summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/c5/e858dd5d75937b978a99009aeacc4f367e407a
blob: 2a11417578eaa017d6e04696c28f3617eb017219 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Received: from sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.193]
	helo=mx.sourceforge.net)
	by sfs-ml-2.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76)
	(envelope-from <pw@vps7135.xlshosting.net>) id 1V1HMM-0005bi-BH
	for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net;
	Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:45:10 +0000
X-ACL-Warn: 
Received: from vps7135.xlshosting.net ([178.18.90.41])
	by sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76)
	id 1V1HMH-0008Mq-J9 for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net;
	Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:45:10 +0000
Received: by vps7135.xlshosting.net (Postfix, from userid 1000)
	id AA48033CE09; Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:44:59 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:44:59 +0200
From: Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail.com>
To: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Message-ID: <20130722144458.GA22993@vps7135.xlshosting.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
X-PGP-Key: http://sipa.ulyssis.org/pubkey.asc
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15)
X-Spam-Score: -0.2 (/)
X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net.
	See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.
	0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider
	(pieter.wuille[at]gmail.com)
	0.0 DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED   No valid author signature, adsp_override is
	CUSTOM_MED
	-1.4 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay
	domain 1.2 NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED    ADSP custom_med hit,
	and not from a mailing list
X-Headers-End: 1V1HMH-0008Mq-J9
Subject: [Bitcoin-development] [RFC] Standard for private keys with birth
	timestamp
X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
List-Id: <bitcoin-development.lists.sourceforge.net>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development>,
	<mailto:bitcoin-development-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=bitcoin-development>
List-Post: <mailto:bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
List-Help: <mailto:bitcoin-development-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development>,
	<mailto:bitcoin-development-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:45:10 -0000

Hello,

I should have brought up this suggestion before, as there seems to be relevant other work.

I'd like to propose encoding keys data (whatever type) with a birth timestamp as:
 * <serialized key>@<unix timestamp in decimal>

The reason for not incorporating this inside the key serialization (for example BIP32), is because
birth timestamps are more generally a property of an address, rather than the key it is derived from.
For one, it is useful for non-extended standard serialized private keys, but for P2SH addresses,
the "private key" is really the actual scriptPubKey, but birth data is equally useful for this.

Reason for choosing the '@' character: it's not present in the base58, hex, or base64 encodings that
are typically used for key/script data.

One downside is that this means no checksum-protection for the timestamp, but the advantage is
increased genericity. It's also longer than using a binary encoding, but this is an optional
part anyway, and I think "human typing" is already fairly hard anyway.

-- 
Pieter