Questions tagged [bitcoin]

BitCoin is a distributed crypto-currency. General questions about bitcoin, other crypto-currencies and their environment not directly relating to security are better suited for bitcoin.stackexchange.com

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Why are ransomware attackers not tracked down via bitcoin transactions?

A bitcoin transaction has details of the incoming address as well as the outgoing address (where the bitcoins are being transferred), so my question is why that outgoing address has not done anything in tracking down ransomware attackers, like the…
Ashmika
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Does this mean Target's twitter was successfully attacked?

I was just surprised to see this suspicious promoted tweet, asking me to send Bitcoins I added the hand-drawn red lines so I am not responsible for propagating the apparent scam. Clicking on the user name seems to take me to the genuine Target…
Oddthinking
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How can I explain "zero knowledge proof" to an end user?

A ZKP allows proof of knowing the answer to a secret, without actually disclosing what that answer is. Is there any analogy that can help people put this concept into everyday practice? A "lie to children" example is sufficient. For example,…
makerofthings7
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How could Craig Wright obtain Satoshi Nakamoto's private key?

Some of the earliest Bitcoin transactions were signed with a private key most people collectively believe belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto. However, many publications propose Craig Wright may have obtained the private key from the real Nakamoto, then…
steampowered
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How does this Bitcoin scam work?

Lately I have been receiving messages from accounts on Discord telling me that I have won 1 BTC in a giveaway. This is obviously not true, but I have a hard time seeing how these accounts will get anything useful out of me falling for this. The…
Daniel
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If you send a bitcoin payment to a seller, will they learn your IP address?

Since you send bitcoin payments through one of the Bitcoin clients, I assume it announces the payment to the network, so each computer it connects to in order to do so would know the IP address from which you announce the payment. So when you make a…
sashoalm
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Detect Bitcoin Mining

So, me and a network administrator friend were discussing about bitcoin mining. With so many portable bitcoin mining software, we wanted to find the different ways to detect them in the network. How can we detect if a certain host is running a…
Metahuman
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Is the Litecoin Scrypt hashing technique a threat to hashed passwords?

The Bitcoin alternative, Litecoin uses a different algorithm to protect the block chain, namely Scrypt (not Sha256). Given that GPU accelerators exists, and ASICS are due to be released, does the widespread implementation of the Litecoin network…
makerofthings7
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Are there any tell-tale signs of self-hacking?

After the Mt.Gox crash, and also keeping in mind recently published attacks on Target and Neiman Marcus, one is led to believe that sometimes so-called hacking is perpetrated by insiders. What are the tell-tale signs of an insider-led compromise as…
Deer Hunter
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With ASIC bitcoin miners, should SHA256 be considered insecure for password hashing?

I'm sure everyone here has seen the rise and further rise of bitcoin. The process used for mining bitcoin is basically "let's brute force an SHA256 hash that is less than this amount" That being said, it seems to really be getting popular. Now…
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Safest way to keep an offline bitcoin wallet

Keeping a large amount of bitcoins in an online computer is dangerous. The bitcoin wallet is merely a file, and once the file has been copied the bitcoins can be transferred to another account. Password protected files can be hacked using keylogging…
Adam Matan
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Security of SHA256 and Bitcoins

The Bitcoin network use SHA256 as a core component to it's design. I'm no expert on cryptography, but it seems to me it usually is only a matter of time before security vulnerabilities are discovered (MD5 for example as well as many others). What…
Tom
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Is webRTC safe against man in the middle attacks?

We are implementing an open source software package (copay, a multisig bitcoin wallet), that uses peerJS, which uses webRTC to allow peer-to-peer communication between browsers. peerJS (and webRTC) use a signaling server to help the peers establish…
ematiu
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Bitcoin and criminals

The Bitcoin System depends on anonymity, all money transactions are encrypted then recorded in the system. So how are criminals, who use bitcoin for illegal trading, arrested by governments?
user5670635
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What is coin hive virus?

My Kaspersky Internet Security said it detects a trojan at (do not go to the link below, my KIS said it's trojan): https:// coinhive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js The Trojan name is Trojan.JS.Miner.d. When I see this trojan, I have to monkey around with…
123iamking
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