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Unchained

The Ugly Tradeoffs of Ledger’s New Recovery Service - Ep. 494

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ledger, the crypto industry’s leading hardware wallet manufacturer, rolled out a new recovery feature this month that caused an uproar. The recovery service has dangerous implications for crypto self-custody, says Foundation Devices Head of Content “Seth For Privacy.” He joins the show to discuss the downsides of closed-source code and the security risks that come with compromising for mainstream adoption. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: how Ledger Recover works and why it caused an outrage in the crypto community why the fact that Ledger’s code is not open-source could be considered a problem what the concerns are about handing over additional data to Ledger how darknet markets have always existed for fake ID verifications and how it relates to Ledger’s new feature some of Ledger’s previous security lapses  why introducing a trusted third party undermines one of Bitcoin’s most central tenets whether Ledger’s move is a “net good for society,” and whether people actually want a service like this in a hardware wallet whether something will go wrong with Ledger in the future Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Railgun DAO  Stader Labs Guest Seth for Privacy, blogger and head of content at Foundation Devices Blog Foundation Devices Twitter thread on the logistics and risks of the Ledger recovery process Links Ledger CTO Twitter thread on Ledger Recover  CoinDesk: Ledger Bats Back Criticism of New Wallet Recovery Service, CoinDesk  Unchained: ‘Backdoor’ for Seed Phrases? Ledger’s New Recovery Feature Spooks Users Ledger Recover webpage Haseeb Qureshi’s thread on the Ledger controversy Past Ledger security issues CoinDesk: Crypto Wallet Maker Ledger Loses 1M Email Addresses in Data Theft Cointelegraph: Ledger data leak: A ‘simple mistake’ exposed 270K crypto wallet buyers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host,

0:08.8

Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started recovering crypto eight years ago,

0:13.5

and as a senior editor Forbes was the first mainstream meter porter to cover cryptocurrency

0:17.6

full-time. This is the May 19th, 2023 episode of Unchained. If you've been enjoying Unchained

0:24.0

and find the discussions here fascinating, mind-blowing, or as crypto tends to be,

0:28.5

downright bonkers, please share this episode with a friend to keep the conversation going.

0:58.5

privately in your favorite DeFi apps, while Railgun's cutting-edge zero-knowledge system

1:03.4

encrypts your data from public view. Yes, that includes Dex Trading. Visit railgun.org or use

1:09.6

the railway app at railway.xyz. With the crypto.com app, you can buy, trade, and spend crypto in one

1:16.0

place. Download and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description.

1:22.0

Today's guest is Seth for Privacy, Blogger, and Head of Content at Foundation Devices.

1:27.4

Welcome, Seth, for Privacy. Hey, Laura. Thank you so much for having me on. I was really excited

1:32.0

when I got the invite to chat with you. First time we've really gotten across paths and chat through

1:37.1

all the craziness of this week. So really looking forward to it. Yeah, and nice to connect with you

1:42.5

while you're at Bitcoin Miami. I imagine it'll be an interesting conference as usual.

1:50.2

And part of the reason might be because this week ledger caused quite a ruckus when it announced

1:56.0

its new service, although actually I guess they announced it two weeks ago. But for some reason,

2:01.0

it really made the rounds and caused a lot of consternation on crypto Twitter. And the new service

2:08.0

is called Ledger Recovery. But before we dive into all the details around the controversy,

2:12.6

let's just explain what it is that ledger recovery does, how it works, and how this is different

2:18.9

from ledger's previous offerings. Yeah, so I think we need to also clarify something

2:25.5

upfront in that when we talk about how ledger recovery works, we are trusting ledger 100%

...

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