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Classical asymmetric encryption algorithms like RSA and ECDSA (which Bitcoin uses) can be easily broken by a quantum computer. Brute-forcing symmetric algorith
by atwood22 4y ago
Classical asymmetric encryption algorithms like RSA and ECDSA (which Bitcoin uses) can be easily broken by a quantum computer. Brute-forcing symmetric algorithms like AES gets a speed up on a quantum computer, but not enough to consider the algorithms broken.
- birdyrooster 4y agoOh cool, can you tell me who has successfully and easily achieved this result?
- akavel 4y agoPeter Shor; though whether easily, I can't say for sure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm
- l33tman 4y agoThe previous commenter was being sarcastic, due to the use of the "easy" word (there is no implementation of Shor's algorithm yet that comes even near outpacing the classical version)
- astrange 4y agoBitcoin doesn't use them in a way that'd let you completely break it; the asymmetric keys aren't broadcast until someone does a new transaction with them, so you can't fake one for a wallet you've never seen the public key to.
- atwood22 4y agoHow is the transaction signature verified without the public key? This link seems to indicate spender public keys are inside of the transaction: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/102667 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/102667
- astrange 4y agoAh, I had the details wrong. If there’s a signed transaction from a wallet, then you have the compressed public key and it’s not quantum safe. But if the funds are sent to a new wallet address and there’s no transactions signed by that wallet yet, it can’t be forged without also reversing the hash that created the address.
- atwood22 4y agoYes, it was a good idea to do that. I didn't realize that addresses were essentially a hash of the public key, but it makes sense.