building a seed signer \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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2063 sats \ 16 comments \ @drfred 30 May 2023 bitcoin

yesterday i built a seed signer

soldering was very hard. pins got bent when i hammered them, the tip of the soldering iron was too wide. the distance between the pins is to small to solder. the board got extremely hot. the result looks very rough. i thought i had bricked the raspberri pi, but it works. i had malfunctions on the seedsigner, soldered some pins again, now it runs perfectly fine. the installation was easy.

the seed signer boots in only 17 seconds. it is already useable but i ordered a camera from amazon which makes it easier to use with your seeds.

just a slight and easy improvement suggestion: include an option to store your seeds on the sd card. maybe the main, important seeds encrypted and hidden ?

saving a seed on a qr code will never work for me. an alternative is to write a short offline python script on an offline computer and produce a qr code, which can be read by the seed signer camera.

it is also great that you can read the source code of the seedsigner. i did that.

i would not trust the dice algorithm. maybe the entropy is good, maybe not. there is a discussion about that on twitter, i will rather do it completely manually. i will dice and use the sheet from shiftcrypto, the bitbox company in switzerland, writing down dices and corresponding words from the sheet on paper and let seedsigner generate the last word.

in general it is a great innovation. i like it. it is hard to get hands on a good enclosure here where i live but i will just build it myself and improvise.

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10 sats \ 2 replies \ @OriginalSize 30 May 2023

Thanks for the report. I like the idea that it uses commodity hardware and open source software.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @drfred OP 30 May 2023

you are very welcome. what irritates me with all or almost all hardware manufacturers is they do not allow you to read the source code. what they do is a comparison check in lenghts of bits of the downloaded code which is not the same as reading and understanding a source code.

they tell you that you need to RELY on the community that the code is clean and if there is an attack or a bug, someone with advanced kills will warn everyone . this is the exact opposite of the seedsigner which is:

everyone can download the source code from the seedsigner website and read it. do not trust, verify !

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @bkdoubleohseven 31 May 2023

I very much agree with you on that. That's why I've recently have been trying out Cryptosteel's seed signer. It is worth a look: https://cryptosteel.com/ Just think of it like a physical engraving seed signer. Just do what Obelix does with his menhirs in a way (:

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @PlebeiusG 31 May 2023

Seed signer is bae. I recommend over everything else

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullama 30 May 2023

Nice. Raspberry Pi zeros are perfect for this.

Never heard of a GPIO Hammer, interesting.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @021da48107 30 May 2023

I'm actually waiting on the screen/buttons hat to arrive at my house today. I already have the rest of the hardware so I might build it later today. I plan on using a GPIO "hammer" instead of soldering, but might solder in the future.

Excited to build mine and put it to use.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @drfred OP 30 May 2023

good luck to your build. my camera will arrive monday already.

when i bought my equipment the hammer pins were sold out. therefore i had to buy the normal pins. i thought it would be easy to solder but it was not.

i started the project last year but i messed up all connector holes with solder lead. all connector holes were filled.

i even tried to convert the pi into a trezor wallet using opentrezor. when you do that you have to connect some pins with each other which makes soldering even harder. i am glad i did not do it and continued to work on the seed signer. there is not even a comparison...

yesterday i bought a new solder iron with a smaller tip, the only one available here at walmart and melted the lead out of the holes. it took me almost two hours because the tip is still too wide.. some holes were still blocked. finally i got the row of pins attached to the pi. some pins looked not soldered, some were clearly connected with soldering lead. when i tried the seadsigner out it did not come up. i had to go back to soldering (i kept the iron warm lol) and put more solder lead on the visibly disconnected pins.

then the pi came up and i could play around with seeds. suddenly it had a malfunction. i thought it was a bug but it turned out that it was a loose contact. i had to solder again. after that it did not come up any more. i had to solder for three more rounds and then it worked flawlessly. i have tried it out yesterday and today at least twice every hour and it had no more loose contacts. i even pushed it and tested it. all good.

you can be glad that you bought the hammer pins. after the connection with the display everything was easy and straightforward.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @021da48107 1 Jun 2023

I got mine all setup today. I ordered the hammer pins, but I didn't order the jig, that was a mistake. Luckily I have an awesome hackerspace in the area that I was able to use to laser cut a jig. I also was able to get a case 3d printed.

You'll be amazed when you get the camera, I think the real power of the seedsigner is in the seed_qr system. You can easily create a multi-sig and use the seed_qr templates to create a paper backup + qr code of your private key. Then anytime you start the seedsigner up you can easily scan the qr codes and send/receive TXs.

I haven't done it yet but the docs here go over the seedsigner and seed_qr stuff really well. I like how they talk about using testnet to test everything.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @gnilma 30 May 2023

You mentioning soldering brings back memories of the days back in high school. I took 4 years of electronics class back in high school, and we learned from circuit design, bread board testing, to PCB design and etching, to soldering parts onto the PCB to make the final circuit. We built all sorts of projects ranging such as digital clocks, LED light chasers, strobe lights, sound amplifiers and more. We built a remote controlled (wired, because RF cannot travel under water) submarine for our senior year project. But yes, soldering takes practice, and having a nice soldering iron helps a lot too.

I once rebuilt the LED light chaser circuit on my bread board to wow my kids, lol.

Sorry to go off topic. It’s great that you built your own signing device. I also love the fact that you generated the seed with dice. Did you use a Pi zero or another version of Pi?

In terms of enclosure, you can look into 3D printed ones? This guy is selling them.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @drfred OP 30 May 2023

it is a pi zero w2. the fastest and newest pi zero. it boots in only 17 seconds when the developers promise 60 seconds on the old one.

i also love the size of the pi minicomputer. it is as wide as 2 fingers as as long as half a finger. it is perfect for this job. also very convenient to use. you connect it to power and that is it. never online, no server can ever access your seed, not accidentaly nor by any new service offering or by order from a criminal organization.

you have extensive skills in building electronics, you can also easily build a seed signer and you should. i have never learned how to solder but i can do almost everything and anything needed. i have also all small tools needed for any kind of installations, repairs in a house and for any kind of projects. for example i have converted an old mountain bike into an electric installing the motor and the battery. i repair everything myself all the time, electric, electronic, even gas...

the guy on the link does not live in my country. i ordered the camera from amazon and i will use it without a housing or i will even build the housing myself.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @spraveenitpro 30 May 2023

Great read, where do I get the list of items for building the seedsigner?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @drfred OP 30 May 2023

thank you. the items are listed on the seedsigner webpage https://seedsigner.com/hardware/

i had a raspi zero which i ordered as a bundle with a raspi 4 for umbrel. the zero has thousands of useage possibilities and i had many projects in mind. it is not as easy to connect and to use as the pi 4. that is why i used mostly the pi4. two years ago i also ordered a waveshare display which can also be used for many projects.

i had the build of the seedsigner planned for almost two years. all components were very cheap i think i got the fastest pi0 2w for 15 eur, the display for 5 and the pins for 1.50. the camera will cost me 20 including delivery to my country.

if you do not want to build it, there are many ways of ordering a complete seedsigner or the components on the website. i can highly recommend it. nothing is more secure.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 30 May 2023

Right on! Glad you persevered and didn't give up. Soldering isn't easy but also with practice it isn't too difficult. Soldering pins on a pi isn't easy for a beginner but you did it!

The fact that you can build your own hardware signing device (hardware wallet) with off the shelf parts is so bullish for bitcoin and the bitcoin community.

Additionally, learning to solder and put together things like this has value. I hope you feel even more empowered.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @drfred OP 30 May 2023

thank you, yes it feels great and the little thing looks so cool, i want to use it all the time. if you see the soldering result, you will say: that will never work. it has black spots from the heat and it looks messed up. but it works like a charm. perfectly.

everyone should use a seedsigner. it is superior and it feels good as you say.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @spraveenitpro 31 May 2023

One question: why do you need to solder? noob question.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 31 May 2023

You don't have to if you buy a Pi with header pins already soldered on. But if you buy a stock Pi zero they don't have have the pins you need to connect to the WaveShare LCD hat. Go checkout their site.

https://seedsigner.com/hardware/

You can buy it pre-assembled as well.