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An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

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Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#31

Post by chill1 »

troquerre wrote: post #2

Note this airdrop was implemented on the Handshake blockchain and just went live today. If you had over 15 followers on GitHub in Aug 2018 you were included and get 4662 HNS (worth $2000+ at current market price). If you’re eligible, we created these instructions on how to claim here https://namebase.io/airdrop .

1) Requires a private SSH/GPG key that was associated with your GitHub account at some arbitrary date in the near past. It would be trivial to design a cryptographic scheme to prove ownership of a GitHub account without compromising private keys. So why do it the way they have?

2) Requires that you provide government issued identification (and possibly more) to be able to withdraw or sell the airdropped tokens for USD or bitcoin.

Call me paranoid, but this feels like a honeypot. It feels like an attempt to compile a database of programmers/developers (and their real identities) - with a bit of a bias towards those with knowledge in the areas of cryptography and/or cryptocurrencies.

Even if that is not the intent. Would you trust this company to safely store such information about you?

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#32

Post by pinhead26 »

rvnx wrote: post #24
pinhead26 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to, it works by signing a message with your PGP or SSH key. All GitHub users' public keys are already available from their API, that's how the airdrop works.

No. It's not like that at all. Otherwise there would be no controversy. The airdrop tool takes your private key and your passphrase, does some overcomplicated (and unconventional) magic with it and asks you to post the resulting data to the public.

The Goosig (extra blinding crpyto) is also optional. With the --bare flag, its just a signature.

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#33

Post by rasengan »

chill1 wrote: post #31
troquerre wrote: post #2

Note this airdrop was implemented on the Handshake blockchain and just went live today. If you had over 15 followers on GitHub in Aug 2018 you were included and get 4662 HNS (worth $2000+ at current market price). If you’re eligible, we created these instructions on how to claim here https://namebase.io/airdrop .

1) Requires a private SSH/GPG key that was associated with your GitHub account at some arbitrary date in the near past. It would be trivial to design a cryptographic scheme to prove ownership of a GitHub account without compromising private keys. So why do it the way they have? 2) Requires that you provide government issued identification (and possibly more) to be able to withdraw or sell the airdropped tokens for US…

1) Nowhere is a private key exposed in the process. I do not know how you came to this conclusion after reading the paper and the code.

2) Namebase definitely makes things easier, but you can absolutely claim your airdropped coins locally on your own computer.

As a final note, if you think this is targeting those with knowledge in the areas of cryptography, I assure you, any cryptographer who reviews the code and paper would not have the same conclusion as you.

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#34

Post by [deleted] »

pinhead26 wrote: post #32
rvnx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's not like that at all. Otherwise there would be no controversy. The airdrop tool takes your private key and your passphrase, does some overcomplicated (and unconventional) magic with it and asks you to post the resulting data to the public.

The Goosig (extra blinding crpyto) is also optional. With the --bare flag, its just a signature.

[deleted]

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#35

Post by rvnx »

pinhead26 wrote: post #32
rvnx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's not like that at all. Otherwise there would be no controversy. The airdrop tool takes your private key and your passphrase, does some overcomplicated (and unconventional) magic with it and asks you to post the resulting data to the public.

The Goosig (extra blinding crpyto) is also optional. With the --bare flag, its just a signature.

Try it please :) I've spent several hours around this option.

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#36

Post by kwantam »

Hi HN, I'm one of the authors of this paper. Very cool to see it being discussed here!

I'm happy to answer questions about private airdrops, with two caveats: first, I'm not associated with Handshake, so I probably don't know the answer to Handshake-specific questions. Second, I'm juggling some other things today, so apologies in advance if my answers are delayed.

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#39

Post by rvnx »

rvnx wrote: post #28
troquerre wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's how the airdrop tool works and the instructions use that tool too (the first step in the instructions just shows how to install the tool).

Can you ask one of your developers to try using the bare mode only ? (a concrete case, only the public key and extracting the raw bytes). Several hours, flipping the code in many ways, such option doesn't seem to exist (and for sure isn't documented)

Mhhh, your nonce discovery process cannot work without the private key.

  while (br.left()) {
    const ct = br.readBytes(br.readU16(), true);
    qqq++;
    try {
      out.push(key.decrypt(ct, priv));
    } catch (e) {
      continue;
    }
  }
What you do is that you bruteforce 1500 items with the private key of the user to find the nonce. So obviously, the --bare mode cannot work the way you describe.

Re: An airdrop that preserves recipient privacy [pdf]

#40

Post by rvnx »

rvnx wrote: post #35
pinhead26 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goosig (extra blinding crpyto) is also optional. With the --bare flag, its just a signature.

Try it please :) I've spent several hours around this option.

I've explained above why it cannot work, but I'm still digging on alternative that wouldn't consist on revealing the private key.
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