[Webfunds-users] Accounts

Wed Mar 29 09:10:45 2000

Craig Haynie wrote:

> 2) I'm drawing some assumptions here, but is it true that when the WebFunds
> Wallet creates an account that it creates both the Account Number, (which is
> the long hash sequence), and another Account Password, (which is never
> seen)?

The SOX Wallet creates a public/private key pair for each account.
The public key gets registered with the issuer server, and the private
key is kept secret.  Just like any PKI system, if you lose the
private key, you lose the ability to access the account.

(as an analgy, calling the private key a password sort of works,
although it gets confusing as normally, one would put a passphrase
on the private key.  We did used to have this but I took it out in
the search for a bug.  Never found the bug though....)

> If so, then does this mean that IF the WebFunds Wallet is destroyed,
> that no other software account can be set up to access the data registered
> with the issuer from the original account because there is no way to get
> access to the hidden password? (In other words, if I lose my WebFunds Wallet
> setup, with my account information, then the digigold is unrecoverable?)

If you lose the data, then you can never access the account.
However, the DigiGold is not lost - the system is designed
never to permit the destuction or misallocation of value (as
opposed to users destroying data).  What you can do, in a
theoretical sense, is to request administrative action from
the issuer of the currency.

Now, as you saw from that mail, the operator of the server
can determine the contents of any account.  What the operator
cannot do is determine who has the account.  So the owner must
supply sufficient detail in order to identify the account for
the operator to be able to do anything, and therefore establish
to the contract issuer that they do own that money.

Bottom line:  it's painful.  It will probably cost.  If you
just lost a gram, then you probably just lost a gram.  If you
lose 10kg, then you can probably get it back some time, some how.

Next post:  backups!

iang