Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] An alternative to BIP 32?

From: vjudeu <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 21:25:36 +0100

So, things have to be complicated to be secure? By definition, using some private key, calculating some public key from it and incrementing that key is secure (it is definitely no worse than address reuse). The only problem with using "privKey", "(privKey+1) mod n", "(privKey+2) mod n" and so on is that all of those public keys could be easily linked together. If that is the only problem, then by making offset deterministic but less predictable, it should be secure enough, right? So, instead of simple incrementation, we would have "privKey" (parent), "(privKey+firstOffset) mod n" (first child), "(privKey+secondOffset) mod n" (second child) and so on. And as long as this offset is not guessed by the attacker, it is impossible to link all of those keys together, right?

> On 2021-03-20 11:08:30 user Tim Ruffing <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2021-03-19 at 20:46 +0100, vjudeu via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > > is it safe enough to implement it and use in practice?
> > 
> > This may be harsh but I can assure you that a HD wallet scheme that can
> > be specified in 3 lines (without even specifying what the security
> > goals are) should not be assumed safe to implement.
> > 
> > Tim 
> > 
> > 
>