Author: Gregory Maxwell 2014-03-09 01:57:46
Published on: 2014-03-09T01:57:46+00:00
In a message exchange from March 8, 2014, a Bitcoin developer named Luke-Jr discussed the issue of multiple key use with another developer named Kevin. When asked how to patch the issue, Luke-Jr stated that there was no need to patch it because properly used, there is only ever one signature per public key. However, the other developer argued that security should not depend on perfect use and cited examples like Bitcoin address authentication and receiving multiple payments to a common address. Luke-Jr acknowledged that most security issues are not the result of one problem but several problems combined, and it's important to make each layer strong even if the strength shouldn't be important due to proper use in other layers. Fortunately, libsecp256k1 has a nearly constant time/constant memory access multiply for signing which should reduce exposure substantially (and is generally built in a way that reduces vulnerabilities).
Updated on: 2023-05-19T18:13:12.270374+00:00