IndieSquare Wallet v 2.5.4
Without public source of the reviewed release available, this product cannot be verified!
As part of our Methodology, we ask:
A wallet that claims to not give the provider the means to steal the users’ funds might actually be lying. In the spirit of “Don’t trust - verify!” you don’t want to take the provider at his word, but trust that people hunting for fame and bug bounties could actually find flaws and back-doors in the wallet so the provider doesn’t dare to put these in.
Back-doors and flaws are frequently found in closed source products but some remain hidden for years. And even in open source security software there might be catastrophic flaws undiscovered for years.
An evil wallet provider would certainly prefer not to publish the code, as hiding it makes audits orders of magnitude harder.
For your security, you thus want the code to be available for review.
If the wallet provider doesn’t share up to date code, our analysis stops there as the wallet could steal your funds at any time, and there is no protection except the provider’s word.
“Up to date” strictly means that any instance of the product being updated without the source code being updated counts as closed source. This puts the burden on the provider to always first release the source code before releasing the product’s update. This paragraph is a clarification to our rules following a little poll.
We are not concerned about the license as long as it allows us to perform our analysis. For a security audit, it is not necessary that the provider allows others to use their code for a competing wallet. You should still prefer actual open source licenses as a competing wallet won’t use the code without giving it careful scrutiny.
The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.But we also ask:
Bitcoin wallets are complex products and Bitcoin is a new, advancing technolgy. Projects that don’t get updated in a long time are probably not well maintained. It is questionable if the provider even has staff at hands that is familiar with the product, should issues arise.
This verdict may not get applied if the provider is active and expresses good reasons for not updating the product.
The Analysis ¶
This does not represent a full code review.
Upon app installation users are made to write down the mnemonic phrase and pin.
Then users are made to choose between Counterparty or Ethereum blockchain. A third option is “I’m not sure”.
Selecting “I’m not sure” then brings you to the wallet page, which allows you to send or receive BTC.
Although it has a link to what it claims is its Github page for the wallet app, we have some qualms about it.
First the last update was 5 years ago.
Next, under the sub-folder “app”, it describes Titanium alloys:
Titanium Alloys are metals which contain a mixture of Titanium and other chemical elements. Such Alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light weight, have extraordinary corrosion resistance and the ability to withstand extreme temperatures [1].
From lw
Alloy is an MVC application framework by Appcelerator for Titanium.
That said, the repository has one single commit and no compile instructions and might not be complete to compile an Android app from.
The app was updated later than the source dates and the source provided may compile into some wallet app.
We can still say that this app has not adequately provided verifiable source code.
(dg)
Do your own research!
Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.
If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.