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0 pointsDylan168079y ago0 comments

2^80 time is not as much as you think it is. The bitcoin network is currently calculating about 3 * 2^60 hashes per second. It can do 2^80 hashes in under a week.

The 2^80 space cost of doing a birthday attack is a lot more notable, but it's not unfeasible either. Yearly hard drive production is somewhere around 2^70 bytes. You're not pulling that attack off in the year 2017 but a big budget you could get probably get there in a few decades.

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rspeer9y ago

Checking 2^80 hashes is indeed faster than I thought, thanks for the stats.

But checking 2^80 hashes and writing them to long term storage is still ridiculous. That budget should still go to hiring cryptographers, not buying hard drives.

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rspeer9y ago

Checking 2^80 hashes is indeed faster than I thought, thanks for the stats.

But checking 2^80 hashes and writing them to long term storage is still ridiculous. That budget should still go to hiring cryptographers, not buying hard drives.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse