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NFC cold wallet for Kusama

gm275
5 years ago

Date of proposal: 07/08/2020

Hi,

I would like to discuss my proposal which is ready to be submitted to the council.

Based on this discussion, i can update the existing document or proceed as is if the vote passes.
Here is a quick summary:

Project Description

The aim of this project is to build a solution for storing wallet mnemonic seed securely offline by using NFC tags and industry standard cryptography and encryption.

Why NFC?

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  • NFC or Near-Field-Communication is a set of communication protocols for communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm or less.

  • NFC is designed to build on RFID by enabling more complex exchanges between participants.

  • NFC tags are passive devices, which means that they operate without a need of power supply of their own and are dependent on an active device to come into range before they are activated. (such as smartphones)

  • All the new mobile phones are equipped with NFC readers today which makes them an ideal candidate for broader adoption.

How to securely encrypt BIP-39 seed words?

  • The idea is the mobile app would allow to create some random questions, such as date of births, important dates etc
  • The app won't store the answers, they will only be asked when the user tries to write the seed to the NFC tag.
  • Using this information and/or a custom passphrase the seed will be encrypted and written to the NFC tag

Any data written to the NFC tag is encrypted and only the user holds the keys/passphrase to decrypt it.

Suggested and tested encryption algorithm for this project is AES 256-bit

Why Kusama?

We think experimenting on a Kusama ecosystem is the right place to grow this project while testing out different new technologies which can get real adoption longer term.

The suggested solution solves the management of seeds and keys with an easy to use cold backup solution.

It will also raise awareness around the weaknesses of key management but also educate the community about how to work with their seed from day 1.

For more specifications and details please refer to the proposal document:

Proposal application document: https://github.com/gregmeszaros/nfc-cold-wallet/blob/master/README.md

For further details please ask here, or reach out to me directly on Riot/Element, my matrix id is: @gm275:matrix.org

Comments (11)

5 years ago
  1. As you mentioned: "New functionality, features and the future roadmap could be decided by a democratic governance approach." - can you briefly describe the approach? what kind of process in place do you have to participate in the roadmap and contribute with new functionality?
  2. If I understand the project correctly (I am sorry if I am not, but my background is non technical) you will develop the app to write the NFC: how do you compare this to the imKey, or status keycard?
  3. the technology will most likely be upgraded in the near future, after the app is released: how do you plan to maintain this? You can find here an example of how Polkascan is maintaining their product
  4. do you think this functionality could also be integrated in one or more of your current wallets in place or being developed? do you envision this as a good idea?
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jeff
5 years ago

Is there integration with air gaped wallets like Parity signer? It's vague in the link. If not, then existing projects already do this, including https://keepmyseed.com/ https://github.com/KeepMySeed/NFC If yes, then I guess this mostly saves users the cut & paste between apps? I donno maybe, but maybe just see if KeepMySeed provides any interface that Parity signer, etc. could consume? I'd ignore integration with wallets that do not maintain an air gap.

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