Author: Gregory Maxwell 2016-05-10 02:12:03
Published on: 2016-05-10T02:12:03+00:00
In an email conversation, Peter R pointed out that there are approximately 2^63 possible pairs in a set of 2^32 transactions and thus, you would have to perform roughly 2^63 comparisons to identify which pair of transactions collide. He questioned if he made an error or if there is a faster way to scan the set to find the collision. In response, the author provided two hash values generated using sha256sum and suggested searching for "collision" or an online data structures and algorithms course covering "cycle finding". The author also mentioned that even without efficient cycle finding, Peter R's factorial argument does not hold as the data can be simply sorted using an algorithm such as quicksort.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T23:21:25.823434+00:00