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Topic: Can Bitcoin be hacked and what will be the result if it happens? - page 2. (Read 2728 times)

hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 500
Private key could be hacked if you have billion of quantum supercomputer & some patience Roll Eyes
But, bitcoin network could be hacked if someone could hack every nodes & miners in bitcoin network (if anyone can do it Tongue)

No, it is impossible to find (bruteforce) a number = 10^48 .... Have you seen how it is big that number or not? You need 100 years of time and maybe you can find only one bitcoin private key (converted in binary code). It is not so simple as you think, come one mate... this is math!
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1074
Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZloHVKk7DHk and tell me if you still think it's possible to brute force a private key?

If that happens, everything will collapse around Bitcoin until SHA512 is implemented and they will have to start over again.

This is not a real issue in my opinion... be more worried about 3rd party software being hacked that is built on top of the protocol.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1000
I think there needs to be tighter constraints over how the bitcoin core is updated. At the moment, the power is concentrated in a tiny group of developers that can pretty much take liberties as they choose. Most likely, the solution will be to spread the world's wealth across multiple blockchains.

wow I actually agree with microguy on something, especially when Andresen openly admits he only has to convince 5 people in order to change anything on bitcoin.

oddly enough at the same time many of the powers to be within bitcoin what sidechains to replace and eliminate alternatives..............................................................dange rous path.
legendary
Activity: 978
Merit: 1001
Can bitcoin be hacked: Yes
The Result: At least 1 fork and a whole lot of fixes/improvements.

Answer solved. No need for thread to continue.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 500
On a protocol level, private keys appear safe from people attacking or analyzing the block chain; of the private key fur any address can be extracted, that will be it for Bitcoin. But if that happens, lots of other things far more valuable will fall apart as well.

But ln the individual level, the threat of Any one persons key getting stolen can be substantial if they aren't taking adequate steps to protect themselves.
newbie
Activity: 28
Merit: 0


Bitcoin has grown past the point of being hacked by any person or group of people...

This video will explain it all>>>> http://landofbitcoin.science/understand-bitcoin-better/   Wink

full member
Activity: 411
Merit: 100
Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  Cheesy
Sure anything is possible. Someone could, in theory figure out a way to reverse calculate the epileptic curve, however I doubt that this is actually possible.

If someone wanted to steal bitcoin from people, a more efficient way would probably be to do so via either social engineering, malware or some other weakness in someone's security.
hero member
Activity: 672
Merit: 500
I think bitcoin can be hacked in the future when computing power escalates. When the devs see SHA256 is starting to be weak, they will change to SHA512 and so on. The bitcoin protocol is not fixed, it can be changed when the community agree on it.
legendary
Activity: 2506
Merit: 1030
Twitter @realmicroguy
Ok thanks for letting me know, I am relatively new to Bitcoins and I am very much interested in the inner workings of the Bitcoins, so it is a group effort to over write the original source code from Satoshi, does someone verifies the integrity of new codes added or someone can manipulate as it was done earlier by creating false Bitcoins? Thanks and I'm just curious about all this as i think it will be the future of money  Cheesy

I think there needs to be tighter constraints over how the bitcoin core is updated. At the moment, the power is concentrated in a tiny group of developers that can pretty much take liberties as they choose. Most likely, the solution will be to spread the world's wealth across multiple blockchains.
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It would be more effective for you to do more research before asking questions like this.

First of all, there is no "the Bitcoin source code". Originally, people used the original Bitcoin client written by Satoshi, and then they wrote their own apps derived from the Satoshi's source code. These days there are several completely independent sets of "Bitcoin source code".

Now to answer your question: There is no need to reverse engineer anything. Nothing about Bitcoin is secret. It is 100% transparent. Notice that I used the word "derived" above. That's right. Anyone that wants to look at or use the original "Bitcoin source code" can. It is right here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin


Ok thanks for letting me know, I am relatively new to Bitcoins and I am very much interested in the inner workings of the Bitcoins, so it is a group effort to over write the original source code from Satoshi, does someone verifies the integrity of new codes added or someone can manipulate as it was done earlier by creating false Bitcoins? Thanks and I'm just curious about all this as i think it will be the future of money  Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already Wink

What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It is theoretically possible to find a loophole in any system.

But so far in 6 years no one has hacked the Bitcoin system as such.
The most viable attack vector is the 51% attack.

legendary
Activity: 4522
Merit: 3426
What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It would be more effective for you to do more research before asking questions like this.

First of all, there is no "the Bitcoin source code". Originally, people used the original Bitcoin client written by Satoshi, and then they wrote their own software derived from Satoshi's source code. These days there are several completely independent sets of what you call "Bitcoin source code".

Now to answer your question: There is no need to reverse engineer anything. Nothing about Bitcoin is secret. It is 100% transparent. Notice that I used the word "derived" above. That's right. Anyone that wants to look at or use Satoshi's (et al.) "Bitcoin source code" can. It is right here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1352
Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  Cheesy

Apparently, Bitcoin can be hacked theoretically, and brute-forcing, that is. There is no easy way to achieve brute-forcing. It requires a massive amount of computing power before being able to achieve such a feat. And by that, it means that even the supercomputers in existence wouldn't be able to solve it in a short span of time.

Going back to the question, yes it can, theoretically, but in the current times, it is highly improbable.
legendary
Activity: 1778
Merit: 1043
#Free market
It was happened also this thing :

Hello,

there has been a lot of reused R values in the signatures on the blockchain, recently.  This exposed many private keys.  After googleing the addresses, I think it is related to Counterparty (XCP).  Here is a list of the exposed addresses in alphabetic order.  Most keys were exposed very recently, i.e., in the last week.

If you own one of the following addresses, you should transfer the money to a fresh address (before someone else does it for you).  Also figure out, which client has the bug that revealed the private key by reusing R values.  Then notify the author of that tool.
....


It "was not related" with the bitcoin code itselft but with a bad generation of the private key (and address).

This is an interesting article (about that situation) :

Upon running the script last Monday morning, he said he recognized immediately that it had found something. The script, which had discovered only about 500 such 'broken' keys in the bitcoin blockchain's five-year history, had suddenly unveiled 500 more in a single day. A second script he wrote scanned the public ledger to see if any funds had been sent to those addresses, and was startled to see the amount. "I had prepared some scripts to assist finding and spending the money from the broken addresses, but I hadn't prepared it for this scale." He sorted the transactions, starting with the most valuable ones and sweeping the funds from the broken addresses into one he controlled. The scripts prepared and signed the transactions, double-checking for correctness and transaction fees, about one every two or three minutes. Some, such as freshly mined bitcoins that can only be spent after 100 confirmations, took longer.


http://www.coindesk.com/good-samaritan-blockchain-hacker-returned-255-btc-speaks/
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.

So Bitcoin system can be called as the triumph of maths and cryptography?

Not far off. I'm sure thousands of hackers have been trying to bust it wide open for years on end. They've failed miserably apart from that one hiccup. I assume those who've chucked their time and big bucks in researched it ruthlessly before taking the plunge. 
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.

So Bitcoin system can be called as the triumph of maths and cryptography?
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  Cheesy

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world.  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CVE-2010-5139

It seems to be semi forgotten these days but it was a tiny space back then.



Yeah, it is buried in history, people are ready to find any small loophole the system might have  Cheesy
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  Cheesy

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world. 

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures#CVE-2010-5139



If someone were to dump them and withdraw the money fast enough, they could make out with tons.

Also for the private key, you could generate trillions of random codes (2048 bit I think?) and maybe make a password list to try and brute force it.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  Cheesy

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world.  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CVE-2010-5139

It seems to be semi forgotten these days but it was a tiny space back then.

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