
Dark Wallet Will Make Bitcoin Accessible for All, Except the Feds - kseistrup
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/dark-wallet-will-make-bitcoin-accessible-for-allexcept-the-feds
======
mrb
A state-less browser-based Bitcoin wallet that connects to the p2p network
using WebSocket? Using a deterministic wallet seeded with a password you type
once when opening the page? Is this the technical core of what Dark Wallet is
about?

Wow, I have been in Bitcoin for 3 years, and I can't believe I never put thin
web client + deterministic seeded wallet together... Even without implementing
anything else[1] this would be HUGE, INSANELY useful.

\- There would be zero efforts in getting started using Bitcoin.

\- No software/app to install.

\- Open a Dark Wallet page (hosted anywhere), type in a password, that's it
you can see your Bitcoin addresses and receive coins.

\- If you received coins in the past, you see your balance, and are ready to
send coins. Dark Wallet can use SPV[2] to automatically discover the balance
of your addresses. It could use HTML5 local storage just to cache a few things
to speed up auto-discovery.

\- You could even save the Dark Wallet html/js on your local harddrive and
just open this up next time.

\- If Bitcoin nodes have native support for acting as WebSocket servers, this
would make Dark Wallet completely server-less.

\- Dark Wallet would dynamically find p2p Bitcoin nodes via DNS, just like
Bitcoin-QT does it today.

\- No need to back up or save anything. Coins cannot be accidentally lost as
long as you remember your password and as long as the password is strong. The
password you type is the seed generating your wallet's private keys.

[1] [https://darkwallet.unsystem.net](https://darkwallet.unsystem.net) lists:
auto-anonymizer, broadcasters, encrypted messaging, encrypted shop-front,
contracts, escrows, etc. [2] Simple Payment Verification.

EDIT: Looking more into Dark Wallet, it seems they want to implement it as a
browser extension, which would involve a non-zero effort to install. Argh!
There is a huge value to have NOTHING to install. Another way to understand
what I suggest is a server-less blockchain.info wallet.

~~~
neals
So if 2 people have the same password, they have the same wallet?

~~~
phaer
You could use a username too, right? Because <unique username> \+ <any
password> should be unique.

~~~
gabemart
Not really. A username of 8 characters and a password of 8 characters ensures
no more entropy than a password of 16 characters and not bothering with a
username.

It might even provide less, given that the user is more likely to share their
username with others than they are to share half their password.

~~~
rch
How about a long-ish memorable phrase and password, encrypted with scrypt? Hit
the output with base64 and use the first N characters of the, possibly hashed,
result (haven't tried it, so I'm not sure what stage of the output would be
most memorable). The results should be about as easy to remember as a routing
number + bank account, which is something my friends and I all do.

------
gaius
The problem I have with this, and the newly announced Dark Mail Alliance is
that "dark" sounds sexy these days that bookshops are full of "paranormal
romance" books (yes this really is an entire section now) but you can't go
mainstream with it precisely because of the name. The mail guys should have
called themselves the "Privacy Guard Alliance" or something.

~~~
conformal
i guess everyone wants to go sexy vs conventional lately.

is miley cyrus setting trends in computing now?

~~~
XorNot
I think it speaks more to the motivations of the people involved. They want to
imagine themselves untouchable by the law, while simultaneously claiming they
have no desire to break it.

"if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" has been used as a scare-
phrase about surveillance for far too long without anyone comprehending what
it actually is supposed to mean.

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throwaway98604
I agree with most things Cody Wilson stands for, but I just can't stand those
videos he makes. It makes it sound like this wallet (and a few months ago, the
3D printed gun) is going to destroy the U.S. government in one fell swoop.
This wallet isn't really bringing anything new to the table. Zerocoin /
Blockchain.info already exist.

I'll pass.

~~~
k_os
I cringe aswell when I see such videos but they're for media attention not to
people very well informed like yourself. They do no harm to you except for
cringing for a few seconds. On the other hand these kind of videos appeal to
sheeple on an emotional level.

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droopyEyelids
Does anyone have an idea how this would practically work?

I understand if the money stays in the black market economy, but once the
government is serious about Bitcoin and has a few data centers following all
transactions in the block chain, we'll have to be accountable for all
transactions into and out of our wallet.

It'll be the perfect system for taxation, and I can't imagine how some of
these anonymous funds will ever interact with your real identity without
sending up a million red flags.

~~~
mtgx
Maybe then we'll start using Zerocoin:

[http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/04/zerocoin-
mak...](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/04/zerocoin-making-
bitcoin-anonymous.html)

[http://zerocoin.org/](http://zerocoin.org/)

~~~
IanCal
Would zerocoin count as a mixer? It sounds very similar, and I believe those
are/can easily be illegal^.

The wiki page on mixers [0] suggests that doing this with a large amount of
money could be seen as structuring [1].

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring)

^ In the US

~~~
devx
It's not a mixer.

~~~
IanCal
What's the functional difference? It's a way of combining assets then removing
them such that tracing becomes difficult/impossible. The link I gave warns
about hiding transactions over $10k, as I understand it doing that with
zerocoin would be illegal.

------
kseistrup
The Dark Wallet web site:

[https://darkwallet.unsystem.net/](https://darkwallet.unsystem.net/)

And some technical info about the implementation:

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322483.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322483.0)

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HoochTHX
Anyone else notice that that is the same guy who was behind Defense
Distributed? I haven't heard anything about him since he was served with a
notice that he was violating the ITAR laws.

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ar4s
Well, they look to have failed out of the gate. Why would Joe Nobody want to
use "Dark Wallet". . Rename it, and you'll have a better chance.

~~~
saraid216
We could rename it the Bat Wallet. It goes in your Bat Backpocket underneath
the Bat Utility Belt.

~~~
eru
It's only called Dark Wallet to allude to the Dark Knight.

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olalonde
Basically they will develop a thin Bitcoin client that implements the Coinjoin
proposal?

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conformal
this sounds similar to torwallet, except that you don't need to trust ppl
running a service. it's a fine idea and will be possible without a browser
plugin in the next month or two... ;)

