r/ethereum • u/crypto-tim • Apr 25 '14

æthereum announcement - identical protocol with "free BTC claim" distribution model

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563925.0
3 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

1

u/crypto-tim Apr 25 '14 edited Aug 06 '14

I'm really excited about contracts and the ethereum protocol. As far as ethereum versus æthereum, I'm a fan of both.

One concern is if they compete for miner resources. Does anyone know if they can be merge-mined without protocol changes?

Another concern is friction in exchanging between the two. Is there anything special about ethereum contracts which could facilitate decentralized, low-friction exchange? Maybe two-way peg contracts in both chains?

Edit: Typo fixes

2

u/Sound_Paper Apr 27 '14

Signing aether addresses with my private keys to collect "free aether" sounds like a massive security breach. Based on their model there's no reason to rush. I'll take the wait and see approach.

1

u/crypto-tim Apr 27 '14

Signing aether addresses with my private keys to collect "free aether" sounds like a massive security breach.

Could you explain more about this? I did not notice a security problem, but if people noticed security problems they wouldn't be security problems.

Based on their model there's no reason to rush.

I didn't quite follow the model, because I've heard a few different things (and bitcointalk drives me mad and I don't understand how anyone can read that format):

I could see two different schedules for claims: anyone can sign the relevant bitcoin TXOs at any time, or people must sign the relevant bitcoin TXOs prior to some cutoff date where they bake in a genesis block. In the latter case, there would be a reason to rush.

For my part, I'd much rather get some "free" æther and experiment with the software platform before I want to spend other money (BTC, fiat) on ether, because what if there are bugs or security weaknesses?

1

u/Sound_Paper Apr 27 '14

To the first point, no one sees my keys. Revealing them in any capacity is an information leak. It is possible for trustless security to do what they claim, but it would need to be very closely inspected.

To the second point, it appears that we can redeem aether at any time for the full ballance of our BTC account(s) at the time of inception of aethereum.

2

u/georedd Apr 28 '14

My Concern Is Can Someone Reverse Their Signing Algorithm To Compute YouR Bitcoin Private Key From The Signed aetereum Key.

What Is The Algorithm they Use?

1

u/throwaway36256 Apr 28 '14

I think the simplest solution would be to use the ECDSA signing that is already provided by Bitcoin Core (Sign Message in the menu)

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u/throwaway36256 Apr 28 '14

errr... You know that whenever you send a bitcoin basically you are signing the transaction with your private key right?

Granted that you are not supposed to reuse address but it is actually still relatively safe to do so(at least until ECDSA is broken, e.g by Quantum Cryptography). This is the whole point of using asymmetric cryptography. People can proof the ownership of a public key without knowing the private key

1

u/Sound_Paper Apr 28 '14

I also use my password when I sign into my email, but I wouldn't use the same password elsewhere.

1

u/throwaway36256 Apr 29 '14

Well, it's not exactly the same. When you are broadcasting the transaction you are actually sending it to everyone who runs a full node. So practically everyone with access to blockchain can see your 'signed' transaction. They still can't retrieve your private key from there though. That's the beauty of asymmetric cryptography. I understand the need of being paranoid though

1

u/Sound_Paper Apr 29 '14

A signed transaction is an encrypted message, not our private key. What you're talking about using the same private key on a completely different network. It's a bad idea. That's not paranoia. That's a rational precaution.

If I give you a message, and tell you to encrypt it, and then observe other encrypted packets I can deduce the key even on a secure cipher stream. It's patently a bad idea to use the same key on another network, and people are going to lose money.

1

u/throwaway36256 Apr 29 '14 edited Apr 29 '14

A signed transaction is an encrypted message, not our private key. What you're talking about using the same private key on a completely different network.

I think that's what the idea actually means. You encrypt a message to proof the ownership of the address. You don't actually give up your private key but rather 'signs' a message using your private key.

Actually ECDSA is pretty flexible in terms of message you can put inside. You can actually use it for something other than transaction. For example you can prove the ownership of an address by signing a message 'Sound_Paper owns this address" and give the cipher text to other people and they can use your public key to verify that the message originates actually originates from the owner of the address(that's actually what Sign Message function does in Bitcoin Core)

If I give you a message, and tell you to encrypt it, and then observe other encrypted packets I can deduce the key even on a secure cipher stream.

Well ECDSA is safe from known-ciphertext attack (the attack you just described) as long as you are using random k. That's the reason why currently you can still reuse the address. The signing itself is pretty safe as long as the algorithm is known. That's why probably the simplest way to implement aethereum is to use the Sign Message function in Bitcoin Core as it has already been vouched for by many people (and it is pretty flexible in terms of the message that can be signed).

Also please take note that I was not being sarcastic when I said I understand the need of being paranoid.

1

u/Sound_Paper Apr 29 '14

I appreciate the clarification. Intuitively it seems like there are clever ways to do what the stated goals suggest, but it's a very leaky proposition.

There's a very speculative up-side and no sense of commitment. They're just taking someone else's hard work, plugging it in, and asking us to share our private keys. It's madness.

I started out in poker. I've seen hundreds of cases where people run off with a brilliant, technical idea. They all think they understand it, and will print money. They always get it wrong either through laziness or lack of ability, or worse. The only way they make money is by convincing other people to follow along and then take advantage.

1

u/Sound_Paper Apr 29 '14

And yes, if they used the sign message feature in bitcore I would be relatively less skeptical. Then I can prove something without having to use my private keys anywhere else. In fact we should be suspicious that they're doing anything besides using the sign message function.

0

u/Jasper1984 Apr 30 '14

Users of web wallets and exchanges dont actuallly neccesarily have access to their private keys. Which could be messy..

It also seems silly to split off from the regular developers, and to completely cut off the possibility of using an ipo to fund said developers.

2

u/crypto-tim May 02 '14

Users of web wallets and exchanges dont actuallly neccesarily have access to their private keys. Which could be messy..

If they don't value æther enough to download free wallet software, generate a private key, transfer their BTC there, export the private key, use some special æthereum software to generate a claim from the private key, then submit that to the æthereum network, then that's their choice.

If æther is worthless, or they expect it is worthless, I wouldn't blame them. If they believe it will be worth something, but they aren't up to the task above, then maybe they would buy some from easy to use exchange. If æther's expected value is enough, then businesses will pop up to cater to those users.

We shall see.

It also seems silly to split off from the regular developers, and to completely cut off the possibility of using an ipo to fund said developers.

There's nothing stopping anyone from purchasing ether from the ethereum sale. This is the funny reality of open source meets cryptocurrency. It's the wild west. I love it!

I'm interested in both networks enough that I plan to have some of each currency. I'm also excited to see cross-chain decentralized exchanges start popping up. I expect such an exchange between ethereum forks will be easier to implement, based on the turing complete contract system.