Re: [Bitcoin-development] Version bytes 2.0
Why does anyone care what an address looks like? If the user is seeing an address, that's a usability fail right there. It's common today because AFAIK nobody finished off the URL handling support in the main client for browser integration. It'd be a much better use of time to finish off that integration and make it easy for people to create links containing a bitcoin: URL (like with copy/paste of text/html content). -- Systems Optimization Self Assessment Improve efficiency and utilization of IT resources. Drive out cost and improve service delivery. Take 5 minutes to use this Systems Optimization Self Assessment. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sdnl/114/51450054/___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Version bytes 2.0
All, I fully agree with Mike Hearn on this. Like email addresses, bank numbers, phone numbers, IPv4/v6 addresses and such the bitcoin address is just an opaque identifier for machines to be able to send each other messages. Base58 was chosen not for human readability but to make it easy to copy/paste. Of course, sometimes for security reasons you may want to check the addresses manually, but it is not the prime usage scenario. Although fun as a nerd pasttime, I don't think we should encourage addresses with meaning to normal users. Indeed better to focus on alternative ways that don't involve typing or even seeing the addresses. Copy/paste of HTML content is currently not possible. You *can* already dragdrop the bitcoin: link to the client. Bluematt has a pull request to automatically handle bitcoin: URLs when clicked in the browser. Wladimir On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Why does anyone care what an address looks like? If the user is seeing an address, that's a usability fail right there. It's common today because AFAIK nobody finished off the URL handling support in the main client for browser integration. It'd be a much better use of time to finish off that integration and make it easy for people to create links containing a bitcoin: URL (like with copy/paste of text/html content). -- Systems Optimization Self Assessment Improve efficiency and utilization of IT resources. Drive out cost and improve service delivery. Take 5 minutes to use this Systems Optimization Self Assessment. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sdnl/114/51450054/ ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Systems Optimization Self Assessment Improve efficiency and utilization of IT resources. Drive out cost and improve service delivery. Take 5 minutes to use this Systems Optimization Self Assessment. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sdnl/114/51450054/___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Version bytes 2.0
Base58 was chosen not for human readability but to make it easy to copy/paste. It was also chosen for hand-writeability, weirdly enough. That's why it excludes some confusible characters. But Satoshi didn't really understand how people would end up using Bitcoin, he originally imagined most transactions being done directly between pairs of IP addresses. Copy/paste of HTML content is currently not possible. You *can* already dragdrop the bitcoin: link to the client. Bluematt has a pull request to automatically handle bitcoin: URLs when clicked in the browser. That's cool. I hope Matts change gets merged soon. Then the issue becomes how do people find out about this capability? Expecting people to learn how to hand-craft Bitcoin links won't work. But all modern operating systems support copy/paste and drag/drop of rich content. Qt probably makes it easy to expose an UI like this: *Pay me*[Copy to clipboard] Clicking the link in the UI would pop up an alert saying something like You can drag this link to an email, chat window or editing program. Dragging it/pushing the copy button would just set the drag/clipboard data as a bit of text/html content. So then you can just copy/paste into an email or HTML editor. It wouldn't work for forums that use bbCode, though I guess there's no particular reason the forum software can't turn a href into [url=] automatically. -- Systems Optimization Self Assessment Improve efficiency and utilization of IT resources. Drive out cost and improve service delivery. Take 5 minutes to use this Systems Optimization Self Assessment. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sdnl/114/51450054/___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Version bytes 2.0
It seems base58 is actually quite terrible for producing nice human-recognizable
addresses, even though base58 is specially intended for human usage. We'll just
have to deal with it, or completely overhaul it and move to a saner encoding.
Luke's proposal is somewhat more drastic than my original one, since it removes
the actual version notion from the version bytes, and changes testnet
addresses.
However, I think it may be worth it. More data classes have been necessary
before, and new versions haven't. Furthermore, they are far more recognizable to
users, which is something that in particular for OP_EVAL addresses (script
hashes)
will be a plus.
Therefore, I'm in favor of the proposal; the new versions would become:
0: mainnet pubkey hashes ('1', as before)
192: testnet pubnet hashes ('2', instead of 111, 'm' and 'n')
5: mainnet script hashes ('3'; for OP_EVAL)
196: testnet script hashes ('2', same as normal testnet addresses)
12: mainnet private keys ('Q', 'R' or 'S', instead of 128, '5')
204: testnet private keys ('7', instead of 239, '8' and '9')
Comments?
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Pieter
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] Version bytes 2.0
On Monday, December 12, 2011 3:56:01 PM Pieter Wuille wrote:
It seems base58 is actually quite terrible for producing nice
human-recognizable addresses, even though base58 is specially intended for
human usage. We'll just have to deal with it, or completely overhaul it
and move to a saner encoding.
Or both: use this proposal for 20-byte base58 for now, and overhaul it in the
future (maybe when the block chain forks?).
0: mainnet pubkey hashes ('1', as before)
192: testnet pubnet hashes ('2', instead of 111, 'm' and 'n')
5: mainnet script hashes ('3'; for OP_EVAL)
196: testnet script hashes ('2', same as normal testnet addresses)
Looks good here.
12: mainnet private keys ('Q', 'R' or 'S', instead of 128, '5')
204: testnet private keys ('7', instead of 239, '8' and '9')
These are 32-byte, so have no reason IMO to follow the 20-byte proposal.
Since a lot of services are already using version 128 ('5') for bitcoin
private keys, and 128 is reserved in the 20-byte proposal, I think it's fair
to leave it alone (for now).
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