Talking about brute force cracking and brute force attacks in the cryptocurrency world

Recently, some things related to the word "violence" have happened in the cryptocurrency circle. One is the violent cracking of Bitcoin private keys, and the other is the violent attack on community members.

Some people advocate violence. They believe that any means can be used to achieve the goal. The saying "the winner is justice" probably means this.

But is violence really the best way to solve problems?

Not necessarily, this article attempts to demonstrate why brute force cracking and brute force attacks are the worst options.

Brute force

First, let me talk about brute force cracking of Bitcoin private keys. Recently, it was reported that an organization called Large Bitcoin Collider accessed three private keys containing Bitcoin through brute force cracking. The so-called cracking here means trying your luck by exhaustive method. As we know, Bitcoin private keys are displayed in 64-bit hexadecimal numbers (256 bits in binary), so all private keys have 2^256 possibilities, which is about 1.1578*10^77 .

The address with the largest number of Bitcoins is 3Nxwenay9Z8Lc9JBiywExpnEFiLp6Afp8v, with approximately 128,439.83709770 BTC.

So, what is the probability of guessing the private key? It is about 8.637^10－78 . We all know that the probability of winning the first prize of the Double Color Ball is 1/(C^(33 6) *C^(16 1)) = 1/17721088. In other words, even the probability of winning the first prize of the Double Color Ball, which everyone thinks is extremely low, is 6.533＊10^69 times that of guessing the private key.

At present, there are about 1350万private keys in the entire network, of which about 400,000 are private keys with more than 1 BTC (data from: btc.com).

Even if we regard all 13.5 million private keys as the "first prize private key" behind the address 3Nxwenay9Z8Lc9JBiywExpnEFiLp6Afp8v, the probability of guessing and getting Bitcoin is 1.166^10－70 .

Someone may argue that guessing the private key is not done by humans, it is the job of computers, and a fast computer can calculate private keys in billions in one second.

Well, it is undeniable that the possibility of a blind cat catching a dead mouse still exists in theory.

According to Motherboard’s report, the Large Bitcoin Collider brute force cracking organization took about一年to traverse 300 trillion ( 3*10^16 ) private keys.

That is to say, its computer traverses an average of about 950 million ( 9.5*10^8 ) private keys per second.

At this computational efficiency, the probability of guessing a winning private key per second is (9.5*10^8*1.166^10-70), which is approximately equal to 1.1＊10^－61 . Based on the bitcoins contained in the first prize private key, the expectation of obtaining bitcoins through brute force cracking in 24 hours is approximately (1.1*10^-61*128,439 (BTC)*86400 (s)) = 1.22＊10^ -51 (BTC).

With this kind of blind guessing, even if you spend your whole life on it, you probably won’t get even one satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin).

However, according to reports, the organization encountered three private keys containing a small amount of Bitcoin, and the winning rate was 9，09＊10^44 times higher than the theoretical value.

There are three possible explanations:

1. This organization is lying;

2. The private keys generated by these collisions are not random enough and are likely to be so-called "brain-dead packets". (More likely)

3. This organization is out of luck

After talking about brute force cracking, let's talk about the probability of obtaining Bitcoin every day using an ordinary Bitcoin mining machine. Taking a certain brand and model of mining machine as an example, the computing power of a mining machine is 12T, which accounts for about 3.23*10^-6 of the current network computing power of 3710P. Every 24 hours, the expected value of mining obtained by this mining machine is approximately 0.005822 BTC .

In other words, the expected 24-hour profit from mining with an ordinary mining machine is about 4.77*10^48 times that of brute force (excluding the impact of brain-dead packages).

If your goal is to make money, then it should be easy to choose between mining and brute force cracking, which is the wiser way.

A brief talk about brute force attacks

The violent attacks mentioned here refer to the various means used by people in the cryptocurrency circle to attack the enemy. The means are usually the following:

1. Deliberately exaggerate or make groundless accusations against the other party regarding some of their suggestions or statements, or even use foul language;

2. Register a second account with an ID that is very similar to the other party's and post some negative comments about the other party;

3. Spreading rumors without any basis to attack the other party;

We are not discussing moral issues here. These are all tactics, but will they really be effective?

Maybe it will work for the spectators who don't know the truth, but will the veterans in the industry buy into it? I'm afraid it will cause resentment, and the negative impact may be greater than the benefits.

Sometimes, violence is not the preferred way to solve a problem, and changing your approach may produce better results.