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You've missed the point entirely. Your post is claiming one cannot use BTC in a "trustless" way. The GP is saying "You have to either choose to trust a third

You've missed the point entirely. Your post is claiming one cannot use BTC in a "trustless" way. The GP is saying "You have to either choose to trust a third party at some point, or go to these extreme lengths that still don't ensure your security unless your opsec is 100% perfect, every time." OTOH, your post also doesn't prove that the mass-manufactured hardware in question is actually malicious. At best, you've shown a way that it could be. Show me an actually malicious hardware wallet that behaves as you've described, and you'll have made your point. Until then, all you have is speculation and improbabilities. In other words, charitably interpreted, you've shown that the hardware equivalent of the C compiler in "Reflections on Trusting Trust" could exist, just as the paper itself showed that such a C compiler could exist[0]. That is all. There is no evidence either one exists at all in the wild. --- [0]: Which, I'll admit, is a pretty cool thought exercise, but has precisely zero real world impact.

operator-name 4y ago
> Show me an actually malicious hardware wallet that becaves as you've described, and you'll have made your point. I'm not the OP and although I agree with you, you may be interested in the corollary for a "stronger" attack than OP defined: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=581411.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=581411.0 and https://github.com/tintinweb/ecdsa-private-key-recovery https://github.com/tintinweb/ecdsa-private-key-recovery Constructing such an airgapped hardware wallet is as trivial as a raspberry pi running a patched bitcoin client. In my opinion the more realistic construction than a that of "Reflections in Trusting Trust".
hasmanean 4y ago
He just showed that Bitcoin is not mathematically secure. In fact someone should prove that mathematically secure is a meaningless concept, if your devices are not physically secure.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  That's also not true. What was shown is that BTC is not secure if you don't follow the correct transaction protocol. That's obvious. So is it also obvious that mathematical security and physical security are different. Here, the attack also involves not following the correct protocol. Why do you think that was even worth posting? It's not a profound concept to say "if you don't follow the secure transaction protocol, your transaction will not be secure."

operator-name 4y ago

> Show me an actually malicious hardware wallet that becaves as you've described, and you'll have made your point. I'm not the OP and although I agree with you, you may be interested in the corollary for a "stronger" attack than OP defined: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=581411.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=581411.0 and https://github.com/tintinweb/ecdsa-private-key-recovery https://github.com/tintinweb/ecdsa-private-key-recovery Constructing such an airgapped hardware wallet is as trivial as a raspberry pi running a patched bitcoin client. In my opinion the more realistic construction than a that of "Reflections in Trusting Trust".

hasmanean 4y ago

He just showed that Bitcoin is not mathematically secure. In fact someone should prove that mathematically secure is a meaningless concept, if your devices are not physically secure.

actually_a_dog 4y ago
That's also not true. What was shown is that BTC is not secure if you don't follow the correct transaction protocol. That's obvious. So is it also obvious that mathematical security and physical security are different. Here, the attack also involves not following the correct protocol. Why do you think that was even worth posting? It's not a profound concept to say "if you don't follow the secure transaction protocol, your transaction will not be secure."