Author: Drak 2013-12-08 19:16:31
Published on: 2013-12-08T19:16:31+00:00
In a discussion regarding the use of encryption and decentralization for Bitcoin websites, Luke-Jr argued that encryption is useless because users need to be able to download Bitcoin clients, and binaries on Sourceforge are signed by multiple parties using Gitian. The issue of decentralization was also discussed, with the acknowledgement that while website content can be forked on GitHub, the domain name remains centralized as long as DNS is used. To truly solve this issue, Drak suggested the use of a dedicated server that only accepts commands signed by N-of-M parties, within a cage locked by padlocks with keys held by independent parties, and with an SSL certificate issued by an authority that has multiple parties watch it every step of the way into the server. The discussion then turned to the issue of malicious actors with root access to the server, which could allow them to exploit routers and redirect traffic through a third party in order to alter the content of the site or direct users to a scammer's site. BGP redirection was noted as a real-world threat that can be exploited without much effort, and SSL was deemed essential in mitigating such attacks. In fact, recent discussions at the W3C suggest that the HTTP 2.0 spec might even require SSL-only connections.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T22:06:00.264096+00:00