📅 Original date posted:2012-04-03
📝 Original message:On 04/03/2012 02:46 PM, Gavin Andresen wrote:
> RE: signature blocks and BIP 10:
>
> We should avoid reinventing the wheel, if we can. I think we should
> extend existing standards whenever possible.
>
> So: could we encode signature blocks or BIP-10 transactions using
> S/MIME ? Or is there a more appropriate "sign a message" standard we
> could/should use?
>
> You're glossing over little details like what character encoding is
> used for the message, but I'd rather leverage all the work already
> done by the IETF to nail down all those little details rather then
> re-discover them and come up with our own solutions.
>
I'm glossing over details because I actually have no experience dealing
with character encodings, or the implementation specifics of existing
solutions (PGP or S/MIME). That's why I'm emailing this list: I want
to figure this stuff out, and at the same time try to converge on
something that is efficient and can be interoperable between Armory and
the Satoshi client (wallets, signature collection, sig blocks).
I don't go into these things solely to reinvent stuff. My primary
motivation for both ideas I have pitched so far (BIP 0010 and the sig
blocks) is the versatility. I like the encoding-independent, visual
compactness of PGP ASCII-armored text blocks, but I don't like their
opaqueness. PGP vs my signature blocks basically look the same to a
casual user, but even a moderately-knowledgeable user can appreciate the
human-readable components of it. You can visually identify if
signatures are missing from sig-collection packet, or see that you
signed with the wrong address without having to load an external program.
But that isn't a critical requirement, it's just my personal
preference. I'm fine with existing systems if it sidesteps a lot of
problems and there's easy interface to it. But, I don't want to have
another BSDDB-wallet situation where we end up with 10x more capability
than we need, and pay for it with 10x the complexity (at least in this
case, using PGP is an existing crypto/security-sensitive technology). I
have made "simplicity" one of my goals in Armory.
Alternatively, we could change the discussion to a requirements
discussion, to first figure out what we need in order to address
multi-signature collection, etc. Then evaluate competing ideas based on
their qualities relative to the requirements.
Alan Reiner [ARCHIVE] /
npub1sm…mnq7h
2023-06-07 10:02:55
in reply to nevent1q…lk74
Author Public Key
npub1sm6zhjmk5scuz294jmpkw99wwwjzetjgwp4fu4gn6utqgdz87hkqamnq7hPublished at
2023-06-07 10:02:55Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2012-04-03\n📝 Original message:On 04/03/2012 02:46 PM, Gavin Andresen wrote:\n\u003e RE: signature blocks and BIP 10:\n\u003e\n\u003e We should avoid reinventing the wheel, if we can. I think we should\n\u003e extend existing standards whenever possible.\n\u003e\n\u003e So: could we encode signature blocks or BIP-10 transactions using\n\u003e S/MIME ? Or is there a more appropriate \"sign a message\" standard we\n\u003e could/should use?\n\u003e\n\u003e You're glossing over little details like what character encoding is\n\u003e used for the message, but I'd rather leverage all the work already\n\u003e done by the IETF to nail down all those little details rather then\n\u003e re-discover them and come up with our own solutions.\n\u003e\nI'm glossing over details because I actually have no experience dealing \nwith character encodings, or the implementation specifics of existing \nsolutions (PGP or S/MIME). That's why I'm emailing this list: I want \nto figure this stuff out, and at the same time try to converge on \nsomething that is efficient and can be interoperable between Armory and \nthe Satoshi client (wallets, signature collection, sig blocks).\n\nI don't go into these things solely to reinvent stuff. My primary \nmotivation for both ideas I have pitched so far (BIP 0010 and the sig \nblocks) is the versatility. I like the encoding-independent, visual \ncompactness of PGP ASCII-armored text blocks, but I don't like their \nopaqueness. PGP vs my signature blocks basically look the same to a \ncasual user, but even a moderately-knowledgeable user can appreciate the \nhuman-readable components of it. You can visually identify if \nsignatures are missing from sig-collection packet, or see that you \nsigned with the wrong address without having to load an external program.\n\nBut that isn't a critical requirement, it's just my personal \npreference. I'm fine with existing systems if it sidesteps a lot of \nproblems and there's easy interface to it. But, I don't want to have \nanother BSDDB-wallet situation where we end up with 10x more capability \nthan we need, and pay for it with 10x the complexity (at least in this \ncase, using PGP is an existing crypto/security-sensitive technology). I \nhave made \"simplicity\" one of my goals in Armory.\n\nAlternatively, we could change the discussion to a requirements \ndiscussion, to first figure out what we need in order to address \nmulti-signature collection, etc. Then evaluate competing ideas based on \ntheir qualities relative to the requirements.",
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