I think a broken SHA256 is not as bad as a broken ECDSA. If only SHA256 is broken, the worst that can happen is double spending and super fast mining. But this will make it to the news soon enough and effectively limit the damage, because no one wants to accept payments anymore. So in this case, I think the whole system would slow down and come to a halt until the switch to another hash-algorithm has been made.
A broken ECDSA however would more or less immediately invalidate the value of your coins, because the state of who owns how many coins can no longer be reconstructed. Actually, in this scenario everyone could claim all the coins. So IMO a transition to a new system or asymmetric encryption algorithm would not be possible.
Then of course additionally there is the risk of the protocol itself failing somehow. But as there has been and still is a real good incentive to find flaws in the protocol and the fact that there have none been found for the last three years makes me believe that this risk is becoming smaller and smaller every day.
Topic: [poll] - how confident are you? (Read 1955 times)
It will definitely be hacked eventually. As long as it doesn't happen too often, and there are contingency plans in place, it doesn't worry me too much. Too many hacks and bitcoin would go the way of sony corporation.
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I read rather carefully about the EC algorithm Bitcoin uses and this is the very core of Bitcoin. Everything else follows and is patchable.you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
EC is like an equation with more than one unknown, there is mathematically speaking no way to solve it except brute force.
(I assumed your poll meant catastrophically hacked not some minor and temporary exploit or rare double spend.)
EC is used for signing transactions, not for mining. It is the SHA256 hashing algorithm that brute force collision finding is used on.
If it starts to break down slowly like MD5 has in 50-100 years or so I am sure most bitcoiners would agree unanimously to a protocol upgrade.
From <50% to down... what are you doing here??? 
probably being very logical and thinking about pretty long timeframes.
One can easily argue bitcoin will get hacked at some point, assuming time never ends (everything happens then).
I thought that line of thought was irrelevant because cleary, time ended yesterday. So I voted 100%. If sha256 gets short-cut, bitcoin will switch to something new. Same for ECDSA.
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I read rather carefully about the EC algorithm Bitcoin uses and this is the very core of Bitcoin. Everything else follows and is patchable.you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
EC is like an equation with more than one unknown, there is mathematically speaking no way to solve it except brute force.
(I assumed your poll meant catastrophically hacked not some minor and temporary exploit or rare double spend.)
EC is used for signing transactions, not for mining. It is the SHA256 hashing algorithm that brute force collision finding is used on.
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I read rather carefully about the EC algorithm Bitcoin uses and this is the very core of Bitcoin. Everything else follows and is patchable.you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
EC is like an equation with more than one unknown, there is mathematically speaking no way to solve it except brute force.
(I assumed your poll meant catastrophically hacked not some minor and temporary exploit or rare double spend.)
Given the pretence of "never" I think it is more likely that bitcoin is hacked sometimes down the road than not.
I don't think it would involve breaking the protocol but if it does circumventing it.
I agreeI don't think it would involve breaking the protocol but if it does circumventing it.
but i read this and it seems promising
There was a dramatic hack in 2010 when an attacker was able to spend 92 billion bitcoins. He got the transaction into the block chain by exploiting an overflow bug in the standard client.
You can read how it unfolded here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overflow-bug-serious-823
Within three hours, Satoshi posted a patch to fix the exploit. But things didn't get back to normal until enough people were generating with the new version that the exploited block chain was overtaken by the forked good block chain.
It took about 20 hours for the good chain to overtake the bad chain. At this time, the generation difficulty was 511!
You can read how it unfolded here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overflow-bug-serious-823
Within three hours, Satoshi posted a patch to fix the exploit. But things didn't get back to normal until enough people were generating with the new version that the exploited block chain was overtaken by the forked good block chain.
It took about 20 hours for the good chain to overtake the bad chain. At this time, the generation difficulty was 511!
very interesting.
Given the pretence of "never" I think it is more likely that bitcoin is hacked sometimes down the road than not.
I don't think it would involve breaking the protocol but if it does circumventing it.
I don't think it would involve breaking the protocol but if it does circumventing it.
I would have voted 99.9% if it was possible, and cant vote 100%..So 90% was my vote..
i voted 90 for the same reason 
I had vote 99.9% if it was possible, and cant vote 100%..So 90% was my vote..
ok 12.59 here we come!
Your desperation is getting really depressing.
Just buy back your coins and we can all move on. Move on, together. As a family. 
Also see the log of vulnerabilities and exposures here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
finally someone said it!
ok 12.59 here we come!
lol. is it possible to troll one's self?
Also see the log of vulnerabilities and exposures here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
Pretty much my thoughts. Can the current version be "hacked"? Depending on your definition of hacking, then maybe. I dunno. Probably?
But the ability to fork the chain makes it pretty much impossible to permanently hack as long as development is active.
I believe bitcoin will survive any and all hacks, and so far so good.
Also see the log of vulnerabilities and exposures here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
finally someone said it!
ok 12.59 here we come!
Also see the log of vulnerabilities and exposures here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
The question should not be "will there be hacks?", because there certainly will be hacks in the future.
The question should be "will the response be fast enough and effective enough to stop hacks turning into disasters?"
Pretty much my thoughts. Can the current version be "hacked"? Depending on your definition of hacking, then maybe. I dunno. Probably?
But the ability to fork the chain makes it pretty much impossible to permanently hack as long as development is active.
. . . their must be a simple way to check if this is the case, add up all the wallets with coins on the block chain and you should get 10.576 million coin
Someone do this please!
I've already done this.Someone do this please!
(and the word is "there" not "their")
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "bitcoin itself".you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
"bitcoin" is just a protocol. There are many implementations of that protocol. Any one of those implementations might become "hacked" (Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, blockchain.info, etc), but I think I understand the protocol and the options available for updating that protocol as new technologies develop to believe that the protocol itself as defined (though not necessarily as implemented by any one or more clients) won't be hacked.
bitcoin could be hacked and we dont even know it, someone finds a way to create bitcoins without making the GPU do any work, and can create infinite bit coins
their must be a simple way to check if this is the case, add up all the wallets with coins on the block chain and you should get 10.576 million coin
Someone do this please!
No bitcoins can come out of nowhere. That's not how it works. No bitcoin client would accept "coins" that came from nowhere.
prove it.
So you want me to try and create a transaction that says I'm paying 50 bitcoins from an address that doesn't have any to another address and broadcast it to the network and see what happens?
no i want you to HACK it! and prove to everyone it dosnt work...
or figure out a way to show some kind of proof that their isnt more then 10 million coins out there
http://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins
There was a dramatic hack in 2010 when an attacker was able to spend 92 billion bitcoins. He got the transaction into the block chain by exploiting an overflow bug in the standard client.
You can read how it unfolded here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overflow-bug-serious-823
Within three hours, Satoshi posted a patch to fix the exploit. But things didn't get back to normal until enough people were generating with the new version that the exploited block chain was overtaken by the forked good block chain.
It took about 20 hours for the good chain to overtake the bad chain. At this time, the generation difficulty was 511!
You can read how it unfolded here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overflow-bug-serious-823
Within three hours, Satoshi posted a patch to fix the exploit. But things didn't get back to normal until enough people were generating with the new version that the exploited block chain was overtaken by the forked good block chain.
It took about 20 hours for the good chain to overtake the bad chain. At this time, the generation difficulty was 511!
very interesting.
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "bitcoin itself".you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
"bitcoin" is just a protocol. There are many implementations of that protocol. Any one of those implementations might become "hacked" (Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, blockchain.info, etc), but I think I understand the protocol and the options available for updating that protocol as new technologies develop to believe that the protocol itself as defined (though not necessarily as implemented by any one or more clients) won't be hacked.
bitcoin could be hacked and we dont even know it, someone finds a way to create bitcoins without making the GPU do any work, and can create infinite bit coins
their must be a simple way to check if this is the case, add up all the wallets with coins on the block chain and you should get 10.576 million coin
Someone do this please!
No bitcoins can come out of nowhere. That's not how it works. No bitcoin client would accept "coins" that came from nowhere.
prove it.
So you want me to try and create a transaction that says I'm paying 50 bitcoins from an address that doesn't have any to another address and broadcast it to the network and see what happens?
no i want you to HACK it! and prove to everyone it dosnt work...
or figure out a way to show some kind of proof that their isnt more then 10 million coins out there
people voting 100%
you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "bitcoin itself".you read all the source code and thought about it for months, or you blindly believe it 100%?
"bitcoin" is just a protocol. There are many implementations of that protocol. Any one of those implementations might become "hacked" (Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, blockchain.info, etc), but I think I understand the protocol and the options available for updating that protocol as new technologies develop to believe that the protocol itself as defined (though not necessarily as implemented by any one or more clients) won't be hacked.
bitcoin could be hacked and we dont even know it, someone finds a way to create bitcoins without making the GPU do any work, and can create infinite bit coins
their must be a simple way to check if this is the case, add up all the wallets with coins on the block chain and you should get 10.576 million coin
Someone do this please!
No bitcoins can come out of nowhere. That's not how it works. No bitcoin client would accept "coins" that came from nowhere.
prove it.
So you want me to try and create a transaction that says I'm paying 50 bitcoins from an address that doesn't have any to another address and broadcast it to the network and see what happens?
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