You've already forked nakamoto-archive
wakgill
91 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
layout: default
|
|
title: 'Re: A few thoughts...'
|
|
date: 2009-01-15 19:46:35
|
|
grand_parent: Emails
|
|
parent: Dustin Trammel
|
|
nav_order: 4
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
# Re: A few thoughts...
|
|
|
|
The email on the Cryptography Mailing List that announced Bitcoin publicly to the world.
|
|
{: .fs-6 .fw-300 }
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
From satoshi@vistomail.com Thu Jan 15 19:46:35 2009
|
|
Return-Path: <satoshi@vistomail.com>
|
|
Delivered-To: dustintrammell-dtrammell@dustintrammell.com
|
|
Received: (qmail 17744 invoked from network); 15 Jan 2009 19:46:35 -0000
|
|
Received: from anonymousspeech.com (HELO mail.anonymousspeech.com)
|
|
(124.217.253.42) by oaklabs.net with SMTP; 15 Jan 2009 19:46:35 -0000
|
|
Received: from server123 ([124.217.253.42]) by anonymousspeech.com with
|
|
MailEnable ESMTP; Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:46:30 +0800
|
|
MIME-Version: 1.0
|
|
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:42:00 +0800
|
|
X-Mailer: Chilkat Software Inc (http://www.chilkatsoft.com)
|
|
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
|
|
Subject: Re: A few thoughts...
|
|
Content-Type: text/plain
|
|
From: "Satoshi Nakamoto" <satoshi@vistomail.com>
|
|
Reply-To: satoshi@vistomail.com
|
|
To: dtrammell@dustintrammell.com
|
|
Message-ID: <CHILKAT-MID-c7513ad6-448b-8470-f92b-ff663d9fd33b@server123>
|
|
X-Evolution-Source: pop://dustintrammell-dtrammell@mail.oaklabs.net/
|
|
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
|
|
|
|
I group attacks into two classes:
|
|
1) Attacks that can only be done by someone actually in the chain
|
|
of communication
|
|
2) Attacks that can be done by anyone on the Internet from anywhere
|
|
|
|
Type 1 exposes you to people in your house or company on your
|
|
local LAN, admins at ISPs in between, and the LAN on the
|
|
recipient's side. Type 2 exposes you to a billion people who can
|
|
self-select to be attackers and get economy of scale when they
|
|
develop one technique to attack multiple victims.
|
|
|
|
Sending by IP requests a new public key, so yes, it's vulnerable
|
|
to type 1 man-in-the-middle. If that's a concern, sending to a
|
|
Bitcoin address doesn't have that vulnerability, although there's
|
|
a small privacy tradeoff. I have a feeling most of the time
|
|
people will get Bitcoin addresses off of non-SSL websites and
|
|
unsigned cleartext e-mail, which is already vulnerable to type 1
|
|
and type 2 through DNS poisoning.
|
|
|
|
One solution would be to use both the IP and Bitcoin addresses
|
|
when sending (maybe 1.2.3.4-1Kn8iojk...), where the recipient uses
|
|
the public key of the Bitcoin address to sign the new public key
|
|
to prove that you're sending to who you think you are. If the
|
|
system starts to be used for real business purposes, I will
|
|
certainly implement that. Another solution is to use SSL.
|
|
|
|
For now, it's pretty obvious that if you send to an IP, you didn't
|
|
give any other identifying information about the recipient, so
|
|
you're blindly sending to whoever answers that IP.
|
|
|
|
Another feature for later is an option to encrypt your wallet.
|
|
|
|
> If I understand how that is done correctly, you just compute the
|
|
> transaction into the block chain and let the intended recipient
|
|
> 'discover' it, correct?
|
|
|
|
That's correct.
|
|
|
|
> An alternative could be to allow the network
|
|
> nodes to provide a resolution service, where they ask around for the
|
|
> network address of a BitCoin address, and if that node is online, once a
|
|
> consensus is agreed upon by the network for that address the sending
|
|
> BitCoin application connects directly there.
|
|
|
|
It would be nice to only need the Bitcoin address and have the IP
|
|
worked out behind the scenes. Might have privacy or denial of
|
|
service issues. Certainly before another sending method is
|
|
implemented, there's plenty of time now to fully think through the
|
|
design and make sure it's the best way.
|
|
|
|
Satoshi
|
|
```
|