3 ms·

Well the coins came from the tornado cash mixer, so it is pretty anonymous. ... and also possibly illegal to handle, if the recipient is in the US?

aliqot 4y ago
Mixers do not render something anonymous, even on a balance-based network.
- joosters 4y ago
  If it's not anonymous, would you care to show where the coins originated from, please?
  - aliqot 4y ago
    I should probably lead with this, but I'm an expert researcher and developer-contributor to this field. I'm qualified to make this assertion and it could save someone's life so it's very important we're clear here on this. Your argument is not the 'gotcha' you think it is. Those transactions are public record. The money has to get into the mixer somehow, and it has to come out somehow. Unless your coins never exit the system or interact with a daemon you operate or that can be tied to you, sure you enjoy a modicum of pseudonimity, but the moment you interact with that account you've given that up. Whether this is SPV, light wallet, custodial wallet or home grown daemon wallet, you must make a connection to a daemon and it must gather peers and chain-data. Even if you mine the coins, you have to broadcast a TX to solve the block, collect reward and propagate new coins. Same with proof of stake. New coins must be minted and rewarded, something must solve to mint. One of the most common ways 'private' transactions are traced is through daemon broadcast. The first daemon to broadcast/relay a transaction holds tangible log info to nail users. After that broadcast you now have 8-16 other daemons who've seen and recorded that peer broadcast in their logs, then they reach out to update the swarm. You don't need to operate many nodes to get very targeted info on the originator of a transaction, you only need what's called 'peer diversity'. TOR does very little to negate this, especially when 'light-transactions' are used, where only the transactions lacked during sync are requested- this is a passive 'fingerprint' of a given daemon and its sync-state. Often 'light transactions' are lauded as a performance mechanism but unfortunately anything that decreases traffic homogeneity will have an influence on a bad actor's ability to isolate a given user's traffic. Anybody can run these daemons. You don't need sophisticated surveillance infrastructure for this, it's being done today by hackers and agencies alike to target users of actually-private cryptoassets that have inherently private blockchains.
    - tokai 4y ago
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - xtracto 4y ago
        I don't understand why you are downvoted. In the internet everybody is a dog, or a crypto security expert. And I say this as a Computer Science PhD in Artificial Intelligence with 25 years of experience in the field including hacking/cracking experience under my belt that I may or may not have because you cannot know because I am using a pseudonim. The only thing that matters is providing sound arguments, specially when discounting other´s arguments.
    - corobo 4y ago
      In fairness to the other guy this doesn't say where the coins came from, not even a nice breadcrumb trail. I was expecting something like this comment with maybe some extra working out. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924389
    - bavell 4y ago
      Broadcast anonymity is trivially achieved by using TOR.
    - joosters 4y ago
      That’s like saying “A mask can’t hide your face, because someone might see you while you’re putting the mask on”. I mean, it’s strictly true that you can always screw up or miss out on a critical step in any task, but your line of reasoning is basically declaring that masks won’t ever hide your face. It’s far too absolute and pedantic.
      - 55555 4y ago
        He's just trying to help people who read the parent comment, assume its bulletproof anonymity, and then ruin their lives doing something dumb.

aliqot 4y ago

Mixers do not render something anonymous, even on a balance-based network.

joosters 4y ago
If it's not anonymous, would you care to show where the coins originated from, please?
- aliqot 4y ago
  I should probably lead with this, but I'm an expert researcher and developer-contributor to this field. I'm qualified to make this assertion and it could save someone's life so it's very important we're clear here on this. Your argument is not the 'gotcha' you think it is. Those transactions are public record. The money has to get into the mixer somehow, and it has to come out somehow. Unless your coins never exit the system or interact with a daemon you operate or that can be tied to you, sure you enjoy a modicum of pseudonimity, but the moment you interact with that account you've given that up. Whether this is SPV, light wallet, custodial wallet or home grown daemon wallet, you must make a connection to a daemon and it must gather peers and chain-data. Even if you mine the coins, you have to broadcast a TX to solve the block, collect reward and propagate new coins. Same with proof of stake. New coins must be minted and rewarded, something must solve to mint. One of the most common ways 'private' transactions are traced is through daemon broadcast. The first daemon to broadcast/relay a transaction holds tangible log info to nail users. After that broadcast you now have 8-16 other daemons who've seen and recorded that peer broadcast in their logs, then they reach out to update the swarm. You don't need to operate many nodes to get very targeted info on the originator of a transaction, you only need what's called 'peer diversity'. TOR does very little to negate this, especially when 'light-transactions' are used, where only the transactions lacked during sync are requested- this is a passive 'fingerprint' of a given daemon and its sync-state. Often 'light transactions' are lauded as a performance mechanism but unfortunately anything that decreases traffic homogeneity will have an influence on a bad actor's ability to isolate a given user's traffic. Anybody can run these daemons. You don't need sophisticated surveillance infrastructure for this, it's being done today by hackers and agencies alike to target users of actually-private cryptoassets that have inherently private blockchains.
  - tokai 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - xtracto 4y ago
      I don't understand why you are downvoted. In the internet everybody is a dog, or a crypto security expert. And I say this as a Computer Science PhD in Artificial Intelligence with 25 years of experience in the field including hacking/cracking experience under my belt that I may or may not have because you cannot know because I am using a pseudonim. The only thing that matters is providing sound arguments, specially when discounting other´s arguments.
  - corobo 4y ago
    In fairness to the other guy this doesn't say where the coins came from, not even a nice breadcrumb trail. I was expecting something like this comment with maybe some extra working out. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924389
  - bavell 4y ago
    Broadcast anonymity is trivially achieved by using TOR.
  - joosters 4y ago
    That’s like saying “A mask can’t hide your face, because someone might see you while you’re putting the mask on”. I mean, it’s strictly true that you can always screw up or miss out on a critical step in any task, but your line of reasoning is basically declaring that masks won’t ever hide your face. It’s far too absolute and pedantic.
    - 55555 4y ago
      He's just trying to help people who read the parent comment, assume its bulletproof anonymity, and then ruin their lives doing something dumb.