Post
Topic
Board Announcements (Altcoins)
Re: [ANN] [HVC] Heavycoin - CPU-only, Ultra-secure, Decentralized Voting
by
keccak512
on 14/03/2014, 18:05:06 UTC

I was laughing from the beginning on about this coin. Taken from their website:

Quote
The problem is that, due to Quarkcoin's simple use of function compositions, if BLAKE512(x) has collisions, then so does BMW512(BLAKE512(x)) and SKEIN512(KECCAK512(... and so on, until we reach Quark(x), which also has collisions. Similarly, if SKEIN-512 or Grøestl-512 have collisions, then so does Quark(x). Simply put, if there's a collision attack or second-preimage attack for BLAKE-512(x), then Quark(x) is cracked.

That's already complete nonsense. The developers are just full of crap. Let's say there is a second-preimage attack for BLAKE-512. So am able to compute an input value X, so that BLAKE-512(X) = Y, where Y matches the difficulty and finds a block. If Keccac runs before Blake, I still need to find a l need to find an input Z, so that Keccak(Z) = X.

We never claimed Quark is bad for second-preimage resistance.  It's pretty good.  We claim Quark is no better for collisions than BLAKE-512, and we have proposed an alternative solution that does not rely solely on BLAKE-512.  With regard to second-preimage on Blake, the Blake hash is the first function in the chain, so Keccak cannot come before Blake.  (We should probably get the webdev to fix the confusion on the website: "if there's a collision attack or second-preimage attack for..")

Furthermore, they claim:

Quote
Heavycoin takes 64 bits from the output of each of 4 well-known cryptographic hash functions (SHA-256, Keccak-512, Grøestl-512 and BLAKE-512) and interleaves these bits into a combined 256-bit hash that is more resistant against collisions and second-preimage attacks.

LMFAO. These kids have no clue what they are talking about. In fact, the opposite is true. If one hash function is broken, it's possible to freely choose the corresponding 64 bit in the output. Oh guys, just quit this coin. It's pathetic and an insult to anyone capable of adding 1 and 1.

In Heavycoin if one of the 4 cryptographic hashes is completely broken, then you lose 64 bits out of 256 bits.  In Bitcoin if SHA-256 is completely broken, then you lose 256 bits.  Both scenarios are unlikely, but in one of them you lose fewer bits.