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From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 07:32:41 -0400
Message-ID: <CAJHLa0MfV0RnVh1niG4vUGUUvB_Vd8HccTys4bf1ApnwuBUd1g@mail.gmail.com>
To: "Chris D'Costa" <chris.dcosta@meek.io>
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Cc: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net"
	<bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] secure assigned bitcoin address directory
Precedence: list

Re-reading this, even with the most recent message, is still isn't
clear _precisely_ how your technology works, or why it is better than
namecoin.  User profiles (and distributed ledgers) need to reflect the
latest updates, and a stream of updates of over time is precisely what
bitcoin technology secures.

Keys expire or are compromised, and the public ledger needs to reflect
that.  There is a lot of computer science involved in making sure the
public ledger you see is not an outdated view.  A log-like stream of
changes is not the only way to do things, but other methods need less
hand-wavy details (show the code) before they are well recognized as
useful.


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 7:14 AM, Chris D'Costa <chris.dcosta@meek.io> wrote=
:
> Security of transmission of person-to-person pay-to addresses is one of t=
he use cases that we are addressing on our hardware wallet.
>
> I have yet to finish the paper but in a nutshell it uses a decentralised =
ledger of, what we refer to as, "device keys".
>
> These keys are not related in any way to the Bitcoin keys, (which is why =
I'm hesitating about discussing it here) neither do they even attempt to id=
entify the human owner if the device. But they do have a specific use case =
and that is to provide "advanced knowledge" of a publickey that can be used=
 for encrypting a message to an intended recipient, without the requirement=
 for a third-party CA, and more importantly without prior dialogue. We thin=
k it is this that would allow you to communicate a pay-to address to someon=
e without seeing them in a secure way.
>
> As I understand it the BlockChain uses "time" bought through proof of wor=
k to establish a version of the truth, we are using time in the reverse sen=
se : advanced knowledge of all pubkeys. Indeed all devices could easily che=
ck their own record to identify problems on the ledger.
>
> There is of course more to this, but I like to refer to the "distributed =
ledger of device keys" as the "Web-of-trust re-imagined" although that isn'=
t strictly true.
>
> Ok there you have it. The cat is out of the bag, feel free to give feedba=
ck, I have to finish the paper, apologies if it is not a topic for this lis=
t.
>
> Regards
>
> Chris D'Costa
>
>
>> On 31 Mar 2014, at 12:21, vv01f <vv01f@riseup.net> wrote:
>>
>> Some users on bitcointalk[0] would like to have their vanity addresses
>> available for others easily to find and verify the ownership over a kind
>> of WoT. Right now they sign their own addresses and quote them in the
>> forums.
>> As I pointed out there already the centralized storage in the forums is
>> not secury anyhow and signed messages could be swapped easily with the
>> next hack of the forums.
>>
>> Is that use case taken care of in any plans already?
>>
>> I thought about abusing pgp keyservers but that would suit for single
>> vanity addresses only.
>> It seems webfinger could be part of a solution where servers of a
>> business can tell and proof you if a specific address is owned by them.
>>
>> [0] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3D502538
>> [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3D505095
>>
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--=20
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/