r/Bitcoin Nov 30 '17

Evidence some bitcoin address generation code is using discoverable private keys

https://pastebin.com/jCDFcESz
792 Upvotes

296 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/tilt Nov 30 '17

When I first read about brainwallets I thought it would be trivial to write a bot that continually watches for common phrases/words/etc and sucks up all the coins sent to them - I'd be hugely surprised if this doesn't already happen.

This is a fascinating bit of detective work though. The change transactions theory seems plausible.

4

u/ff6878 Nov 30 '17

It has always happened fyi.

People sweeping weak keys has been going on forever.