For a long time, I thought of the blockchain as almost synonymous with cryptocurrencies, so as I saw stuff like “Odyssey” and “lbry” appearing and being “based on the blockchain”, my first thought was that it was another crypto scam. Then, I just got reminded of it and started looking more into it, and it just seemed like regular torrenting. For example, what’s the big innovation separating Odyssey from Peertube, which is also decentralized and also uses P2P? And what part of it does the blockchain really play, that couldn’t be done with regular P2P? More generally, and looking at the futur, does the blockchain offer new possibilities that the fediverse or pre-existing protocols don’t have?

  • manitcorEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    the issue with the hardware wallet is not a “simple math” problem but a “trust” issue. in reality you simply can’t trust any hardware you didn’t make yourself, in practical use we usually pick vendors we like and decide to trust them.

    for example. many people considered ledger trustworthy until they introduced firmware that indicates a capability to exfiltrate the keys.

    I think the problem you are speaking to was some older hardware keys (and maybe some strange off brands) that encode keys at the factory, to my knowledge no major product does anything like that and they take pains to show you are generating the key. the big back and forth there has been with hardware providers using methods that are potentially reversible or other types of vulnerabilities.

    Yes pretty much all devices will allow you to import a key you have generated by whatever means you prefer, however once you put it on the device you are signing up for the other issues that come with hardware still.

    • @dragontamerEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      I don’t think you recognize how easy it is to generate trust with the methodology I laid out.

      1. Buy a standard-compliant offline wallet.
      2. Buy a second, standard-compliant, offline wallet that you know uses a different codebase, as much as possible.
      3. Generate a passphrase. Use it on #1 and #2 to generate your wallet/private keys.
      4. Is it the same private key? Success. Unless the wallets have fallen prey to the same flaw (unlikely, as they were manufactured from two separate companies and running two separate code paths), you’re probably good.

      “The Standard-compliant” method is any algorithm that goes from hmac(passphrase) into seed -> generating the random numbers needed to build a wallet. (Prime numbers or whatever). As far as I can tell, this “standard method” doesn’t exist, not yet anyway.

      • manitcorEnglish
        4•1 year ago

        Issue has been the workflow for that, everyone wants something that works with thier phone and self-updates. Also have only seen a couple good air-gapped signers. No one likes the offline signer story except finance governance ppl so far.