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Topic: FirstBits.com - remember and share Bitcoin addresses - page 7. (Read 26282 times)

legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1280
May Bitcoin be touched by his Noodly Appendage
Good news
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1005
Verification is getting close to complete.  We may be able to bring the site back online tonight (PST timezone).
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Hmmmm still down
legendary
Activity: 1974
Merit: 1030
Firstbits seems to be down for maintenance right now. No problem with that, but /api/?a=foo still works Wink. /api/foo and /foo don't.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
Oh! Some brat already took 1Linux. Grrr.
legendary
Activity: 1974
Merit: 1030
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
}

Code:
$ fb 12345
12345Vypv2QSmuRXcciT5oEB27mPbWGeva
$ fb 1mtgox
1MTgoX8xqw5juSwgSVNTSJRJWG5onS3xnm
$ fb 1linux
1LiNUXcexgmQqPw7ETGKirpyzdhzHkT3t7
newbie
Activity: 54
Merit: 0
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.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
One reason why it's good to have a favicon Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1137
Merit: 1001

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:

legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers

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.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ

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.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers

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?
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
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.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
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...
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ

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.

 
Yes, I see. If someone ran an address gen they could claim an address before you used yours. Probably a bad idea then. Just would be useful to shorten a fresh address. So it's only maybe safe if you don't use it publicly. You keep it in your head as a ready to use address but never publish it.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers

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.

 
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
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.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
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.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1005
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.
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