7 ms·

I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers. While it's possible this it

by blhack 5y ago

I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers. While it's possible this it he FBI flexing some muscle that they have a backdoor into bitcoin's hashing algorithm, what seems much more likely (to me) is: There is a more sophisticated hacking group which created this particular ransomware package. They sell this ransomware package to less sophisticated criminals. (https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428996/colonial-pipeline-ransomware-attack-apology-investigation https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428996/colonial-pipelin...) Is it so hard to imagine a scenario where the more advanced creators of this ransomware kit gave instructions to their purchasers on things like private keys, and the end user simply ignored them? Somebody ignoring a warning when installing a software, and that allowing the FBI to subpeona access to the server where it was running, and grab this private key, seems FAR more likely to me than the FBI having a backdoor into BTC, or this all being a cover spy novel plot, or anything like that.

wyager 5y ago
If the FBI has broke any of Secp256k1, SHA256, or RIPE160, (they have not) they’re not going to blow that on a $3M haul.
- onetimemanytime 5y ago
  They might be saving for bigger things, however this is a lot more than $3million. It's about holding the US economy hostage, as these will increase in frequency.
  - stingraycharles 5y ago
    How is this holding the US economy hostage?
    - kick_in_the_doo 5y ago
      Randomware attacks on energy (oil and potentially electric grid) and hospitals. And that's only what we've seen so far.
      - cdaven 5y ago
        "Randomware" sounds much more fun. Like Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, but for software. :-)
        arcticbull 5y ago
        You may know it as "undefined behavior" ;)
        kick_in_the_doo 5y ago
        XD
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    Indeed, stopping large-scale oil pipelines means US economy is held hostage, to a degree. Not all of it but some of it. Question is will it increase or not. This FBI action gives us some hope that criminals can be stopped.
    - 7dare 5y ago
      Can be stopped? Doesn't sound like this is what happened here, the company paying the ransom is what stopped the hostage. The FBI simply recovered the ransom (and some more), but probably can't cover for the economic damage from the hold-up.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fkfowl3 5y ago
  They just mention they had access to the private key of the account so that makes sense how they got access. If FBI has broken SHA256, then Bitcoin is a done deal. I hope they share how they got access to the private key.
  - donkarma 5y ago
    It'd be a big blow but not the end of the Bitcoin
    - flatiron 5y ago
      what do you mean? if they broke sha256 in any meaningful way then people can skip (or significantly game) the whole mining thing...
      - thebean11 5y ago
        The mining algorithm can just be changed with a hard fork. The only think that would irrevocably kill Bitcoin is breaking private keys (ie discovering others private keys, or signing transactions without private keys). A fork could not solve it as there'd be no way to prove which coins you actually owned before the fork.
        cyanydeez 5y ago
        many people speculate that quantum computing would crack private keys in no time. theres no speculation that this exists, but bitcoin wouldnt last in a commercial world of quantum algos
        dhsysusbsjsi 5y ago
        Wrong. IF there exists a general purpose formula (which isn't known yet) for all quantum problems, so secp256k1 is broken, then it would only reduce the complexity sqrt(N), from 2^256 down to 2^128. Which is unsolvable. (source: Stanford cryptography I course on coursera). AND even if the elliptic curve cryptography of bitcoin is broken, say you can solve it in a year/month/week/day, the fact is most BTC unspent transaction outputs (UTXO's) are scripted "pay to public key hash". The entity proving ownership of the UTXO needs to show a public key (that is so far unknown ... if they haven't reused this address before), AND this public key needs to hash into the address, AND the signature signed by the private key verified. So if somebody announced they had solved secp256k1 and could break it in 1 week, your funds are safe. (1) They probably don't know your public key. Relax. And (2) You just wait for the BTC soft fork to support new crypto, then do a transfer to yourself. You transmit your transaction to the mempool (exposing your public key for the first time), and it will be mined in 10-30 minutes. Not enough time for the hackers to monitor the mempool and come up with a valid signature. Then your new UTXO is a different spend script for how to spend it next time using some new unbreakable crypto.
erentz 5y ago
I mean we know the hack wasn’t sophisticated at all. It seems to me the hackers are opportunists, scanning for vulnerabilities and weak VPNs. People are confusing grunt work with sophistication. They would’ve used ransomware against any target that they breached that they thought could pay. Too young or too stupid to think through the consequences. Thread below indicates what happened is they were incredibly naive and eventually used a US exchange wallet. Just script kiddies really. https://twitter.com/intangiblecoins/status/1402073001189912577 https://twitter.com/intangiblecoins/status/14020730011899125...
- tapland 5y ago
  They use affiliate systems and provide ransomware (that someone else has probably delivered) to the people actually doing the breaches. It wasn't darkside planting the ransomware afaik, but it was someone wanting to get paid through their affiliate program.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  Most likely, that is why i'm convinced US will put regulation in place for "green miners" and "clean exchanges" so US based renewable miners are only allowed to sell and bring new clean bitcoins into circulation.
BrissyCoder 5y ago
> I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers. It's like if some dumbass was beating the crap out of people to steal their money and everyone in the boxing community was suprised that he's not a world class boxer.
coolspot 5y ago
It is also possible that criminals made themself look stupid and sacrificed a small part (~70 of 310 BTC) of monthly income to throw FBI a bone, so they can fuck off gracefully.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mrkramer 5y ago
They seized private key and if it was encrypted/hashed they cracked it. It could've Bitcoin brain wallet and they cracked the actual ASCII password of the wallet.
- avhwl 5y ago
  If the private key was hashed, and they only had the hash, then they could not crack it. Hashing is not the same as encryption.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    Hashing is for ensuring data integrity and encryption is for protection of data and information I know it but I meant hashing bitcoin private key with some hashing algorithm in order to conceal it.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    Second reply: I saw that you work in applied cryptography and blockchain technology @ Cryptography Services (NCC Group) so you might be familiar with somewhat Grey Hat russian forum InsidePro; back in the day I saw people there requesting Bitcoin private key recovery for their lost private keys or if they encrypted and/or hashed wallet private keys and couldn't recover plaintext anymore and I can say that amateur crackers could recover private keys pretty efficiently and I can only wonder what professional law enforcement agency can do. If FBI could crack smartphone encryption/protection from multi trillion dollar company I'm speaking about Apple and that terrorist's Iphone then they do pretty much anything.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      Can they travel faster than light?
      - mrkramer 5y ago
        I never heard of any criminal that's fast as light so they do not need to be faster than light in order to catch him.
avhwl 5y ago
A "backdoor in bitcoin's hashing algorithm" would not help them recover a private key. "bitcoin's hashing algorithm" is, for PoW, SHA256. The only relevant break for PoW would be a break in preimage resistance; this would allow the attacker to mine blocks faster, which does not allow them to calculate private keys. They could use that to mine an alternate history where the ransomware attack did not occur, but that would of course be immediately obvious. Preimage attacks tend to be much more rare than collision attacks. MD5 for example still has no publicly known practical preimage attacks.

by blhack 5y ago

wyager 5y ago

If the FBI has broke any of Secp256k1, SHA256, or RIPE160, (they have not) they’re not going to blow that on a $3M haul.

onetimemanytime 5y ago
They might be saving for bigger things, however this is a lot more than $3million. It's about holding the US economy hostage, as these will increase in frequency.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  How is this holding the US economy hostage?
  - kick_in_the_doo 5y ago
    Randomware attacks on energy (oil and potentially electric grid) and hospitals. And that's only what we've seen so far.
    - cdaven 5y ago
      "Randomware" sounds much more fun. Like Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, but for software. :-)
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        You may know it as "undefined behavior" ;)
      - kick_in_the_doo 5y ago
        XD
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  Indeed, stopping large-scale oil pipelines means US economy is held hostage, to a degree. Not all of it but some of it. Question is will it increase or not. This FBI action gives us some hope that criminals can be stopped.
  - 7dare 5y ago
    Can be stopped? Doesn't sound like this is what happened here, the company paying the ransom is what stopped the hostage. The FBI simply recovered the ransom (and some more), but probably can't cover for the economic damage from the hold-up.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fkfowl3 5y ago
They just mention they had access to the private key of the account so that makes sense how they got access. If FBI has broken SHA256, then Bitcoin is a done deal. I hope they share how they got access to the private key.
- donkarma 5y ago
  It'd be a big blow but not the end of the Bitcoin
  - flatiron 5y ago
    what do you mean? if they broke sha256 in any meaningful way then people can skip (or significantly game) the whole mining thing...
    - thebean11 5y ago
      The mining algorithm can just be changed with a hard fork. The only think that would irrevocably kill Bitcoin is breaking private keys (ie discovering others private keys, or signing transactions without private keys). A fork could not solve it as there'd be no way to prove which coins you actually owned before the fork.
      - cyanydeez 5y ago
        many people speculate that quantum computing would crack private keys in no time. theres no speculation that this exists, but bitcoin wouldnt last in a commercial world of quantum algos
        dhsysusbsjsi 5y ago
        Wrong. IF there exists a general purpose formula (which isn't known yet) for all quantum problems, so secp256k1 is broken, then it would only reduce the complexity sqrt(N), from 2^256 down to 2^128. Which is unsolvable. (source: Stanford cryptography I course on coursera). AND even if the elliptic curve cryptography of bitcoin is broken, say you can solve it in a year/month/week/day, the fact is most BTC unspent transaction outputs (UTXO's) are scripted "pay to public key hash". The entity proving ownership of the UTXO needs to show a public key (that is so far unknown ... if they haven't reused this address before), AND this public key needs to hash into the address, AND the signature signed by the private key verified. So if somebody announced they had solved secp256k1 and could break it in 1 week, your funds are safe. (1) They probably don't know your public key. Relax. And (2) You just wait for the BTC soft fork to support new crypto, then do a transfer to yourself. You transmit your transaction to the mempool (exposing your public key for the first time), and it will be mined in 10-30 minutes. Not enough time for the hackers to monitor the mempool and come up with a valid signature. Then your new UTXO is a different spend script for how to spend it next time using some new unbreakable crypto.

erentz 5y ago

I mean we know the hack wasn’t sophisticated at all. It seems to me the hackers are opportunists, scanning for vulnerabilities and weak VPNs. People are confusing grunt work with sophistication. They would’ve used ransomware against any target that they breached that they thought could pay. Too young or too stupid to think through the consequences. Thread below indicates what happened is they were incredibly naive and eventually used a US exchange wallet. Just script kiddies really. https://twitter.com/intangiblecoins/status/1402073001189912577 https://twitter.com/intangiblecoins/status/14020730011899125...

tapland 5y ago
They use affiliate systems and provide ransomware (that someone else has probably delivered) to the people actually doing the breaches. It wasn't darkside planting the ransomware afaik, but it was someone wanting to get paid through their affiliate program.
dragonelite 5y ago
Most likely, that is why i'm convinced US will put regulation in place for "green miners" and "clean exchanges" so US based renewable miners are only allowed to sell and bring new clean bitcoins into circulation.

BrissyCoder 5y ago

> I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers. It's like if some dumbass was beating the crap out of people to steal their money and everyone in the boxing community was suprised that he's not a world class boxer.

coolspot 5y ago

It is also possible that criminals made themself look stupid and sacrificed a small part (~70 of 310 BTC) of monthly income to throw FBI a bone, so they can fuck off gracefully.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mrkramer 5y ago

They seized private key and if it was encrypted/hashed they cracked it. It could've Bitcoin brain wallet and they cracked the actual ASCII password of the wallet.

avhwl 5y ago
If the private key was hashed, and they only had the hash, then they could not crack it. Hashing is not the same as encryption.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  Hashing is for ensuring data integrity and encryption is for protection of data and information I know it but I meant hashing bitcoin private key with some hashing algorithm in order to conceal it.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  Second reply: I saw that you work in applied cryptography and blockchain technology @ Cryptography Services (NCC Group) so you might be familiar with somewhat Grey Hat russian forum InsidePro; back in the day I saw people there requesting Bitcoin private key recovery for their lost private keys or if they encrypted and/or hashed wallet private keys and couldn't recover plaintext anymore and I can say that amateur crackers could recover private keys pretty efficiently and I can only wonder what professional law enforcement agency can do. If FBI could crack smartphone encryption/protection from multi trillion dollar company I'm speaking about Apple and that terrorist's Iphone then they do pretty much anything.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    Can they travel faster than light?
    - mrkramer 5y ago
      I never heard of any criminal that's fast as light so they do not need to be faster than light in order to catch him.

avhwl 5y ago

A "backdoor in bitcoin's hashing algorithm" would not help them recover a private key. "bitcoin's hashing algorithm" is, for PoW, SHA256. The only relevant break for PoW would be a break in preimage resistance; this would allow the attacker to mine blocks faster, which does not allow them to calculate private keys. They could use that to mine an alternate history where the ransomware attack did not occur, but that would of course be immediately obvious. Preimage attacks tend to be much more rare than collision attacks. MD5 for example still has no publicly known practical preimage attacks.