Event

This workshop, Genesis: Safely Generating Keys with Chaos, will focus on using the Keyfork tool in relation to the concept of "genesis" in key generation. Keyfork is a modular toolchain for generating and managing a wide range of cryptographic keys offline and on smartcards from a shared mnemonic phrase. This shared phrase is based on the BIP-0039 standard and can be used to calculate a BIP-0032 seed for hierarchical deterministic key derivation. Keyfork leverages this seed to generate deterministic and unique keypairs within an agent, ensuring that only the agent controls the root seed.

This workshop will explore how Keyfork facilitates secure key generation by emphasizing:

• Unpredictability: Keyfork allows users to generate a BIP-0039 phrase from OS or physicalized entropy and use a BIP-0039 passphrase from user-supplied entropy.
• Determinism: Given the same seed, repeated derivation requests will be reproducible, ensuring that any secret data can be derived again at any point in the future.
• Offline Functionality: Keyfork is designed to work offline, exiting if network access is detected to force users to keep keys offline, mitigating the risk of supply chain attacks.
• Recoverability: Keyfork offers a shard mechanism using Shamir's Secret Sharing, enabling "M-of-N" recovery of the seed if lost. Additionally, a config file and 24-word mnemonic phrase can be used to recover every key.

Keyfork is relevant to the idea of "genesis" due to its focus on creating keys from a shared mnemonic phrase that acts as a root seed. This workshop will provide a practical understanding of how Keyfork acts as a tool for genesis in the context of cryptographic key creation and management.

This workshop will be held as part of the Church of Cryptography assembly at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress.