Reading assignment: Hashing

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#2131
  1. The hashing algorithm is called SHA-256 bit.
  2. It is almost impossible because you’d have to pick up a random input, hash it and then compare the output with the target hash and repeat until you find a match. If computation is slow on it’s part. It would take massive time to find an output.
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#2132

Liked the way you worded the answer Dextro. Helped me understand it a bit more.

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#2133

SHA-256

It is nearly impossible due to the slightest changes to the input drastically effect the output. There are also so many variables that it would take an immense amount of luck and time to use brute force.

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#2134
  1. What is the hashing algorithm called used in Bitcoin? SHA-256
  2. Why is this hashing algorithm really hard (almost impossible) to brute-force? too many combinations that the odds are not worth the taking on the brute-force method.
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#2135

  1. What is the hashing algorithm called used in Bitcoin? SHA-256

  2. Why is this hashing algorithm really hard (almost impossible) to brute-force? Because of the level of encryption and the current computing power available is not sufficient to do it in any reasonable amount of time. My understanding so far.

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#2136

Hey Alko, i really appreciate it. Now I’ll go learn what difficulty levels are and the actual mining process. Thanks for the correction. I understand in a very very vague conceptual way. I’ll fill in the blanks.
Do you know of any simple step by step videos on the mining process by chance?

#2137

SHA 256.

There is so much data that it would take a very long time to brute-force the hashing algorithm.

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#2138

:thinking: not for mining, but I remembered this old video that calculates a hash by hand:


this is one round of hashing :slight_smile:
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#2139
  1. What is the hashing algorithm called used in Bitcoin? SHA-256
  2. Why is this hashing algorithm really hard (almost impossible) to brute-force? There is to much data to compute
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#2140
  1. SHA-526
  2. Its extremely difficult due to the amount of possibilities vs time to calculate them all.
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#2141

1-sha 256
2-takes a long time

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#2142

  1. What is the hashing algorithm called used in Bitcoin?
    SHA-256

  2. Why is this hashing algorithm really hard (almost impossible) to brute-force?
    Because of a very large amount of probability

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#2143
  1. Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm.
  2. The SHA-256 hashing algorithm is really hard to brute-force because:
    It’s pre-image resistant - you have to try 2^127 = 1.7 X 10^38 times to crack the hash
    Small Changes In The Input Changes the Hash
    Collision Resistant - each input will have its own unique hash
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#2144
  1. SHA-256
  2. The difficulty finding the input and output will take so long, its infeasible.
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#2145
  1. Sha-256 is the hashing algo that BTC uses
  2. It would need a huge number of random guesses for a 256 hash as there are so many possibilities, which is impractical and time costly.
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#2146
  1. What is the hashing algorithm called used in Bitcoin?
    SHA-256
  2. Why is this hashing algorithm really hard (almost impossible) to brute-force?
    Because it is a one way transform. You cannot guess from the output. And the length it quite big. In addition to that these blocks are chained. If you want to change it you need to change the majority in a short amount of time.
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#2147

Hashing in itself has nothing to do with mining, mining is the process that utilizes hash functions to link blocks :slight_smile:

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#2148

SHA-256

Because the number of possible hashes is so high, that it would take an extremely long time to find the right one by random chance.

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#2149
  1. SHA-256
  2. The sheer size of the number of times you have to guess to find the input. With computing, it is possible, but is very difficult and takes a long time.
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#2150
  1. SHA-256
  2. This is difficult to brute force because a change of a single character in the input string will results in a different output string with 256 characters. This makes it infeasible to discover the original input based only on the output string.
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