Author: Matthew Roberts 2016-12-23 18:21:43
Published on: 2016-12-23T18:21:43+00:00
In cryptography, Lamport Signatures can be used to sign a message using only hash functions. This involves masking the bits of a message by exchanging a table of hashes prior to signing and then revealing the "secrets" behind said hashes in such a way that you can selectively mask the bits of the message hash that you're wishing to sign. This algorithm is elegant and quantum safe. However, using only the hashes in this scheme won't work since anyone can pluck out those values and double spend the original transaction to a new destination. Regarding hash protected M of N multi-sig, there is already a similar smart contract algorithm called "atomic cross-chain contracts" that relies on hash values to be released as part of the protocol to swap coins across blockchains but uses ECDSA public keys to prevent the transactions from being double-spent. In Bitcoin Multi-sig using hash values will work - though you still need to include an ECDSA pub key to protect them from attackers on the network. If you would like to use Lamport Signatures in your consensus system, it must understand Lamport signature operations in the "scriptPubKey." Ethereum could potentially do this now. The intended use-case for this is not specified.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T20:58:38.073397+00:00