[Tutor] All possible 16 character alphanumeric strings?

[akleider at sonic.net]

> Akleider, you didn't include attribution for the person you are quoting,
> which is a bit rude and also means I can't be sure who it was. From
> context, I *think* it is the original poster Scott:
>
> On 16/09/12 13:06, akleider at sonic.net wrote:
>>> I'm using this to write a program I'm calling TORdialer with the goal
>>> of
>>> attempting to basically ping all possible TOR hidden service pages with
>>> the goal of having an absolutely complete list of all TOR hidden
>>> services
>>> on the net right now.
>
> Did you really think that when a group of really smart security and
> network
> experts sit down to design a protocol for hiding services from discovery,
> that it would actually be vulnerable to a programming beginner who just
> lists out all the possible sites and pings them? And the TOR designers
> didn't think of that?
>
> I'm sorry if this comes across as condescending, but it's kinda cute that
> you thought this was viable. TOR is designed to be resistant to discovery
> from people with the full resources of the United States and Chinese
> governments. Believe me, they already considered the "brute force attack"
> where you list out every possible address.
>
> If every person in the world runs their own TOR hidden network, then the
> chances of you pinging *even one* by accident is about 1 in
> 172703688516375.
> If your TORdialer program could ping a million addresses per second, you
> would need to run it non-stop for over five years just to find *one*
> address.
>
> "An absolutely complete list"... oh my stars and garters.
>
> (Remember those maths classes on permutations and combinations that you
> probably thought were totally pointless? *This* is why they're important.)
>
>
>
> --
> Steven

I do sincerely apologize for anything that was rude. Please believe me, it
was not my intent to be so.

I also apologize for in any way contributing to anything that might be
considered nefarious.  I did not appreciate that the goal of the exercise
was less than honourable.

My interest in this had only to do with how one might come up with all
possible x length strings consisting only of a predefined set of
characters.
Why one might want to do this, was of no interest to me at the time; in
fact I didn't understand what the goal was and I appreciate your
explaining that to me.

Might I also take this opportunity to thank you and all the other
contributers on this mailing list for the friendly helpful place I have
found this list to be.

Sincerely, Alex Kleider