Quote from: DannyHamilton on September 06, 2012, 12:48:09 PM

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on September 06, 2012, 11:58:41 AM

Quote from: Stephen Gornick on September 06, 2012, 04:09:01 AM

Quote from: Superbest on September 06, 2012, 01:46:54 AM

Isn't it theoretically possible to crack the hash of existing bitcoins to "recover" (or rather forge) them?

The odds of that happening are less than the odds that you will die from being struck by lightning after being hit by a meteor which occurred just after you had been bitten by a shark while you stood underneath the curl of an approaching Tsunami -- and all that happening 1,000 times in a row on the same day.

Easy there. There are only 160 bits in an address. I don't know what are the probabilities for these events but let's say lightning is 20 bits, meteor 30, shark 15 and tsunami 20, and that they're all independent - you've already used up 85 bits. Having that happen 1000 times puts you at 85000 bits which is way too much.

Isn't it only 10 more bits to multiply by 1000?

2^10 = 1024

So if the rest of your bit estimates are correct, then it only puts you at 96 bits which isn't nearly enough.

No.

To conjunct with another event with probability 1/1000, that is multiply the odds against by 1000, is to add 10 bits.

To take the given event and to have it happen 1000 times, you take the odds to the 1000th power, meaning multiplying the number of bits by 1000.