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I was thinking the other day, let's say someone operating the bitcoin network wanted to crack a specific AES256 code - couldn't they try to use the network to i
by ck2 13y ago
I was thinking the other day, let's say someone operating the bitcoin network wanted to crack a specific AES256 code - couldn't they try to use the network to insert that into different blocks with different difficulties to try to get the network to crack it for them?
Or it doesn't work quite that way?
Would be interesting fiction (ala Cory Doctorow style) if say the NSA created a crypto-currency to make everyone else crack messages for them.
- MiWCryptohn 13y agoDoesn't work that way, bitcoin proof of work uses SHA256 twice, which is of limited value. It gives you a near collision to a double hash. It's burning energy for work.
- MiWCryptohn 13y agoOne could make a case that the use of sha256 would drive down the cost of comodity ASICs, enabling a well resourced attacker to use mining hardware 'off-label' to find sha256 hash collisions. Same goes for scrypt, with the adoption of its use as a password store.
- aninhumer 13y ago>Or it doesn't work quite that way? No, the work done is very specific. It's hard to imagine a usecase where it would be useful to take advantage of it.