[bitcoin-dev] {sign|verify}message replacement

[Karl Johan Alm]

Pieter,

Thanks for the feedback. Comments below:

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 5:53 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille at gmail.com> wrote:
> One solution is to include a version number in the signature, which
> explicitly corresponds to a set of validation flags. When the version number
> is something a verifier doesn't know, it can be reported as inconclusive
> (it's relying on features you don't know about).
>
> An solution is to verify twice; once with all consensus rules you know
> about, and once with standardness rules. If they're both valid, the
> signature is valid. If they're both invalid, the signature is invalid. If
> they're different (consensus valid but standardness invalid), you report the
> signature validation as inconclusive (it's relying on features you don't
> know about). This approach works as long as new features only use previous
> standardness-invalid scripts, but perhaps a version number is still needed
> to indicate the standardness flags.

I think the double verify approach seems promising. I assume old nodes
consider new consensus rule enforcing transactions as non-standard but
valid. If this is always the case, it may be an idea to simply fail
verification with a message indicating the node is unable to verify
due to unknown consensus rules.

>> RPC commands:
>>
>> sign <address> <message> [<prehashed>=false]
>
> Why not extend the existing signmessage/verifymessage RPC? For legacy
> addresses it can fall back to the existing signature algorithm, while using
> the script-based approach for all others.

Yes, I initially thought it would be better to not use it as the
legacy behavior could be depended on god knows where, but I think
adding a legacy mode or simply doing the old way for 1xx is
sufficient.

>> (**) If <prehashed> is true, <message> is the sighash, otherwise
>> sighash=sha256d(message).
>
>
> That's very dangerous I'm afraid. It could be used to trick someone into
> signing off on an actual transaction, if you get them to sign a "random
> looking" prehashed message. Even if you have a prehashed message, there is
> no problem with treating it as hex input to a second hashing step, so I
> think the prehashed option isn't needed. It's why the existing message
> signing functionality always forcibly prefixes "Bitcoin signed message:", to
> avoid signing something that unintentionally corresponds to a message
> intended for another goal.

Eek.. good point...