7 ms·

Bitcore Core v0.9.0 release overview

75 points by hendzen 13y ago

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Any luck on delivering a feature to prevent exchanges like Coinbase from stealing my money, or ability to retrieve my money once it's been stolen? There seems to be no way not to use exchanges when using Bitcoin, so this is a real problem. Or I suppose it could be that Mt. Gox was the problem, and now the problem has gone away. Still, I predict that when the economy crashes again as it did in 2008, we will see many more exchanges die off, and they'll take everyone's money with them. This may harm mass adoption of Bitcoin by reducing confidence. This seems a step in the right direction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865 Anyone know if any exchanges have started doing this yet?
- oneplusone 13y ago
  use blockchain.info They create an individual wallet file for each user AES encrypted with your password. They also support 2-factor auth and auto-backups to 3rd party services like Dropbox.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    How can they support 2-factor auth without also having the ability to spend the bitcoin in the wallets? What's needed is a way to keep bitcoin on remote servers without them having the ability to spend it, but to grant access with 2FA. This prevents password phishing attacks and keylogger attacks, without the user having to worry about their harddrive crashing and losing their wallet. But I'm not sure whether that's possible short of making them keep an encrypted wallet, which negates all of the user convenience of using an exchange.
    - ZoF 13y ago
      Yeah this is an interesting problem to think about. A proper solution to this could have far more applications than bitcoin as well.
    - nawitus 13y ago
      Apparently blockchain.info only provides the encrypted wallet after the alternative authentication is succesful. They don't have the ability to spend your coins. "It is highly recommended you enable two factor authentication on your My wallet account. Your wallet data is still only encrypted with your password however a second authentication step will need to be passed before your encrypted wallet data is output." There's also GreenAdress.it which has interesting security system in place using "nLockTime": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20puhg/while_blockchaininfo_is_down_what_about_testing/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20puhg/while_blockc...
      - corresation 13y ago
        They don't have the ability to spend your coins. If you trust every other aspect of their service (that they aren't capturing and storing your password, which of course they handle every time you use the service), then you can feel safe in knowing that you don't have to trust them not to spend your coins because they can't. But only if you trust that every other part is honored. That isn't a rational set of conditions. In the usage of Blockchain.info, they absolutely gain the capacity to capture your private keys. As does anyone who hacks the service.
        rys 13y ago
        The way it's supposed to work, and I guess does work today otherwise we'd have heard about it, is that your passphrase doesn't actually get sent anywhere. Instead, it all happens client-side. So today they don't have your keys. Not to say they couldn't be malicious in the future, or get hacked, but that's not the case today. Again, as far as I know.
        hendzen 13y ago
        Yes, blockchain.info's security is snake oil, and they are completely overmarketing themselves as "hack-proof". And of course the reason for this is because Javascript cryptography is an oxymoron [0]. [0] - http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/
        13y ago
    - ubercow13 13y ago
      If I understand you right, that's already what blockchain.info does
- broolstoryco 13y ago
  ... dont keep your money at exchanges?
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    Hard to do until gas and apartments can be paid for with BTC in most cities.
    - scintill76 13y ago
      Then keep your BTC on an exchange for as little time as possible. Deposit right before selling, withdraw right after buying. In my experience, Coinbase credits the BTC within minutes of sending to a Coinbase address, so exchange rate fluctuations while waiting for confirmations shouldn't even be as big of a problem, as it may be for other exchanges. (If outside US or otherwise unable to use Coinbase, that may be a bigger problem.)
      - sillysaurus3 13y ago
        When you sell BTC on Coinbase, it takes anywhere from two days to two weeks for Coinbase to actually pay you. If they get into dire financial straits like Mt. Gox, then this period will gradually widen to become many months, and then some payments will stop going through altogether. So you'll have sold your N bitcoin and they'll have lost it. I guess this problem is unavoidable short of using lots of different exchanges. Maybe there just needs to be more than one Coinbase.
        scintill76 13y ago
        You could try cash transactions on localbitcoins if you're worried about bank delays. You'll probably pay a premium for it though, and introduce new risks of being mugged or something. The problem for exchanges especially (maybe to a lesser extent for "brokers" like Coinbase) is that they _need_ exclusive access to your bitcoins, to ensure there's no way for you to take them before they can give them to the other party in a trade. I don't see any way around this, short of exchanges trusting users to deliver bitcoins after the trade. Even with multisignature/escrow systems, there is the risk the user double-spends the coins at the same time they make a trade. (And if the exchange is able to take back the cash, or withhold it until the bitcoin transaction is confirmed, there's probably not a fair way in general to reverse the trade, is there?)
- M4v3R 13y ago
  A feature you're talking about already exists in Bitcoin, and it's called multisignature addresses. There are few wallets that implement them [1] [2], as well as one exchange [3] (full disclosure: I wrote it) where you can buy and sell besides just storing your Bitcoin. On top of much better security, using multisignature addresses gives you answer to your second question: everyone using services like those below can check their wallet contents on the Blockchain at any given time. There's no need for the service to "prove" anything - everything is provable and exists on the Blockchain by design. [1] https://greenaddress.it https://greenaddress.it [2] https://bitgo.com https://bitgo.com [3] https://bitalo.com/why_bitalo https://bitalo.com/why_bitalo
  - kylebrown 13y ago
    Bitalo is not an exchange, its an OTC marketplace. The tagline on the site - "NO FRAUD IS POSSIBLE IN A TRANSACTION" - is a flat-out lie. A fraudster can just reverse the bank payment (up to 6 months later in the US), long after the coins have been released from multi-sig escrow. An exchange operates a limit order book, which matches and settles trades automatically. Otherwise you just have a forum where each user has to repeatedly, manually handle the logistics and security of a wide variety of payment systems. The exchange should do that, not the user.
    - M4v3R 13y ago
      I don't know much about US then. Is Europe as far as I know it's not possible to revert a bank transfer once it's processed. So there's no place for fraud. But if that's the case for the US, what's stopping a thief to send money to an exchange like Bitstamp, buy BTC, withdraw it and then reverse the fiat payment in a similar matter? And while it's true that on Bitalo you have to handle the fiat payments yourself, but it will be often faster to get BTC that way than to send it to an exchange, wait for them to process the deposit, and only then buy BTC.
      - kylebrown 13y ago
        > But if that's the case for the US, what's stopping a thief to send money to an exchange like Bitstamp, buy BTC, withdraw it and then reverse the fiat payment in a similar matter? Sending money to bitstamp requires an international wire transfer (SWIFT), those (usually) can't be reversed. Its ACH payments which get reversed so easily (ACH is a domestic network, all in-country). That's why TradeHill shut down after a fraudulent $20k Dwolla payment, all Dwolla deposits/withdrawals are through ACH. And that's why Coinbase has to be so careful with which customers they allow to purchase bitcoins, all Coinbase deposits/withdrawals are ACH. > And while it's true that on Bitalo you have to handle the fiat payments yourself, but it will be often faster to get BTC that way than to send it to an exchange, wait for them to process the deposit, and only then buy BTC. Speed of a first purchase is one thing. But I'd guess that the main reason people keep funds on an exchange is because they want to day-trade, pick up cheap coins with a lucky limit order during a flash crash, or have the option to panic sell in a split second (not even a one hour wait for 6 confirmations). That kind of trading is only possible on an exchange with a limit order book, not an OTC marketplace.
- gojomo 13y ago
  Something like the 'Digital Oracle' project might help, by requiring an extra 3rd-party signature for fast/suspicious transactions, while still allowing you ultimate control: https://cryptocorp.co/technology.htm https://cryptocorp.co/technology.htm
- maaku 13y ago
  What you link to is the answer, and no, no one implements it. The exchanges don't want to, and feel no incentive to :(
  - M4v3R 13y ago
    More and more services are starting to use an even better solution that includes proof of storage. Please see my comment above.
    - maaku 13y ago
      Are you talking about multisig? That doesn't have adequate properties for use in an exchange. I assume that you are requiring that the user sign off on any transfer of their coins, because otherwise the chance of theft would still exist. If so, then (1) you are requiring that all transfers hit the block chain (immediate non-starter simply due to scaling issues), (2) the exchange is not effective as people can DoS by dropping out and refusing to sign if the market moves or they otherwise have second thoughts, and (3) you're ignoring the fiat side of the exchange. Trustless exchanges can work, but they generally need much more infrastructure and possible changes to bitcoin (or a side chain).
      - M4v3R 13y ago
        Points 2) and 3) can be solved, an exchange that accepts fiat and signs a transfer immediately after placing an offer is entirely possible. At Bitalo we chose not to accept fiat, but it's not a limitation of multisig scheme.
  - mriou 13y ago
    I'm not convinced no fractional reserve is the absolute answer. I am fine with exchanges making some money from what I keep there. In one way or another it will benefit me. What needs to be worked on is the actual fraction they can get insured for in the low-probability case everyone wants to run out with their coins.
    - 13y ago
- simonebrunozzi 13y ago
  OpenTransactions (by Monetas) is trying to solve this problem at the root.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > Any luck on delivering a feature to prevent exchanges like Coinbase from stealing my money, or ability to retrieve my money once it's been stolen? There seems to be no way not to use exchanges when using Bitcoin, so this is a real problem. FYI, Coinbase isn't an exchange; they're an online wallet and Bitcoin broker. Exchanges are for trading, and have much much lower fees. Gox was an exchange, as is BTC-e and Bitstamp.
mriou 13y ago
All great changes, especially BIP 70 and the fixes on transaction malleability and relaying. I'm unconvinced the efforts to make bitcoind (now Bitcoin Core Server) a "border router" are well-spent however. Software that's optimized for server deployment and larger clusters is fundamentally different from what you would run on your desktop. I personally think that Bitcoin Core should focus on the protocol and extensions to be a good reference implementation, easy to deploy in all environments. But regardless, great job guys.
- hendzen 13y ago
  The router functionality is very important, because bitcoin-core is the only bitcoin implementation capable of verifying transactions & blocks. The reason for this is that the bitcoin protocol, in practice, is whatever bitcoin-core implements, including any and all bugs. All attempts to fully implement bitcoin-core have all had chain splitting bugs (btcd, bitcoinj experimental full verification mode) so they are not yet trusted in production. Unfortunately the wallet handling capabilities of bitcoin-core don't scale to high numbers of wallets. Thus as an org running a service handling many wallets, it is useful to program against a lightweight client API such as bitcoinj, and then have your client peer with "trusted" bitcoin-core nodes.
  - mriou 13y ago
    I've heard that argument many times and all it does is reinforce the idea that no other implementation can work. And how you end-up with an implementation mono-culture. Forks of a single block happen regularly, it can be dealt with. A production system can detect a fork and check the reference implementation's behavior, preventing any longer fork. The *coin ecosystem need more than one implementation, a single codebase can't cater to all uses. I should know, I'm an Apache member.
    - hendzen 13y ago
      Forks of a single block ("orphans") are expected due to block propagation taking a nonzero amount of time. That's very different than the case where say 50% of the network is running bitcoind, and the other 50% is running btcd, and some transaction triggers an edge case in either implementation that causes one implementation to accept the transaction and another to reject it. I think multiple compatible implementations would be great to have, but we don't have them at the moment, and in the meantime companies handling huge numbers of bitcoin transactions need a solution that works today. So I applaud the bitcoin-core team for catering to the increasingly common use case of using bitcoind only for consensus.
kristianp 13y ago
Fix the title please. s/Bitcore/Bitcoin/
- swswsw 13y ago
  Good eyes. The author fixed the title.
  - kristianp 13y ago
    I meant for a moderator to fix the hacker news headline!
felipelalli 13y ago
The title is wrong. Actually is Bitcoin Core. Bitcore is another project of Bitpay.

75 points by hendzen 13y ago

Any luck on delivering a feature to prevent exchanges like Coinbase from stealing my money, or ability to retrieve my money once it's been stolen? There seems to be no way not to use exchanges when using Bitcoin, so this is a real problem. Or I suppose it could be that Mt. Gox was the problem, and now the problem has gone away. Still, I predict that when the economy crashes again as it did in 2008, we will see many more exchanges die off, and they'll take everyone's money with them. This may harm mass adoption of Bitcoin by reducing confidence. This seems a step in the right direction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865 Anyone know if any exchanges have started doing this yet?

oneplusone 13y ago
use blockchain.info They create an individual wallet file for each user AES encrypted with your password. They also support 2-factor auth and auto-backups to 3rd party services like Dropbox.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  How can they support 2-factor auth without also having the ability to spend the bitcoin in the wallets? What's needed is a way to keep bitcoin on remote servers without them having the ability to spend it, but to grant access with 2FA. This prevents password phishing attacks and keylogger attacks, without the user having to worry about their harddrive crashing and losing their wallet. But I'm not sure whether that's possible short of making them keep an encrypted wallet, which negates all of the user convenience of using an exchange.
  - ZoF 13y ago
    Yeah this is an interesting problem to think about. A proper solution to this could have far more applications than bitcoin as well.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    Apparently blockchain.info only provides the encrypted wallet after the alternative authentication is succesful. They don't have the ability to spend your coins. "It is highly recommended you enable two factor authentication on your My wallet account. Your wallet data is still only encrypted with your password however a second authentication step will need to be passed before your encrypted wallet data is output." There's also GreenAdress.it which has interesting security system in place using "nLockTime": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20puhg/while_blockchaininfo_is_down_what_about_testing/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20puhg/while_blockc...
    - corresation 13y ago
      They don't have the ability to spend your coins. If you trust every other aspect of their service (that they aren't capturing and storing your password, which of course they handle every time you use the service), then you can feel safe in knowing that you don't have to trust them not to spend your coins because they can't. But only if you trust that every other part is honored. That isn't a rational set of conditions. In the usage of Blockchain.info, they absolutely gain the capacity to capture your private keys. As does anyone who hacks the service.
      - rys 13y ago
        The way it's supposed to work, and I guess does work today otherwise we'd have heard about it, is that your passphrase doesn't actually get sent anywhere. Instead, it all happens client-side. So today they don't have your keys. Not to say they couldn't be malicious in the future, or get hacked, but that's not the case today. Again, as far as I know.
      - hendzen 13y ago
        Yes, blockchain.info's security is snake oil, and they are completely overmarketing themselves as "hack-proof". And of course the reason for this is because Javascript cryptography is an oxymoron [0]. [0] - http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/
      - 13y ago
  - ubercow13 13y ago
    If I understand you right, that's already what blockchain.info does
broolstoryco 13y ago
... dont keep your money at exchanges?
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Hard to do until gas and apartments can be paid for with BTC in most cities.
  - scintill76 13y ago
    Then keep your BTC on an exchange for as little time as possible. Deposit right before selling, withdraw right after buying. In my experience, Coinbase credits the BTC within minutes of sending to a Coinbase address, so exchange rate fluctuations while waiting for confirmations shouldn't even be as big of a problem, as it may be for other exchanges. (If outside US or otherwise unable to use Coinbase, that may be a bigger problem.)
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      When you sell BTC on Coinbase, it takes anywhere from two days to two weeks for Coinbase to actually pay you. If they get into dire financial straits like Mt. Gox, then this period will gradually widen to become many months, and then some payments will stop going through altogether. So you'll have sold your N bitcoin and they'll have lost it. I guess this problem is unavoidable short of using lots of different exchanges. Maybe there just needs to be more than one Coinbase.
      - scintill76 13y ago
        You could try cash transactions on localbitcoins if you're worried about bank delays. You'll probably pay a premium for it though, and introduce new risks of being mugged or something. The problem for exchanges especially (maybe to a lesser extent for "brokers" like Coinbase) is that they _need_ exclusive access to your bitcoins, to ensure there's no way for you to take them before they can give them to the other party in a trade. I don't see any way around this, short of exchanges trusting users to deliver bitcoins after the trade. Even with multisignature/escrow systems, there is the risk the user double-spends the coins at the same time they make a trade. (And if the exchange is able to take back the cash, or withhold it until the bitcoin transaction is confirmed, there's probably not a fair way in general to reverse the trade, is there?)
M4v3R 13y ago
A feature you're talking about already exists in Bitcoin, and it's called multisignature addresses. There are few wallets that implement them [1] [2], as well as one exchange [3] (full disclosure: I wrote it) where you can buy and sell besides just storing your Bitcoin. On top of much better security, using multisignature addresses gives you answer to your second question: everyone using services like those below can check their wallet contents on the Blockchain at any given time. There's no need for the service to "prove" anything - everything is provable and exists on the Blockchain by design. [1] https://greenaddress.it https://greenaddress.it [2] https://bitgo.com https://bitgo.com [3] https://bitalo.com/why_bitalo https://bitalo.com/why_bitalo
- kylebrown 13y ago
  Bitalo is not an exchange, its an OTC marketplace. The tagline on the site - "NO FRAUD IS POSSIBLE IN A TRANSACTION" - is a flat-out lie. A fraudster can just reverse the bank payment (up to 6 months later in the US), long after the coins have been released from multi-sig escrow. An exchange operates a limit order book, which matches and settles trades automatically. Otherwise you just have a forum where each user has to repeatedly, manually handle the logistics and security of a wide variety of payment systems. The exchange should do that, not the user.
  - M4v3R 13y ago
    I don't know much about US then. Is Europe as far as I know it's not possible to revert a bank transfer once it's processed. So there's no place for fraud. But if that's the case for the US, what's stopping a thief to send money to an exchange like Bitstamp, buy BTC, withdraw it and then reverse the fiat payment in a similar matter? And while it's true that on Bitalo you have to handle the fiat payments yourself, but it will be often faster to get BTC that way than to send it to an exchange, wait for them to process the deposit, and only then buy BTC.
    - kylebrown 13y ago
      > But if that's the case for the US, what's stopping a thief to send money to an exchange like Bitstamp, buy BTC, withdraw it and then reverse the fiat payment in a similar matter? Sending money to bitstamp requires an international wire transfer (SWIFT), those (usually) can't be reversed. Its ACH payments which get reversed so easily (ACH is a domestic network, all in-country). That's why TradeHill shut down after a fraudulent $20k Dwolla payment, all Dwolla deposits/withdrawals are through ACH. And that's why Coinbase has to be so careful with which customers they allow to purchase bitcoins, all Coinbase deposits/withdrawals are ACH. > And while it's true that on Bitalo you have to handle the fiat payments yourself, but it will be often faster to get BTC that way than to send it to an exchange, wait for them to process the deposit, and only then buy BTC. Speed of a first purchase is one thing. But I'd guess that the main reason people keep funds on an exchange is because they want to day-trade, pick up cheap coins with a lucky limit order during a flash crash, or have the option to panic sell in a split second (not even a one hour wait for 6 confirmations). That kind of trading is only possible on an exchange with a limit order book, not an OTC marketplace.
gojomo 13y ago
Something like the 'Digital Oracle' project might help, by requiring an extra 3rd-party signature for fast/suspicious transactions, while still allowing you ultimate control: https://cryptocorp.co/technology.htm https://cryptocorp.co/technology.htm
maaku 13y ago
What you link to is the answer, and no, no one implements it. The exchanges don't want to, and feel no incentive to :(
- M4v3R 13y ago
  More and more services are starting to use an even better solution that includes proof of storage. Please see my comment above.
  - maaku 13y ago
    Are you talking about multisig? That doesn't have adequate properties for use in an exchange. I assume that you are requiring that the user sign off on any transfer of their coins, because otherwise the chance of theft would still exist. If so, then (1) you are requiring that all transfers hit the block chain (immediate non-starter simply due to scaling issues), (2) the exchange is not effective as people can DoS by dropping out and refusing to sign if the market moves or they otherwise have second thoughts, and (3) you're ignoring the fiat side of the exchange. Trustless exchanges can work, but they generally need much more infrastructure and possible changes to bitcoin (or a side chain).
    - M4v3R 13y ago
      Points 2) and 3) can be solved, an exchange that accepts fiat and signs a transfer immediately after placing an offer is entirely possible. At Bitalo we chose not to accept fiat, but it's not a limitation of multisig scheme.
- mriou 13y ago
  I'm not convinced no fractional reserve is the absolute answer. I am fine with exchanges making some money from what I keep there. In one way or another it will benefit me. What needs to be worked on is the actual fraction they can get insured for in the low-probability case everyone wants to run out with their coins.
  - 13y ago
simonebrunozzi 13y ago
OpenTransactions (by Monetas) is trying to solve this problem at the root.
gnaritas 13y ago
> Any luck on delivering a feature to prevent exchanges like Coinbase from stealing my money, or ability to retrieve my money once it's been stolen? There seems to be no way not to use exchanges when using Bitcoin, so this is a real problem. FYI, Coinbase isn't an exchange; they're an online wallet and Bitcoin broker. Exchanges are for trading, and have much much lower fees. Gox was an exchange, as is BTC-e and Bitstamp.

mriou 13y ago

All great changes, especially BIP 70 and the fixes on transaction malleability and relaying. I'm unconvinced the efforts to make bitcoind (now Bitcoin Core Server) a "border router" are well-spent however. Software that's optimized for server deployment and larger clusters is fundamentally different from what you would run on your desktop. I personally think that Bitcoin Core should focus on the protocol and extensions to be a good reference implementation, easy to deploy in all environments. But regardless, great job guys.

hendzen 13y ago
The router functionality is very important, because bitcoin-core is the only bitcoin implementation capable of verifying transactions & blocks. The reason for this is that the bitcoin protocol, in practice, is whatever bitcoin-core implements, including any and all bugs. All attempts to fully implement bitcoin-core have all had chain splitting bugs (btcd, bitcoinj experimental full verification mode) so they are not yet trusted in production. Unfortunately the wallet handling capabilities of bitcoin-core don't scale to high numbers of wallets. Thus as an org running a service handling many wallets, it is useful to program against a lightweight client API such as bitcoinj, and then have your client peer with "trusted" bitcoin-core nodes.
- mriou 13y ago
  I've heard that argument many times and all it does is reinforce the idea that no other implementation can work. And how you end-up with an implementation mono-culture. Forks of a single block happen regularly, it can be dealt with. A production system can detect a fork and check the reference implementation's behavior, preventing any longer fork. The *coin ecosystem need more than one implementation, a single codebase can't cater to all uses. I should know, I'm an Apache member.
  - hendzen 13y ago
    Forks of a single block ("orphans") are expected due to block propagation taking a nonzero amount of time. That's very different than the case where say 50% of the network is running bitcoind, and the other 50% is running btcd, and some transaction triggers an edge case in either implementation that causes one implementation to accept the transaction and another to reject it. I think multiple compatible implementations would be great to have, but we don't have them at the moment, and in the meantime companies handling huge numbers of bitcoin transactions need a solution that works today. So I applaud the bitcoin-core team for catering to the increasingly common use case of using bitcoind only for consensus.

kristianp 13y ago

Fix the title please. s/Bitcore/Bitcoin/

swswsw 13y ago
Good eyes. The author fixed the title.
- kristianp 13y ago
  I meant for a moderator to fix the hacker news headline!

felipelalli 13y ago

The title is wrong. Actually is Bitcoin Core. Bitcore is another project of Bitpay.