I believe this question exhibits a lack of understanding of what "mining" Bitcoins means. Or possibly how Bitcoin works. Or both.<p>Mining Bitcoins is simply a search for an SHA256 hash matching a certain set of criteria. The mining hardware could theoretically be used to search for hash collisions faster than previously existing hardware, but that is of limited utility in the scenario of trying to find a specific hash collision (i.e. one that allows you to decrypt a file or login to a system) rather than one that meets certain qualifications (but doesn't have to be an exact match for one unique hash).<p>The set of possible values is <i>so large</i> that even the next generation of ASIC mining hardware (which will continue the exponential growth of worldwide hashing power) would require hundred or thousands of years (I don't know the specifics and can't be bothered to find the numbers with specificity), on average, to find a specific hash. SHA256 is still strong, even assuming a vastly larger pool of searching machines.<p>In short: Bitcoin mining is not "cracking" SHA256. It's gambling on finding a hash that has one specific (rare, but not even close to unique) characteristic. Finding one, just like winning at poker or at the roulette wheel, does not make the next round easier.
Slightly. Bitcoin mining encourages people to build SHA256 crackers. It's not inconceivable that these things could be repurposed to attack other types of SHA256 attacks besides those relevant to the BTC block chain.
I usually find stackexchange's discussions more than ample. There are many sites whose comment system and content could use a re-hashing by HN's nerdery, but stackexchange isn't one of them. (Unless we are playing the wayback game of re-posting a question from several years ago).
Yes. Sorta. Depends if you believe that the NSA is responsible for creating bitcoin as a means to get millions of CPU resources for free, which could be used to crack SHA and to track the comings and goings of criminals.<p>It is not so far fetched. Since we don't know who really created it, and we know that for something that the government should have been very "anti" and yet seem to have left it alone.<p>I am not one for conspiracies, but if it walks like a duck, and you haven't heard it make a noise who is to say it isn't a duck?