On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Greg Sanders via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > Has anyone actually used the multilingual support in bip39? > Copay (and all its clones) use it. > > If a feature of the standard has not been(widely?) used in years, and > isn't supported in any major wallet(?), it seems indicative it was a > mistake to add it in the first place, since it's a footgun in the making > for some poor sap who can't even read English letters when almost all > documentation is written in English. > > On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 6:13 AM, nullius via bitcoin-dev < > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > >> On 2018-01-08 at 07:35:52 +0000, 木ノ下じょな wrote: >> >>> This is very sad. >>> >>> The number one problem in Japan with BIP39 seeds is with English words. >>> >>> I have seen a 60 year old Japanese man writing down his phrase (because >>> he kept on failing recovery), and watched him write down "aneter" for >>> "amateur"... >>> >>> [...] >>> >>> If you understand English and can spell, you read a word, your brain >>> processes the word, and you can spell it on your own when writing down. >>> Not many Japanese people can do that, so they need to copy letter for >>> letter, taking a long time, and still messing up on occasion. >>> >>> [...] >>> >>> Defining "everyone should only use English, because ASCII is easier to >>> plan for" is not a good way to move forward as a currency. >>> >> >> Well said. Thank you for telling of these experiences. Now please, >> let’s put the shoe on the other foot. >> >> I ask everybody who wants an English-only mnemonic standard to entrust >> *their own money* to their abilities to very, very carefully write this >> down—then later, type it back in: >> >> すさん たんろ りゆう しもん ていおん しとう >> とこや はやい おうさま ほくろ けちゃっふ たもつ >> >> (Approximate translation: “Whatever would you do if Bitcoin had been >> invented by somebody named Satoshi Nakamoto?”) >> >> No, wait: That is only a 12-word mnemonic. We are probably talking >> about a Trezor; so now, hey you there, stake the backup of your life’s >> savings on your ability to handwrite *this*: >> >> にあう しひょう にんすう ひえる かいこう いのる ねんし はあさん ひこく >> とうく きもためし そなた こなこな にさんかたんそ ろんき めいあん みわく >> へこむ すひょう おやゆひ ふせく けさき めいきょく こんまけ >> >> Ready to bet your money on *that* as a backup phrase in your own hands? >> No? Then please, stop demanding that others risk *their* money on the >> inverse case. >> >> ---- >> >> If you cheat here by having studied Japanese, then remember that many >> Japanese people know English and other European languages, too. Then think >> of how much money would be lost by your non-Japanese-literate family and >> friends—if BIP 39 had only Japanese wordlists, and your folks needed to >> wrestle with the above phrases as their “mnemonics”. >> >> In such cases, the phrases cannot be called “mnemonics” at all. A >> “mnemonic” implies aid to memory. Gibberish in a wholly alien writing >> system is much worse even than transcribing pseudorandom hex strings. The >> Japanese man in the quoted story, who wrote “aneter” for “amateur”, was not >> dealing with a *mnemonic*: He was using the world’s most inefficient means >> of making cryptic bitstrings *less* userfriendly. >> >> ---- >> >> I began this thread with a quite simple request: Is “日本語” an appropriate >> string for identifying the Japanese language to Japanese users? And what >> of the other strings I posted for other languages? >> >> I asked this as an implementer working on my own instance of the greatest >> guard against vendor lock-in and stale software: Independent >> implementations. — I asked, because obviously, I myself do not speak all >> these different languages; and I want to implement them all. *All.* >> >> Some replies have been interesting in their own right; but thus far, >> nobody has squarely addressed the substance of my question. >> >> Most worrisome is that much of the discussion has veered into criticism >> of multi-language support. I opened with a question about other languages, >> and I am getting replies which raise a hue and cry of “English only!” >> >> Though I am fluent and literate in English, I am uninterested in ever >> implementing any standard of this nature which is artificially restricted >> to English. I am fortunate; for as of this moment, we have a standard >> called “BIP 39” which has seven non-English wordlists, and four more >> pending in open pull requests (#432, #442, #493, #621). >> >> I request discussion of language identification strings appropriate for >> use with that standard. >> >> (P.S., I hope that my system did not mangle anything in the foregoing. I >> have seen weird copypaste behaviour mess up decomposed characters. I >> thought of this after I searched for and collected some visually >> fascinating phrases; so I tried to normalize these to NFC... It should go >> without saying, easyseed output the Japanese perfectly!) >> >> >> -- >> nullius@nym.zone | PGP ECC: 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C >> Bitcoin: bc1qcash96s5jqppzsp8hy8swkggf7f6agex98an7h | (Segwit nested: >> 3NULL3ZCUXr7RDLxXeLPDMZDZYxuaYkCnG) (PGP RSA: 0x36EBB4AB699A10EE) >> “‘If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.’ >> No! Because I do nothing wrong, I have nothing to show.” — nullius >> >> _______________________________________________ >> bitcoin-dev mailing list >> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org >> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev > > -- Matías Alejo Garcia @ematiu Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!