3 ms·

I'll do you one better. Send a few tainted sats to a non-empty address of a person you don't like, and hurray, his coins are now tainted, giving him endless hea

I'll do you one better. Send a few tainted sats to a non-empty address of a person you don't like, and hurray, his coins are now tainted, giving him endless headache.

______-_-______ 5y ago
Something similar has been done trying to deanonymize wallet owners. It's called a "dusting attack". In theory you can protect yourself by manually choosing which outputs to spend when you're building a transaction.
sharperguy 5y ago
Nowadays most wallets will let you choose which UTXOs to spend so you can simply choose not to spend those.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  That is a major pain/inconvenience, and also who knows what setting the antitainting mechanics will look like in the future, can very well make all your money compromised in the future.
nlitened 5y ago
Would you please explain in a bit more details? What's the reason for sending tainted satoshis to non-empty address? Bitcoins on that address are already on a public ledger, so if I understand it correctly, you can just watch where the coins go later, no need to "dust" over them.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Tainted coins (stolen from hacks or whatever) can be tracked forever on a public ledger. If you send some of them to a known address of your adversary, tracking software with start tracking those coins as well, especially if he'll manage to spend coins from your input together with his existing coins. So, he'll have problems down the road.
  - nlitened 5y ago
    But you can just “taint” coins that are already on that known address, since you already know that the address belongs to the adversary. If I understand correctly, “dusting” is only useful for empty addresses, when you want to track who owns them, because if they remain empty forever, you have no means to know.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      Tainting is not for tracking, but for making the adversary's funds marked as 'problematic'.
      - nlitened 5y ago
        Ah, so it’s like sending a satoshi known to be involved in trading drugs, to make adversary’s account linked to illegal activity?

I'll do you one better. Send a few tainted sats to a non-empty address of a person you don't like, and hurray, his coins are now tainted, giving him endless headache.

______-_-______ 5y ago

Something similar has been done trying to deanonymize wallet owners. It's called a "dusting attack". In theory you can protect yourself by manually choosing which outputs to spend when you're building a transaction.

sharperguy 5y ago

Nowadays most wallets will let you choose which UTXOs to spend so you can simply choose not to spend those.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
That is a major pain/inconvenience, and also who knows what setting the antitainting mechanics will look like in the future, can very well make all your money compromised in the future.

nlitened 5y ago

Would you please explain in a bit more details? What's the reason for sending tainted satoshis to non-empty address? Bitcoins on that address are already on a public ledger, so if I understand it correctly, you can just watch where the coins go later, no need to "dust" over them.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Tainted coins (stolen from hacks or whatever) can be tracked forever on a public ledger. If you send some of them to a known address of your adversary, tracking software with start tracking those coins as well, especially if he'll manage to spend coins from your input together with his existing coins. So, he'll have problems down the road.
- nlitened 5y ago
  But you can just “taint” coins that are already on that known address, since you already know that the address belongs to the adversary. If I understand correctly, “dusting” is only useful for empty addresses, when you want to track who owns them, because if they remain empty forever, you have no means to know.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Tainting is not for tracking, but for making the adversary's funds marked as 'problematic'.
    - nlitened 5y ago
      Ah, so it’s like sending a satoshi known to be involved in trading drugs, to make adversary’s account linked to illegal activity?