8 ms·

Kryptology: Coinbase’s Open Source Cryptography Library

166 points by darccio 5y ago

VHRanger 5y ago
There's a massive implicit bug bounty here: 1. Find a bug in this library and write up a proof of concept 2. Shortsell $COIN 3. Publish 1 Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know
- beefield 5y ago
  You make a relatively bold assumption there that valuation of anything crypto-related would have any connection to reality whatsoever.
- thebean11 5y ago
  That hinges on the bug being serious and exploitable
  - numbsafari 5y ago
    Depends. If the market moves on the news and you are able to close your position before people have fully assessed the risk, then maybe it’s more about the marketing.
    - cosmojg 5y ago
      The market is all about marketing!
- qvrjuec 5y ago
  I thought the implicit bug bounty was using any exploit to drain coins yourself
  - andruby 5y ago
    That would not be legal afaik. Whereas shorting + publishing probably is legal.
    - Jerrrry 5y ago
      Code is law. If your private key was made using a compromised RNG, and I find and derive the key, I am just as ethically, morally, and legally entitled to invoke whatever function I please. After all, you can't make it illegal for people to yell prime numbers. That is all stealing bitcoin amounts to, is expression/possession of a very specific set of numbers, and a system that incentivises hearing, verifying, and repeating those numbers.
      - heyitsguay 5y ago
        Clearly, we must augment these computational systems with a social mechanism by which experts on system rules can interpret their intent and make judgements when things go awry. To make it fair when there's a problem, we could even let each party have their own rule experts make their cases before an impartial third party rule expert!
      - lxgr 5y ago
        Every message you can send on the internet is "just numbers" at the lowest layer. Aren‘t you essentially arguing that it‘s somehow inherently impossible to commit crimes using telecommunication networks?
        Jerrrry 5y ago
        yes. I think it is actually an extension of the first amendment, a more admitted liberal thought.
      - tomc1985 5y ago
        Given that humans seem incapable of writing bug-free code, 'code is law' seems like a power grab by the intellectually-inclined to exploit more germaine users without end. So perhaps it is better to think of code as 'intent'.
- bardworx 5y ago
  I believe around February ‘20, a large Microsoft security issue was revealed, their stock was up 2%. A counter example would be Ubiquity that did drop, after the article by Krebs was released. Generally, bugs, even catastrophic ones can be an excuse to sell a position but never cause a sell-off. At least that has been my observation.
  - elpakal 5y ago
    Anecdotal but I feel like investors in equities are probably pretty different than investors Krypto.
    - bardworx 5y ago
      You’re not wrong.
  - TecoAndJix 5y ago
    SolarWinds tanked after their news and still have not recovered
    - bardworx 5y ago
      I mean, they had a forward P/E ration of like 22, which was overvalued. They’re a more respectable 13x, it seems. But that’s the idea…SWI was overvalued, and when the hack came, they sold off. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that any overvalued company will sell off on bad news but “good” companies will hardly budge. P.S. I do believe that Coinbase would sell off on similar news, for a myriad of reasons. But I’ve been wrong enough times that I wouldn’t put money on it.
  - rubyn00bie 5y ago
    Cryptocurrency is a different type of asset than a stock when it comes to (technical) security problems and thus has a vastly different risk profile than a stock. If Microsoft has a security issue, it _may_ affect _some_ users, they are still generating revenue and likely have insurance to cover some of the worst possible situations. Courts provide ways to assist in the real life "undo" button. There is no (technical) security issue, I am aware of, Microsoft could encounter that would cause it to immediately fold without nearly fathomable levels of coordinated negligence or World War against Microsoft. If cryptocurrencies have a security issue, the entire asset can be irreversibly destroyed with _nothing_ of value left over. Imagine a cryptocurrency called $41TC01N (ShitCoin) has a zero-day that allows any wallet to be trivially compromised, by the time people take action or even understand the nature of the issue-- the attacker could have emptied and exchanged nearly every wallet on the network. The ones left with funds would be worth nothing, because the value has been irreversibly transferred outta the asset. There was a cryptocurrency of some kind recently that is only in existence because the hacker graciously gave it back. Like, I'm pretty sure, long-term decentralized currencies aren't going to end up as cool as people think they are... distributed ledgers might be, for archival purposes, but like... I ain't seen anything even mildly useful but crappy-DRM, err my bad, I mean NFTs be executed on the blockchain.
- Havoc 5y ago
  People keep making the bug bounty joke, but I think there is a certain survival of the fittest type improvement inherent in it though. Or put differently banks could do with a bit of that type of "beef up your systems or burn" pressure. >Which I don't think is even illegal? Probably not illegal. A lot of the crypto stuff that gets nailed has an implicit attempt to deceive/pyramid scheme it. Straight up short sellers...hell that's legal even on stock exchange...assuming the info is solid enough that you don't get sued to oblivion.
  - toolz 5y ago
    > hell that's legal even on stock exchange Just want to point out that there is a lot that happens in the SEC regulated stock exchange that appears to not even be attempted to be corrected. Naked shorting is still happening all the time, for example.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  We read this on every single crypto hack thread.
- dmoy 5y ago
  > Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know I personally would not want to pay the legal bill necessary to convince the SEC of this fact, if it is even true.
  - lallysingh 5y ago
    I don't think these are with their purview
    - Cullinet 5y ago
      Regulation is by invitation by the banks who begged the government to create the SEC to stop the run on banks I think of 1896, just before the start of last century anyway.
- tzs 5y ago
  > Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know The material nonpublic information I'd expect is that the the write up is going to be published.
  - Retric 5y ago
    The underlying information is public knowledge even if nobody understands it. It’s no different than any other kind of analysis of public information, the only risk is stock market manipulation. But the SEC has already decided that short sellers can do this kind of analysis and publish it.
- cosmojg 5y ago
  Of course it's legal! Shortselling exists to incentivize this sort of creative destruction.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    yes i love that episode of netflix’s dirty money - if through private investigation you find evidence of wrong doing you’re totally entitled to the profits of short selling, great incentive, if only we could fund more journalism this way
noch 5y ago
The repo: https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology
staticassertion 5y ago
Interesting. I hadn't heard of FROST or Threshold Signing. It would be helpful to have example use cases divorced from their use cases and focused specifically on how to use these techniques.
iechoz6H 5y ago
The API [1] is not as extensive as I'd hoped. 1. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/blob/master/api/README.md https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/blob/master/api/READM...
- eatonphil 5y ago
  There aren't many examples either. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/examples https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/examples
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
eatonphil 5y ago
The blog post mentions this project has been audited but it doesn't seem like there are any links to the audit(s). Did I miss it?
edoceo 5y ago
Yea but, have you seen libsodium? It's actually good.
- technion 5y ago
  I don't believe this library exists in the same space. If you consider this sort of function, I don't believe you'll see equivalents in libsodium. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/pkg/tecdsa/gg20 https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/pkg/tecds...
  - edoceo 5y ago
    Correct, that's not in libsodium.
onebot 5y ago
I am a little surprised this isn't in Rust or C.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

166 points by darccio 5y ago

There's a massive implicit bug bounty here: 1. Find a bug in this library and write up a proof of concept 2. Shortsell $COIN 3. Publish 1 Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know

beefield 5y ago
You make a relatively bold assumption there that valuation of anything crypto-related would have any connection to reality whatsoever.
thebean11 5y ago
That hinges on the bug being serious and exploitable
- numbsafari 5y ago
  Depends. If the market moves on the news and you are able to close your position before people have fully assessed the risk, then maybe it’s more about the marketing.
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    The market is all about marketing!
qvrjuec 5y ago
I thought the implicit bug bounty was using any exploit to drain coins yourself
- andruby 5y ago
  That would not be legal afaik. Whereas shorting + publishing probably is legal.
  - Jerrrry 5y ago
    Code is law. If your private key was made using a compromised RNG, and I find and derive the key, I am just as ethically, morally, and legally entitled to invoke whatever function I please. After all, you can't make it illegal for people to yell prime numbers. That is all stealing bitcoin amounts to, is expression/possession of a very specific set of numbers, and a system that incentivises hearing, verifying, and repeating those numbers.
    - heyitsguay 5y ago
      Clearly, we must augment these computational systems with a social mechanism by which experts on system rules can interpret their intent and make judgements when things go awry. To make it fair when there's a problem, we could even let each party have their own rule experts make their cases before an impartial third party rule expert!
    - lxgr 5y ago
      Every message you can send on the internet is "just numbers" at the lowest layer. Aren‘t you essentially arguing that it‘s somehow inherently impossible to commit crimes using telecommunication networks?
      - Jerrrry 5y ago
        yes. I think it is actually an extension of the first amendment, a more admitted liberal thought.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      Given that humans seem incapable of writing bug-free code, 'code is law' seems like a power grab by the intellectually-inclined to exploit more germaine users without end. So perhaps it is better to think of code as 'intent'.
bardworx 5y ago
I believe around February ‘20, a large Microsoft security issue was revealed, their stock was up 2%. A counter example would be Ubiquity that did drop, after the article by Krebs was released. Generally, bugs, even catastrophic ones can be an excuse to sell a position but never cause a sell-off. At least that has been my observation.
- elpakal 5y ago
  Anecdotal but I feel like investors in equities are probably pretty different than investors Krypto.
  - bardworx 5y ago
    You’re not wrong.
- TecoAndJix 5y ago
  SolarWinds tanked after their news and still have not recovered
  - bardworx 5y ago
    I mean, they had a forward P/E ration of like 22, which was overvalued. They’re a more respectable 13x, it seems. But that’s the idea…SWI was overvalued, and when the hack came, they sold off. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that any overvalued company will sell off on bad news but “good” companies will hardly budge. P.S. I do believe that Coinbase would sell off on similar news, for a myriad of reasons. But I’ve been wrong enough times that I wouldn’t put money on it.
- rubyn00bie 5y ago
  Cryptocurrency is a different type of asset than a stock when it comes to (technical) security problems and thus has a vastly different risk profile than a stock. If Microsoft has a security issue, it _may_ affect _some_ users, they are still generating revenue and likely have insurance to cover some of the worst possible situations. Courts provide ways to assist in the real life "undo" button. There is no (technical) security issue, I am aware of, Microsoft could encounter that would cause it to immediately fold without nearly fathomable levels of coordinated negligence or World War against Microsoft. If cryptocurrencies have a security issue, the entire asset can be irreversibly destroyed with _nothing_ of value left over. Imagine a cryptocurrency called $41TC01N (ShitCoin) has a zero-day that allows any wallet to be trivially compromised, by the time people take action or even understand the nature of the issue-- the attacker could have emptied and exchanged nearly every wallet on the network. The ones left with funds would be worth nothing, because the value has been irreversibly transferred outta the asset. There was a cryptocurrency of some kind recently that is only in existence because the hacker graciously gave it back. Like, I'm pretty sure, long-term decentralized currencies aren't going to end up as cool as people think they are... distributed ledgers might be, for archival purposes, but like... I ain't seen anything even mildly useful but crappy-DRM, err my bad, I mean NFTs be executed on the blockchain.
Havoc 5y ago
People keep making the bug bounty joke, but I think there is a certain survival of the fittest type improvement inherent in it though. Or put differently banks could do with a bit of that type of "beef up your systems or burn" pressure. >Which I don't think is even illegal? Probably not illegal. A lot of the crypto stuff that gets nailed has an implicit attempt to deceive/pyramid scheme it. Straight up short sellers...hell that's legal even on stock exchange...assuming the info is solid enough that you don't get sued to oblivion.
- toolz 5y ago
  > hell that's legal even on stock exchange Just want to point out that there is a lot that happens in the SEC regulated stock exchange that appears to not even be attempted to be corrected. Naked shorting is still happening all the time, for example.
cinntaile 5y ago
We read this on every single crypto hack thread.
dmoy 5y ago
> Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know I personally would not want to pay the legal bill necessary to convince the SEC of this fact, if it is even true.
- lallysingh 5y ago
  I don't think these are with their purview
  - Cullinet 5y ago
    Regulation is by invitation by the banks who begged the government to create the SEC to stop the run on banks I think of 1896, just before the start of last century anyway.
tzs 5y ago
> Which I don't think is even illegal? It's all open source and public information so you're not trading on material nonpulic information that I know The material nonpublic information I'd expect is that the the write up is going to be published.
- Retric 5y ago
  The underlying information is public knowledge even if nobody understands it. It’s no different than any other kind of analysis of public information, the only risk is stock market manipulation. But the SEC has already decided that short sellers can do this kind of analysis and publish it.
cosmojg 5y ago
Of course it's legal! Shortselling exists to incentivize this sort of creative destruction.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  yes i love that episode of netflix’s dirty money - if through private investigation you find evidence of wrong doing you’re totally entitled to the profits of short selling, great incentive, if only we could fund more journalism this way

noch 5y ago

The repo: https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology

staticassertion 5y ago

Interesting. I hadn't heard of FROST or Threshold Signing. It would be helpful to have example use cases divorced from their use cases and focused specifically on how to use these techniques.

iechoz6H 5y ago

The API [1] is not as extensive as I'd hoped. 1. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/blob/master/api/README.md https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/blob/master/api/READM...

eatonphil 5y ago
There aren't many examples either. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/examples https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/examples
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

eatonphil 5y ago

The blog post mentions this project has been audited but it doesn't seem like there are any links to the audit(s). Did I miss it?

edoceo 5y ago

Yea but, have you seen libsodium? It's actually good.

technion 5y ago
I don't believe this library exists in the same space. If you consider this sort of function, I don't believe you'll see equivalents in libsodium. https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/pkg/tecdsa/gg20 https://github.com/coinbase/kryptology/tree/master/pkg/tecds...
- edoceo 5y ago
  Correct, that's not in libsodium.

onebot 5y ago

I am a little surprised this isn't in Rust or C.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]