Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Time

From: Natanael <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 18:22:46 +0200

Probably because the network isn't designed for interactive proofs. Most
interactive algoritms AFAICT requires that some machine holds a secret
state (or at least continuous and untampered state, but you still need to
verify you're falling to the right machine), otherwise the machine can be
mimicked and "rewound" to earlier states. Without a challenge-response that
can't be faked, you've got problems.

There's no trusted machines here that you can rely on. The certainty of
having the right blockchain is a statistical one over longer periods of
time, not enough for a PIN you want verified right now. So you can always
be shown an old copy, and if your node isn't up to date yet then it can
also be shown fake chains further into the future.

Maybe you could throw in some kind of Secure Multiparty Computation among
the miners to enable challenge-response, with state saved in the blockchain
(so it can't be rolled back), but that would be fragile. How do you select
what nodes may participate? How do you prevent the secret state from
leaking? And performance would be absolutely horrible, and reliability is a
huge problem.
Den 25 jul 2014 18:03 skrev "Mike Hearn" <[email-masked]>:

> Sorry, you're right. I'd have hoped a delay that doubles on failure each
> time up to some max would be good enough, relying on the p2p network to
> unlock a PIN feels weird, but I can't really quantify why or what's wrong
> with it so I guess it's just me :-)
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 4:45 PM, Aaron Voisine <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> The problem is if someone moves system time forward between app launches.
>> The lockout period doesn't have to be all that precise, it just makes you
>> wait for the next block, then 5, then 25, and so on. Using a well
>> known time server over https would also be a good option, but the wallet
>> app already has the chain height anyway.
>>
>>
>> On Friday, July 25, 2014, Mike Hearn <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>>>  Given that the speed at which the block chain advances is kind of
>>> unpredictable, I'd think it might be better to just record the time to disk
>>> when a PIN attempt is made and if you observe time going backwards, refuse
>>> to allow more attempts until it's advanced past the previous attempt.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Aaron Voisine <[email-masked]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's based on the block height, not the block's timestamp. If you have
>>>> access to the device and the phone itself is not pin locked, then you
>>>> can jailbreak it and get access to the wallet seed that way. A pin
>>>> locked device however is reasonably secure as the filesystem is
>>>> hardware aes encrypted to a combination of pin+uuid. This was just an
>>>> easy way to prevent multiple pin guesses by changing system time in
>>>> settings, so that isn't the weakest part of the security model.
>>>>
>>>> Aaron Voisine
>>>> breadwallet.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 8:21 PM, William Yager <[email-masked]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Gregory Maxwell <[email-masked]
>>>> >
>>>> > wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Is breadwallet tamper resistant & zero on tamper hardware? otherwise
>>>> >> this sounds like security theater.... I attach a debugger to the
>>>> >> process (or modify the program) and ignore the block sourced time.
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> > It's an iOS application. I would imagine it is substantially more
>>>> difficult
>>>> > to attach to a process (which, at the very least, requires root, and
>>>> perhaps
>>>> > other things on iOS) than to convince the device to change its system
>>>> time.
>>>> >
>>>> > That said, the security benefits might not be too substantial.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> > Want fast and easy access to all the code in your enterprise? Index
>>>> and
>>>> > search up to 200,000 lines of code with a free copy of Black Duck
>>>> > Code Sight - the same software that powers the world's largest code
>>>> > search on Ohloh, the Black Duck Open Hub! Try it now.
>>>> > http://p.sf.net/sfu/bds
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Bitcoin-development mailing list
>>>> > [email-masked]
>>>> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Want fast and easy access to all the code in your enterprise? Index and
>>>> search up to 200,000 lines of code with a free copy of Black Duck
>>>> Code Sight - the same software that powers the world's largest code
>>>> search on Ohloh, the Black Duck Open Hub! Try it now.
>>>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/bds
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Bitcoin-development mailing list
>>>> [email-masked]
>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Aaron Voisine
>> breadwallet.com
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Want fast and easy access to all the code in your enterprise? Index and
> search up to 200,000 lines of code with a free copy of Black Duck
> Code Sight - the same software that powers the world's largest code
> search on Ohloh, the Black Duck Open Hub! Try it now.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/bds
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>