1 2017-05-14 18:55:32 <corinrose> is there any reason we cant use bip32 nmemonics to sign transactions in the same way that someone inputs their credit card number to send a payment?
 2 2017-05-14 18:56:13 <arubi> corinrose, bip32 doesn't have mnemonics at all
 3 2017-05-14 18:56:18 <arubi> that's bip39
 4 2017-05-14 18:56:30 <corinrose> oh yeah my bad i meant bip39
 5 2017-05-14 18:56:52 <arubi> bip39 doesn't know about signing, just creating seeds
 6 2017-05-14 18:58:24 <corinrose> well yeah but you can use that seed to generate an hd wallet
 7 2017-05-14 18:58:40 <arubi> that's bip32, but it doesn't deal with signing either
 8 2017-05-14 18:59:37 <corinrose> uh huh, but with a generated wallet you have a bunch of keypairs you can use to sign transactions
 9 2017-05-14 18:59:52 <arubi> but you need a specific keypair to sign a specific input
10 2017-05-14 19:00:09 <arubi> that's not something you generate on the fly, you need to keep that somewhere
11 2017-05-14 19:00:13 <arubi> like a wallet
12 2017-05-14 19:01:01 <arubi> signing process itself is well defined, and only the hashing part of it involves bitcoin stuff at all
13 2017-05-14 19:01:17 <arubi> the math itself doesn't know you're sending coins around :)
14 2017-05-14 19:02:55 <corinrose> but you can scan for available balances when you re-generate a HD wallet, right? so if someone wanted to lets say pay someone else 5 btc, they input their bip39 nmemonic, some client side js generates a seed, uses that to generate an hd wallet, looks for adresses with available blances that add up to 5 btc (or a bit more with change) and signs those as inputs
15 2017-05-14 19:03:14 <corinrose> im noobish so i could be missing something but wouldnt that work?
16 2017-05-14 19:03:25 <arubi> why not keep it simple and just do all the generation and signing yourself?
17 2017-05-14 19:04:04 <arubi> someone expects a payment from you?  let them give you an address, and your job is to fund it with enough balance to cover a purchase
18 2017-05-14 19:04:33 <arubi> the shouldn't care which keys signed it, or which transactions paid to it.  only that their balance is now enough for clearance
19 2017-05-14 19:05:00 <arubi> they*
20 2017-05-14 19:05:58 <arubi> if services start implementing anything different than that (and seems like they already do to some extent), then bitcoin isn't doing very well
21 2017-05-14 19:08:34 <corinrose> im a little confused. what im suggesting is essentially using a bip39 mnemonic as a master key to your wallet. that way the only time your private keys exist to be stolen is when they're being generated on the fly to sign a transaction, after which they go away. i feel like that would be a lot simpler for the average user
22 2017-05-14 19:08:58 <arubi> bip39 mnemonics are already used as seeds for your wallet
23 2017-05-14 19:09:06 <arubi> but you don't have to enter it every time you use the wallet
24 2017-05-14 19:09:13 <arubi> it's actually working better than you're suggesting already
25 2017-05-14 19:10:04 <arubi> and also, wallets try to minimize that point where your keys can be stolen to 0 by not letting keys leave the wallet
26 2017-05-14 19:26:23 <corinrose> yeah, im suggesting a completely different system where a user doesnt really have a wallet. itd work more like a credit card. you have a balance which you can check (just with your extended public key), and in order to send a payment you enter your nmemonic and the service does all the generating and signing for you. so then, your private keys dont even exist until when theyre being used and then theyre gone
27 2017-05-14 19:26:42 <corinrose> so what that means is that web wallets are suddenly not anywhere near the security risk they are now
28 2017-05-14 19:27:34 <corinrose> no ones storing your keys for you so you actually own your bitcoin, but you still can go onto a website to make a payment to anyone you want without having to transmit any of your information anywhere, other than the actual transaction itself onto the bitcoin network
29 2017-05-14 19:38:57 <arubi> corinrose, that's not how bitcoin transactions work.  it's actually a lot simpler than that.  there doesn't need to be context in key generation to making payments.  it's really a lot better that way
30 2017-05-14 19:40:09 <arubi> since you can't really sign with an extended public key, I'm not sure what you mean.  I think if you write up something more formal then it'll be easier to go through.  right now you mostly keep rephrasing it with longer and longer sentences
31 2017-05-14 19:44:08 <corinrose> you're right i should write something more formal up but let me try one more time. what im picturing is a website where you have a watch only wallet that uses your extended public key to keep track of your balance. theres no harm in storing that information centrally cause so what if someone hacks it. then when you want to pay someone, you enter their address, the amount you want to pay, and your nmemonic, and some client si
32 2017-05-14 19:44:32 <corinrose> money, creates a transaction, and broadcasts it to the network
33 2017-05-14 19:45:46 <arubi> what if someone hacks it and then follows your transactions around?
34 2017-05-14 19:46:04 <arubi> they can't steal your money, but you're out of privacy forever if they get the master public key
35 2017-05-14 19:46:29 <arubi> why not... never keep your keys, public or private on a website online, and just use a wallet?
36 2017-05-14 19:47:08 <arubi> why enter a mnemonic when you can enter a password or a pin code on a wallet you own and control?
37 2017-05-14 19:47:42 <arubi> why this whole back and forth of using an online 3rd party service to enter a 24 word mnemonic just so they can have your keys to sign for you?
38 2017-05-14 19:47:52 <arubi> signing isn't hard even to a calculator
39 2017-05-14 19:50:24 <corinrose> okay yeah thats valid i hadnt thought of that, but the website doesnt NEED to keep track of the public keys either. i think for the average person this would be more appealing and safer than keeping a wallet, at least with the current wallet tech we have. but i see what you mean, im just trying to flesh out an idea ive been thinking about
40 2017-05-14 19:51:05 <corinrose> but the main thing im thinking about is usability, not for the current average bitcoin user but for the average human
41 2017-05-14 19:51:25 <arubi> corinrose, if you have a smartphone, you should try "mycelium testnet"
42 2017-05-14 19:51:52 <arubi> see what a wallet is like, it doesn't need a website to work, and it's a lot easier that what you're suggesting
43 2017-05-14 19:56:04 <corinrose> i generally use electrum on my desktop, and im familiar with how wallets work. the thing is a lot of users are using web wallets these days whether they're safe or not just because they're lazy or bad with computers or any number of reasons. yes a desktop wallet is just objectively better, but i think if people are gonna be using web wallets anyway, they might as well have less risk, which i think this would accomplish maybe
44 2017-05-14 19:56:25 <corinrose> desktop or smartphone wallet i should say
45 2017-05-14 19:56:33 <arubi> you're not suggesting less risk by sharing private keys with a 3rd party service
46 2017-05-14 19:57:38 <corinrose> when are you sharing private keys? all of the crypto is done client side, the only thing that ever gets shared is the transaction itself (and i was thinking the xpubkey but you're right that thats a bad idea)
47 2017-05-14 19:57:51 <arubi> why do that at all then?
48 2017-05-14 19:58:43 <corinrose> im not sure what you mean, do what?
49 2017-05-14 19:58:58 <arubi> if you're signing locally, at what point and for what purpose do you need to share the details with anyone else in the first place?
50 2017-05-14 19:59:25 <corinrose> you dont, im not suggesting you do
51 2017-05-14 20:00:13 <arubi> "if people are gonna be using web wallets anyway"..
52 2017-05-14 20:00:39 <arubi> web wallets sign for you, or don't they?
53 2017-05-14 20:01:35 <arubi> so what I figured is that you're suggesting using a web wallet that just knows the master public key, and not the private keys
54 2017-05-14 20:01:42 <arubi> but then, why bother?
55 2017-05-14 20:04:02 <arubi> anyway, maybe it's the time and I'm too tired to follow :).  night corinrose, cya around
56 2017-05-14 20:04:39 <corinrose> thanks for hearing me out, ill try to formalize my thoughts, night! :)