r/Buttcoin • u/InclinedPlane43 • 1d ago
I want to think that they are getting closer...
...but it's pretty clear that they aren't.
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u/OldWolf3 1d ago
Actual tamper proof hardware has physical switches that wipe the device when the case is opened .
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u/FullMetalMessiah 1d ago
If you really want to make the hardware fully tamper proof you pour the whole case full of some kind of epoxy and make the case a solid piece. That way even if they manage to open it they wont really be able to reverse engineer anything without completely destroying it.
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u/RailRuler 18h ago
there are reverse engineers who can remove the epoxy. it is fiddly but not impossible.
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u/r_xy 21h ago
maybe you could harden a device against data theft that way but the primary concern with cold wallets is if the firmware has been tampered with to generate a compromised seed phrase. Preventing that is basically impossible without authenticating that the device internals are authentic.
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u/D3AtHpAcIt0 1d ago
Partial credit. The ledgers software security and secure element was not compromised. Now, that secure software sending your seed phrase to the screen of the device? That part not so much
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u/patstew 1d ago
Wow, why doesn't apple put these chips that are secure against being physically taken and replaced into the iPhone to stop it being stolen? Are they stupid?
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u/joeyx22lm 21h ago
These chips do exist in many modern electronics. What about it would stop the phone from being stolen?
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u/Responsible_Test9019 4h ago
Wym, iphones do have a secure element and that's a big part of how their antitheft works. There's no chip being replaced here. The hardware implant basically reads the screen. The bus carrying the display signals isn't encrypted (because why should it be, you can just look at the screen lol). So the implant just intercepts and transmits this data. Any device that displays any kind of sensitive data on a screen is vulnerable to this type of attack. Secure elements are actually pretty important pieces of the modern security landscape.
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u/patstew 1h ago
Look at the picture in the OP. They're claiming it's secure against physical replacement. Secure elements have uses but they can't do that. It's a similar problem to rubber hose cryptanalysis, where cryptography nerds imagine that the mathematical strength of a system means it's unbreakable, and fail to imagine basic real world attacks that entirely circumvent it.
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u/itsmehutters 1d ago
The majority (if not all) of these stickers are easy to remove anyway.
Even if the sticker fails when I remove it, what is stopping me from adding a different sticker after I tamper with the device and resell it?
I feel like a simple USB would be 10 times more effective. First, there are billions of them, and no one has any idea what they are used for. Second, there are billions of them, and no one cares about them.
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u/AutoPanda1096 22h ago
Security through obscurity is also an awful path
But all of this is awful so I'm not sure there is any value to arguing hardware wallet security one way or the other lol
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u/waggish_rapport 21h ago
Calling something tamper-proof is a pretty bold claim when people's savings are on the line. Hardware security matters, but no device should be treated as completely immune to physical attacks.
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u/RailRuler 18h ago
the text implies it is tamper proof but with weasel words so if it is not actually tamper proof you can't claim false advertising.
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u/Autodidact420 17h ago
Which weasel words? Seems like a pretty strong claim to me…
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u/RailRuler 16h ago
"engineered to be". that's a statment of intent, not a promise.
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u/InclinedPlane43 15h ago
It directly says "prevents any interception or physical replacement attempt." There's no ambiguity there, they absolutely claimed that there is no risk at all. I predict that they are going to get destroyed in court.
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u/Autodidact420 16h ago
Idk, where I am at least I don’t think that’d cut it. The statement as a whole is fairly direct and a reasonable interpretation for consumers is that it is stated to be tamper proof.
Now it might be considered mere puff or something, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve weaseled correctly for my jurisdiction if that was their intent.
E: not legal advice by the way, talk to a lawyer in your jurisdiction to learn more about any specific situation and how it may apply to you, the reader.
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u/joeyx22lm 21h ago
Ironic how the safest option is keeping your assets held with a US-based custodian, like an exchange.
What dufuses
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u/InclinedPlane43 21h ago
And it's pretty much inevitable that someday one of the traditional major retirement-account players like Fidelity or Schwab is going to have a major "oops" moment and give away all the crypto they manage. Wonder what will the impact be then?
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u/joeyx22lm 20h ago
If they did that with listed securities, you'd be protected. Crypto needs to have similar regulations, but I trust large heavily-regulated companies more than rando hardware online.
And if it happened to a large company like coinbase, I'd assume a fork would occur because the damage would be so large, relative to the size of market. Too big to fail.
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u/redditisnotgood 19h ago
Crypto doesn’t want ‘similar regulations’ because the whole reason it has proliferated is that you can do things in crypto that are already illegal to do with securities
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u/Voice_in_the_ether 10h ago
Crypto: "We want regulatory clarity!"
World: "OK; if it's a security, follow the existing requirements for securities. If it's a currency, follow the existing rules for currency. Clear enough?"
Crypto: "Nonono - not that clarity!!"
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u/SisterOfBattIe using multiple slurp juices on a single ape since 2022 16h ago
Does it mean a crypto company... LIED ?
NO WAY! /s
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u/Jrezky 12h ago
Security through obscurity is not actually the best method for protecting your life's savings.
People are hopefully learning banks and governments aren't actually ALL bad. If I got lucky and owned a bunch of bitcoin, I'd definitely not be trusting any hardware or cryptography I didn't make myself. It's like trusting your mattress as your bank, but you have a big neon sign on the front of your house that says "money in mattress"
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u/ionfrigate 1d ago
The thing about secure elements is that their security model mostly relies on a central server. I'm probably oversimplifying a bit, but I gather it works a little like this: The device's serial number (or other identifier) doubles as a public key. The corresponding private key is stored in the device's secure element. The central server therefore knows that device xyz should be able to decrypt a message encrypted with public key xyz. (If not, no Google Play or App Store for you!) The secure element makes it so an attacker can't just extract that private key and use it on their own (compromised) device.
Without the "phone home" challenge-response and external dependency of the central server, a secure element can't do much more than just say "yeah, this device hasn't been tampered with". And it turns out it's pretty easy for an attacker to make a device that always says "yeah, this device hasn't been tampered with".
Once again, it turns out that centralized trust models have a reason to exist.
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u/MelangeBot 1d ago
This is complete nonsense and the hack was for a module fo be hooked in to the led, waiting for the led to display the seed phrase when the wallet was set up. It record the pixels going on and off,basically make a picture and send that out over a trow away 4g chip with some data on the embedded sim. Such tamper is not detectable anymore then it could detect a photo of the display being made.
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u/MyDudeThatsCrazy 1d ago
Funny thing is... a couple years ago, there was another thing about Ledger. People were saying "that's why I trust coldcard/trezor!" And now once again they are surprised about this.
Do crypto bros forget what happened in the past every couple months?