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G Costello
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#31for31

The story so far…

Happy Juneteenth - none of us are free until we’re all free ⛓️‍💥

#Juneteenth

Earth vs the Spider

1958

When a secret experiment unleashes a giant, web-spinning terror, humanity faces its deadliest predator yet. As panic spreads and the body count rises, only a handful of unlikely heroes stand between survival—and a world trapped in the spider’s deadly web.

#tldi #mutantfam #kinostr

https://archive.org/download/b082b7cb-e396-4a85-a213-b4f5de1bf505/Earth%20vs%20the%20Spider.mp4

nostr:nprofile1qqsrrnwckh0z7p5vkrskwpxm0wwqupkqfzu8x7q8jzq3ptphac5t8tgpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuem4vank2un09ehhyecpzfmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ucdfw3jt take my humble hash 🗡️💀

I still got it. Shredder don’t know what hit him.

Raph / 235 pts / #TMNT

A young college student arrives in a sleepy Massachusetts town to research witchcraft; during her stay at an eerie inn, she discovers a startling secret about the town and its inhabitants.

#kinostr

https://archive.org/download/the-city-of-the-dead-1960/The%20City%20of%20the%20Dead%20%281960%29.mp4

The City of the Dead

1960

#tldi #mutantfam #movienight

Walpurgisnacht vibes 2NITE! #tldi #mutantfam

nevent1qqsq88j4z6hed985dw30zpcu3yw64gf0v7mmfxyfk2atysppga82lzgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqsat90z

Replying to Avatar Bitman

In 2015, an eccentric millionaire placed bitcoins in weak addresses.

For years, the prize has been contested by bots, GPUs, and in the future, it is expected to be the first target of quantum attacks.

The individual's goal was to monitor the advancement of computational power capable of breaking Bitcoin keys.

These keys have up to 256 bits of entropy, which can be understood as the difficulty of discovering them. They are simply large numbers, on the order of 2²⁵⁶.

He then created 160 addresses, each with fewer bits of difficulty, from 1 to 160, and placed a few satoshis in each one, doubling the amount in the next.

The total prize reached nearly 1,000 BTC. There are still 916 BTC left to be claimed.

https://mempool.space/tx/08389f34c98c606322740c0be6a7125d9860bb8d5cb182c02f98461e5fa6cd15

The first few dozen addresses were quickly looted. There are bots monitoring the blockchain and stealing UTXOs that have some vulnerability — such as low entropy in the generation of the private key.

https://mempool.space/tx/0eb5b5c103e68eb0931430e7786cf1b6962f9eed5a2cb5271d4dd1699b77e86f

It was only at the end of 2015 that one of the owners of these bots noticed that the source of the bitcoins all came from a single transaction. He decided to share the discovery on the Bitcointalk forum, and that’s when more people began competing for the remaining prizes.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.0

In 2019, the creator exposed the public keys of some addresses (those with indexes ending in 0 or 5). This is done simply by moving the coins—the key appears in the transaction. With it, other methods can be used, making it easier to crack.

https://mempool.space/tx/17e4e323cfbc68d7f0071cad09364e8193eedf8fefbcbd8a21b4b65717a4b3d3

One of these methods is a very old algorithm from 1978:

Pollard's Kangaroo Algorithm — a clever trick used to find private keys when part of the keyspace is known. Imagine two kangaroos jumping across a number line, one tame and one wild, eventually landing on the same spot. It’s a classic in cryptography, and now it's being used to chase Bitcoin prizes.

Since then, several programs and even participant "pools" have emerged, all trying to crack the next address. "kowala24731" secured an investment in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent GPUs and managed to break addresses #67 and #68 in early April.

Yesterday, someone, probably a beginner, cracked address #69 but didn’t secure the spending properly and exposed the public key.

In a few seconds, some bots cracked the key and replaced the transaction, battling for the balance. The last one paid a total fee of 1.2M sats.

https://mempool.space/tx/a52c5046f3097a8c2bd3b9889df2fb47b104d47a16cc679d3357feec003db753

The time to crack these addresses — discovering the private key from the public key — is quite short. A GPU can do it in less than a minute.

That’s why those who crack the keys can't publish it to the network; they must send it directly to a miner to include it in a block (like Mara).

Among the addresses with exposed public keys, the record was 130 bits of entropy, set by "RetiredCoder," who also cracked other keys.

These addresses are likely serving as "canaries in the coal mine" for the attacks Bitcoin may face. As long as there are still hundreds of BTCs sitting in them, yours should be safe.

“If you’ve been wise and found the blaze,

Look quickly down, your quest to cease,

But tarry scant with marvel gaze,

Just take the chest and go in peace.”

~ Forrest Fenn

nevent1qqst73lu0uv2mszay4hlxqazw4fqddaceypd3tf5tmh2yd88aj2ayzcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgyewxwd