Pre Proposal - Dash wallet for Nokia dumb phones

[wadetv]

Has anyone priced out how much it would cost to develop? I think actually going after the original ideal of banking the unbanked would be great strategically. We'd be targeting a huge market that other coins aren't because they can't get the immediate returns, but Dash budgeting allows for long term infrastructure decisions. If the bottom 3 billion get their hands on Dash, odds are they will keep the first cryptocurrency they are exposed to.

I think to deal with tech limitations you'd want the phone to do as little as possible, offload processing the same way a web wallet does.

 

[bielie]

I think this is a fantastic idea.

 

[Enkhil]

This would be excellent!

 

[Stephen Gornick]

Phones are incredibly insecure as wallets. Numbers are easily spoofed resulting in accounts easily drained. Essentially, methods that use the phone number provide no (none, zero, nada) security.

There are some mobile banking approaches that use a technology called USSD. Even that is vulnerable: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/exploiting-ss7-vulnerabilities-in/

The only mobile phone technology that might be secure enough to use is Sim Toolkit (STK). That's what Safaricom (Kenya)'s mobile money leader M-Pesa uses. But to use that requires participation and authorization from the telco/mobile network provider -- something they wouldn't do, either because they are entities owned or controlled by the government, or because they don't want to enable a competitor.

There have been a number of entities that have started down this road, only to later abandon their projects at various stages.

The majority of phones sold nowadays, even in the poorest of countries, is a smartphone (Android, iPhone, Windows Phone [yes, Windows Phone is way more common in the developing world than you would imagine]), so a simple mobile app (i.e., one that is light on resources, .. in contrast to, say, Airbitz or Mycelium "heavy" wallets) would be the right technology for use in the developing world.

 

[Leonidas]

Has anyone priced out how much it would cost to develop? I think actually going after the original ideal of banking the unbanked would be great strategically. We'd be targeting a huge market that other coins aren't because they can't get the immediate returns, but Dash budgeting allows for long term infrastructure decisions. If the bottom 3 billion get their hands on Dash, odds are they will keep the first cryptocurrency they are exposed to.

I think to deal with tech limitations you'd want the phone to do as little as possible, offload processing the same way a web wallet does.

I agree, I like the idea. We could then even develop our own dash phone that would have the dash wallet installed.

 

[Enkhil]

Phones are incredibly insecure as wallets. Numbers are easily spoofed resulting in accounts easily drained. Essentially, methods that use the phone number provide no (none, zero, nada) security.

There are some mobile banking approaches that use a technology called USSD. Even that is vulnerable: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/exploiting-ss7-vulnerabilities-in/

The only mobile phone technology that might be secure enough to use is Sim Toolkit (STK). That's what Safaricom (Kenya)'s mobile money leader M-Pesa uses. But to use that requires participation and authorization from the telco/mobile network provider -- something they wouldn't do, either because they are entities owned or controlled by the government, or because they don't want to enable a competitor.

There have been a number of entities that have started down this road, only to later abandon their projects at various stages.

The majority of phones sold nowadays, even in the poorest of countries, is a smartphone (Android, iPhone, Windows Phone [yes, Windows Phone is way more common in the developing world than you would imagine]), so a simple mobile app (i.e., one that is light on resources, .. in contrast to, say, Airbitz or Mycelium "heavy" wallets) would be the right technology for use in the developing world.

Ah that is a shame, but thank you for the explanation.

I agree, I like the idea. We could then even develop our own dash phone that would have the dash wallet installed.

I have been thinking about it, though I don't think it makes much sense to develop a phone, there are plenty of those already, even cheap ones. I was thinking about an ultra cheap, small device that only does DASH with maybe a cheap camera to scan to scan QR codes that can connect to wifi or send transactions over SMS.

 

[Leonidas]

cheap, small device that only does DASH with maybe a cheap camera to scan to scan QR codes that can connect to wifi or send transactions over SMS

Goodidea. I don't know what are the development plans for Trezor or even if it is possible, but that could be a funding to Trezor so that they would enhance their product and add the features you're talking about.