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This is actually already built in the much maligned 'web3' that everyone loves to hate ( even if it deserves it sometimes) Signing into something with your eth
by idiotsecant 4y ago
This is actually already built in the much maligned 'web3' that everyone loves to hate ( even if it deserves it sometimes)
Signing into something with your ethereum wallet works well, you get to pick how you store your keys and sign (brain, paper, encrypted file, hardware wallet) and if you use something like argent you can even have social password recovery if you want it for low impact applications. It's so awesome and it just works. I wish more things used it.
- smoldesu 4y agoIt's also built-in to GPG, which has been around since the mid-90s. The Blockchain is a completely unnecessary component for this sort of cryptosystem.
- blep_ 4y agoAlas, the blockchain people are the ones who made it popular. I would love to sign into things with GPG keys, but I have never seen a single thing that supports it.
- smoldesu 4y agoIs it popular, though? Even now, the number of Metamask-enabled applications feels tiny relative to the provenience of GPG signing in the world of software.
- idiotsecant 4y agoNo, while it's popular in certain spheres it's decidedly unpopular in general. It is, however, orders of magnitude more popular than GPG for website sign-in.
- smoldesu 4y agoRight. If we're talking about practical usage though, GPG sees more widespread adoption than blockchain auth. Part of it is because it's older, but also because it's simpler and more redundant.
- tmpfs 4y agoTo clarify here, this is just public key cryptography using ECDSA signing keys to verify an identity. Whilst it is blockchain-adjacent it does not use a blockchain for identity verification, it just checks the owner has access to a particular private key.