Why I'm Bullish 2: SeedSigner \ stacker news ~bitcoin

6345 sats \ 22 comments \ @kepford 11 Jan bitcoin

There are many aspects of Bitcoin that are censorship resistant but one that really hit me hard at the time it occurred to me was the SeedSigner project. At the time I had not seen any open source hardware wallets. The SeedSigner is composed of off the shelf parts that are not at all specific to bitcoin projects. The components are common and used by many electronics hobbyists. You can 3d print a case or buy one from several sources. It reminded me of the home made gun movement. While states can make laws to prevent people from buying firearms from vendors it is much harder for a state to stop someone from using a CNC machine to mill out firearm parts. Are they going to ban CNC machines? Aluminum blocks?

In order to stop people from building SeedSigners a state would need to ban off the shelf electronic parts. It just hit me then that banning stuff like this is hopeless. Today I realize many believe that you don't even need hardware wallets. That may or may not be true but I would argue that the utility of an air-gapped bitcoin signing device is clear.

Projects like SeedSigner are very hopeful and make me bullish for the future.

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314 sats \ 10 replies \ @Natalia 11 Jan

I haven't tried with SeedSigner yet, but I love how simple it can be to make a cold wallet with Electrum in TailsOS , not depending on anyone storing Bitcoin for me feels so liberating, yet people are waiting to buy ETFs.

247 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

Tails is a good option for sure. I highly recommend SeedSigner though especially if you enjoy tinkering. Very satisfying. Using a device that never touches the Internet. That physically cannot do so is kinda cool.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

I should say, it can touch the internet if you plugged it into your computer but there is no need to ever do that. The Pi they recommend doesn't have wifi or bluetooth. Very fun to use as well.

20 sats \ 7 replies \ @okpj 11 Jan

I am conflicted about Tails being sponsored/funded by the US Department of State.

659 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

I'd forgotten about this but it doesn't concern me.

Its an open source linux project. Governments support such projects
It makes sense that they would support it. They can't develop their own stuff and the smart ones know that if they want their agents to be secure they should use open source
Governments do make honey pot projects but usually they have ridiculous claims and are not open source
Tor is supported by state actors as the Internet was.
Snowden and many other security experts recommend Tails. That doesn't mean it is secure but it is a good signal.

Its good to be cautious and I'm not saying that you should just trust Tails but if a state actor touching a project is grounds for it to be off limits alone... well that to me is foolish.

492 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

I will add that the State department under Hilary Clinton was very vocal about using social media like Twitter and Facebook to facilitate the Arab spring movement. I suspect this is the reasoning behind the funding. The US government hands out money to many projects and companies. I feel much better about this than say the money that was given to the social media platforms. But, honestly I don't feel good about any of it.

The motives aren't what counts though. The code and security are. It isn't hard to monitor an OS to see if it is phoning home on your activities. I'd be shocked if they were able to pull that off without privacy activists and developers spotting it. Far more likely that Apple or Microsoft are partnering with the gov than Tails.

53 sats \ 1 reply \ @okpj 11 Jan

I appreciate your feedback! I was not implying Tails OS should be avoided. The sponsorship is just something I only recently became aware of.

In the end Tails OS is a sensitive open source project that has a community of people reviewing its code. This goes a long way in comparison to trusting any trillion dollar corporations black box.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

Gotcha.

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia 11 Jan

never heard of this, any link to read about?

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @okpj 11 Jan

Information is sparse using search engines, and I don’t feel comfortable linking to unverifiable Reddit speculation on security matters, but here is the list of sponsors on Tails’ website. The US Department of State is one of their largest sponsors as of 2023, over $100k USD.

Not sure what to make of it, and not fear mongering. Just wonder if it might be a conflict of interest.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Nuttall 12 Jan

The DOD is the largest employer on the planet. That doesn't even count the periphery of contractors. Sponsoring a project like trails makes sense and 100K to them is peanuts.

In the army we had a tactical fire computer that we ran Linux on sometimes because we wanted to test hardware. So I'm sure 23 years later there is a team testing something and they got funding for a project that they viewed as tight.

I'm not recommending for or against but if the code is open source it can be reviewed and audited. I think the issue really is in compilers that are trusted and not audited and legacy software that NSA spooks will submit code to.

197 sats \ 2 replies \ @OneOneSeven 11 Jan

Making one of these is high on my to-do-list.

137 sats \ 0 replies \ @030a29f333 11 Jan

Same. Haven't had the need/time to do it yet. Maybe a summer project

127 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 11 Jan

Do it. And send the project some sats too!

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @newnym 12 Jan

I haven't used SeedSigner yet. I'm waiting for it to manage Nostr keys as well. There is someone working on it, but still looks very early. https://gist.github.com/kdmukai/ae9911ed6fb92f8e7d2c553555b0cb86

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @PlebeiusG 12 Jan

Absolutely! Keith Mukai has done an amazing job. I love how he even got it to sign nostr keys. The thing is, it's not going to find its way into the SeedSigner OS. The team is 100% against adding features which will bloat the project and take away from its one simple task - sign bitcoin transactions. Adding (admittedly cool) features like this adds potential bugs and security issues.

They want a minimal, bitcoin-only device. Every time you plug it in you have to enter your private key. So if you want to use it as a signer you have to keep it turned on with private keys loaded, otherwise you'll have to turn it on, scan your nsec QR, then sign a nostr event each time you want to post. That's not a good UX. There is an ESP32 nostr signer which stores your nsec and would be less of a pain.

Although, I'm ALL FOR people forking the seedsigner project and adding cool features just like this! I did it and added games hoping to make a plausible deniability feature so that it looks like a gaming device, not a "fuck you, government" device, like if you're going through customs, etc. Then I saw a legit port of RetroPie for seedsigner and tipped my hat to those fucking studs!!!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @newnym 12 Jan

Thanks for the tip on the esp32 nostr signer. I didn't know it existed.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @_b_o_n_e_s_ 12 Jan

just pull the trigger now. I'd love it to have couple more features too but no regrets

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner 11 Jan

I wanted to give this a try but, at the time, the parts (especially the Raspberry Pi) were either not available or highly marked up. Might take another look soon.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @_b_o_n_e_s_ 12 Jan

seedsigner is so good. when you boot up then rip out the micro SD and realise everything is in airgapped memory. running what was signed by the devs. it feels so great. highly recommend

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @_b_o_n_e_s_ 12 Jan

if people like it too, make sure you donate to the project!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleaningup12 11 Jan

First of all apologies if I was talking bollocks yesterday, I had a few 🍷

But I will be having more 🍷 tonight 🤣

SeedSigner looks like a project you could learn with your kids

Buy the components, learn how to put it together

Instead of airfix....airgapped!