[bitcoin-dev] BIP 39: Add language identifier strings for wordlists

Mon Jan 8 14:52:20 UTC 2018

On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Greg Sanders via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Has anyone actually used the multilingual support in bip39?
>

Copay (and all its clones) use it.

>
> If a feature of the standard has not been(widely?) used in years, and
> isn't supported in any major wallet(?), it seems indicative it was a
> mistake to add it in the first place, since it's a footgun in the making
> for some poor sap who can't even read English letters when almost all
> documentation is written in English.
>
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 6:13 AM, nullius via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
>> On 2018-01-08 at 07:35:52 +0000, 木ノ下じょな <kinoshitajona at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This is very sad.
>>>
>>> The number one problem in Japan with BIP39 seeds is with English words.
>>>
>>> I have seen a 60 year old Japanese man writing down his phrase (because
>>> he kept on failing recovery), and watched him write down "aneter" for
>>> "amateur"...
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> If you understand English and can spell, you read a word, your brain
>>> processes the word, and you can spell it on your own when writing down.
>>> Not many Japanese people can do that, so they need to copy letter for
>>> letter, taking a long time, and still messing up on occasion.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Defining "everyone should only use English, because ASCII is easier to
>>> plan for" is not a good way to move forward as a currency.
>>>
>>
>> Well said.  Thank you for telling of these experiences.  Now please,
>> let’s put the shoe on the other foot.
>>
>> I ask everybody who wants an English-only mnemonic standard to entrust
>> *their own money* to their abilities to very, very carefully write this
>> down—then later, type it back in:
>>
>> すさん たんろ りゆう しもん ていおん しとう
>> とこや はやい おうさま ほくろ けちゃっふ たもつ
>>
>> (Approximate translation:  “Whatever would you do if Bitcoin had been
>> invented by somebody named Satoshi Nakamoto?”)
>>
>> No, wait:  That is only a 12-word mnemonic.  We are probably talking
>> about a Trezor; so now, hey you there, stake the backup of your life’s
>> savings on your ability to handwrite *this*:
>>
>> にあう しひょう にんすう ひえる かいこう いのる ねんし はあさん ひこく
>> とうく きもためし そなた こなこな にさんかたんそ ろんき めいあん みわく
>> へこむ すひょう おやゆひ ふせく けさき めいきょく こんまけ
>>
>> Ready to bet your money on *that* as a backup phrase in your own hands?
>> No?  Then please, stop demanding that others risk *their* money on the
>> inverse case.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> If you cheat here by having studied Japanese, then remember that many
>> Japanese people know English and other European languages, too.  Then think
>> of how much money would be lost by your non-Japanese-literate family and
>> friends—if BIP 39 had only Japanese wordlists, and your folks needed to
>> wrestle with the above phrases as their “mnemonics”.
>>
>> In such cases, the phrases cannot be called “mnemonics” at all.  A
>> “mnemonic” implies aid to memory.  Gibberish in a wholly alien writing
>> system is much worse even than transcribing pseudorandom hex strings.  The
>> Japanese man in the quoted story, who wrote “aneter” for “amateur”, was not
>> dealing with a *mnemonic*:  He was using the world’s most inefficient means
>> of making cryptic bitstrings *less* userfriendly.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> I began this thread with a quite simple request:  Is “日本語” an appropriate
>> string for identifying the Japanese language to Japanese users?  And what
>> of the other strings I posted for other languages?
>>
>> I asked this as an implementer working on my own instance of the greatest
>> guard against vendor lock-in and stale software:  Independent
>> implementations.  —  I asked, because obviously, I myself do not speak all
>> these different languages; and I want to implement them all.  *All.*
>>
>> Some replies have been interesting in their own right; but thus far,
>> nobody has squarely addressed the substance of my question.
>>
>> Most worrisome is that much of the discussion has veered into criticism
>> of multi-language support.  I opened with a question about other languages,
>> and I am getting replies which raise a hue and cry of “English only!”
>>
>> Though I am fluent and literate in English, I am uninterested in ever
>> implementing any standard of this nature which is artificially restricted
>> to English.  I am fortunate; for as of this moment, we have a standard
>> called “BIP 39” which has seven non-English wordlists, and four more
>> pending in open pull requests (#432, #442, #493, #621).
>>
>> I request discussion of language identification strings appropriate for
>> use with that standard.
>>
>> (P.S., I hope that my system did not mangle anything in the foregoing.  I
>> have seen weird copypaste behaviour mess up decomposed characters.  I
>> thought of this after I searched for and collected some visually
>> fascinating phrases; so I tried to normalize these to NFC...  It should go
>> without saying, easyseed output the Japanese perfectly!)
>>
>>
>> --
>> nullius at nym.zone | PGP ECC: 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C
>> Bitcoin: bc1qcash96s5jqppzsp8hy8swkggf7f6agex98an7h | (Segwit nested:
>> 3NULL3ZCUXr7RDLxXeLPDMZDZYxuaYkCnG)  (PGP RSA: 0x36EBB4AB699A10EE)
>> “‘If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.’
>> No!  Because I do nothing wrong, I have nothing to show.” — nullius
>>
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>>
>
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-- 
Matías Alejo Garcia
@ematiu
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!
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