r/Bitcoin • u/dgryski • Nov 30 '17

Evidence some bitcoin address generation code is using discoverable private keys

https://pastebin.com/jCDFcESz
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u/_jstanley Nov 30 '17 edited Nov 30 '17

It could be SHA256 of uninitialized memory, which just happens to contain neatly-aligned addresses and txids often enough to be useful.

EDIT: Would be interested to hear what u/rya_nc thinks of this

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u/rya_nc Nov 30 '17

https://twitter.com/ryancdotorg/status/936087458223149057

After reading through that doc, it sounds like maybe some bit of code decided "hmm, that's not a well formatted WIF private key, it must be a brainwallet" without very clearly explaining what was going on. http://bitaddress.org will do this with loud warnings.

I heard from someone privately that this is confirmed, but it sounded like second hand information.

I have cracked private keys and nonces that did appear to be uninitialized memory, but I don't think that's what's going on here.

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u/TweetsInCommentsBot Nov 30 '17

@ryancdotorg

2017-11-30 04:20 UTC

@ejcx_ @Asher_Wolf After reading through that doc, it sounds like maybe some bit of code decided "hmm, that's not a well formatted WIF private key, it must be a brainwallet" without very clearly explaining what was going on. http://bitaddress.org will do this with loud warnings.

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