I understand that after segwit the transaction ID can't be malleated, but can't the witness part be malleated, just like the scriptSig can in a non-segwit transaction?
2 Answers
but can't the witness part be malleated, just like the scriptSig can in a non-segwit transaction?
Yes, absolutely.
But the witness does not contribute to the transaction id (txid), which is what subsequent transactions refer to. Because of this, malleating a witness in a given transaction does not invalidate follow-up transactions using this transaction as an input. This is important for any application where multiple parties rely on an unconfirmed transaction to keep a stable txid.
answered Jan 5, 2018 at 11:50
Yes, the witness can be mutated before it is in a block. Once in a block it’s committed to with a hash. This is not impactful, any modification that doesn’t change the validity doesn’t matter for the creator or receiver of the transaction.
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I'm uncomfortable saying it's not impactful. It's like saying malleability doesn't matter. Also before segwit the malleable transaction was committed to with a hash. There could be potential applications depending on non-malleability of the witness.– relGCommented Dec 6, 2017 at 12:32
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What applications? The only application of the scriptSig is to validate a transaction, nothing can ever access it so there’s no possible reason to be using it.– ClarisCommented Dec 6, 2017 at 13:00
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I confess I don't have a great example, but malleability can have unexpected subtle attacks (otherwise people wouldn't bother to solve it). So, at the very least, I would suggest changing "This is not impactful.." to "This may not be impactful..".– relGCommented Dec 6, 2017 at 14:46
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It is simply not impactful. So long as it doesn’t change the outcome of a transaction, does it matter that it’s not the way the creator of the transaction intended?– ClarisCommented Jan 9, 2018 at 6:24