Hardware wallet: open source or secure chips?

Original title: "hardware wallet - open source or secure chip?"
Source: bitpieteam

Nearly a year or two, due to some hardware wallet manufacturers deliberately confused, open source and security chip seems to have become the opposite, either one or the other of the two camps, which makes small white people very confused, should choose open source hardware wallet, or choose those who advertise their use of XXX security chip hardware wallet?

In fact, "open source" and "security chip" are not the same thing, should not be put together to discuss and compare. This article makes this clear in basic logic to help you make your wallet choices easily and clearly.

First, the purpose of open source is to "prove oneself clean", while the purpose of security chip is to enhance "physical security".

So why does a hardware wallet need to prove its innocence?

The reason is simple: in the world of digital money, you either trust others (third parties) or only yourself. If you absolutely trust others, you can indeed deposit COINS in the third-party platform you trust, there is no need to manage your own COINS; If you want to keep the COINS in your own hands, you should choose a wallet that can prove its innocence. From this point of view, the hardware wallet must be open source.

Because if you don't open source, that means you have to trust the third party, the hardware wallet vendor. If you trust a third party, who doesn't? Better to trust the big exchanges.

Only open source can ensure that you know "exactly what programs run on the hardware wallet you buy", "how private keys are generated", "how transaction signatures are made", "how hot and cold wallets communicate"...

That way you don't have to trust the hardware wallet vendor at all. All you need is the hardware they provide and the open source programs that run on it. Thus, open source is a prerequisite, not an option, for hardware wallets.

After saying open source and self - vindication, we say again "physical security", what is physical security?

This is how hard it is for a thief to steal money from your hardware wallet after it has been physically stolen. At this point, virtually no hardware Wallet is 100% physically secure, even the popular hardware Wallet Ledger, which has previously been reported by Wallet.Fail as a successful physical attack.

The first important security objective of hardware wallet is not physical security, but "network security". That is to say, your hardware wallet should be protected against a hacker in Iceland who attacks your computer or phone remotely, steals your private key and transfers your currency. From this perspective, "cold" (not connected to the Internet) comes first, and Bithd, Trezor, and Ledger are all safe and reasonable hardware cold wallet solutions in the cold case.


* BitHD shield & amp; Blade hardware wallet

So what do we do from a physical security standpoint?

Some of the security chip standards in the traditional financial industry do indeed have some help in strengthening physical security, making it more difficult to steal your hardware wallet after the physical attack, but the more reasonable way to prevent such a physical attack is not the security chip, but the use of "password account". Using a password account correctly can help you avoid any loss of assets even if a mnemonic is stolen, and you don't have to worry about your hardware wallet being stolen.

So, from a physical security perspective, a "password account" that strictly adheres to the BIP specification is a perfect solution to everything, while abandoning open source for a so-called "security chip" forces you to trust a third party, which is really putting the cart before the horse.

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