Author

Topic: Beware of compatible addresses (Read 1030 times)

newbie
Activity: 40
Merit: 0
April 26, 2013, 09:32:45 AM
#14
Yikes... I wonder if that was part of the design  Undecided

As I understand it, it's a feature selected on purpose by TRC developers. They think/thought it good to have only
one address that you can use for both BTC and TRC.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1280
May Bitcoin be touched by his Noodly Appendage
April 26, 2013, 06:33:03 AM
#13
The owner of the address on the other network DOES know the private key
sr. member
Activity: 324
Merit: 250
April 26, 2013, 05:29:04 AM
#12


Yikes... I wonder if that was part of the design  Undecided
[/quote]
I doubt it just general laziness.
Just because the coins can be sent there doesn't mean anyone can know the private key to spend them.
Essentially they are lost forever.
newbie
Activity: 10
Merit: 0
April 26, 2013, 04:17:41 AM
#11
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


Yikes... I wonder if that was part of the design  Undecided
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1016
April 19, 2013, 12:46:05 PM
#10
Bitcoin also uses the 3* prefix for script hashes.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
Bytecoin: 8VofSsbQvTd8YwAcxiCcxrqZ9MnGPjaAQm
April 19, 2013, 12:44:53 PM
#9
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


Why including BTE on your list? You can't send BTE to a BTC (or any other) block chain address.

Are you positive on this? I am surprised.

Bytecoin addresses start with 8.
legendary
Activity: 1441
Merit: 1000
Live and enjoy experiments
April 19, 2013, 12:38:36 PM
#8
Anyone having the private key can use ALL the corresponding addresses, whatever the *coin
Resolving this issue just requires either honesty from the receiver or a brain in the sender's head (come on, always double check ffs)

If software allows users to make mistake, they will.

Currently we have following address format:
  BTC: 1*
  LTC: L*
  PPC: p*
  Ripple: r*
  FC: 6*
  ...

You can't send coins by mistake when they don't share same address format.

Humans always make mistakes, there's no reason not to implement basic protection for coin users when it's a simple design choice.
newbie
Activity: 37
Merit: 0
April 19, 2013, 12:31:57 PM
#7
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


Why including BTE on your list? You can't send BTE to a BTC (or any other) block chain address.

Are you positive on this? I am surprised.

I think having its own address validation should be made as a minimal requirement for any altchain dev.
You don't need your own address validation routine, it is already on the main Bitcoin code and with minimal tweak you can adapt it to your chain. Take a look on the base58.h file, the PUBKEY_ADDRESS constant is what rules if an address is compatible with your chain or not. If any other altcoin doesn't change it and has the same Bitcoin address format, then you are right, but that doesn't apply to us. Have you tried sending BTE to a BTC address or vice-versa? You should.

This is the output of the rpc console of the Bytecoin client when you try to send BTE to a BTC address:
Quote
> sendtoaddress 18as8p5DbgkhPihRcHrHNgc2uDkh4NH1vK 1
< Invalid Bitcoin address (code -5)
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1280
May Bitcoin be touched by his Noodly Appendage
April 19, 2013, 12:15:13 PM
#6
Anyone having the private key can use ALL the corresponding addresses, whatever the *coin
Resolving this issue just requires either honesty from the receiver or a brain in the sender's head (come on, always double check ffs)
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
Bytecoin: 8VofSsbQvTd8YwAcxiCcxrqZ9MnGPjaAQm
April 19, 2013, 11:50:55 AM
#5
Thank you for posting this.  This is a pretty serious issue and can really trip newbies up (and the rest of us, as well!).  Over on Terracointalk, there is somebody who accidentally sent 100+ BTC to a BTC-e address, only to discover he was accidentally using a TRC address.  Now he can't seem to get his money recovered from BTC-e (yet).
legendary
Activity: 1441
Merit: 1000
Live and enjoy experiments
April 19, 2013, 11:44:49 AM
#4
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


Why including BTE on your list? You can't send BTE to a BTC (or any other) block chain address.

Are you positive on this? I am surprised.

I think having its own address validation should be made as a minimal requirement for any altchain dev.
newbie
Activity: 37
Merit: 0
April 19, 2013, 11:16:41 AM
#3
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


Why including BTE on your list? You can't send BTE to a BTC (or any other) block chain address.
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
April 19, 2013, 08:08:05 AM
#2
DeVCoin deliberately uses addresses that look exactly like BiTCoin addresses, so that people's bitcoin donation addresses can be used to send them devcoins; this lets us assign devcoins to developers without their having to get themselves a specifically devcoin address; they can thus accumulate devcoins sitting at their bitcoin address waiting for them to some day get around to importing the private key of the address into a devcoin wallet to access their coins.

This let us set people up on the recipients lists who maybe to this day might still not have actually set up and run a devcoin client.

-MarkM-
legendary
Activity: 1441
Merit: 1000
Live and enjoy experiments
April 19, 2013, 07:57:24 AM
#1
Some alt coins don't even bother making address validation, which is very irresponsible.

Users can easily send coins to a wrong chain, causing big trouble or even total loss. Case in point:
 
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bhelp-120-btc-stuck-in-ltc-account-on-btc-ecom-10000-b-180518

Bitcoin -- BTE  -- TRC

I wonder if there are others.


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