Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

People win all the time because the chance to win is equal to the number of tickets sold. It's not rare that someone wins, it's rare that you win.

Then I misunderstand the Powerball, because I'm talking about matching the numbers randomly pulled. Your chances of matching random numbers would be unaffected by the random numbers that others have chosen. Their "guesses" do not make your guess any more or less likely to be correct. Again, I might not understand how lotteries work I guess, but this is how I understand it. How are the chances equal to the tickets in a lottery of random numbers? More tickets makes it more likely that someone wins, but it wouldn't make your chances vary.

Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

When comparing Bitcoin to the Powerball lottery, I think it's safe to say you're more likely to win that lottery without buying a ticket, than finding a collision on a private key.

You're over exaggerating, unless we're operating on the assumption that you can win with a stolen ticket, or something? I do see your point though.

Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

Humans are very bad at creating random keystrokes.

Bee Boop.

Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

It's easy to confuse a theoretical chance with a real chance.

Apparently, because I do not know the difference. I've thought on this for hours and I cannot figure out the riddle. Help me understand theoretical chance Vs. real chance, genuinely, I am interested.

Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

Example: You can randomly generate my phone number, call me, and tell me my creditcard number. Although this sounds far fetched, it's still 1461501637330902918203 times more likely than finding a private key collision.

Show your work for this math problem. What are the odds of me randomly generating your phone number, credit card and catching you at a good time for a phone call? Wink

Since I'm illiterate on vocabulary and semantics, collision = randomly generating a previously randomly generated Private Key, right?

Quote from: LoyceV on June 10, 2018, 06:45:31 PM

That's why it's very important to generate your private keys at random. If your random isn't random, someone else can reproduce it.

Humans are almost as bad at programming random number generators as they are typing random numbers.