Author: slush 2013-11-02 21:57:50
Published on: 2013-11-02T21:57:50+00:00
The Bitcoin whitepaper celebrated its 5th anniversary by introducing the message signing based authentication method as an alternative to passwords. This method involves a server providing a token for the client to sign, which is then passed back to the server along with the Bitcoin address. The server then validates the message and identifies the user. This concept has been implemented on a proof of concept forum that stores only the signed message and Bitcoin address provided by users, and everything else is an RSS feed. Passwords are becoming inefficient and are frequently compromised, leading to an increasing need for alternatives like digital signatures. There is no standard way to replace passwords with digital signatures yet, but this can be achieved by composing a structured and human-readable message-to-be-signed containing the desired username, server identifier, timestamp to prevent replay attack, and server challenge. This structured data should be a part of the HTML page in some header tag, ideally signed by the server certificate to confirm validity and enable machine automation without the need for copy and paste by the user. Feedback and suggestions for this method are welcome.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T18:57:43.521448+00:00