Live data from Hacker News

All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

playxo.com

271–280 of 398 posts

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playxo.com is showing you if a wallet has a balance. Before it ever shows you anything, it can clear that wallet, and that's that.

but anyone can do that. you don't need an API to tell you if the address has a balance if you have the private key, you just check your own copy of the blockchain.... just like they are doing... fgsfds

When you visit a page, they generate all the private keys on the page and check for balances. If you happen upon a key that actually has a balance, they will clean it out before you can.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By many orders of magnitude, I think. There are only estimated to be 10^24 or so stars, which is a lot less than 2^256, right. Astronomical is not in the same league.

Even if we measure the widest distance (width of the known universe) by the smallest unit (planck length), we only get to 10^61, which is still 16 orders of magnitude away.

oh, but space is 3d, so we're talking 10^183. Just put a computer in every 10^100 of those cubes, and we'll find Satoshi's key in no time.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#273
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a thief? Bitcoin is a silly idea based on scarcity that doesn't exist. If someone generated the right numbers by chance and had luck, I wouldn't say they'd be doing anything wrong getting whatever is there. It's not the same as stealing data, and is not the same as hacking into a banking system. It's decentralized, and there isn't the concept of real scarcity. It's not even hacking. https://henvic.dev/posts/bitco…

it's only silly because you ignored it and now feel envy for everyone who did their research before you and got in early

I think this is an underrated assessment, which I also always feel. The technological genie is out of the bottle, we all wish it was more energy efficient and hope it soon will be. But I think everybody deep down feels like they should have gotten some BTC in 2012 ;)

Tbh, I did get some early but I ordered sushi (thuisbezorgd.nl accepted btc) and raspberry pi stuff from Pi Hut for amounts that make me cry in retrospect. Still, I'm not that 10k BTC pizza guy so there's that.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go by the whole “code is law” approach talked about by some crypto people, then I guess it wouldn’t be theft? The blockchain has no concept of people/entities owning things, in that universe the ownership of an address is simply having its private key. (Of course in the real meat-world we have courts, non-code-contracts, and rule of law. It would probably be criminal, in the same way finding a weakness in e.g…

I don't know if "code is law" has to be invoked here. Isn't that a HN-specific strawman argument? Anyways, of course you can take those coins as when you're running Bitcoin you're strictly speaking not signing a TOS and nobody ever owned those coins. What people keep private are signing keys for a transaction output. But if you found the key independently, they should be yours too.

Of course it depends on jurisdiction, but it would be really interesting to see what would happen if someone got their hands on keys of some commercial organizations’ wallet and then publicly announced (according to the premise that they are the rightful owner). E.g by using a PRNG-weakness in some HSM or something, i.e no entry into their networks etc.

My guess is that the court would recognize the first owner as the “real” owner, especially if they can show that they controlled the address up until some point.

In a similar vain condictio indebiti is a principle in maybe jurisdictions, where a receiver of a wrongful payment is required to return it. Even if the payment is made with crypto, the principle would probably stand if it’s practical to enforce.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's only silly because you ignored it and now feel envy for everyone who did their research before you and got in early

I think this is an underrated assessment, which I also always feel. The technological genie is out of the bottle, we all wish it was more energy efficient and hope it soon will be. But I think everybody deep down feels like they should have gotten some BTC in 2012 ;) Tbh, I did get some early but I ordered sushi (thuisbezorgd.nl accepted btc) and raspberry pi stuff from Pi Hut for amounts that make me cry in retrospe…

exactly. Honestly, Bitcoin is very efficient with its energy usage. The economics encourage miners to find untapped energy sources, such as; methane gas that would otherwise be flared, excess hydro power when flood water demands a dam be open beyond capacity, solar farms during the peak of the day when they generate too much electricity. Hardly anybody plugs into the wall and buys electricity at market rate; it's too expensive

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but anyone can do that. you don't need an API to tell you if the address has a balance if you have the private key, you just check your own copy of the blockchain.... just like they are doing... fgsfds

When you visit a page, they generate all the private keys on the page and check for balances. If you happen upon a key that actually has a balance, they will clean it out before you can.

well, very fun way to add randomness and entropy to checking. it plays on the maliciousness of everyone, by making them think the user has an edge.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the expected speed up if using quantum techniques? Can quantum techniques allow one to more effectively search for a specific private key to a BTC account?

Quantum computers can be used to crack public keys for a bitcoin account yes, but an addresses public keys are only published when a transaction is made Best practice for secure bitcoin accounts is to always send the entire balance when making a transaction, and have the "change" go back to a new address

Not anymore. With taproot the key used is published on the blockchain when the output is created.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, theoretically, instantly. But that’s kind of like asking what if I had this potion that instantly cured every disease known to man and then some, what would happen. What sort of quantum computer are you talking about? How many qubits?

not exactly true BTC addresses that have never sent BTC are not vulnerable to quantum computers as the public key is only sent when a transaction is made. The address you send to is a hash of the public key and irreversible even with quantum computers

This is no longer the case with Taproot, btw.

Re: All Bitcoin private keys are on this website

#280
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the expected speed up if using quantum techniques? Can quantum techniques allow one to more effectively search for a specific private key to a BTC account?

I think it's square root of classical computing time, using Grover's algorithm.

That’s reversing hashes. Finding the private key for a given public key would be basically instant if your quantum computer was large enough.
Post reply on HN