3 ms·

Yes but it requires exchanging public keys out of band.

by frollogaston 1y ago

VladVladikoff 1y ago
Couldn’t we spend a small amount of crypto to write our public key into a blockchain to avoid the MITM threat?
- EGreg 1y ago
  Did you just recommend actually using some kind of crypto and blockchain on HN? TLDR: That sounds like it is some kind or grift. In all seriousness, google the Sidetree Protocol. Daniel Bruchner promoted it at Microsoft. And now we can even do zk-rollups too. Where was I? Oh yes, some kind of grift!
- taminka 1y ago
  actually though? storing a very small but important info (public keys, domain ownership and such) would have been a perfect use case, which also keeps the chain small...
- frollogaston 1y ago
  Same thing though, you have to give your wallet public key out of band. There's no other way to prove it's you.
kragen 1y ago
You could use Granovetter introduction. If I know Marisa's public key and Marisa knows Omar's public key, she can sign a message to me saying, "Omar's public key hash is c2ecc3b9b9eb94dcafe228f8d23b1e798597d526358177c95effa6bc0ded3a35". I can then use that key hash to authenticate messages from "Marisa's Omar". If she gives Omar mine too, he and I can set up a private channel without further involving Marisa. Hopefully we aren't just talking to Marisa's MitM proxy. If other mutuals also know him as "Omar" then I can ask them for his key too, and if I get the same response, I can have more confidence that Marisa isn't playing that trick on us. Never total confidence, though. You need some way to bootstrap a non-MitMed connection; no evidence can ever prove conclusively that you aren't a Boltzmann brain floating in the post-heat-death void, or Descartes being tricked by his evil demon that controls all his perceptions, or Neo in the Matrix. But meeting up with one of your friends in person once to exchange either public keys or a shared secret, even before you start using the system, can go a long way to ensuring that you are all actually enjoying privacy.
scellus 1y ago
The new version of Bitchat (from Jack Dorsey) is interesting: it's a chat over BLE mesh, but says that it'll continue the chat on the nostr infrastructure if two (in principle anonymous) participants fave each other in the app. Haven't had able to try this out yet.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  That's an unfortunate name for a chat app

Yes but it requires exchanging public keys out of band.

VladVladikoff 1y ago

Couldn’t we spend a small amount of crypto to write our public key into a blockchain to avoid the MITM threat?

EGreg 1y ago
Did you just recommend actually using some kind of crypto and blockchain on HN? TLDR: That sounds like it is some kind or grift. In all seriousness, google the Sidetree Protocol. Daniel Bruchner promoted it at Microsoft. And now we can even do zk-rollups too. Where was I? Oh yes, some kind of grift!
taminka 1y ago
actually though? storing a very small but important info (public keys, domain ownership and such) would have been a perfect use case, which also keeps the chain small...
frollogaston 1y ago
Same thing though, you have to give your wallet public key out of band. There's no other way to prove it's you.

kragen 1y ago

You could use Granovetter introduction. If I know Marisa's public key and Marisa knows Omar's public key, she can sign a message to me saying, "Omar's public key hash is c2ecc3b9b9eb94dcafe228f8d23b1e798597d526358177c95effa6bc0ded3a35". I can then use that key hash to authenticate messages from "Marisa's Omar". If she gives Omar mine too, he and I can set up a private channel without further involving Marisa. Hopefully we aren't just talking to Marisa's MitM proxy. If other mutuals also know him as "Omar" then I can ask them for his key too, and if I get the same response, I can have more confidence that Marisa isn't playing that trick on us. Never total confidence, though. You need some way to bootstrap a non-MitMed connection; no evidence can ever prove conclusively that you aren't a Boltzmann brain floating in the post-heat-death void, or Descartes being tricked by his evil demon that controls all his perceptions, or Neo in the Matrix. But meeting up with one of your friends in person once to exchange either public keys or a shared secret, even before you start using the system, can go a long way to ensuring that you are all actually enjoying privacy.

scellus 1y ago

The new version of Bitchat (from Jack Dorsey) is interesting: it's a chat over BLE mesh, but says that it'll continue the chat on the nostr infrastructure if two (in principle anonymous) participants fave each other in the app. Haven't had able to try this out yet.

frollogaston 1y ago
That's an unfortunate name for a chat app