Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] New standard transaction types: time to schedule a blockchain split?

From: Douglas Huff <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:27:42 -0500

On Aug 24, 2011 3:29 PM, "Gregory Maxwell" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Christian Decker
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > we could add an rsa-like scheme which allows m-out-of-n signatures. It
works
> > by distributing shares of the key which are points on a curve having the
> > actual key as 0-value. It does not require special length for the key so
if
> > ecdsa allows something similar there need not be anything changed.
>
> This works fine for ECC.  But it requires that the composite key
> signer has simultaneous access to all the key-parts, so it doesn't
> solve the "my PC has malware" problem.

I don't think anything simple enough to actually be used by people in
general does. Same concept as what I proposed earlier before nanotube gave
me the context for Gavin's intent on irc.

Now that I'm understanding the use case I really think the best way to go
about this initially is like you said earlier.

Provide methods to export/import unsigned txns, provide methods to run the
GUI in a way that can track your own addresses with only pubkeys available
to the client, provide methods to sign and import/export/broadcast signed
txns.

With these tools offline wallets become feasible. Combined with wallet
crypto I think this is really the best that can be done to protect users
from themselves in a way that isn't too complicated for them to actually
use.