From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.192] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-1.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1WntPt-0004v1-Ll for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Fri, 23 May 2014 17:38:01 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.217.170 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.217.170; envelope-from=gmaxwell@gmail.com; helo=mail-lb0-f170.google.com; Received: from mail-lb0-f170.google.com ([209.85.217.170]) by sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1WntPs-0000W3-N6 for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Fri, 23 May 2014 17:38:01 +0000 Received: by mail-lb0-f170.google.com with SMTP id w7so2955589lbi.29 for ; Fri, 23 May 2014 10:37:53 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.112.89.66 with SMTP id bm2mr2024719lbb.91.1400866354168; Fri, 23 May 2014 10:32:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.112.89.68 with HTTP; Fri, 23 May 2014 10:32:34 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <537F7BE2.6010006@jerviss.org> References: <7B48B9D4-5FB0-42CA-A462-C20D3F345A9A@beams.io> <537D0CE1.3000608@monetize.io> <537F7BE2.6010006@jerviss.org> Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 10:32:34 -0700 Message-ID: From: Gregory Maxwell To: Kyle Jerviss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gmaxwell[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature X-Headers-End: 1WntPs-0000W3-N6 Cc: Bitcoin Development Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] PSA: Please sign your git commits X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 17:38:01 -0000 On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Kyle Jerviss w= rote: > Multisig is great for irreversible actions, but pointless most of the > time, which is why no PGP developer or user ever thought to implement it. > > If you lose a key and an attacker signs a bogus email or commit with it, > we all roll back with no lasting harm done. PGP in general is not very thoughtful about security. There are a lot of things it does poorly. This is easily excusable considering the historical context it came from=E2=80=94 it was the first real cryptographi= c tool I used, at the time its distribution had concerns about legality, just getting things into people's hands was an achievement enough. >From a cryptosystem perspective much more powerful things can be done now, but there is a long way to go in figuring out how to many any cryptographic tool usable to people. PGP is a general purpose tool=E2=80=94 which is the hardest kind to write= =E2=80=94 its also used in a lot of irreversible contexts: If your key deploys a bad software release and it steals everyone's data or wipes their disks=E2=80= =94 thats not an irreversible action by any means. If you want threshold pgp though=E2=80=94 it's possible. The RSA cryptosyst= em is directly compatible with threshold cryptography. It's just that no one has written the tools. There are implementations of the bare cryptosystem however. One of my longer term would-be-nice goals for a upgrade bitcoin script 2.0 would be being thoughtful enough in the design that it could be adopted as a signing cryptosystem in other applications (e.g. tools similar to GPG)=E2=80=94 allowing for things like creating a public key whi= ch can only issue trust level 0 certifications, only certifications for certain organizations (e.g. *.debian.org) unless thresholded with an offline key, or only signing for messages meeting a certain programmatic predicate generally.