Bitcoin Stack Exchange
Bitcoin Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [encryption]

For questions relating to encryption operations and algorithms as they apply to crypto-currencies specifically.

172 questions
46
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8 answers

How long would it take a large computer to crack a private key?

I am doing a presentation on Bitcoins and I was looking for some calculations to make people feel safe about the private key encryption. Please first answer, how long in bytes the private key is, then how many combinations of numbers it will…
shoeless joe
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44
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10 answers

How can I keep my wallet secure?

The standard Bitcoin client does not encrypt wallet files, so any malicious user that gains access to this file will be able to transfer all the coins to their own wallet. Furthermore, if I lose the wallet file then I lose access to those coins. …
Michael McGowan
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19
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3 answers

Are there Bitcoin password crackers I can use to recover forgotten passwords?

I've lost the password to one of my wallets (it's a small one, don't worry). I was sure I remembered the password ... but evidently I don't. Is there a program that I can use to brute-force my password, given hints? Meaning, suppose that I remember…
ripper234
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17
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4 answers

Won't ASIC miners eventually break SHA-256 encryption?

I might be confused as to how Bitcoin works, but as far as I can tell, ASIC miners are getting better every year and faster at cracking SHA-256 encryption. Won't this cause the eventual complete obsolescence of SHA-256 encryption entirely, much…
Paul Omans
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15
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1 answer

How does bitcoind generate a new address if the wallet is encrypted

Suppose that my wallet is encrypted with a passphase and currently I have not provided bitcoind with the passphrase to access the private keys section of the wallet. If I enter: bitcoind getnewaddress It prints a new address, say [someaddress], but…
Sam
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14
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3 answers

How would one "Encrypt" a message using a Bitcoin *public key* and use its private key to decrypt it?

I have the following text string: This is a test message. Using my bitcoin public key (bitcoin address?), how can I encrypt this message? How would I decrypt the message using a bitcoin private key?
Patoshi パトシ
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12
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2 answers

Can I force my wallet to only have news keys, post-encryption?

Now that v0.4 of the bitcoin client has encryption I've gone ahead and encrypted the keys in my wallet. But I had previously made backups of my (unencrypted) wallet and those keys are the same keys that are now encrypted. This gives me a false…
Stephen Gornick
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11
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1 answer

How to Call JSON-RPC SendToAddress when the Wallet is Encrypted?

I'm using JSON-RPC to send commands to my bitcoind, and it works fine. Now I want to encrypt my wallet. When I've done that, I will need to send the passphrase when calling SendToAddress. How do I do that? Right now I send these parameters: address…
bitboy9999
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10
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1 answer

How does the Electrum wallet encryption work?

Nube bitcoin question... I created an electrum wallet, and can find it under appdata on my windows machine. When creating it I set up a pass phrase and password. I sent a small transaction into one of the addresses. I read in…
steve
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9
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1 answer

Does the BerkeleyDB-based wallet.dat implementation leak private key data?

I read this little nugget on the bitcoin client bug tracker: the bdb binary log files can also contain sensitive data such as private keys Is that true? Does this mean that even with an encrypted wallet.dat, there might be a way that the private…
Thilo
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9
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2 answers

If I lost my public keys, could I recover them from the private key?

Possible Duplicate: How are public & private keys in an address created? If I lost my public key, but still have the private key, is it possible to recreate the public keys. How many public keys can be made from one private key? Is it a…
shoeless joe
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8
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5 answers

BIP38 or Brain wallet?

I have seen many videos about paper wallets and different ways to store BTC. And I have choose to store using a cold wallet (paper wallet). But I am not sure what option I should choose: a normal BIP38 encrypted paper wallet, or a brain wallet…
Tor
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8
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2 answers

Backing up my bitcoin wallet - is wallet.dat all I care about?

I know that there are many duplicates of this but I'm hoping that the way in which I word this explains and helps not just me, but others as well. In any of the coin wallet bitcoin and the alt coins, when I run a backup I see a wallet.dat file…
Tom Stickel
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7
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1 answer

What OpenCL video cards (or FPGAs) are best for multiplication?

I'm benchmarking some Bitcoin related software and am looking for cards that are better at parallel multiplication vs parallel addition. Is there any prior work that may have this information? Perhaps for mining? What GPU features should I look…
makerofthings7
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7
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1 answer

Forgot wallet encryption password, are any brute force tools available?

I have an idea of what my password should be, but am missing something. Are there any tools or bash scripts to brute force my wallet passwords? If a dictionary is required, I can pre seed it as necessary (but if I pre-seed a dictionary with my…
makerofthings7
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