Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed enhancing wallet and contract security by focusing on user intent. He argued for systems like transaction simulations and spending limits that confirm a user’s desired outcome before execution. Buterin noted that perfect security is elusive because user intent is inherently complex and difficult to define.
Vitalik Buterin has suggested using features like “transaction simulations” to improve Ethereum wallet and smart contract security. He argued in a post that security and user experience both fundamentally revolve around ensuring protocols fulfill user intent.
Buterin explained this intent-based approach could involve systems that double-check user actions before execution. The user would specify an action and then review a simulation of its consequences before approving.
Other methods could include implementing spending limits and requiring multisignature approvals. He stated the goal is to make low-risk actions easier while making dangerous ones harder.
However, Buterin noted that defining user intent is “extremely complex.” “[It’s not] because machines are ‘flawed’, or even because humans designing the machines are ‘flawed’, but because ‘the user’s intent’ is fundamentally an extremely complex object that the user themselves does not have easy access to,” he wrote.
He argued that effective solutions require users to specify intention in multiple, overlapping ways. The system would then only act when these different specifications align with each other.
Security is one part of the blockchain trilemma, a concept coined by Buterin. The theory states blockchains must compromise on one of three aspects: security, decentralization, or scalability.
