What we need to stop the hacks and thefts!

[Peter R]

With the history of web-wallet hacks and bitcoin-exchange heists, culminating in the recent MtGox fiasco, I decided it was time to put all this thievery behind us!  

I came up with something that would not only solve our problems but also help the victims of capital controls in the Ukraine, depositors in Cyprus, and those suffering due to high-inflation in Argentina:

What we need is a trustless way to store, transport, and exchange funds with anyone in the world, without the help of a third-party or the permission of an authority.  It would be great if we just had to protect one piece of information to keep our funds secure--something like a 78-digit number that no one could ever guess.

I think something like that could really take off.  

[Gamer67]

We already have that. It is called a wallet. Don't store your coin on a web wallet or leave more on an exchange than you are willing to risk.


Simple.

[01BTC10]

something like a 78-digit number that no one could ever guess.

Impossible. Password are useless. What you want is cold storage wallet or maybe hardware wallet.

[DeathAndTaxes]

With the history of web-wallet hacks and bitcoin-exchange heists, culminating in the recent MtGox fiasco, I decided it was time to put all this thievery behind us!  

I came up with something that would not only solve our problems but also help the victims of capital controls in the Ukraine, depositors in Cyprus, and those suffering due to high-inflation Argentina:

What we need is a trustless way to store, transport, and exchange funds with anyone in the world, without the help of a third-party or the permission of an authority.  It would be great if we just had to protect one piece of information to keep our funds secure--something like a 78-digit number that no one could ever guess.

I think something like that could really take off.  

I think you may be on to something here!  You could prove the transfer of value using the secret number to sign a receipt of sorts, instead of revealing it.  That way others can verify the receipt, yet can't produce forgeries.   The receipt would then give the receiver irrefutable proof that funds have been transferred and anyone could verify that transfer.  The main obstacle that has thwarted other systems in the past is that a person could sign two different receipts spending the same funds twice.  If only someone could invent a network, maybe consisting of a large number of anonymous peers, secured by a method of proof that would finally solve this two-spend problem.  Then we would have a system which allowed any individual to engage in commerce with any other individual without the need for a central authority.  The days of having wealth stolen while under the control of a third party would finally be over.

Well we can hope someday someone will invent it.  Whoever he ends up being, I would like to shake his hand, or maybe buy him a beer with these "unforgeable irrefutable receipts of wealth".  

[Peter R]

Well we can hope someday someone will invent it.  Whoever he ends up being, is I would like to shake his hand.

Me too.  I just had a feeling of deja vu that the name he will go by might be of Japanese decent.

[Gabi]

Yup that would be a really nice thing, too bad something like this doesn't exist, it would be so cool! Imagine all the possibilities that such a thing would allow!

[justusranvier]

I agree with discouraging hosted wallets, but realistically it's not going to happen any time soon.

Bitcoin is growing exponentially and we can't educate all the incoming users fast enough. There will always be a new wave who jumps into Bitcoin before they find out why it's bad to trust an exchange with their Bitcoins.

So until Bitcoin takes over the world, the only way to effectively improve things is to make exchange wallets as less unsafe as possible.

[RiverBoatBTC]

Yea if only it was that easy to stop them...

[Gabi]

Maybe the government will do something about all these problems!

[DannyHamilton]

With the history of web-wallet hacks and bitcoin-exchange heists, culminating in the recent MtGox fiasco, I decided it was time to put all this thievery behind us!  

I came up with something that would not only solve our problems but also help the victims of capital controls in the Ukraine, depositors in Cyprus, and those suffering due to high-inflation Argentina:

What we need is a trustless way to store, transport, and exchange funds with anyone in the world, without the help of a third-party or the permission of an authority.  It would be great if we just had to protect one piece of information to keep our funds secure--something like a 78-digit number that no one could ever guess.

I think something like that could really take off.  

I think you may be on to something here!  You could prove the transfer of value using the secret number to sign a receipt of sorts, instead of revealing it.  That way others can verify the receipt, yet can't produce forgeries.   The receipt would then give the receiver irrefutable proof that funds have been transferred and anyone could verify that transfer.  The main obstacle that has thwarted other systems in the past is that a person could sign two different receipts spending the same funds twice.  If only someone could invent a network, maybe consisting of a large number of anonymous peers, secured by a method of proof that would finally solve this two-spend problem.  Then we would have a system which allowed any individual to engage in commerce with any other individual without the need for a central authority.  The days of having wealth stolen while under the control of a third party would finally be over.

Well we can hope someday someone will invent it.  Whoever he ends up being, I would like to shake his hand, or maybe buy him a beer with these "unforgeable irrefutable receipts of wealth".  

It'll never work.

Wouldn't it be better to have a centralized authority issue some sort of physical token to represent the currency.  That way whoever is holding the token would be undeniably the "owner" of it.  These tokens could be secured using well established physical security practices.  We could give the issuing authority significant resources (guns, training, manpower, buildings, vehicles, high tech equipment, enforceable laws, etc) which they could use to punish anyone that attempts to physically remove the tokens without proper authorization as well as anyone that attempts to create and pass unauthorized copies of the tokens.  No need for a digital signature or a network of anonymous peers to prevent duplication of digital "receipts" when you have the fear of incarceration or death to accomplish the same task.

Sure it would be a huge waste of resources to keep the system running, but the cost of those resources could be proportionally shared by everyone involved.  We could allow the centralized authority to simply create new tokens that they could assign to themselves whenever they need it. And the inflationary effects would distribute the cost across the entire currency base.  I'm sure we could trust them not to create more tokens than necessary.

I'm sure that if we just let the majority choose a group of people to be in charge of staffing the organization, that the organization would always look out for the greater good of everyone involved.  Right?

[acarterczyz]

My method may work. Everytime the wrong password is entered, the following image displays. This will deter those pesky thieves...

[zvs]

I never thought bitcoins would go > $35 it hit in.. hmm.. April 2011, right?  Never could really wrap my head around it gaining widespread use given how idiotic most people are with wireless/pr0n links/warez/passwords/computer knowledge in general.

Probably some godawful amt of individuals that have had their bitcoins taken...  We just hear about the big ones, hah.

I still get the occasional phishing email from MtGox fiasco

[Coins4life]

With the history of web-wallet hacks and bitcoin-exchange heists, culminating in the recent MtGox fiasco, I decided it was time to put all this thievery behind us!  

I came up with something that would not only solve our problems but also help the victims of capital controls in the Ukraine, depositors in Cyprus, and those suffering due to high-inflation in Argentina:

What we need is a trustless way to store, transport, and exchange funds with anyone in the world, without the help of a third-party or the permission of an authority.  It would be great if we just had to protect one piece of information to keep our funds secure--something like a 78-digit number that no one could ever guess.

I think something like that could really take off.  

Would you mind if I created this?

[AnonyMint]

I alluded to a potential solution in a prior post, but I guess I didn't make it explicit enough to gain attention.

On this issue of having accounts to pay with instead of use BTC base money (i.e. cash), I already pointed out upthread that if I must have a zillion separate accounts, it is going to drive me crazy. I already have too many accounts on the internet to keep track of.

Instead a dominant set of providers would take over and we are right back to VISA, Mastercard, and Paypal again. Nothing gained. Why did we waste our fucking time inventing Bitcoin then.

So I entirely disagree that we need accounts for most things. We can build services that operate on the block chain without needing store funds in an account for those services. We can pay as we go, utilizing the block chain. This is the future.

We need less overhead in our lives, not more. Accounts are proliferated overhead and/or centralizing. We need decentralized freedom.

Also if accounts are holding our balances then they will naturally end up leveraged, i.e. fractional reserves. This is a repeating phenomenon throughout the history of man. We needed accounts when base money was gold, but we don't need them now. Our technology has improved. Money is no longer physical.

To backup our keys without giving a masterkey to a coinbase, we need to have physical copies of backups. Use a Print key or copy to removable memory card. Your software should tell you when to print/copy and store in your physical safe. If you find it more convenient and safe to have coinbase hold your masterkey, then you are giving up your anonymity because they will need to identify you if ever you lose your password.

The website services should operate on the blockchain and not create accounts. Period.

The back-end process should be P2P decentralized exchange.

Naive users will go to website services, because they want Bitcoin to work like Facebook. They don't know or care what is happening behind the scenes.

[E.exchanger]

I thought you are going to talk about some serious shit here when i started reading your post but hey its just a idea which i would say have been discussed several time in the past as well. Its Not something new and live.

[seriouscoin]

To the noobs that dont understand,

The OP is talking about bitcoin and D&T confirms it lol