A Browser Based Cryptocurrency Client [real devs only please]

[bluemeanie1]

Hello,

  Seems there is a new possible platform emerging for cryptocurrency, using the Browser for the client.

  This library claims it can do ECC pub/private key encryption in the browser: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/

  Using HTML5, you can store the keys in the browser database: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/storage

  There are also some file system access functions as well: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/filesystem/  .  Thus you could have a wallet.dat file in your regular file system.  The problem of key storage has a lot of complex security considerations and is probably the most difficult aspect of doing this correctly.

  It could potentially be used as a Bitcoin SPV client, although my interest is something slightly different.  I have not really confirmed this fully.

  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

thanks, -bm

[bluemeanie1]

some other similar libraries:


// this one actually has a digital currency application built with it.

http://openpgpjs.org/

http://code.google.com/p/crypto-js/

// this one boasts SHA-256 capability

http://caligatio.github.io/jsSHA/

seems the efforts in this space are divided and there are no obvious technology standards.

-bm

[moderate]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

[bluemeanie1]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I researched this quite heavily about a year ago and it would have been very difficult at that point to develop a browser based crypto currency client.  NodeJS-based is a different story.

[bluemeanie1]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

interesting.

[moderate]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I don't have to, the own link you posted is from 2009.

[moderate]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

interesting.

Interesting and useless for the purposes of this topic. Browsers won't even implement websockets properly in an uniform way (which is also pretty close to pointless here, do you want an interesting link for that too?), webrtc will take a good amount of years to become a standard.

[bluemeanie1]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I don't have to, the own link you posted is from 2009.

in other words, you dont have a link- you just wanted to try and start a fight.

[moderate]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I don't have to, the own link you posted is from 2009.

in other words, you dont have a link- you just wanted to try and start a fight.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/

 Last modified: Tue Sep 15 23:30:00 PST 2009

Good job.

[bluemeanie1]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I don't have to, the own link you posted is from 2009.

in other words, you dont have a link- you just wanted to try and start a fight.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/

 Last modified: Tue Sep 15 23:30:00 PST 2009

Good job.

you linked another library for JS based javascipt.  um, thanks?

has nothing to do with your sordid claim above, but not sure how being a complete jerk on this thread is paying off for you?

[moderate]

This is not new, you missed it by some years now. It is also slow and unaudited.

do you have a link to what you're referring to?

I don't have to, the own link you posted is from 2009.

in other words, you dont have a link- you just wanted to try and start a fight.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/

 Last modified: Tue Sep 15 23:30:00 PST 2009

Good job.

you linked another library for JS based javascipt.  um, thanks?

You linked that lib, gosh.. Are you claiming that I am you and I posted your original post ?

[Come-from-Beyond]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

interesting.

Interesting and useless for the purposes of this topic. Browsers won't even implement websockets properly in an uniform way (which is also pretty close to pointless here, do you want an interesting link for that too?), webrtc will take a good amount of years to become a standard.

No need to become a standard. Anyone interested in using crypto can download a browser that supports WebRTC if their soft doesn't support it already.

[bluemeanie1]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

interesting.

Interesting and useless for the purposes of this topic. Browsers won't even implement websockets properly in an uniform way (which is also pretty close to pointless here, do you want an interesting link for that too?), webrtc will take a good amount of years to become a standard.

No need to become a standard. Anyone interested in using crypto can download a browser that supports WebRTC if their soft doesn't support it already.

right, if you could do this for one major browser that would be a big accomplishment.  HTML5 is pretty solid at this point, so I dont think theres much wiggly things there.

[moderate]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Possible?  Impossible?  Impractical?  Just plain dumb?  Brilliant?  ... just thought I would gather some general input on this idea.

Possible. Add http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ to the list.

interesting.

Interesting and useless for the purposes of this topic. Browsers won't even implement websockets properly in an uniform way (which is also pretty close to pointless here, do you want an interesting link for that too?), webrtc will take a good amount of years to become a standard.

No need to become a standard. Anyone interested in using crypto can download a browser that supports WebRTC if their soft doesn't support it already.

The only thing I can take from that is that you seriously confusing WebRTC with something else. The website is at http://www.webrtc.org/ the first paragraph is: WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs.

Anyone interested in using crypto knows that webrtc has no role into this.

[Come-from-Beyond]

The only thing I can take from that is that you seriously confusing WebRTC with something else. The website is at http://www.webrtc.org/ the first paragraph is: WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs.

Anyone interested in using crypto knows that webrtc has no role into this.

No, that's u who confuses WebRTC with something else. Look at the beginning of this article - http://www.pubnub.com/blog/making-peer-data-connections-in-the-browser-with-webrtc/.

Sending data between two users in today’s browser world is a tough process with JavaScript. Most developers rely on using a server as the middle man to send data to another user. This means setting up server technology that can handle this, as well as paying for scaling and bandwidth for all of your users. The fix for this problem is taking the shortest route between two users; commonly known as the WebRTC Peer Connection. The WebRTC Peer Connection makes a direct connection between two browsers so they can pass data between them.

[bluemeanie1]

The only thing I can take from that is that you seriously confusing WebRTC with something else. The website is at http://www.webrtc.org/ the first paragraph is: WebRTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs.

Anyone interested in using crypto knows that webrtc has no role into this.

No, that's u who confuses WebRTC with something else. Look at the beginning of this article - http://www.pubnub.com/blog/making-peer-data-connections-in-the-browser-with-webrtc/.

Sending data between two users in today’s browser world is a tough process with JavaScript. Most developers rely on using a server as the middle man to send data to another user. This means setting up server technology that can handle this, as well as paying for scaling and bandwidth for all of your users. The fix for this problem is taking the shortest route between two users; commonly known as the WebRTC Peer Connection. The WebRTC Peer Connection makes a direct connection between two browsers so they can pass data between them.

I would double check all your assumptions here.  The problem of connecting two people behind NAT is non-trivial.  I think what this article is talking about is a simple Browser API for connecting to other people who are connected to the server.  You haven't taken the server out of the equation, although you might hide some of the complexities of this arrangement.

[Come-from-Beyond]

I would double check all your assumptions here.  The problem of connecting two people behind NAT is non-trivial.  I think what this article is talking about is a simple Browser API for connecting to other people who are connected to the server.  You haven't taken the server out of the equation, although you might hide some of the complexities of this arrangement.

http://webrtchacks.com/an-intro-to-webrtcs-natfirewall-problem/

[moderate]

I would double check all your assumptions here.  The problem of connecting two people behind NAT is non-trivial.  I think what this article is talking about is a simple Browser API for connecting to other people who are connected to the server.  You haven't taken the server out of the equation, although you might hide some of the complexities of this arrangement.

http://webrtchacks.com/an-intro-to-webrtcs-natfirewall-problem/

I can only hope that at some point you will realize this has nothing to do with cryptography.

[bluemeanie1]

I would double check all your assumptions here.  The problem of connecting two people behind NAT is non-trivial.  I think what this article is talking about is a simple Browser API for connecting to other people who are connected to the server.  You haven't taken the server out of the equation, although you might hide some of the complexities of this arrangement.

http://webrtchacks.com/an-intro-to-webrtcs-natfirewall-problem/

that is very interesting, thanks.  I might actually use this in my project.

have you worked much with WebRTC?