Password manager in blockchain

[gollum]

Would it be possible to use an existing crypto coin (bitcoin or namecoin) where you store passwords in the wallet?
Something like LastPass but stored in the blockchain instead.

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[btharper]

Would it be possible to use an existing crypto coin (bitcoin or namecoin) where you store passwords in the wallet?
Something like LastPass but stored in the blockchain instead.

Doing this with an alt-coin would probably be possible, but not an existing one, and there's not a good reason to do so really. Doing it on the bitcoin blockchain just adds bloat and probably wastes the coins you use doing it. Though it is probably technically possible to do, it's just not a good idea.

If you wanted to start up a peer-to-peer password storage (just a specialized file storage) protocol. That might be something more worth looking into. Or just look into an existing storage solution (Google drive, dropbox, rapidshare, Mega, etc), or pony up for the expensive service that's already made for what you're looking for.

You may also be able to expand upon a cross-platform computer keyring and backup to "the cloud" somewhere.

[gollum]

Each person might have 100 different password profiles (url, username, password) which would use 10 kb in total.
100 million users will add 1 GB to the blockchain.

[btharper]

Each person might have 100 different password profiles (url, username, password) which would use 10 kb in total.
100 million users will add 1 GB to the blockchain.

The blockchain isn't setup to store arbitrary data, so you end up with a lot more overhead than something built for the purpose. Additionally each person has to update the records anytime they change their password and for many general schemes this may require reinserting some or all of their data in addition to the changed data. Just to generate a transaction to store any data generates at least 10 bytes of overhead to transmit. Assuming you don't want to throw the coins into a black hole (which would allow you to put more usable data in the script), and assuming you want your coins back since you're not just buying a commercial service, you only really end up with around a minimum of 10% overhead, and more likely around 90-50% when you include gathering coins to spend again after encoding, preparing coins to be sent out, multiple transactions to do this quickly and cheaply, extra transactions for stenography/blending in with regular transactions. And if people set it up and never use it it's 100% waste.

I think it's an interesting concept in the more general case of storing data on the blockchain securely with minimal overhead, I also think there are other reasons it shouldn't be done.

[gollum]

Each person might have 100 different password profiles (url, username, password) which would use 10 kb in total.
100 million users will add 1 GB to the blockchain.

The blockchain isn't setup to store arbitrary data, so you end up with a lot more overhead than something built for the purpose. Additionally each person has to update the records anytime they change their password and for many general schemes this may require reinserting some or all of their data in addition to the changed data. Just to generate a transaction to store any data generates at least 10 bytes of overhead to transmit. Assuming you don't want to throw the coins into a black hole (which would allow you to put more usable data in the script), and assuming you want your coins back since you're not just buying a commercial service, you only really end up with around a minimum of 10% overhead, and more likely around 90-50% when you include gathering coins to spend again after encoding, preparing coins to be sent out, multiple transactions to do this quickly and cheaply, extra transactions for stenography/blending in with regular transactions. And if people set it up and never use it it's 100% waste.

I think it's an interesting concept in the more general case of storing data on the blockchain securely with minimal overhead, I also think there are other reasons it shouldn't be done.

We dont need to use bitcon for this application, maybe namecoin or some other alt-coin.

[odolvlobo]

For storing data, wouldn't something like bittorrent be much more appropriate than bitcoin?

[gollum]

For storing data, wouldn't something like bittorrent be much more appropriate than bitcoin?

Yes, but parasitizing on a cryptocurrency makes that application more long lived and secure compared to a bit torrent application.

[btharper]

For storing data, wouldn't something like bittorrent be much more appropriate than bitcoin?

Yes, but parasitizing on a cryptocurrency makes that application more long lived and secure compared to a bit torrent application.

Bittorrent is great for large static content, kind of like a CDN. But to update it you need to distribute a torrent file to everyone and start over.

Freenet is probably closer to what you're looking for. Files can be uploaded anonymously by anyone and are stored even if the original host goes offline. However because people can only offer up so much hard drive space for free there's a limited amount of space and old, infrequently accessed stuff eventually dies. The short version is anyone can upload and retrieve files though.

Parasitizing off an alt-coin is just that though, you leech on it bloating the chain and just generally making other people put up with your extra cruft.

[Khertan]

BitTorrent Sync ... http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html

[gollum]

BitTorrent Sync ... http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html

Thanks! BitTorrent Sync will certainly have a usage in this kind of applications for the storage of data.
Is the data shared only with invited parties or with everyone around the world using BitTorrent Sync?