stellar-authenticator.org - Alpha release

MisterTicot

Here's the release of Stellar Authenticator!

This is an early release to get some feedback from the community. There's still a lot to do but the base is here.

Stellar Authenticator is web application and intended to become a phone application as well. It allows you to securely store your private keys and to sign & send transactions without having to give them away. It reads transactions from XDR and from cosmic links. You can manage multiple accounts very easily.

Stellar Authenticator won't act as a wallet and I'll look for some partners to offer an external viewing interface for your accounts. You may think of it as a software equivalent of Ledger Nano S or similar devices. The goal is to secure our accounts the best. I started this project because I'm planning an ICO this year and the underlying token will be partly used by non-technical users - and they deserve to be treated well!

I did test the application in major browsers and got unresolved issues on old versions of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Any up-to-date browser should work just well, though.

I also made a first try for the phone application: https://build.phonegap.com/apps/3048640/download/android
This is build right from the Github repository. Now there's some networking issue so you can only create new accounts offline and check how it behaves. This will require more care but the concept of having one well-secured codebase that can run accross all devices is already validated.

I still have a lot of work to get it where I want. The next steps are adding backup and password changing, improving XDR handling, wider browser support & have properly functioning android & iOs applications. I also want to allow to give aliases to frequently used addresses and code some reverse-name resolution to get stellar addresses from accountID (anybody have a clue about this one?).

But first thing first: I need to add a box so that you can add accounts on testnetwork and have them funded on-the-fly. For now you can create a testnet account by starting its name with "(test) "... Yes I'm really in a rush due to SBC ? However, the underlying code is quite robust if you ask me, and I carefully designed the interface.

Please only use test network or little amounts of cryptos until we go beta in a few weeks. This thread is here for me to announce updates and for you to give some feedback so please go ahead; I'd like to know if you have any issue using the app, if you love it or if there's something you'd like to see implemented in the future.

yodayoungling

Link: https://stellar-authenticator.org/

MisterTicot

Haha yes thank you ?

MisterTicot

I updated the application so that you can easily create testnet accounts and have them funded on-the-fly.

MisterTicot

Hi!

Today I took more time to check about Phonegap Build, a web platform that allow to convert a JavaScript/HTML/CSS GitHub repository into phone application.

I'm hoping to build Stellar Authenticator as a phone application with this tool. However, I found some drawbacks:
- Universal links are hairy to implement.
- The tool just put the full git repository into the package.

This is annoying as I was hoping to build everything from one repo and Stellar Authenticator ones contains a lot of useless files from dependencies... Well anyway it's nothing that bad. On the bright side it allows to handle custom URI like stellar://... quite easily. I'm going to add support for those at some point anyway as it's really straightforward and some peoples like Torkus may like to give this design a try.

Anyway I re-built the demo application for Android and network is now functional: https://build.phonegap.com/apps/3061746/download/android

I'm not going to put more effort into that one for now, as my priority is to implement better XDR support into cosmic-lib. More generally, I'd like to push the web application & library to beta stage before putting myself in phone application building again.

MisterTicot

Hi there ?

Just a little update about what's going on. I'm rewriting Stellar Authenticator the same way I did for cosmic-lib. That is, porting it to a modern javascript stack made of node/webpack/babel and fully translating the code to latest standards. I was simply unaware of thoses tools when I start coding the application.

On the way, I started to re-design the secure database to reach its final shape. This is better to do this as early as possible. It involves some serious search about how to enable all kind of possibilities cheaply, like password changing, backups, cloud syncing, secure paper wallet, ... while keeping the user experience light and clear.

I'll then take the needed time to ensure that the upgrade goes as smoothly as possible for anybody using the service. So to conclude, I'd say that while everything looks quiet here there's heavy work going on under the hood.

See you soon for next release ?

MisterTicot

Hi there ?

Here's Stellar Authenticator 0.3.0 . Please note that you'll have to go through an additional step the next time you login in order to update the secure database.

I think I ended up doing a nearly full rewrite. Well, this is good to have the code to be clean now. As I said the changes are mostly in the background and I reworked a lot of little things so I think you will find the experience with Stellar Authenticator flows better.

Implementing the new secure database was of course the big challenge of those weeks. I did want something efficient and compatible with the future features I'll implement, but also easy to manipulate, while keeping the highest level of security I could achieve. I'm pretty happy with the result and I think I'll release it as a library later so everybody will be able to take advantage of this work.

Giving the features I added to my TODO-list and the rythm I had thoses last monthes, I decided to come with a more realistic agenda. My goal is now to have something feature-complete for the end of the year; Then I will simply keep it up-to-date with ongoing developments. Here's my TODO list at this time:

Before stable release (planned for this autumn):
* Have a native english speaker check all the texts
* Implement as an application for android
* Cloud backup
* Signing datas capabilities
* Better address information interface
* Offer to define aliases for contacts
* More anti-phishing features

Later:
* Internationalization support
* First translations
* Integration into external websites
* Integrated QR scanner
* Paper wallet


Not included there but to be implemented via cosmic-lib:
* Multi-operation transactions
* Multi-signature handling
* Ledger nano S support
* 2-FA with StellarGuard
* Support DKIF protocol
* Private networks

As you can see I pushed to later most development on Stellar Authenticator itself. This is because this month I'll focus on implementing multi-signature support and multi-operation transactions inside cosmic-lib, as well as various little tasks.

I wish you a good day (or night) ?

MisterTicot

Hi ?

Stellar Authenticator now support multi-operation transactions and multi-signature thanks to last cosmic-lib updates.

It will also be available offline after first visit, and you can install it as an application for Android and soon for iOs (progressive app technology). All you have to do is go in the menu and select "Install".

The service is now stable and I completed the first round of planned features. I'm now working on release beta versions for js-cosmic-lib and cosmic.link website. I'll then focus on implementing secure cloud backup for Stellar Authenticator.