BitCoin Hashing, who's watching?

[NegativeSpace]

The question might have already been answered but since Google drastically changed their search algorithm I don't find answers as easily as I used to. I've been reading about BitCoin and other crypto-currency standards lately and it has me wondering what else can be learned by exploting the major and ever increasing hashing power of the network. Does the BTC standard make it possible for some entity to use the hashing power of the network to decrease the strength of certain types of mathematical encryption? The network will probably reach 1 Peta hash per second in the next year or so and the electricity to run the calculations is preumably paid for by mostly regular, private citizens. Maybe even some entity decided to create crypto-currency specifically to get private citizens to do the privacy busting work that was otherwise impossible?

[GuardMoony]

In theory, Yes

You could create your own crypto currency that could per say create a sort of rainbow table as a chainlog. But that means it prob needs its own special hardware. You will need to create your own following of the coin. People will need to accept it. ( esp this part is hard to do )

In Short is not really realistic to do this.

[NegativeSpace]

In theory, Yes

You could create your own crypto currency that could per say create a sort of rainbow table as a chainlog. But that means it prob needs its own special hardware. You will need to create your own following of the coin. People will need to accept it. ( esp this part is hard to do )

In Short is not really realistic to do this.

Those things have already been done. It's also being recreated in over 100 alternate standards and currencies. That's my point. I am wondering if someone could have created or infiltrated BTC for breaking an encryption standard to the point that is it practically useless or for some other hidden purpose similar to that.

[Sitwon]

Those things have already been done. It's also being recreated in over 100 alternate standards and currencies. That's my point. I am wondering if someone could have created or infiltrated BTC for breaking an encryption standard to the point that is it practically useless or for some other hidden purpose similar to that.

Could someone have created an alternate crypto-currency for that purpose? Yes.

Would such a crypto-currency gain enough of a following to do any better than stealing free compute time on Amazon EC2? Probably not.

Could someone have infiltrated such a feature into BTC or LTC or any of the top 5 crypto-currencies? No.

Could someone have in some other way figured out how to take advantage of these existing hashing networks to weaken existing encryption or password standards? It's mathematically unlikely, but I suppose it's a possibility (if they also managed to solve some other challenging, unsolved problems in mathematics.)

In short, there is no evidence to suggest that such a thing is happening, and the math (as Bruce Schneier says, trust the math) strongly suggests that observation of the the output of the Bitcoin hashing network would give you little if any useful insight toward cracking passwords or encryption standards.

[NegativeSpace]

Could someone have created an alternate crypto-currency for that purpose? Yes.

Would such a crypto-currency gain enough of a following to do any better than stealing free compute time on Amazon EC2? Probably not.

Could someone have infiltrated such a feature into BTC or LTC or any of the top 5 crypto-currencies? No.

Could someone have in some other way figured out how to take advantage of these existing hashing networks to weaken existing encryption or password standards? It's mathematically unlikely, but I suppose it's a possibility (if they also managed to solve some other challenging, unsolved problems in mathematics.)

In short, there is no evidence to suggest that such a thing is happening, and the math (as Bruce Schneier says, trust the math) strongly suggests that observation of the the output of the Bitcoin hashing network would give you little if any useful insight toward cracking passwords or encryption standards.

Good stuff. Any other info/opinions out there?