Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev]Trustless Address Server – Outsourcing handing out addresses to prevent address reuse

From: Andrew Poelstra <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:42:21 +0000

On Mon, Oct 17, 2022 at 07:07:07PM -0500, Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> 
> Isn't this the same problem but now for copy-pasting pubkeys instead of an
> address?
>

No, as I understand the proposal, the "public key" held by the wallet is simply
a signing key used to authenticate addresses, and never leaves the wallet. Yes,
if the wallet's own memory is compromised, it can be tricked into accepting bad
addresses, but this is much much harder than compromising data on the clipboard,
which basically any application can do without any "real" exploits or special
permissions.

As an extreme, this proposal could be run on a hardware wallet which had some
out-of-band way to obtain and authenticate public keys (similar to Signal QR
codes).

-- 
Andrew Poelstra
Director of Research, Blockstream
Email: apoelstra at wpsoftware.net
Web:   https://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew

The sun is always shining in space
    -Justin Lewis-Webster