Topic: Bitcoin Cipher/puzzle - 0.56 Prize ! Bitcoins [SOLVED] - page 2. (Read 19314 times)

But there is a difference between problems. This is a user created problem, not one that follows the rules of physics or maths perse.
Also, most people like them are not scrambling for half a bitcoin, but doing more important stuff probably

A true solution to something is accomplished with only the original data.
Newton, Einstein, Euclid ect... had no hints.

Awaiting for your hints! Cheers!

i will post a new hint later on today just need to prepare it, don't wanna give away to much

Any chance to get the hint? This puzzle has really proven to be quite challenging! Much kudo's to you for coming up with it

Well one thing is sure. I'm not a spy. I had a look and I have absolutly no idea what it is or what to do with it.

hey guys, i know it's past the 5th, but my internet is horrible at the moment, (currently moving) i will post a new hint soon !

Of You read the earlier posts in This thread You can get an idea of the thought process behind solving the steps. You may learn a thing or two also!

i have no idea to solve it.
maybe it because i haven't solved a puzzle like that 

i dont really understand with that encryption 
somebody can help me?

Did we figure out #9 yet? Cause I really want some of this money.

The Puzzle won't end Don't worry about that!

There are 15 missing characters with known letter casing.





try brute forcing this number of keys  
                                                    
(33*33*34*33*34)  * (34*34*33*34) * (34*33*33*34*33*34) * (!9)


And on top of that the casing may change as seen in solved levels.

A reordering step isn't bad. A lightly optimized bruteforcer I wrote and was running on an anemic laptop managed to search 70*(10!) private keys for validity (although none were in fact valid).

The book is a road block for me without it I can't go any further .
I'm in a non English country .
English books are rare in bookshops  over here .
Ordering online take ages to deliver to my country .

As for brute forcing it's not fun at all.
And useless anyway at this stage especially if there is a reordering step.



5 days left till end of puzzle.
I hope the OP is preparing another one.

as a normal person who just tried reading that "woooow"

Finally some free time 

Starting to work onto it 

Correct.

I know of two approaches to brute force crack a private key if some of the unknown characters are on the end:

Approach #1: Checking against checksum
1. Assemble your guess as a WIF string (base58)
2. Then do a base58_decode which outputs a 1+32+4=37 byte (1 extra byte when compressed but this puzzle has an uncompressed key).
3. Then re-calculate the checksum
4. If it matches, alert, else goto 1.
Chance of a false positive: 1:2³²

Approach #2: Check against hash160 (this is the way I go)
1. Split your guesses in many batches
2. Assemble the first guess in the batch as a base58 string
3. Then do a base58_decode which outputs a 37 or 38 byte binary
4. Take byte #1 to #32 (counting from #0) and load it into your EC library (yes, you can ignore the checksum here)
5. Do an EC point multiplication p=G*k where p=public key, G=base point and k=your first guess
6. If ripemd160(sha256(p)) matches target, alert and stop
7. Do an EC point addition p=p+G and goto 6. until 58ⁿ/2³² repetitions has been made. n is the number of characters missing at the end
8. Open a new batch and goto 2

Approach #2 has advantages if #10 is unknown because large parts of #10 are sitting in the checksum. When directly dealing with the internal binary representation of the private key using EC math, you're "skipping" all possible invalid WIF private key combinations at once.
Approach #1 could be the better choice if you're sure that you have #10 correct.

Currently I don't do any bruteforce anymore because I ran out of ideas for #9. As soon I get new clues, I'll resume my bruteforce.


Note:
Some peoples asked for code (here/PM):
I'm handing out this hint for free but you have to do the coding work yourself. I'm fearing getting deanonymized if uploading my code here because it heavyly relies on code from other projects made by me.

then head over to the speculation forum, the blind predictions will recoup your intellectualism

Quite a few of the puzzles are also just taking a step back and looking carefully. The ISBN number for instance, if you took notice of the numbers on the books you read, it was easy to spot where to look. The same goes for the morse code.

I agree though, some of the puzzles went way over my head too