> Could you describe what exactly BWS does? Sure. BWS tasks are:
* Coordinate Transaction proposals in multisignature wallets: provide an 'always connected' node to distribute pending transaction proposals and receive the signatures from peers. * Coordinate and store BIP32 derivation indexes. (If the BWS disappear, peer can still access the funds by scanning the blockchain, but having the index in a common accessable point in useful). * Access the blockchain and provide functions like: `getBalance` and `getTxHistory` to peers. * Allow agents to notify incoming funds / or transaction proposals to peers. BWS is designed to be extremely easy to setup and run. BitPay will provide a public BWS instance, but companies and individuals can run their own for privacy and security reasons. > It sounds like the server doesn't have to actually derive the keys itself for > any particular purpose > beyond knowing the addresses are a part of the wallet. Could the server work > if it didn't even > know that, and was just a bucket of arbitrary addresses with the clients > themselves deriving the > addresses? We have evaluated BWS not having the extended public keys (and it is still an open possibility) but the main drawback we found is that BWS will have no way to verify addresses sent by the peers (*). A peer could send a fake address to BWS and then functions like 'getBalance' or 'txHistory' will be broken. Of course, the peers could verify the addresses on getTxHistory or getBalance (by Address) but we also want to allow thin-clients and agents with lower level of trust (than the server) that can notify the wallet balance and incoming transaction to peers using, for example, mobile push notifications. (*): Gregory Maxwell proposed an schema for doing this with the "not extended" pubkeys, that we need to evaluate. That could be the best solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
