Is there a reason why Elecrum has to use specific servers and not core nodes

[jackg]

I've been thinking this for a while now and have searched on it without very much in the way of good results.

What I want to know is why electrum isn't able to work like Andreas Schildbach's wallet for android and act as an SPV wallet but connecting to any non-specialist core nodes (or have I mised something about his wallet).

By non-specialist core nodes, I mean without electrumx or equivilant.

[pooya87]

Andreas Schildbach's wallet for android

do you have a link to this wallet source if it is available? i have been trying to build an SPV wallet using bloom filters and it is good to have a source code in front of me for reference. i could only find this but none of the sources seem to be related to this: https://github.com/schildbach?utf8=%E2%9C%93&tab=repositories&q=&type=source&language=

in any case i believe the Electrum team was trying to solve the man in the middle attacks which is why these Electrum servers which are using SSL encryption are being used. or at least that is the only reason that i could ever find.

[ranochigo]

Andreas Schildbach's wallet for android

do you have a link to this wallet source if it is available?

If I'm not wrong, the renamed the developers of the android wallet so it doesn't show Andreas Schildbach anymore. It's now Bitcoin Wallet Developers on Google Play. The link is here: https://github.com/bitcoin-wallet/bitcoin-wallet.

in any case i believe the Electrum team was trying to solve the man in the middle attacks which is why these Electrum servers which are using SSL encryption are being used. or at least that is the only reason that i could ever find.

Certain servers don't have SSL to it, and some have self-signed certificate. Doesn't seem to be the main reason though many sources state it as an advantage.

My take is that Electrum would lose a lot of features if they decide to shift to a non server reliant wallet.

[jackg]

@Pooya, ranochingo was right with the link github.com/bitcoin-wallet/bitcoin-wallet.

@Ranochingo, what would be lost with changing from electrum's servers to a more mainstream direct mainnet access. Can't man-in-the middle attacks be done with electrum servers also?

[ranochigo]

@Ranochingo, what would be lost with changing from electrum's servers to a more mainstream direct mainnet access. Can't man-in-the middle attacks be done with electrum servers also?

I'm not exactly sure but I don't think the floating fee could be retrieved directly from the peers(?). There's no doubt many of the features will have to be reworked and I imagine that could be a hassle. Don't quote me on this, just a speculation.

MITM attacks could be done on Electrum servers if there isn't SSL on it or has a self-signed certificate.

[jackg]

I'm not exactly sure but I don't think the floating fee could be retrieved directly from the peers(?). There's no doubt many of the features will have to be reworked and I imagine that could be a hassle. Don't quote me on this, just a speculation.

MITM attacks could be done on Electrum servers if there isn't SSL on it or has a self-signed certificate.

I always thought core nodes used ssd, must be wrong somewhere.

Andreas' wallet (as far as I can remember) used to predict the transaction fees although maybe that was an internal thing he programmed.

[pooya87]

I'm not exactly sure but I don't think the floating fee could be retrieved directly from the peers(?). There's no doubt many of the features will have to be reworked and I imagine that could be a hassle. Don't quote me on this, just a speculation.

i believe you are correct. there is no option in the P2P protocol used by bitcoin core or any other full node implantation that i know of which can directly tell you the fees. and it would be an easy thing to add though! it can be a simple GetFeeStats message which then returns an array of fee/byte amounts with their corresponding total size in that node's mempool.

right now you can probably do a silly workaround using the FeeFilter message, and setting it to a high amount then send a MemPool message. or you can get the appropriate fee from elsewhere and then verify it with this method using the P2P network

I always thought core nodes used ssd, must be wrong somewhere.

you mean SSL? no, all the communication occurs over HTTP without any sort of encryption. and there is no need for it when you are running a full node.

[HCP]

I believe it stems from the fact that Electrum came into existence before bitcoind supported SPV... As such, Electrum needed it's own server network to function. Once bitcoind supported SPV, Electrum servers were already a thing and offered extra features over and above the capabilities of bitcoind.

Theoretically, it should be possible to re-engineer it to work without Electrum specific servers, but then you'd lose the "label sync" plugin functionality... and also the "co-signer pool" plugin functionality for multisig wallets etc.

Having said that, I'm not sure how many people actually utilise that as opposed to simply exporting and sending the partially signed transactions manually.

[jackg]

I always thought core nodes used ssd, must be wrong somewhere.

you mean SSL? no, all the communication occurs over HTTP without any sort of encryption. and there is no need for it when you are running a full node.

Yes I did. I think autocorrect screwed me over again I was doing something that needed ssd at the time though...
You could channel it through tor to get ssl but it'll still use http to connect to that node via tor.

I believe it stems from the fact that Electrum came into existence before bitcoind supported SPV... As such, Electrum needed it's own server network to function.

That's probably the exact reason, I think we have an answer there! It was just before the time that the other SPV/bitcoind-rpc requests were available.