Damus
waxwing profile picture
waxwing
@waxwing
I always had a gut reaction against dice rolls.

Reflecting seriously, I have to reluctantly agree it's a solid concept.

But: why that gut negative reaction? Not because the number of bits is not exactly what you think because of some complex mathematical calculation.

Instead, it's two related principles: 1/ complexity is the enemy of correctness. This is a lot of extra manual steps. 2/ I made up a "law" a long time ago: every time a user sees their secret key on a screen it cuts their security in half. This is a gray area: you may be entering the key material in chunks, and also a 'screen' on a hardware wallet is not the same as a computer screen.

I've come round to it over the years, it's a sensible idea, but I'm still slightly suspicious.

We should be focused more on an audit step: however you generate the entropy, is there a way you can check the process is working? Dice rolls don't fit that idea so well (compared with machine-seeded).

I'm reminded of an excellent point Gmax once made abou wallet dev: when you generate addresses for users, you should sanity check that you can actually sign against it, before giving it to the user, so they don't send their money to a black hole.

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Gigi · 1d
nostr:nevent1qqstle0hd4054kgyuqy7myc54gh2fpy4ym4l9jm6k9q84jc67mq34egpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsygrwg6zz9hahfftnsup23q3mnv5pdz46hpj4l2ktdpfu6rhpthhwjvpsgqqqqqqsg5hncc
Max · 1d
I presume the dice rolls aren't ment to be the exclusive source of entropy, but concatenated on to it, so you never truly see all entropy when you roll dice, just a part of it. So it cuts your security in a quarter?
Big Barry Bitcoin · 1d
Not sure if it applies to you honestly, but with all of these statistical things, it always feels like the best things feel the least intuitive. We just cannot trust our guts 🙃.
Victus Bota · 1d
Alternative method for cold storage. The only cost is a USB stick. https://tails.net/about/index.en.html https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html
NonMetalCoin · 17h
You can only check that the process is working correctly if you know the full source of entropy fully. Dice or coin flips allow you to verify. If you can’t see the entropy bits, you can’t check that your key comes from them and you can’t verify they are random.