Author: Mike Hearn 2014-11-08 16:37:51
Published on: 2014-11-08T16:37:51+00:00
The field of secure key escrow needs more research as being your own bank seems much riskier than just using a real one as people feel very safe with the security provided by banks. Decentralized 2FA wallets run on a desktop/laptop and have an Android smartphone app to go with them. Alon Muroch and Chris Pacia have made huge progress on "Bitcoin Authenticator", their (HD) wallet app that is currently in alpha and focuses on UI and simple mobile security model. Bitcoin Authenticator uses P2SH/CHECKMULTISIG to provide the 2-factor functionality, but this has various downsides that are well-known such as less support for the address type and larger transactions that waste blockchain space and result in higher fees. Christopher Mann and Daniel Loebenberger from Uni Bonn have ported the efficient DSA 2-of-2 signing protocol by MacKenzie and Reiter to ECDSA and implemented their own desktop/Android wallet app pair that works and has good enough performance. Their protocol uses an interesting combination of ECDSA, Paillier homomorphic encryption, and some zero-knowledge proofs to build a working solution for the 2-of-2 case only. Currently, neither of these projects implement support for BIP70, so the screen you see when signing the transaction is hardly user-friendly or secure. Support for sending a full payment request between devices is the clear next step once these wallets have obtained a reasonable user base and are stable.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T14:10:59.614315+00:00