attention of TPTB. Think about it: one day the USG starts to notice an unexplainable drop in revenue. They start digging to find out the cause of this anomaly and find a growing underground economy with a non-USD currency.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
For crypto currencies, agencies with lots of computing power would become heavily involved in the effort to try to disrupt or destroy it.
It's what would happen if BTC really became mainstream.
i don't understand the line of thinking. the US government could for all intents and purposes crush bitcoin with less funds, just manipulating the market and such, then with the funds required to build the computer hardware, man hour compensation, and electric consumption required to break encryption and use it in any way with enough breadth to damage bitcoin.
The line of thinking is that this hardware is targeted at AES, not SHA256, and as far as we know has nothing to do with Bitcoin at all. Not sure why OP thinks it is related.i would say its pretty obvious that the government and its agencies are far far more interested in communications than bitcoin. we might all love bitcoin, but there is a serious case of over inflating its importance to organizations outside our relatively small group.
i don't understand the line of thinking. the US government could for all intents and purposes crush bitcoin with less funds, just manipulating the market and such, then with the funds required to build the computer hardware, man hour compensation, and electric consumption required to break encryption and use it in any way with enough breadth to damage bitcoin.
The line of thinking is that this hardware is targeted at AES, not SHA256, and as far as we know has nothing to do with Bitcoin at all. Not sure why OP thinks it is related.
i don't understand the line of thinking. the US government could for all intents and purposes crush bitcoin with less funds, just manipulating the market and such, then with the funds required to build the computer hardware, man hour compensation, and electric consumption required to break encryption and use it in any way with enough breadth to damage bitcoin.
Why would anybody like the NSA want to destroy Bitcoin? They're probably as intrigued by it as us and would rather want it as secure as us.
Read "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men" for your answer.
Thanks, but no.
the fact that the article published a map of the facility makes it highly suspect to me. perhaps they're playing Ben's game of perception management.
+1, or else they figured that it couldn't hurt in these days of satellite imagery. 
the fact that the article published a map of the facility makes it highly suspect to me. perhaps they're playing Ben's game of perception management.
Why would anybody like the NSA want to destroy Bitcoin? They're probably as intrigued by it as us and would rather want it as secure as us.
Read "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men" for your answer.
Why would anybody like the NSA want to destroy Bitcoin? They're probably as intrigued by it as us and would rather want it as secure as us.
If NSA can break the crypto, the same can both russians and chinese and probably dozens of other countries. All spy agencies are compromised by spies. I mean by double agent spies, who pass NSA secrets to russians and chinese and vice versa. If you or NSA think that they have no moles or people leaking secrets of all magnitudes to foreigners, you are simply naive.
If any agency are capable to do that, that news will surface eventually. As result my conclusion is that the crypto is not broken by anybody.
If any agency are capable to do that, that news will surface eventually. As result my conclusion is that the crypto is not broken by anybody.
Bump!
They wouldn't have to break RIPEMD160. If they broke SHA256 suitably they could create blocks of arbitrarily high difficulty with very little effort which would enable them to take control of the block chain.
This would be a good reason to change one of the SHA256 hashings of the block headers to a completely different secure hashing algorithem now, preempting this possibility completely.
They wouldn't have to break RIPEMD160. If they broke SHA256 suitably they could create blocks of arbitrarily high difficulty with very little effort which would enable them to take control of the block chain.
When you send your transaction to spend the coins, you reveal your public key for which they would then solve the discrete logarithm problem to find your secret key. They would ensure that your transaction was never included in a block but their transaction spending your money could confirm very quickly.
I suppose that if you never try to spend the money, they can't steal it directly but they could inflate the value away.
ByteCoin
When you send your transaction to spend the coins, you reveal your public key for which they would then solve the discrete logarithm problem to find your secret key. They would ensure that your transaction was never included in a block but their transaction spending your money could confirm very quickly.
I suppose that if you never try to spend the money, they can't steal it directly but they could inflate the value away.
ByteCoin
To steal your bitcoins by breaking crypto (as opposed to getting your private key), somebody would have to:
1. Break RIPEMD160. Because your bitcoin address is a RIPEMD160 hash... AND
2. Break SHA256. Because your bitcoin address is a RIPEMD160 hash of the SHA256 hash... AND
3. Break the ECDSA elliptic curve encryption algorithm, to figure out the private key that corresponds to the public key that they got from breaking (1) and (2).
1. Break RIPEMD160. Because your bitcoin address is a RIPEMD160 hash... AND
2. Break SHA256. Because your bitcoin address is a RIPEMD160 hash of the SHA256 hash... AND
3. Break the ECDSA elliptic curve encryption algorithm, to figure out the private key that corresponds to the public key that they got from breaking (1) and (2).
Thank you for clearing this up.
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