<p>Way too fast.
It's only 4,294,967,296 combinations for 32 bit and 65,536 for a 16 bit. I assume it can be cracked in seconds/minutes by a high-grade consumer laptop.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The resources required for a brute-force attack grow exponentially with increasing key size, not linearly.</a></p>
<p>I would also suggest reading the <a href="https://medium.com/@johncantrell97/how-i-checked-over-1-trillion-mnemonics-in-30-hours-to-win-a-bitcoin-635fe051a752" rel="nofollow noreferrer">article</a> about breaking mnemonic seed where author had to calculate S<code>HA-256, SHA-512, RIPEMD-160, EC Addition, EC Multiplication</code> in every iteration and he was able to check ~143,000 mnemonics per second.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T00:53:56.400Z
By high grade; what should be the criteria of the laptop? And are there any specific numbers in minutes or seconds that we're looking at?
Dave Kent 
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T06:20:03.527Z
This depends far more on exactly what encryption scheme is being used than on the CPU.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T07:10:58.910Z
One can say the encryption scheme I'm going with is actually brute force. Does this still change the speed at which the bits are processed?
Dave Kent 
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T07:32:12.390Z
That makes no sense. Brute force is a mechanism for breaking encryption. You still haven't revealed anything about the scheme you're breaking.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T10:30:15.070Z
"`article about breaking mnemonic`" There is no encryption in BIP-39
Coding Enthusiast
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-08T23:52:47.687Z
2020-10-08T23:52:47.687Z
Tony Sanak
<p>I was actually wondering...
How long would it take to crack/brute force a 32 bit key/encryption and a 16 bit key/encryptions respectively?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T03:18:54.810Z
I’m voting to close this question because it is better suited for crypto.stackexchange.com
Raghav Sood
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T07:17:49.117Z
And why did you actually do that... It's not ethical in any way... Don't you know that all Stackexchange websites are interwoven in a way that anyone can find an answer in just a search on any of their platforms... So what is actually your intention? For this question to be closed irrelevantly because you think it's "Suitable" for a section of this platform...  I'm PISSED.
Dave Kent 
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-09T07:31:14.307Z
@Dave Kent Please stay polite. We're not telling off, and people are even answering your question regardless. But this question is unrelated to Bitcoin, and you should post it on crypto.stackexchange.con - you'll get much better answers there too.
Pieter Wuille
<encryption>
How long would it take to break a 32 bit key / encryption
Dave Kent 
# How long would it take to break a 32 bit key / encryption

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-10-08)

I was actually wondering...
How long would it take to crack/brute force a 32 bit key/encryption and a 16 bit key/encryptions respectively?

**Tags:** encryption

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I’m voting to close this question because it is better suited for crypto.stackexchange.com  
> **username_0**: And why did you actually do that... It's not ethical in any way... Don't you know that all Stackexchange websites are interwoven in a way that anyone can find an answer in just a search on any of their platforms... So what is actually your intention? For this question to be closed irrelevantly because you think it's "Suitable" for a section of this platform...  I'm PISSED.  
> **username_2**: @username_0Please stay polite. We're not telling off, and people are even answering your question regardless. But this question is unrelated to Bitcoin, and you should post it on crypto.stackexchange.con - you'll get much better answers there too.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-10-08. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

Way too fast.
It's only 4,294,967,296 combinations for 32 bit and 65,536 for a 16 bit. I assume it can be cracked in seconds/minutes by a high-grade consumer laptop.

[The resources required for a brute-force attack grow exponentially with increasing key size, not linearly.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack)

I would also suggest reading the [article](https://medium.com/@johncantrell97/how-i-checked-over-1-trillion-mnemonics-in-30-hours-to-win-a-bitcoin-635fe051a752) about breaking mnemonic seed where author had to calculate S`HA-256, SHA-512, RIPEMD-160, EC Addition, EC Multiplication` in every iteration and he was able to check ~143,000 mnemonics per second.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: By high grade; what should be the criteria of the laptop? And are there any specific numbers in minutes or seconds that we're looking at?  
> **username_2**: This depends far more on exactly what encryption scheme is being used than on the CPU.  
> **username_0**: One can say the encryption scheme I'm going with is actually brute force. Does this still change the speed at which the bits are processed?  
> **username_2**: That makes no sense. Brute force is a mechanism for breaking encryption. You still haven't revealed anything about the scheme you're breaking.  
> **username_4**: "`article about breaking mnemonic`" There is no encryption in BIP-39  

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