Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Hardware wallets => Topic started by: Ducker Smith on January 09, 2019, 10:42:00 AM



Title: Why Cobo Tablet only allows to store 4 letters of each words?
Post by: Ducker Smith on January 09, 2019, 10:42:00 AM
I received my Cobo Vault yesterday. I am just confused why the tablet only allows us to store 4 letters of each word. Most of my mnemonic words are over 5 letters.


Title: Re: Why Cobo Tablet only allows to store 4 letters of each words?
Post by: Yinhuo1993 on January 09, 2019, 11:17:48 AM
According to this article https://www.blockplate.com/pages/first-4-letters-of-a-bip39-mnemonic-seed-phrase

Quote
BIP 39 is the use of a mnemonic phrase -- a group of easy to remember words -- to serve as your back up recovery in the event your wallet becomes compromised.
These words are pulled from a specific list of 2048 words.  In this list, the first 4 letters are unique to each word. That means if you have the first 4 letters, you know the rest of the word. Some wallets will even fill in the rest of the word once the first 4 letters are entered.

Hope this helps.


Title: Re: Why Cobo Tablet only allows to store 4 letters of each words?
Post by: elda34b on January 10, 2019, 08:12:00 AM
According to this article https://www.blockplate.com/pages/first-4-letters-of-a-bip39-mnemonic-seed-phrase

Quote
BIP 39 is the use of a mnemonic phrase -- a group of easy to remember words -- to serve as your back up recovery in the event your wallet becomes compromised.
These words are pulled from a specific list of 2048 words.  In this list, the first 4 letters are unique to each word. That means if you have the first 4 letters, you know the rest of the word. Some wallets will even fill in the rest of the word once the first 4 letters are entered.

Hope this helps.

Won't this decrease the security of the wallets? It seems like as long as you fill the 4 words then you can 'hack' any wallet.


Title: Re: Why Cobo Tablet only allows to store 4 letters of each words?
Post by: o_e_l_e_o on January 10, 2019, 02:33:55 PM
Won't this decrease the security of the wallets? It seems like as long as you fill the 4 words then you can 'hack' any wallet.

I think you've misread and/or misunderstood the answer. It's the first 4 letters of each individual word which are unique to that word, and not the first four words of the phrase, which is what your reply seems to suggest.


Title: Re: Why Cobo Tablet only allows to store 4 letters of each words?
Post by: elda34b on January 12, 2019, 06:20:15 AM
I think you've misread and/or misunderstood the answer. It's the first 4 letters of each individual word which are unique to that word, and not the first four words of the phrase, which is what your reply seems to suggest.

Oh, my bad. You're right, I misunderstood this. On second thought, I might misunderstand the thread title and what OP actually asking too :/