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The real problem in Web3 (as EVM does it) is that almost all wallets lets you export your private keys. This leads to a lot of scams that trap people. Got rugpu

by EGreg 5y ago

The real problem in Web3 (as EVM does it) is that almost all wallets lets you export your private keys. This leads to a lot of scams that trap people. Got rugpulled? Joined Metamask chat on Telegram? Hi, I’m an admin. Just paste your 12 word phrase into this official-looking site and we’ll help you. There’s even a site that will generate vanity addresses for you! (Don’t use it.) Instead, all this could have been avoided if they took the Keybase approach: keys never leave the device. Just have a keychain of devices which you authorize or repudiate, and use THAT to retrieve your actual accounts from the network and sign things. This would work best with BLS signatures without a trusted dealer. I am not sure it can work with ECDSA or Shnorr signatures if you want to collapse all multisigs down to one signature.

jsemrau 5y ago
Identity and Authentication are related but separate topics. Identification is uniquely associate a user in a system or application while Authentication is proving that this identity is yours.
arbol 5y ago
This can easily be solved with multi Sig wallets
- EGreg 5y ago
  Yes, those are better at least. But only if “this” is your individual use case, not if “this” is the general state of crypto custody in EVM ecosystem. People think they need fancy airgapped computers and hardware wallets when all they need is to copy their 12 word phrase three times on paper, cut into 9 pieces and bury in 9 different places. Better yet —- wallets normally shouldn’t allow people to export keys.
Sargos 5y ago
>Instead, all this could have been avoided if they took the Keybase approach: keys never leave the device. Just have a keychain of devices which you authorize or repudiate, and use THAT to retrieve your actual accounts from the network and sign things. This is what modern smart contract wallets like Argent do. There is no 24 word phrase or long private key to write down, remember or lose. Instead you set up guardians which is a group of people, organizations, and devices you create that allow you to recover your account if you drop your phone in the ocean so there's no practical way you can lose your money or identity. An example guardian setup might be your mom, best friend, lawyer, your hardware wallet and a distributed paper wallet. To recover your wallet you would need 3 out of the 5 to agree. The number of guardians and other details can be as secure and exotic as you desire. The account is also protected by configurable safeguards that mimic your existing bank account. Sending over $500/day? Guardians must approve. Your tokens or NFTs are being sent to a non-white listed address? Guardians must approve. The crypto ecosystem is still in the early phases of being built but these problems and ideas have already been discussed and debated for years and the foundational infrastructure that people will end up using in the real world is being built and deployed today after years of hard work. Using crypto today is a lot like using the internet in the early nineties: it was hard, easy to break, and you generally had to be good at cutting your teeth on new and quickly evolving tech. Nowadays you mostly just forget you're using it.
- lottin 5y ago
  > you set up guardians which is a group of people, organizations, and devices you create that allow you to recover your account And you call this an improvement over the current state of affairs?
  - PretzelPirate 5y ago
    This provide you the choice of who (if anyone) you want to trust. You can choose to only use yourself as a guardian, a group of family members/friends, a set of financial institutions, or a mix of all of those. You can set it up so that it’s very hard for individuals or governments to take control of your assets.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Yes? I think so? The problem is that this model is basically impossible with the current level of fees on ethereum. It isn't clear to me what the solution to that is supposed to be.
    - EGreg 5y ago
      The solution should be to not use monolithic blockchains, at least not for key management :) Look at Sidetree protocol for instance
    - lottin 5y ago
      If I understand correctly, you're proposing that we trust a set of individuals and hope that they'll cooperate when asked to, instead of relying on a single party which can be made to cooperate whether they like or not by the judicial system. That doesn't seem like an improvement to me.
      - olah_1 5y ago
        > we trust a set of individuals and hope that they'll cooperate when asked to Yes, in most cultures these individuals are called “family” or “friends”. It’s a rare concept in the crypto world though, yes.
Grimburger 5y ago
> There’s even a site that will generate vanity addresses for you! (Don’t use it.) Asymmetric split key generation is a well understood cryptographic technique, sure, don't trust a service that just spits one out but if you give them a public key to use in generation then you can verify the result only works with the paired private key you control. Nitty gritty of the elliptical curve cryptography involved: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81865.msg901491#msg901491 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81865.msg901491#msg9... https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/75523 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/75523
sanderjd 5y ago
Intriguing. How do you do backups of your keybase keys? My understanding is that this is the purpose of being able to export private keys for blockchains.
- EGreg 5y ago
  Just replace the backup with what I said: an “account” you pre-created, which you don’t use until you need it. You can create N “accounts” which are not tied to devices. In fact, that would also be good for a quotum to “outvote” whoever found M devices, to repudiate them. (Otherwise it would have been a stalemate.) Using “virtual accounts” you can bootstrap from one private key + U of V keys from a set that you gave to friends + family, to reconstitute your account should something go wrong and you lose ALL your devices. So, just to be clear: either a private key is stored in a device, or it would have to be paired with U of V other keys that you gave out, in order to activate a new device one time with that key. But the real provisioning and repudiation of keys would be in a smart contract on the blockchain. That is — pardon the pun — the key to the whole thing :)

by EGreg 5y ago

jsemrau 5y ago

Identity and Authentication are related but separate topics. Identification is uniquely associate a user in a system or application while Authentication is proving that this identity is yours.

arbol 5y ago

This can easily be solved with multi Sig wallets

EGreg 5y ago
Yes, those are better at least. But only if “this” is your individual use case, not if “this” is the general state of crypto custody in EVM ecosystem. People think they need fancy airgapped computers and hardware wallets when all they need is to copy their 12 word phrase three times on paper, cut into 9 pieces and bury in 9 different places. Better yet —- wallets normally shouldn’t allow people to export keys.

Sargos 5y ago

>Instead, all this could have been avoided if they took the Keybase approach: keys never leave the device. Just have a keychain of devices which you authorize or repudiate, and use THAT to retrieve your actual accounts from the network and sign things. This is what modern smart contract wallets like Argent do. There is no 24 word phrase or long private key to write down, remember or lose. Instead you set up guardians which is a group of people, organizations, and devices you create that allow you to recover your account if you drop your phone in the ocean so there's no practical way you can lose your money or identity. An example guardian setup might be your mom, best friend, lawyer, your hardware wallet and a distributed paper wallet. To recover your wallet you would need 3 out of the 5 to agree. The number of guardians and other details can be as secure and exotic as you desire. The account is also protected by configurable safeguards that mimic your existing bank account. Sending over $500/day? Guardians must approve. Your tokens or NFTs are being sent to a non-white listed address? Guardians must approve. The crypto ecosystem is still in the early phases of being built but these problems and ideas have already been discussed and debated for years and the foundational infrastructure that people will end up using in the real world is being built and deployed today after years of hard work. Using crypto today is a lot like using the internet in the early nineties: it was hard, easy to break, and you generally had to be good at cutting your teeth on new and quickly evolving tech. Nowadays you mostly just forget you're using it.

lottin 5y ago
> you set up guardians which is a group of people, organizations, and devices you create that allow you to recover your account And you call this an improvement over the current state of affairs?
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  This provide you the choice of who (if anyone) you want to trust. You can choose to only use yourself as a guardian, a group of family members/friends, a set of financial institutions, or a mix of all of those. You can set it up so that it’s very hard for individuals or governments to take control of your assets.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Yes? I think so? The problem is that this model is basically impossible with the current level of fees on ethereum. It isn't clear to me what the solution to that is supposed to be.
  - EGreg 5y ago
    The solution should be to not use monolithic blockchains, at least not for key management :) Look at Sidetree protocol for instance
  - lottin 5y ago
    If I understand correctly, you're proposing that we trust a set of individuals and hope that they'll cooperate when asked to, instead of relying on a single party which can be made to cooperate whether they like or not by the judicial system. That doesn't seem like an improvement to me.
    - olah_1 5y ago
      > we trust a set of individuals and hope that they'll cooperate when asked to Yes, in most cultures these individuals are called “family” or “friends”. It’s a rare concept in the crypto world though, yes.

Grimburger 5y ago

> There’s even a site that will generate vanity addresses for you! (Don’t use it.) Asymmetric split key generation is a well understood cryptographic technique, sure, don't trust a service that just spits one out but if you give them a public key to use in generation then you can verify the result only works with the paired private key you control. Nitty gritty of the elliptical curve cryptography involved: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81865.msg901491#msg901491 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81865.msg901491#msg9... https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/75523 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/75523

sanderjd 5y ago

Intriguing. How do you do backups of your keybase keys? My understanding is that this is the purpose of being able to export private keys for blockchains.

EGreg 5y ago
Just replace the backup with what I said: an “account” you pre-created, which you don’t use until you need it. You can create N “accounts” which are not tied to devices. In fact, that would also be good for a quotum to “outvote” whoever found M devices, to repudiate them. (Otherwise it would have been a stalemate.) Using “virtual accounts” you can bootstrap from one private key + U of V keys from a set that you gave to friends + family, to reconstitute your account should something go wrong and you lose ALL your devices. So, just to be clear: either a private key is stored in a device, or it would have to be paired with U of V other keys that you gave out, in order to activate a new device one time with that key. But the real provisioning and repudiation of keys would be in a smart contract on the blockchain. That is — pardon the pun — the key to the whole thing :)