I'm a product manager not a Blockchain coder, looking for a 2nd opinion and some general good practice advice. I have one question in bold, the rest is background.
Background:
We have an app in development that will write user's information into a Smart Contract on the ETH blockchain.
The SC's we deploy contain information only, no Ether.
Each user has their own SC which stores only that users specific information.
Our App allows the user to edit and update this information and then upload the changes, encrypted, into their own SC.
The user's SC address is 'tied' (sorry for lack of correct terminology) to their own Ether wallet.
I see on Etherscan (Ropsten) there is a Contract Creator address which is a constant for all the SC's our App creates.
I'm assuming that the contract creator address is unique to us, it is code we've created and as such it deploys only our Smart Contracts on behalf of our Application.
I was hoping that each SC address would be known only to its owner and us only. Now I see that anyone can access this information.
My Concerns:
Should there be an exploitable flaw in our code then a bad actor has a list of contract addresses to attack.
The worst-case risk to us is that a bad-actor could access each users data in an unencrypted state if a flaw exists in our publicly accessible code.
The Bad-Actor then uses that flaw and the list of smart contract addresses they can get from Etherscan to download multiple users data.
My Question
Are these realistic concerns?
If so what general directions can we look at to mitigate these risks
If so is there a way I can obscure the Creator address in Etherscan without other negative consequences
The developers are outsourced 3rd parties and excellent people to work with. But Im looking for an alternate opinion than just theirs at this time as a double check.
Apologies if the information Ive provided is confusing or incomplete.
Thanks in advance for your time.
I was hoping that each SC address would be known only to its owner and us only. Now I see that anyone can access this information.
As you have addressed here, data regarding the blockchain (i.e. transaction hashes, contract addresses, and user addresses) is transparently available. This is by-design with Ethereum and allows for the traceability aspect of the ledger.
Furthermore, smart contract data is potentially available to any actor in the Ethereum network. However, that is based upon the following:
In order to access the smart contract data, an actor would require the contract ABI. This interface allows code to be written to interact with the smart contract methods. Now, it is helpful to understand that this ABI could hypothetically be easily reverse-generated with enough details of how your DApp interacts with the existing smart contract.
If your smart contract logic has exploitable flaws, a malicious actor on the network could take advantage of this. This is why contracts should be well-written and unit tested with near (if not) 100% code coverage. You should also identify the potential actors in each contract scenario and be sure your test cases appropriately cover these scenarios.
If so what general directions can we look at to mitigate these risks
Given the contract scenario you have described, if the only actor who should have access to these user data smart contracts is the user them self, then you simply need to apply something akin to a function modifier to your smart contract logic. In the linked example, access to the smart contract data is restricted to a single specific Ethereum user address.
If so is there a way I can obscure the Creator address in Etherscan without other negative consequences
Sure. It sounds like you're currently using a single account to deploy the smart contracts, hence the creator address is constant. (Side note: I'm not sure why you're deploying the contract on behalf of the user with this account, it sounds like the user should be deploying their own smart contract). Regardless, you could simply create a new proxy user address each time you deploy the smart contract. However, I don't see any benefit to doing so and this would just be an example of security through obscurity.
Related
I'm new in blockchain development, I wonder why is it necessary to interact with contract from another contract instead of from a personal EOA address?
Besides the delegatecall, I can't imaging any advantage to use contract to call another deployed contract's functions. As a user, I may rather use ethers or web3js through wallet etc to interact with a deployed smart contract instead.
would you please show me some reasons or necessary cases that I should design my project using a smart contract to interact with another smart contract? Thanks a lot!
There are too many use cases:
1- Upgradeable contracts or proxy contracts. Since blockchain technology is evolving so fast, it is so hard to write a contract that will be scalable. With proxy contracts, user calls the proxy contract but proxy calls the main contract. if in the future you have to change the logic of the contract, you deploy a new contract and make the proxy contract call this new contract. This way users will not get affected. You can read more about this pattern here
2- If you ever need to get data from real world, you cannot make an api call because this is not safe and not deterministic. for this reason, we use oracle services which also calls to many other smart contracts behind the scene, gets the results from each, and make a final response to the user. You can read more about oracles here
3- another use case is factory contracts. think about it as a class and users keep make an instance of it. that way instead of factory owner pays for the new contract creation, user will be paying for the deployment. you can read more about factory contracts
4- defi platforms have too many smart contracts and they are interacting each other. They keep the logic separate from each other, so they maintain better and see the missing points better. also putting everything in one contract would make contract code is bloated and make a mess. you can read uniswap
5- another use case to deploy library smart contracts. those are usually mathematical contracts which are deployed once and once u need complex functionalities, instead of you implement in your contract, you use library contracts and use them in your project. You can read about libraries
6- another use case is solving the scalability issues. imagine you have one kitchen and you have to serve all the customers from only one kitchen. As you get more customers, your service will eventually halted. so, there are layer 2 solutions to transfer some of the orders to different kitchens. and this of course happen through smart contract communications. more on layer 2
7- In general you can use inheritance. You deploy some contracts and inherit the logic from those smart contract. that is why you see openzeppelin contracts always inherit from each other
For example there are some standarts in Ethereum ecosystem. ERC20, ERC721, ERC1155 and others. So when you developing new project, instead of writing it from scratch you could install openzeppelin-contracts, import them and inherit. Afterwards you have this "carcass", on the top of which you can implement some additional functionality/custome code, etc. That approach is way more convenient and secure.
Another great example chainlink-contracts. Via them you can read from oracles. Oracles are smart contracts that keep track of cryptocurrencies prices online. Say you want your users to pay 10$ to participate in lottery/some giveaway. Your contract interacts with chainlink contract and makes sure that amount of eth that user paid is greater or equal to 10$ otherwise it returns error.
In solidity there is no true randomness, but again throughout interacting with chainlink contracts we can reach it. Another chainlink feature is automation contracts, check chainlink documentation to learn more(https://docs.chain.link/). To sum up id say that there is a lot of different protocoles/concepts which easier to interact with than to write it again.
"No need to reinvent the wheel"
I am learning about threshold signatures and their use cases on EVM Blockchains.
I am trying to understand how they are able to always have the same address.
Is the following correct? It is my understanding of how it works
A smart contract exists on chain. This smart contract is the address
of the TSS wallet. The smart contract has a function that decides if
signatures are valid. If this function is called with the requisite
(threshold) signatures from parties, it approves use of the smart
contract address for on chain meta transactions.
TSS does not have a way to work off chain to produce an Externally
Owned Address (EOA) even in a two party case. It depends on a third
party smart contract to authorize use of an address.
Sorry if I'm way off, it's quite hard to understand the underlying tech of TSS. As I understand it, there is no known way to create an EOA without re-assembling a private key e.g. with MultiSig right? Or can TSS produce signatures from the same address based on signatures of two parties, such that the TSS signature always represents the same address / private key that is not known by any party? Any examples or documentation would be greatly welcome!
I am not an expert on multiparty computing (MPC) which I believe threshold signatures (TSS) are part of. Thus, I do not know if there is a way to cryptographic natively to have a stable EOA for TSS. But I know some multiparty computing hardware companies do this by providing generic multisignature solutions across multiple different blockchains.
However you can have a simple threshold scheme with Ethereum by
Deploying a smart contract that lists its owners in the on-chain storage
The smart contract needs to have just one function to check if the incoming messages contains enough signatures from owners
The address of such account is the deployed smart contract address
Here is a tutorial of building such a smart contract wallet by Mahmoud Fathy.
I am thinking of investing in a new erc-20 token that looks good but it seems that the developers are connected with some fraudulent coins. The Dev says that scammers are creating smart contracts and transferring ownership of the fraudulent contract to the original developer's contract to steal money from buyers. So my question is, is it possible to transfer ownership from one contract to another without signing the transaction? And if yes, how can scammers transfer funds? I think only the owner can transact. Thanks!
I googled but couldn't find an answer
is it possible to transfer ownership from one contract to another without signing the transaction?
Only a transaction can store state changes - for example value of a variable hold an authorized address.
So while it is possible to transfer contract ownership, it is not possible to do so without a transaction.
I discovered a YouTube based scam where a fake Solidity tutorial instructs users to go into Remix and deploy a scam contract. The scam contract allows any address to withdraw the funds. It has fake comments that are hilarious, but it is really scary that this scam targets potential new people in the space.
How do I find the matching contracts from the compiled bytecode? I want to see on the blockchain which contracts match this so I can find the offending address that reaches out to claim.
If there a method in geth? What about a scanner? Maybe The Graph and a subgraph?
Should I just download the chain and query? The problem for me is chain bloat and syncing Ethereum will take forever.
I am writing a test application that allows people to purchase tokens.
I am adapting the example from here: https://ethereum.org/token#the-code
Here are my questions:
What is the best way to have a registry of purchases? I would assume this can be a simple web interface that queries the block chain to see who has bought what.
If this is correct, does this mean running geth on a server in order to have the latest blockchain available and then using some kind of PHP / Javascript library in order to query the blockchain every so often?
What is the best way to sell tokens? Could this be done via a web interface or would it be best to sell via the ethereum wallet? Or both?
Lets say I want to split a token into a number of parts as such:
A: A full token = 1
B: 1/10th of a full token called a 10token
C: 1/10th of a 10token called a 100token
D: 1/10th of a 100token called a 1000token
What is the best way to represent this?
For instance, if someone owns a full token they have 100% of that tokens rights. However it would be possible for many parts of a token to be owned by different people who will share rights according to their share.
Visually, it would look something like this:
How to do this is a puzzle to me.
What is the best way to have a registry of purchases? I would assume this can be a simple web interface that queries the block chain to see who has bought what.
You can do the registry in your token sale smart-contract by making event like this
event TokenPurchase(address indexed purchaser, address indexed beneficiary, uint256 value, uint256 amount);
In this case you will be able to watch event log later and get all the addresses you need.
Another approach is to add a simple map to your contract like this mapping (address => uint256) public deposited; and add elements to this map on purchases.
About the representation of the registry for the users you better just take a look at ICO's you like and make it in the same way.
What is the best way to sell tokens? Could this be done via a web interface or would it be best to sell via the ethereum wallet? Or both?
I would say both. But it depends on who are your tokens for. If you sell only using ethereum wallet you will loose a lot of users not familiar with blockchain.
Lets say I want to split a token into a number of parts as such
Take a look at the solutions offered by OpenZeppelin project. Just read their contracts code and I think you'll find solutions you were looking for in this post.