Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on January 29, 2013, 06:58:03 AM

@etotheipi: That's cool. Eventually though, multi-sig would be much cooler and safer than just secret-sharing a single private key.

This is not a replacement for multi-sig. It is to provide an alternative, flexible way to create and store paper backups. Multi-factor auth wallets (linked wallets) are still coming... with the new wallet files... if I ever finish them...

EDIT: I see what I wasn't clear about -- this is for paper backups, not multi-sig wallet chains. You will be able to print a single paper backup, or if you are in advanced/expert mode, you can choose M and N to print off an M-of-N paper backup. Then it would print off a single piece of paper that can be cut with scissors into N strips, requiring any combination of M strips in order to recover your secret (or check a box to print N separate pages).

I just didn't want to do this with the current wallets, because each strip contains data that is 2x the size of the secret to be split, and the current paper backups already store 512 bits. Thus, if you split your paper backup into 3-of-5 like my example above, in order to recover the secret you'll be typing 3 kB into Armory by hand! That's a lot! Originally, I was just planning to wait for the new wallets which will only require backing up 160 bits, which is a lot better (and about the best I can do).

Since someone explicitly asked about it just after I finished it, I decided to share that it's available already if you are willing to do some work.