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This is the last thing we need in the Bitcoin world... online wallet services run by people not even smart enough to roll their own. Kudos to you and spending

This is the last thing we need in the Bitcoin world... online wallet services run by people not even smart enough to roll their own. Kudos to you and spending time on this project, it looks pretty slick, but it's a horrible thing for Bitcoin in general. If the only thing it manages to accomplish is accelerate the rejection of online wallet services then I suppose it's a good thing.

mcantelon 13y ago
A lot of folks "smart enough to roll their own" have gotten hacked. A common, peer-reviewed implementation could be a long-term win.
- tcdent 13y ago
  Definitely. This is one of the largest benefits of open source software to me.
- wmf 13y ago
  Unless this provides the entire distro it seems like people are still going to get hacked through vulnerabilities in other software.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    I agree. But I wouldn't use this argument to discount the product - this really should be implemented. It seems like the solution would be to provide a specialized "Coinpunk Ubuntu distribution" that you can install on the cheapest Amazon instance or any other cloud server. I think this a pretty the ideal way to have a bitcoin wallet. You can probably trust Amazon better than you can trust your own machine at home (Companies with much larger assets than you'll ever have are able to trust Amazon), and you can also count on something like S3 or gmail for backups. The ability to log in from anywhere without having to install a client is really important for usability.
fragsworth 13y ago
> it's a horrible thing for Bitcoin in general. Absolute rubbish. Bitcoin needs to become easy to use. This is open-source, so it can eventually be turned into a full linux distribution that you can run on your own cloud server. You don't have to know shit about shit to have one of these. Once we have that, you'll be able to run your own secure bitcoin wallet online (on a server that you own) and access it from anywhere without having to install any clients. For something like $10/month.
arekanderu 13y ago
I agree that a project like this will only harm bitcoin.
tlrobinson 13y ago
I agree, but mostly because it doesn't sound like there's any focus on security, and it's too "high level" to really bake in enough security. By "high level" I mean you bring your own Ubuntu/webserver/bitcoind/database installation. I wish there were a project that focused on providing an extremely secure platform (Linux/BSD distro + bitcoind securely configured out of the box, if that's even possible, or maybe a Bitcoin PaaS) for Bitcoin applications, then you could layer stuff like Coinpunk on top of that.
petermelias 13y ago
I think the caveat in this discussion is that BTC needs something like this if and only IF it can be done securely. Unfortunately, due to the nature of networked systems, the odds of that do seem quite low unless connection security gets a massive upgrade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography

mcantelon 13y ago

A lot of folks "smart enough to roll their own" have gotten hacked. A common, peer-reviewed implementation could be a long-term win.

tcdent 13y ago
Definitely. This is one of the largest benefits of open source software to me.
wmf 13y ago
Unless this provides the entire distro it seems like people are still going to get hacked through vulnerabilities in other software.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  I agree. But I wouldn't use this argument to discount the product - this really should be implemented. It seems like the solution would be to provide a specialized "Coinpunk Ubuntu distribution" that you can install on the cheapest Amazon instance or any other cloud server. I think this a pretty the ideal way to have a bitcoin wallet. You can probably trust Amazon better than you can trust your own machine at home (Companies with much larger assets than you'll ever have are able to trust Amazon), and you can also count on something like S3 or gmail for backups. The ability to log in from anywhere without having to install a client is really important for usability.

fragsworth 13y ago

> it's a horrible thing for Bitcoin in general. Absolute rubbish. Bitcoin needs to become easy to use. This is open-source, so it can eventually be turned into a full linux distribution that you can run on your own cloud server. You don't have to know shit about shit to have one of these. Once we have that, you'll be able to run your own secure bitcoin wallet online (on a server that you own) and access it from anywhere without having to install any clients. For something like $10/month.

arekanderu 13y ago

I agree that a project like this will only harm bitcoin.

tlrobinson 13y ago

I agree, but mostly because it doesn't sound like there's any focus on security, and it's too "high level" to really bake in enough security. By "high level" I mean you bring your own Ubuntu/webserver/bitcoind/database installation. I wish there were a project that focused on providing an extremely secure platform (Linux/BSD distro + bitcoind securely configured out of the box, if that's even possible, or maybe a Bitcoin PaaS) for Bitcoin applications, then you could layer stuff like Coinpunk on top of that.

petermelias 13y ago

I think the caveat in this discussion is that BTC needs something like this if and only IF it can be done securely. Unfortunately, due to the nature of networked systems, the odds of that do seem quite low unless connection security gets a massive upgrade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography