Topic: FirstBits.com - remember and share Bitcoin addresses - page 7. (Read 26262 times)
Good news
Verification is getting close to complete. We may be able to bring the site back online tonight (PST timezone).
Hmmmm still down
Firstbits seems to be down for maintenance right now. No problem with that, but /api/?a=foo still works 
. /api/foo and /foo don't.
. /api/foo and /foo don't. 
Oh! Some brat already took 1Linux. Grrr.
And a bash function for the geeks out there:
Code:
function fb() {
wget -qO- http://www.firstbits.com/api/?a=$1 |tr -d ' '
#curl -so- http://www.firstbits.com/api/?a=$1 |tr -d ' '
echo
}
wget -qO- http://www.firstbits.com/api/?a=$1 |tr -d ' '
#curl -so- http://www.firstbits.com/api/?a=$1 |tr -d ' '
echo
}
Code:
$ fb 12345
12345Vypv2QSmuRXcciT5oEB27mPbWGeva
$ fb 1mtgox
1MTgoX8xqw5juSwgSVNTSJRJWG5onS3xnm
$ fb 1linux
1LiNUXcexgmQqPw7ETGKirpyzdhzHkT3t7
12345Vypv2QSmuRXcciT5oEB27mPbWGeva
$ fb 1mtgox
1MTgoX8xqw5juSwgSVNTSJRJWG5onS3xnm
$ fb 1linux
1LiNUXcexgmQqPw7ETGKirpyzdhzHkT3t7
In opera you can just make a new search with the url http://www.firstbits.com/?a=%s and whatever keyword you want. So for example typing "b 1kk5k" would take you to http://www.firstbits.com/?a=1kk5k.
One reason why it's good to have a favicon 
I was going to say - what this really needs is a Firefox Search plugin that makes it so the web site doesn't need to be there, or get hammered, it just goes to the block chain.
But then I remembered my "Add To Search Bar" add-on and tried that. Sure enough one -right-click and FirstBits is now a search entry on the Firefox Search Bar. I can drop an address in there and it does the magic.
How does this work exactly? Your search bar now knows to convert an address to it's firstbits? Or it assumes the firstbits.com/ and takes you to the page?
I guess this "Add To Search Bar" plugin takes the actual url of the form action and adds that as an url in the search bar. It doesn't show me the url though - it's embedded in the search bar.
Here's the home page for the add-on
https://firefox.maltekraus.de/extensions/add-to-search-bar
I just see a form field and right click on it to turn it into a search bar item.
pretty cool:
I guess this "Add To Search Bar" plugin takes the actual url of the form action and adds that as an url in the search bar. It doesn't show me the url though - it's embedded in the search bar.
Here's the home page for the add-on
https://firefox.maltekraus.de/extensions/add-to-search-bar
I just see a form field and right click on it to turn it into a search bar item.
Ah, the page makes it clear. That is pretty cool.
I was going to say - what this really needs is a Firefox Search plugin that makes it so the web site doesn't need to be there, or get hammered, it just goes to the block chain.
But then I remembered my "Add To Search Bar" add-on and tried that. Sure enough one -right-click and FirstBits is now a search entry on the Firefox Search Bar. I can drop an address in there and it does the magic.
How does this work exactly? Your search bar now knows to convert an address to it's firstbits? Or it assumes the firstbits.com/ and takes you to the page?
I guess this "Add To Search Bar" plugin takes the actual url of the form action and adds that as an url in the search bar. It doesn't show me the url though - it's embedded in the search bar.
Here's the home page for the add-on
https://firefox.maltekraus.de/extensions/add-to-search-bar
I just see a form field and right click on it to turn it into a search bar item.
I was going to say - what this really needs is a Firefox Search plugin that makes it so the web site doesn't need to be there, or get hammered, it just goes to the block chain.
But then I remembered my "Add To Search Bar" add-on and tried that. Sure enough one -right-click and FirstBits is now a search entry on the Firefox Search Bar. I can drop an address in there and it does the magic.
How does this work exactly? Your search bar now knows to convert an address to it's firstbits? Or it assumes the firstbits.com/ and takes you to the page?
But another thing, does the lookup in "block explorer" search in oldest first order or most recent first order. Because if the latter it seems someone could gen a new address that matches your address prefix and use it to get it in the chain. If it searches and finds the match more recent it would find that one as the single match. But you thought of that I'm sure...
It starts with the earliest so a new address that matches does not change any previous address' firstbits.
But another thing, does the lookup in "block explorer" search in oldest first order or most recent first order. Because if the latter it seems someone could gen a new address that matches your address prefix and use it to get it in the chain. If it searches and finds the match more recent it would find that one as the single match. But you thought of that I'm sure...
If you find the first partial version of an unused address and add two more correct characters would you be reasonably safe to use that for a new address? It seems to me quite safe. Not sure of the probability though.
Seems pretty safe unless you were the target of an attack. The chance of a problem has to do not just with the number of extra chars, but the length and time and rate at which new addresses are entering the chain.
If you find the first partial version of an unused address and add two more correct characters would you be reasonably safe to use that for a new address? It seems to me quite safe. Not sure of the probability though.
Seems pretty safe unless you were the target of an attack. The chance of a problem has to do not just with the number of extra chars, but the length and time and rate at which new addresses are entering the chain.
Cool.
I was going to say - what this really needs is a Firefox Search plugin that makes it so the web site doesn't need to be there, or get hammered, it just goes to the block chain.
But then I remembered my "Add To Search Bar" add-on and tried that. Sure enough one -right-click and FirstBits is now a search entry on the Firefox Search Bar. I can drop an address in there and it does the magic.
Though a real plugin would bypass the web site, saving server load. And it could add a context menu to do the lookup too.
BTW I think an extra character is a good idea for "future proofing". Maybe the web page should show it as a second alternative, as in "safer version". In my case it's just as easy to recall,
18M5c or 18M5cm (eighteen M5 centimeter)
Maybe a "verbalizer" string would be cool. How to remember it.
If you find the first partial version of an unused address and add two more correct characters would you be reasonably safe to use that for a new address? It seems to me quite safe. Not sure of the probability though.
I was going to say - what this really needs is a Firefox Search plugin that makes it so the web site doesn't need to be there, or get hammered, it just goes to the block chain.
But then I remembered my "Add To Search Bar" add-on and tried that. Sure enough one -right-click and FirstBits is now a search entry on the Firefox Search Bar. I can drop an address in there and it does the magic.
Though a real plugin would bypass the web site, saving server load. And it could add a context menu to do the lookup too.
BTW I think an extra character is a good idea for "future proofing". Maybe the web page should show it as a second alternative, as in "safer version". In my case it's just as easy to recall,
18M5c or 18M5cm (eighteen M5 centimeter)
Maybe a "verbalizer" string would be cool. How to remember it.
If you find the first partial version of an unused address and add two more correct characters would you be reasonably safe to use that for a new address? It seems to me quite safe. Not sure of the probability though.
I would like to see the 'first bit' concept accepted as a standard. Blockexplorer should use it as well as the clients....
I think it would be a great addition to blockexplorer or similar and I really want a web wallet with integration, but...I agree.
...but firstbits does have the disadvantage of no checksum...
I disagree. The 34-some string requires a checksum because it is so darn long. A 1+4 or 5 character (of size 34 domain) does not need a checksum (like a phone number). I expect we'll have a MIME type so that firstbits.com/1xxxx resolves a very well defined string (perhaps a meta tag). I've seen discussion of a bitcoin:123456789012345678901234567890+payment format. But the key advantage of firstbits is not verbosity, but brevity.
As for UX, if the user comes in through a URL, I see no reason to present much more than the fully resolved address. But if the user uses the form/input, then more likely than not, he's playing with his own address. I'd highly recommend you explain what the user is seeing. It has not tiny-url-ed the address (as many like me initially assumed). Even now that I know how it works, I'm still manually typing in 1+8 characters and cutting one then another until I find the minimum. Its a trivial, but strange, procedure (partly because the client doesn't yet let me 'copy-paste' from the transaction history).
I would expect the interface to dynamically inform me of the number of collisions (always showing me the 'firstbit') as I type, cuz I'm probably typing with the full string at my side, otherwise, I would have used a link.
A phone number doesn't need a checksum because the worst case scenario is "Uh, who?".
I'm not going to add a checksum, I'm just aware of the risk and don't know if it would be appropriate to add to the 'official' client, but hey if it gets popular and everyone wants it maybe they'll do it.
You aren't getting it and that means I need to rethink the page wording. Enter a firstbits address and you get the one and only Bitcoin address that is the earliest to start with that string. Enter a Bitcoin address and you get the string that differentiates it from all earlier addresses in the chain - it's firstbits address.
You do not need to try over and over like you describe.
Showing the number of matches would be a lot of work for no benefit and possible confusion. All addresses start with "1" but only one has the firstbits "1" - the generate address in the genesis block. The number of collisions is not relevant.
Hey, this is an awesome concept. I applaud you guys for coming up with it.
Removing the cases is a good thing because it would be hard for people to have to deal with upper and lower cases. There might be one gotcha though. Do you handle 2 addresses with the same characters but different cases properly. I know this is a rare edge case, but make sure you handle it. For example, 1abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and 1abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwXYZ should not both match to the same firstbits 1abcd. The first one in the block chain should match to 1abcd and then second one should match to 1abcde. Just a thought.
They won't match, don't worry. Whichever comes first will be the only one to match. All comparisons/queries are made without regard to case. Removing the cases is a good thing because it would be hard for people to have to deal with upper and lower cases. There might be one gotcha though. Do you handle 2 addresses with the same characters but different cases properly. I know this is a rare edge case, but make sure you handle it. For example, 1abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and 1abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwXYZ should not both match to the same firstbits 1abcd. The first one in the block chain should match to 1abcd and then second one should match to 1abcde. Just a thought.
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