So from what I understand, you're saying that the private key to the wallet of major exchanges should be split up in several small chunks and handed to trustees who would get together to withdraw the funds to a secure location if anything worrisome happened? Or are you saying that just one of the people with access to a part of this broken key could halt the whole business? When you say 'many people across a network', is that just anyone who uses the exchange? Or an elected/selected group of people?
I just don't see how that enhances wallet security. It seems like it makes it more vulnerable to attack because now its hackable by targeting either the trustees or the business. Solid wallet security occurs when the individual takes effort to make it secure by storing the key in one spot that can't be accessed except physically. This suggestion may make the eWallet institutions more accountable to customers but it opens up security holes at the same time.
I don't see how to implement it either. If it's just a select group of people, then it's just good business sense for the exchange site to have access to a kill switch that shuts it all down, and for them to distribute it among a few of their top management and/or with a few trusted third parties. If it's open to the community, than any attacker just needs to control one of the chunks to prevent the whole process. And if the chunks aren't exclusive to each person (if more than one person can hold the same chunk of key), I don't see how you can prevent an automated attacker from spawning a whole bunch of fake clients/accounts/whatever and eventually gaining access to the entire key. And if its hard or impossible for the attacker to reconstruct the key by having access to all the chunks (say the chunks are of different sizes and can overlap each other so its impossible to tell which part of the key a particular chunk is), how is the community going to be able to do it? And, of course, what about if the funds are stored under multiple keys? And, of course, once the plug is pulled, who has access to the second account and how do you trust them to return the bitcoins properly?
I can see it maybe happening but I just see no clear way to implement it.
If you could provide more detail that would be best. Are you more worried that the business will get hacked by outside agencies or that the business will do something underhanded?
I just don't see how that enhances wallet security. It seems like it makes it more vulnerable to attack because now its hackable by targeting either the trustees or the business. Solid wallet security occurs when the individual takes effort to make it secure by storing the key in one spot that can't be accessed except physically. This suggestion may make the eWallet institutions more accountable to customers but it opens up security holes at the same time.
I don't see how to implement it either. If it's just a select group of people, then it's just good business sense for the exchange site to have access to a kill switch that shuts it all down, and for them to distribute it among a few of their top management and/or with a few trusted third parties. If it's open to the community, than any attacker just needs to control one of the chunks to prevent the whole process. And if the chunks aren't exclusive to each person (if more than one person can hold the same chunk of key), I don't see how you can prevent an automated attacker from spawning a whole bunch of fake clients/accounts/whatever and eventually gaining access to the entire key. And if its hard or impossible for the attacker to reconstruct the key by having access to all the chunks (say the chunks are of different sizes and can overlap each other so its impossible to tell which part of the key a particular chunk is), how is the community going to be able to do it? And, of course, what about if the funds are stored under multiple keys? And, of course, once the plug is pulled, who has access to the second account and how do you trust them to return the bitcoins properly?
I can see it maybe happening but I just see no clear way to implement it.
If you could provide more detail that would be best. Are you more worried that the business will get hacked by outside agencies or that the business will do something underhanded?
More or less thinking that a large group of people would have to make the decision thus providing extra security for those keys because it would say take 50 out of 50 people ( more people then this most likely ) to all agree to do it. It would be hard to implement I agree plus what would happen if say number #49 were to pass away/die you are one short of a person from stopping a disaster. I suppose that is the risk though. I think hacks can come from anywhere from within the business from outside the business you just can't trust anyone or any service right now and if part of this "trust" was given back to the community I think this would rest assure some people. It was just a thought I was thinking out and was looking for some community feedback
thanks!