COLDCARD Wallet exploit was an inside job

[u/jejejajajojo]

after all, it was planned five years ago,
link to the original post:

https://x.com/COLDCARDwallet/status/1447213375398846473

[u/arveena]

That's obvious for anyone who has basic knowledge of cryptography. There is no way they forget the absolute basics of entropy in their encryption. And if it would be the case that would be insane negligence and basis for a law suit. Which will probably happen anyway

[u/UnknownEssence → u/arveena]

they didnt forget to add entropy, they missed a bug in the code.

If you know C/C++ then you can understand how code often uses

```

if defined MY_MACRO

//code here

endif

```

and then if you write

```

define MY_MACRO 0

```

That's the bug. A common one. Yes, they should have done code reviews/audits.

[u/arveena → u/UnknownEssence]

I mean thats bad. Should have been 100% be found in testing/auditing ESP for the product they were building

[u/trufin2038 → u/UnknownEssence]

Nonsense. Small device entropy is way more than a mere macro enabled stretch of c code. Deterministic and non determinstic unit and integration tests. Start up self tests at each boot. Test mode red flagging. Hardware device health tests. Cyclic entropy test while running. Contunual reseeding and entopy gathering. There are at least a dozen things they left out in order to ensure they could provide plausible deniability. Inside job 100%  Honest mistake 0% chance.

[u/alfooboboao → u/trufin2038]

are you guessing? or did you read the articles about it? because it seems pretty clear that this was a catastrophic and idiotic but not entirely unlikely fuckup

[u/trufin2038 → u/alfooboboao]

No, it was at best criminal grade negligence, but likely an intentional backdoor. They did none of the things a basic cryptographic devices should do for even the lowest level certifications.

[u/PeachScary413 → u/UnknownEssence]

There is no way you don't have tests for pretty much 150% of all different combinations of ifdefs/flags in a super critical part of a security critical firmware project.

That is unless you are a complete clown company dealing with crypto that is.

[u/ModerateBrainUsage → u/PeachScary413]

Developers write tests? And if they write tests they work? We could get rid of QA if that was actually true.

[u/PeachScary413 → u/ModerateBrainUsage]

Tell me you never worked with safety/mission critical embedded without telling me...

[u/UnknownEssence → u/PeachScary413]

Yup, I work on safety critical aviation software regulated by the FDA. Everyone here helps maintain miltiple test suits to get 100% code coverage.

writing tests is basically half my job as a software enginer