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Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

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Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#191

Post by refulgentis »

idiotsecant wrote: post #177
LikesPwsh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitalik got indirectly pwned by the infamous DAO smart contract hack, but had the social clout to pause/rollback the supposedly decentralised/immutable Blockchain. Maybe not the best example of cryptographic security.

Vitalik didn't rollback the chain. The entire community agreed that it was the correct thing to do and did it. Thats how consensus mechanisims work. This was easier then because the community was tiny. It would be impossible now. The proof of this is that some people didn't agree with undoing that transaction. They stayed on the old chain, which is now worthless. This is such a boring and widely known story now, but…

I was going to write a more indirect response by way of analogy, but it got too unwieldy. TL;DR: I was predisposed to taking the position you are advocating for, but this argument is incredibly weak while demonstrating the problem, to the point it made me wonder about my own priors. Shape-shifts from "this was totally fine and normal" to "but totally couldn't do it today" to "and guess what the ppl who didn't want to rollback went to 0" to "boring story" to "crypto tribalism", whatever that has to do with anything in this context.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#192

Post by mistrial9 »

meowster wrote: post #184
mistrial9 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Target stores were early adopters of every-shopper profiling. Target has cameras on the purchase area, and have been known to refuse cash.

I've heard about Target's tracking from reputable sources, but never of them refusing to take cash, do you have a reputable source for that?

yes, in California, City of Albany, Target store near San Francisco, refused to take cash at the checkout not long ago.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#193

Post by thrtythreeforty »

drexlspivey wrote: post #180
thrtythreeforty wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you effectively trusting that service not to front run you?

Yes, the only other way is to mine it yourself. They are a public company that run their own miners if it makes you feel any better.

If you were designing this puzzle, could you do better so that this wasn't necessary? Maybe a two step protocol:

- Send some money to an address, which would temporarily stop accepting money from anywhere else. The fee gives the sender the exclusive right to solve the puzzle for, say, 15 blocks.

- After that transaction is validated, a second transaction (which now cannot be forged by bots) can be sent through.

I am pretty sure you could do something like this on Ethereum but I don't know if the BTC protocol would allow this. I also know very little about the guts of the respective VMs in general.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#194

Post by gzer0 »

Whoever solved it left a rather intriguing, albeit slightly mocking, message:

  TX input:
  Code:
  1FuckUmT5yBAvozf6gT8GRQVbJ7iBDUnrH

  TX outputs:
  Code:
  1Jvv4yWkE9MhbuwGU66666666669sugEF 0.00000001
  1YouAreSoDumbLoL666666666667K5aR4 0.00000002
  1WhatWereUThinking6666666662wkqq1 0.00000003
  1YouDeserveNothing6666666665sbbBC 0.00000004
  1YouEpicFaiLure66666666666688GSDA 0.00000005
  1BitchAssLoser66666666666669dBUVg 0.00000006
  1AndEveryoneELse666666666669Vnc8C 0.00000007
  1ThisisALosingGame6666666667HAZdf 0.00000008
  1JustGetAReaLJob666666666665vGKVD 0.00000009
  1YoureWastingTimeAndMoney664CVExC 0.00000010
  1AndCausingCLimateChange6666HK8Qc 0.00000011
  13zb1hQbWVsc2S7ZTZnP2G4undNNpdh5so 0.00000012
  1Jvv4yWkE9MhbuwGUoqFYzDjRVQHaLWuJd 0.00000013
  1FK5PjPNARQmg94n2cNHTo9417kWfXUDBQ 0.00002125

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#195

Post by sltkr »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #125
CamperBob2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These keys are based on elliptic curves rather than products of primes, aren't they?

There is one rho algorithm for discrete logarithms and one for factoring. Published three years apart.

Neither of which helps with elliptic curve cryptography.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#196

Post by wkat4242 »

hanniabu wrote: post #181
wkat4242 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this isn't a normal key. It's a key with extremely reduced entropy for the sake of the puzzle. Most of the private key is already known and is in fact all zero. So this would not be possible with a normal Bitcoin transaction with regular entropy.

How is most of the let known of it's a puzzle? Why would people make their progress public?

Because this is how the puzzle works. Most of the key bytes are zero. Only the last 66 had to be guessed. And their solution was made public by doing the payment.

mrb describes it better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41547443

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#197

Post by kfrzcode »

Jerrrrrrry wrote: post #157
fernandopj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how could he have avoided this attack? I'm only familiar with Bitcoin's blockchain on a begginner level. But I assume the only way would be to avoid revealing the answer key (public) when sending the transaction to get the reward?

There is actually no way to avoid this, aside from setting the Fee nearly to the reward. It's essentially MitM all the way down. even the private mempool can attempt a double-spend with a larger fee, get one transaction ahead, then try to maintain an edge long enough to be the "longest branch" for consensus - the 51% attack only needs 33% in reality, much less when your the private mempool that can take advantage of…

Of course, you could avoid this entirely with Hedera HBAR and fair consensus on the hashgraph. But the puzzles are on BTC where the money is.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#198

Post by [deleted] »

teekert wrote: post #98
jsheard wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PoW crypto is an exercise in finding new ways to spin boiling the oceans as actually being productive.

Electricity net controllers here are pretty happy when I boil some ocean on a sunny day. In fact at times they give me money for it. And then I can donate sats to indie content creators using podcasting 2.0 features. But I think you are one of those people that threw out that baby with the bath water long ago.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#199

Post by scotty79 »

n2d4 wrote: post #35
mapt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I correct in assuming that beyond a certain point, this is basically an existence proof for somebody having a quantum-supreme solution to Shor's Algorithm? "Here's $400,000 sitting on the table, hope nobody takes it" which triggers an alarm telling us to replace all our old prequantum cryptography.

Or someone "just" finding a fault in the cryptographic algorithms used in Bitcoin. Or whoever created the puzzles leaking their information.

I don't think they kept private keys because why would they if their intentions were to give the money away not just dangle it briefly.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#200

Post by arcastroe »

sltkr wrote: post #195
matthewdgreen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one rho algorithm for discrete logarithms and one for factoring. Published three years apart.

Neither of which helps with elliptic curve cryptography.

the problem of finding discrete logarithms is the same problem as breaking elliptic curve cryptography.
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