Author: Eric Larchevêque 2014-04-04 13:22:59
Published on: 2014-04-04T13:22:59+00:00
Eric Larchevêque has written a draft BIP description of an authentication protocol based on Bitcoin public address. The aim is to greatly facilitate sign ups and logins to services and applications, improving the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole. The UX is clear and simple with four steps: click on "connect with Bitcoin", flash the QRcode with your wallet, accept the authentication request, and the user is autologged and identified by the chosen Bitcoin public address. It makes sense only if major wallets are supporting the protocol. Many services require your Bitcoin address, and to do that they artificially request an email/password to store it. Without such a standard protocol, you could never envision a pure Bitcoin physical locker rental, or booking a hotel room via Bitcoin and opening the door through the paying address. SSL client certificates already solve the problem Eric is trying to solve and if he wants to help make them more widespread, the programs he needs to upgrade are web browsers and not Bitcoin wallets. Overall, Bitcoin and website authentication are unrelated problems. Classic password authentication is an insecure process that could be solved with public key cryptography. The problem is that it theoretically offloads a lot of complexity and responsibility on the user. Managing private keys securely is complex. However, this complexity is already being addressed in the Bitcoin ecosystem. So doing public key authentication is practically a free lunch to bitcoiners. Eric formatted the protocol description as a BIP because it's the only way to have all major wallets implementing it, and because it completely fits in his opinion, the BIP "process" category.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T18:24:14.024055+00:00