Quote from: etotheipi on October 15, 2011, 04:04:36 PM

The address does not correspond to an actual ECDSA public key. Remember than an address is just a hash of an ECSDA public key, which means the address can look like anything. So there's nothing stopping me from creating the address 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE with the appropriate checksum to make it look like a valid address, but I don't have the public-private keypair needed to spend money sent to that address.

In otherwords, vanity gen creates public/private keypairs and turns them into addresses looking for one that has your target word/phrase in it. The output is a real address for which you have the private key and can spend the money. In this case, though, the person can just make the address directly, but has no idea if there is a public/private keypair associated with it, and certainly doesn't have it. The checksum at the end guarantees the client sees it as valid, but no one will ever be able to provide a public key to the network that hashes to that, and thus any coins sent there will be unrecoverable.

http://blockchain.info/address/1QBDLYTDFHHZAABYSKGKPWKLSXZWCCJQBX
But this address is quite workable ... (it has an outgoing transaction). How to explain it? Roll Eyes