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101  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin at the US Senate on: November 10, 2013, 10:29:07 PM
To the people bashing this you are either just mindless anarchists or just flat out dumb.

What the Bitcoin Foundation is trying to do is get the US powers that be to understand bitcoin and not stiffen bitcoin businesses in the US.

Unfortunately the US is a land of laws, and bitcoin can attempt to explain laws that should be put in to place that won't stop adaptation.

Bitcoin can go on without the US saying so, but it can also become successful quickly if the US adapts sensible laws.

Regardless, bitcoin will live whether the US attempts to thwart it or not.

You accuse us of being dumb, but actually I think that is a naive position. Yes, you can enter into a dialogue with state power to negotiate a set of rules for Bitcoin. What happens when they say that (a) all ownership of bitcoin must be registered with a government department (b) all buying and selling must be through regulated exchanges - thus exchanging in a localbitcoins style transaction is illegal, (c) such buying and selling through regulated exchanges is subject to KYC, AML and all stolen bitcoins will be illegal to transact with (and confiscated by the government, no doubt).

And how is entering a discussion going to make this happen faster?  They will do this whether they (the powers that be) want to or not.  By offering dialogue at least it leaves open discussion to not let this happen.  Just sitting back and not being proactive and pretending the government is not interested is not going to achieve anything.

And again, even if they did deem something like localbitcoins illegal, it is not enforceable.  

You can also post ideas here, of course. Although I think Patrick prefers to use the Foundation forum, I read both.

Hi Mike,

Well, here is my suggestions...

I think one of the biggest issue at the moment is a wide spread misconception about what exactly is Bitcoin. As evidenced by this forum, there is a mass of people which are not aware that Bitcoin is just a software which allows people to use a medium of exchange defined as BTC. There are many people projecting their expectation and insecurities over the concept of the Bitcoin software.

If I was called to testify, I would ensure to be prepared to explain how exactly the Bitcoin software works in every detail, but with simple explanations. In other words, I would really teach the enquirers as best I could about the Bitcoin software. I would even do live demonstrations to let the audience to understand better what exactly the Bitcoin software can do.

I believe that providing the most accurate information to people in position of power always results in good outcomes. Misinformation can lead to wrong decisions and serious failures. It is important to ensure the enquirers understand that:

- BTC is NOT a currency (the enquirers need to be assured that BTC is a digital medium of exchange which is evaluated against national currencies, mainly the USD. This is very important because it will shape the future decisions to create laws regarding the utilization of BTC in the financial market. So they have to learn that BTC has to be regulated as medium of exchange, not as currency.)

- Bitcoin was NOT developed to undermine the utilization of fiat currencies or replace money transmission business (this is one of the more common misconceptions about the Bitcoin software. People believe that Bitcoin was made to replace business like Visa, Paypal, Western Union, etc. This is, of course, a delusional belief. The Bitcoin software could never replace such business because it not offer the necessary structure required to operate such business. So it is important the enquirers understand that the Bitcoin software was initially developed to offer an alternative way to transmit money. I would tell the enquirers that any financial institution today could use the Bitcoin software to transmit money, including any departments of the federal government such as the IRS.)

- Bitcoin do NOT facilitate criminal activities (this must be explained in very precise details because is directed correlated to national security. The enquirers must to know that transactions generated by the Bitcoin network are not under control of one single entity, but it is recorded in a single virtual ledger which is quite difficult to tamper. So there is a way to keep track of how much money is transmitted in the Bitcoin network.)

+1 
This is exactly what I am talking about. 

The only real post of substance here other than people who really seem to have no idea how the world works and are stuck inside their little bitcoin bubble.
102  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin at the US Senate on: November 10, 2013, 10:02:33 PM
To the people bashing this you are either just mindless anarchists or just flat out dumb.

What the Bitcoin Foundation is trying to do is get the US powers that be to understand bitcoin and not stiffen bitcoin businesses in the US.

Unfortunately the US is a land of laws, and bitcoin can attempt to explain laws that should be put in to place that won't stop adaptation.

Bitcoin can go on without the US saying so, but it can also become successful quickly if the US adapts sensible laws.

Regardless, bitcoin will live whether the US attempts to thwart it or not.
103  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: How to file a FTC complaint against BFL's illegal business practices on: October 27, 2013, 05:52:12 PM
More info: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0221-billed-merchandise-you-never-received-heres-what-do

The example on the site is hilarious:

Quote
You found the perfect set of linens in a mail order catalog. You call to place your order and charge it to your credit card. You're told that your linens should arrive in two weeks. Two weeks go by, then three and four, and still no linens. What you do get is your credit card bill with a charge from the catalog company.
104  Bitcoin / Hardware / Re: Time to sue ButterflyLabs - Big Single-SC owner let's league for class action on: October 27, 2013, 05:41:30 PM
I have posted a topic on how to file a FTC complaint against BFL on their illegal behavior regarding late shipments and refusing refunds.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=319522.msg3419162#msg3419162

This takes less than 10 minutes and I encourage EVERYONE who has had problems with BFL to fill it out.  The more complaints filed the faster they will investigate them and put a stop to this nonsense.  If my above posts did not show that this is illegal behavior by BFL then follow my guide on the FTC web site and you will see that it indeed is a federal trade violation and they can get in massive trouble for this.  It's illegal and that's why you don't see other businesses behaving this way.

Should you still file if you payed in bitcoins?  How does this process work - how can you prove a bitcoin payment?  Show the blockchain transaction?
105  Economy / Securities / Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] on: October 27, 2013, 05:09:36 AM
Can anyone inform me if Ken has officially announced what to do with our shares on bitfunder?

I know he has an exchange in the works but with the looming Nov 1 deadline I need to get my bitfunder shares out ASAP!

Posts from Ken: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1707;sa=showPosts

Thanks, tendered to AMC - TENDER - feels very worrisome but I trust ken.  

Are there any other precautions I should take.  I have set up my bitfunder with a bitcoin address that I control and can sign from.

EDIT:  And just to be absolutely sure, is this the address that is important?
106  Economy / Securities / Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] on: October 27, 2013, 05:04:23 AM
Can anyone inform me if Ken has officially announced what to do with our shares on bitfunder?

I know he has an exchange in the works but with the looming Nov 1 deadline I need to get my bitfunder shares out ASAP!
107  Economy / Goods / [SELLING] Electronic Cigarette E-Cig Juice and Kits on: October 26, 2013, 06:20:15 AM
A friend of mine has a B&M e-cig shop.  I have been trying to convince him to accept bitcoin but will not budge, won't even let me just add the option to his site.  

So I decided to do a test run and show him if there is demand or not - he agreed he would allow me to implement it to his website if some interest was shown.  

I have created a Coinbase merchant account and will list some of his popular items here (creating these coinbase pages for each individual item is a PITA!).

I will be making no profit.  In fact, he will see a larger profit due to the lack of Credit Card Fees!

You can view his site here:  http://indyecigs.com/  

If you see anything on the site not listed here just let me know.  He also has many more kits that range from simple to advanced not listed on the site.  

If you are looking for anything in particular not listed on his site you can ask here or email him directly @ info@indyecigs.com - Mention Bitcoin!

All shipping (US ONLY) is a flat rate $5 and has been included.  International orders contact me first.

These products are worlds apart from the typical ones you find at a gas station.  I am happy to say I am 2 years clean from a pack a day habit thanks to e-cigs!  If you or a loved one is trying to quit, give these a serious thought!

General thumb of rule regarding nicotine strengths:
12 mg - light smokers
18 mg - pack a day
24 mg - 2+ packs a day

~2ml of e-juice equates to ~one pack of cigarettes

E-JUICE

Nicquid Apple

NicQuid Apple is a warm fresh and sweet red apple. Think apple orchard in Vermont!
30ml 12mg|30ml 18mg|30ml 24mg
20ml 12mg|20ml 18mg|20ml 24mg

Nicquid Strawbery Fuzz *My personal favourite

The perfect marriage of ripe juicy strawberries, peaches and awesomeness can be found in NicQuid Strawberry fuzz! It is a tornado for the senses and sure not to disappoint.
30ml 12mg|30ml 18mg|30ml 24mg
20ml 12mg|20ml 18mg|20ml 24mg

Midnight Express

NicQuid Midnight Express is exactly what you have been searching for! A REALISTIC and DELICIOUS TOBACCO flavor! A full bodied tobacco experience that will be the closest to the real thing you have tried! The nuttiness at the start is the appetizer, the smoke is the entree.
30ml 12mg|30ml 18mg|30ml 24mg
20ml 12mg|20ml 18mg|20ml 24mg

House Blend Fire Cured Virginia Tobacco

This is a hit for the tobacco lover.  Very smooth.
30ml 12mg|30ml 18mg|30ml 24mg
20ml 12mg|20ml 18mg|20ml 24mg


STARTER KITS

EVOD Starter Kit

This fantastic-looking kit is perfect for new or experienced vapers.

Add some juice, and this kit includes everything you will need to vape with great style, performance, and Kanger quality.
The batteries and tanks are made for each other, match perfectly, and work great together.

The Evod tanks are bottom coil design, which ensures that your wicks remain saturated with juice. It is easy to refill and performs great.  
They have replaceable heads, so you can use the tank indefinitely and replace only the heads. The Evod batteries are top of the line ego batteries, and they have a unique feature.
They have a constant voltage output of 3.7 volts. They will hit hard throughout the discharge cycle of the battery.
These batteries will provide you with the same great power from the start of your day until the very end.

Kit includes:

    2 Evod 1000 mah batteries
    2 Evod Heads
    3 extra bottom coil replacement heads
    1 ego USB charger
    1 USB wall adapter

Kit +Nicquid Apple 10ml 12mg
Kit +Nicquid Strawbery Fuzz 10ml 12mg
Kit +Midnight Express 10ml 12mg
Kit +House Blend Fire Cured Virginia Tobacco 10ml 12mg





108  Economy / Services / [HIRING] web dev w/ experience of reddit source code and the bitcointip bot on: October 26, 2013, 03:16:04 AM
Looking for someone who would be able to use reddits source code and familiar with the inner workings of the bitcointip bot.  

Best form of contact is on #bitcoin nick = chsados or a PM
109  Economy / Digital goods / Re: 4K.com (since 1996) for sale. Auction starting at 40 BTC. on: October 23, 2013, 05:14:51 AM
Has OP in any way shape or form proven he owns this site?

This definitely should be an escrowed deal.

At least he controls the mailbox and the site itself (http://4k.com). And as stated in the original post, he insists on escrow, so I don't see how this could be scam. Maybe I am naive and there is some sophisticated scheme?

Somehow I totally missed the escrow part  Embarrassed

Well, wish I had the funds!  Happy bidding people.
110  Economy / Digital goods / Re: 4K.com (since 1996) for sale. Auction starting at 40 BTC. on: October 23, 2013, 02:22:00 AM
Has OP in any way shape or form proven he owns this site?

This definitely should be an escrowed deal.
111  Bitcoin / Electrum / Re: Cannot install Electrum on Ubuntu 13.10 on: October 22, 2013, 03:55:00 PM
Have you ran

Code:
sudo apt-get install python-qt4 python-pip

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

best I can offer, I have only just started using linux.  Electrum installed without a hitch on my recent fresh install of 13.10
112  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Honey Badger Needs To Be Official Mascot of BTC on: October 22, 2013, 03:14:32 PM
I think the honey badger mascot thing is ridiculous to be honest.

And why should a currency need a mascot in the first place?
113  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: The One True God: Satoshi Nakamoto on: October 22, 2013, 03:08:21 PM

Our Satoshi, who art in blockchain,
Encrypted be thy name
Thy transactions come
Thy will be done on ASICS
As it is on Github.
Give us this day our daily mining reward,
And forgive our zero-conf double-spends
As we forgive them that double-spend against us.
And lead us not into alt-chains
But deliver us from Ripple
For thine is the mining rig,
The hashing power, and the block reward,
For ever and ever
Amen.

Classic!
114  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / The One True God: Satoshi Nakamoto on: October 22, 2013, 04:06:40 AM


The First Day
On the first day, The One True God Satoshi said, “Let there be Light” -- and published his White Paper.

The Second Day
On the second day, The One True God Satoshi made the first Bitcoin client, and called it Bitcoin v0.1.

The Third Day
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” -- and there was Genesis.
At His command the world was freed from their shackles to the banking system.

The Fourth Day
On the fourth day The One True God Satoshi registered The Bitcoin Project at SourceForge.net.
At His further command, the people of the world could now unite in furthering his Holy Noble Vision.

The Fifth Day
On the fifth day The One True God Satoshi commanded the first published exchange rate of $1 = 1,309.03 BTC (and theymos thought NLS was overcharging)

The Sixth Day
One the sixth day, man was hungry, and Laszlo agrees upon paying 10,000 BTC for ~$25 worth of pizza courtesy of jercos

The Seventh Day
By the seventh day, everything was created and put into shape and order. And The One True God Satoshi rested on the seventh day and He said, “I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”
115  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: What sources of news about Bitcoin do you use? on: October 14, 2013, 10:11:39 PM
http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin
116  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Bruce Schneier: Insecurities in the Linux /dev/random on: October 14, 2013, 09:03:06 PM
Does this effect any bitcoin address created from a wallet on Linux?

Insecurities in the Linux /dev/random


New paper: "Security Analysis of Pseudo-Random Number Generators with Input: /dev/random is not Robust, by Yevgeniy Dodis, David Pointcheval, Sylvain Ruhault, Damien Vergnaud, and Daniel Wichs.

    Abstract: A pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) is a deterministic algorithm that produces numbers whose distribution is indistinguishable from uniform. A formal security model for PRNGs with input was proposed in 2005 by Barak and Halevi (BH). This model involves an internal state that is refreshed with a (potentially biased) external random source, and a cryptographic function that outputs random numbers from the continually internal state. In this work we extend the BH model to also include a new security property capturing how it should accumulate the entropy of the input data into the internal state after state compromise. This property states that a good PRNG should be able to eventually recover from compromise even if the entropy is injected into the system at a very slow pace, and expresses the real-life expected behavior of existing PRNG designs. Unfortunately, we show that neither the model nor the specific PRNG construction proposed by Barak and Halevi meet this new property, despite meeting a weaker robustness notion introduced by BH. From a practical side, we also give a precise assessment of the security of the two Linux PRNGs, /dev/random and /dev/urandom. In particular, we show several attacks proving that these PRNGs are not robust according to our definition, and do not accumulate entropy properly. These attacks are due to the vulnerabilities of the entropy estimator and the internal mixing function of the Linux PRNGs. These attacks against the Linux PRNG show that it does not satisfy the "robustness" notion of security, but it remains unclear if these attacks lead to actual exploitable vulnerabilities in practice. Finally, we propose a simple and very efficient PRNG construction that is provably robust in our new and stronger adversarial model. We present benchmarks between this construction and the Linux PRNG that show that this construction is on average more efficient when recovering from a compromised internal state and when generating cryptographic keys. We therefore recommend to use this construction whenever a PRNG with input is used for cryptography.
117  Other / Meta / Re: SQRL: revolutionizes web site login and authentication on: October 14, 2013, 01:33:45 AM
"Why we prominently display the domain name BEFORE authenticating" - users are stupid, they never check the URL despite how many times you tell it to. An average user storing their password in a password manager in their browser is thousands times more secure than this, simply because the average user is stupid.

In order for the SQRL domain to be incorrect the website would have had to been compromised - so it would be the same situation if someone used a regular username/password.
Quote
    The Problem: Evil website obtains SQRL code from innocent site, presenting that to the user in place of the SQRL code for the Evil site. The unwitting user snaps the SQRL code without noticing that it's for a different website. Thus the Evil website, effectively impersonated the user to the innocent site and can authenticate as them.
    The Defense: The form of “phishing” attack arises because the domain name contained within the SQRL code is not immediately obvious. So a different domain name can be presented by the Evil site. This is why the user will always be clearly shown the domain name contained within the SQRL code and warned that they will be providing their login credentials for THAT website domain, not necessarily the one they are apparently logging in to.

So it sounds like a warning would be shown saying "hey, this is attempting to log you into a site you did not mean to."
118  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: [ANN] mastercoin-tools on: October 14, 2013, 01:18:50 AM
Is there a youtube video explaining/showing all of this?

Is mastercoin an answer to colored coins?
119  Bitcoin / Project Development / Re: USB LED Message board ticker on: October 13, 2013, 10:04:36 PM
Are you able to post a video up on youtube?  Would love to see this in video format.

Would this be able to be ran on linux - specificity a raspberry pie?
120  Bitcoin / Project Development / SQRL: revolutionizes web site login and authentication on: October 13, 2013, 09:33:08 PM
Have you guys looked into this proposal of using QR codes for secure and anonymous logins?  This was theorized by Steve Gibson and the original white paper can be found here

A short video describing SQRL can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/ZrQboo3pA10

This seems really interesting and I think a bitcoin address could be used as a user's master key.

A user wishing to log into a website will be prompted with the following:


Wishing to login to an online service where an “SQRL” code appears nearby:
  • The user launches their smartphone's SQRL app, and lets it see the QR code.
    (Or a smartphone / tablet user taps it.  Or a laptop / desktop user clicks on it.)
  • For verification, the SQRL app displays the domain name contained in the SQRL code.
  • After verifying the domain, the user permits the SQRL app to authenticate their identity.
  • Leaving the login information blank, the user clicks the “Log in” button... and is logged in.
    (A bit of page automation could even eliminate the need to click the “Log in” button.)

Even though it is THAT simple, it is FAR
more secure than any other login solution.
(We'll define exactly what “far more secure” means, below.)

What happened behind the scenes?
  • The QR code presented near the login prompt contains the URL of the authentication service for the site. The URL includes a securely generated long random number so that every presentation of the login page displays a different QR code. (In crypto circles this long random number is known as a “nonce.”)
  • The smartphone's SQRL authentication app cryptographically hashes the domain name of the site keyed by the user's master key to produce a site-specific public key pair.
  • The app cryptographically signs the entire URL contained in the QR code using the site-specific private key. Since the URL includes a secure long random number (the nonce), the signature is unique for that site and QR code.
  • The app issues a secure HTTPS POST query to the QR code's URL, which is the authentication service for the site. The POST provides the site-specific public key and the matching cryptographic signature of the QR code's URL.
  • The authenticating web site receives and acknowledges the POST query by returning a standard HTTP “200 OK” with no other content. The SQRL app acknowledges the successful submission of the user-signed QR code.
  • The authenticating site has the URL containing the nonce which came back from the login page via the user's smartphone. It also has a cryptographic signature of that URL, and the user's site-specific public key. It uses the public key to verify that the signature is valid for the URL. This confirms that the user who produced the signature used the private key corresponding to the public key. After verifying the signature, the authenticating site recognizes the now-authenticated user by their site-specific public key.


This simple and straightforward SQRL protocol
yields a surprising array of features and benefits:

Anonymous Identification & Authentication:
  • SQRL ID:  Visitors to a website are uniquely identified by an absolutely anonymous SQRL ID. Their “SQRL ID” is simply their public key, described above, a 256-bit number. The same visitor always presents the same ID every time they visit the same site. But no two visitors will ever have the same ID. Thus a single website can uniquely and anonymously identify every one of their visitors.
  • SQRL IDs are both user AND site specific: Although the same user always presents the same ID to the same site, they present an entirely different ID to every other site they visit. There is NO WAY TO ASSOCIATE the SQRL ID presented to one site with those presented to any other sites. In other words, there is absolutely no cross-site coupling of identity. Users are free to use their SQRL identity anywhere and everywhere because every site receives its own unique SQRL ID.
  • No annoying account creation: Suppose you wish to simply comment on a blog posting. Rather than going through the annoying process of “creating an account” to uniquely identify yourself to a new website (which such websites know causes them to lose valuable feedback traffic), you can login using your SQRL identity. If the site hasn't encountered your SQRL ID before, it might prompt you for a “handle name” to use for your postings. But either way, you immediately have an absolutely secure and unique identity on that system where no one can possibly impersonate you, and any time you ever return, you will be immediately and uniquely known. No account, no usernames or passwords. Nothing to remember or to forget. Your SQRL identity eliminates all of that.

Anonymous Identification & Authentication:
  • Identification vs Authentication:  SQRL-enabled websites have only your unique SQRL ID to disclose, and it is useful only to that single site since every users SQRL ID is automatically unique for every site they visit. There need not be any username or password for sites to have compromised, lost or stolen. Your SQRL ID does not authenticate your identity, it only identifies you to that single website. Authentication requires the SQRL smartphone app to cryptographically sign a long random number and return it with your SQRL ID (your public key). Thus, even if a hacker were to obtain your stored SQRL ID, it is useless for impersonating you—even to that one site—because the private key required to create the signature never leaves your smartphone.
  • No keyboard interaction:  Imagine that you want to login to a computer at an unsafe location such as a library or a hotel. With SQRL, your login occurs without entering any personal credential information into the computer. You provide no username or password that might be captured by a keystroke logger or resident malware. The website issues an “SQRL authentication challenge” in the form of a unique SQRL graphic code. If you have an SQRL smartphone app, it takes up the challenge and sends the website a unique challenge response that can only have come from you. The website then logs you in when you click “Log in” under the still-empty login form. From the standpoint of that computer—and anything it might contain that's attempting to spy on you—you are magically logged in without your credentials ever appearing or passing through. Your smartphone's SQRL application saw the site's SQRL code, instantly identified you to the site, and provided cryptographic proof that the person who just clicked the “Log in” button . . . is you.
  • No “shared secrets” with websites:  Six-digit time-based authenticators are based upon a cryptographic secret known only (we hope) to your smartphone and the authenticating website. This allows the website and your phone to agree upon which six-digits will be shown at any time. While this has the benefit of always changing, it repeats the username and password problem of needing to always be kept secret . . . which websites continuously demonstrate is beyond them. (And remember, the employees of those websites do have access to your credentials.) Also like passwords, because they are not truly secure, you must employ a separate and unique authentication sequence for every website you use. If this were to become popular and widespread, you would soon be scrolling through hundreds of six-digit numbers to find the right one.
  • Out-of-band authentication:  In the context of an untrusted computer, we mentioned above how website visitors were almost magically logged in without touching the computer's keyboard. This is one aspect of an important security principle known as “out of band.” The principle is that it is generally more secure not to send all aspects of a secure communication through a single channel because the security of that channel may be compromised. Entering your username, password, and one-time password all through the same keyboard is worrisome “all in band” authentication. Difficult though it might be to compromise the security of any single channel, it is vastly more difficult to simultaneously compromise two very different forms of communication. Since SQRL uses a smartphone's connection to the internet, perhaps even a cellular carrier, it avoids reusing most or all of the local computer's channel. Authentication often occurs completely “out of band”, and thus invisible to any intruder monitoring the computer's communications.
  • No third-party involvement:  In this era of pervasive government surveillance and US NSA coercion, who is going to trust any third-party with their identity? Other identity systems and solutions attempt to “federate” trust by creating a role for themselves as a third party with whom you establish a separate trust relationship. Then the authenticating website asks that third party to verify your identity on your behalf. It would be one thing if there were no alternative. But this page, and the pages that follow, demonstrate that secure and practical anonymous identification can use an entirely first-party protocol while delivering extreme ease of use.

Secure and practical anonymous identity
authentication can use a first-party protocol
while delivering extreme ease of use.

The LACK of third-party involvement
  • The use of a third-party “middleman” transfers much of the responsibility for the management of your online identity to an external facility. In an era of secret national security letters compelling the disclosure of whatever the government desires, that's a serious liability (as mentioned above), but it can also be a significant benefit: If your smartphone escapes from your control, you need only tell the third-party to cancel the phone's authentication authority and you're immediately protected from malicious use of your smartphone's identity assertion.
  • This SQRL system concentrates ALL authentication authority into the smartphone. The benefit is that no one else has the keys to your online identity.  No one.  But the liability is that YOU are then absolutely responsible for maintaining the security of your online identity.
Ultimately, someone has to be responsible for your identity.
Should it be you, or someone else?

This is a serious issue that needed to be addressed.  Our solution is to provide the user with a conceptually simple set of tools to dramatically ease the burden of assuming and managing this responsibility. As subsequent pages detail, the system provides extensive cloning, backup, local password protection and reset capability.

Hold on a second . . .  We send the website a signed bunch of gibberish?  That's it?
Yes.  And that's exactly the point.  SQRL provides absolutely anonymous identity authentication (IA). Users are identified only by a random “opaque token” and each unique combination of user and website creates a unique identity token. Thus, every user presents a unique identity to every website they visit. It is up to the user and the website to then (optionally) bind the user's unique SQRL identity to a real-world account on the website.

For example, Amazon's account management might have an option to associate a logged in user with their Amazon SQRL identity. So Amazon would present a unique SQRL code on the account management page. The user simply snaps it with their smartphone's SQRL app and now Amazon can add their SQRL ID to their account. From now on, the user can login to Amazon anywhere with vastly improved security just that easily.

And it would probably work the other way around too: Amazon's login page would present traditional login fields and a SQRL code on the side. An existing Amazon user who is establishing their SQRL identity snaps the SQRL code with their new smartphone app and Amazon replies that it does not recognize the user. If they wish to create a new account, they may do so here, or if they are an existing user, please use traditional login one last time to associate their new SQRL identity with their existing Amazon account.

Defending against the dark forces
Why we prominently display the domain name BEFORE authenticating:  The smartphone has no way of knowing the website the user is visiting. It only receives the domain contained in the QR code displayed by that page. In the "Evil Website" attack (also discussed on the attacks page), a malicious website pretends to offer an SQRL login for itself (www.we-are-evil.com), but instead it obtains and displays a login QR code from some other domain (www.amazon.com) where an SQRL user may be known. The SQRL app always identifies and authenticates its user to the domain contained within the (human unreadable) QR code. So an unwitting user, who didn't know the domain they were authenticating to, would be logging themselves into a session initiated and controlled by the Evil Website, thus allowing the Evil Website to impersonate them.

Note that even in this instance, none of the user's login credentials ever become known to the Evil Website. The Evil Website only gets a spontaneously logged-in session (though that's clearly not a good thing!)

This risk can be easily thwarted, however, simply by having the user's smartphone first prominently display the domain name it will authenticate to only if the user first gives it permission. The user knows they are visiting “www.we-are-evil.com.” So if their phone asks for permission to login to “www.amazon.com” they just say no.

Trusting the app: Though it should go without saying, it's better to say it: Until SQRL support is moved into the underlying smartphone OS, and is then curated perhaps more carefully, users will be responsible for choosing and installing an SQRL client into their smartphones. As the SQRL system gains in popularity, it is foreseeable that malicious developers might create malicious applications to steal their users' credentials. This is not a problem that's in any way unique to SQRL. Any sort of identity or password manager needs to be carefully vetted before it is entrusted with important information. The standard advice here is to stick with the herd and go with the solution that's been most thoroughly examined, checked out, and proven.


Three Ways to Go . . . smartphone optional:
(And we solve the XKCD problem above!) Although the original inspiration for the development of this system was a smartphone scanning a QR code on a website's login page, a small addition to that model enables two more significant modes of operation: Simply make the QR code image also a clickable link to the same URL that's encoded into the QR code. This yields three ways to login:
  • Scan the code with a smartphone:  Using the model described above, a user's smartphone scans the QR code appearing on a website's login page and the user is logged into that site.
  • TAP THE CODE on a smartphone:  To login to a website ON the smartphone, when the visual SQRL code is also a URL-style link (using sqrl:// as the scheme) the SQRL app installed in the smartphone will receive that link and securely log the user into the site on the phone.
  • Click the code on a desktop or laptop screen:  To use the SQRL system on any desktop or laptop system, a desktop SQRL application would be installed and would register itself to receive sqrl:// links. (This is similar to the way an email program registers to receive mailto: links.) This allows the same solution to be used by users on their desktop that they are using on their smartphones. When any website offers an SQRL code the user just clicks on the code with their mouse cursor and the locally installed SQRL app will pop-up, prompt for their SQRL password, confirm the domain, and then log them in.

Practical Considerations:
  • Open & free, as it should be:  The component techniques and technologies employed by this solution are all well known, well tested, well understood, unencumbered by patents, and exist in the public domain. The entire system can be readily assembled from 100% open source algorithms, packages and libraries.
  • The chicken & egg problem:  There was a time before the Internet, when people asked: If there are no high-quality websites no one will use the Internet; and if no one is using the Internet no one will bother creating high-quality websites. Somehow it happened anyway. We hope and expect that SQRL login will be like that. Once we have established the required interoperability standards, people WILL create free smartphone SQRL clients—probably many. And as websites begin to offer SQRL login as a side-by-side alternative to the traditional username and password, SQRL popularity will grow. Why would anyone NOT use it when it's free, perfect, and just works? Users will want it because it immediately eliminates the most annoying aspect of the Internet. Website visitors will demand it and websites will soon see that they are losing visitors by not offering the instantaneous SQRL option. Now that we have such a terrific egg, it's difficult to see what's going to keep it from hatching, surviving, and growing.
  • NSA & NIST-free cryptography:  The recommended implementation of this system leverages several unique characteristics of well-known cryptographer Dr. Daniel J. Bernstein's (DJB) carefully designed twisted Edward's curve digital signature algorithm (EdDSA). In his extensive and complete papers (linked herein) Bernstein explains the detailed derivation and properties of his “25519” elliptic curve. Importantly, there are no mysterious constants or “magic numbers” of unknown provenance. Dan has a long and well-known history of fighting for cryptographic freedom. In 1995, while a student at the University of California, Berkeley, Dan brought a lawsuit against the United States (represented by the EFF) challenging the restrictions on the export of cryptography . . . because he wanted to publish a paper and associated source code of this “Snuffle” encryption system. The ruling in the case declared software as protected speech under the First Amendment, and national restrictions on encryption software were overturned. (He won.) Please see the Detailed Crypto Architecture page for full detail and discussion.

The following pages continue to describe this SQRL system:
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