Gavin Andresen - 2010-11-03 20:26:28

@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext}
That's not right-- the person paying you doesn't know your public key, they just know your bitcoin address (which is a 160-bit hash of your public key).

You can (and I have) send bitcoins to ANY 160-bit bitcoin address, whether or not there actually is a public/private keypair corresponding to that address.