Hi,
I think this is a very nice service. However I have some questions on
the role of the gateways regarding
security:
I have tested your service and recognised that the request to confirm the
transaction with a TAN is relayed by the same gateway which
relays my send- and confirmation-request. So what would hinder the gateway
to issue transactions on behalf of myself and to respond to your server
with the correct TAN ?
Hi, thank you for the encouraging words
There is a voice pin system in place, if your daily transaction volume reaches a certain threshold, you will need to create a pin and use it to confirm your transaction. The call is not relayed by the gateway.
Now, I've set this threshold to 40 x tx-fee. It can be argued that this is to much risk, but also that paying a minute of call for each transaction might be to expensive. This needs good fine-tuning, suggestions welcome
cost to run a gateway:
If the gateway not only relays incoming SMS to your server but also sends
SMSes to the clients, what are the estimated costs to run a gateway and
how can it be controlled by the OP of the gateway. As far as I see there would
be costs for any outgoing SMS but incoming fees only for issued bitcoin
transactions.
I'm implementing methods to avoid excessive sms. for example it's not necessary to send the balance over and over again if it hasn't changed. for a transaction you need about 3 outgoing sms. That's what the gateway operator should calculate it's fee on.
EnvayaSMS api:
running a gateway requires the EnvayaSMS api to be installed.
On the installation web page I read:
NOTE: We encourage most people to use Telerivet instead of EnvayaSMS
(
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rivetlabs.sms).
EnvayaSMS has several known bugs and is not under active development.
Telerivet requires no technical expertise or server setup, and also contains
numerous additional features and bug fixes not available in EnvayaSMS.
Telerivet is a hosted service, so It wasn't suitable for this purpose. EnvayaSMS is only used in the current prototype and will be replaced by something like an SMS enabled bitcoinJ. It's great work though, and I would like to thank the author for it's effort.
I'm currently working hard on multi-sig transaction support. It will give the shared responsibility model between gateway and server a strong foundation.