Questions tagged [privacy]
Questions regarding the information that is leaked through cryptocurrency transactions or related processes, when subject to analysis and attempts of identification of sources and other properties.
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Privacy and Anonymity in Bitcoin
I hope this is not a duplicate.
I have seen lot of people confused between terms "PRIVACY" and "ANONYMITY". Context is Bitcoin transactions and protocol. What does privacy and ...
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How can I control which coins to spend in a transaction?
When creating a bitcoin transaction, you have to choose which coins to use in them. The standard client does this in a way to avoid unconfirmed inputs and minimize the number of inputs and amount of ...
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What's partial spending? What does avoidpartialspend do?
Group outputs by address, selecting all or none, instead of selecting on a per-output basis. Privacy is improved as an address is only used once (unless someone sends to it after spending from it), ...
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What knows a LN intermediate node about a transaction?
Following with How much privacy does Lightning actually have? there is some extra questions I would like to ask.
Suppose that Alice send a LN payment to Bob and the transaction founds a route with ...
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Was the first full node IP address Satoshi's and how did shim hide it?
It is not surprising that people assume Satoshi used ToR when scouring the internets however if my understanding is correct in order for someone to run a full node they need to provide their IP ...
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How did Silk Road work when it came to delivering product anonymously?
A lot of times, people say Bitcoin is anonymous, but I know most transactions can be easily traced using IPs that used ewallets and by making connection with other bitcoin addresses. So with that in ...
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What are the privacy implications of multsig wallets if one half is compromised?
I am trying to work out the privacy implications of the following scenario. Alice and Bob have a multisig wallet together (say Electrum but it doesn't really matter). Alice's computer is somehow ...
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Are there any truly anonymous cryptocurrencies?
I've been looking into Bitcoin recently and stumbled upon numerous notes how Bitcoin is not anonymous at all, or how it's only partially anonymous and you can easily trace your funds.
So, this ...
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How can I send bitcoin to an address without a third party app?
Let's say I've generated a pub-priv key pair using ssh-keygen and loaded cash into it using an ATM. I've avoided using third parties thus far, so how can I continue this with sending bitcoin to a ...
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1
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Is there a transaction propagation delay built in?
When a node receives a transaction it verifies it and then sends it to its neighbors.
My question is: does the node broadcast the transaction right away or is there a delay built in (privacy concerns) ...
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Can I anonymously self-publish books on Amazon and get paid in Bitcoin?
I want to publish the book under a pseudonym, or better yet, anonymously! I had been looking into Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. I’d also like to use an anonymous e-mail address. Would it be ...
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Beginning the process of buying bitcoins
I am interested in the process of buying bitcoins, but I have many questions. First and foremost, how do I begin this process? I am looking to make my bitcoin wallet as secure as possible, so how ...
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Using online exchange like ChangeNOW or FixedFloat to create anonymity?
Online exchanges like ChangeNOW, SimpleSwap and FixedFloat, unless they keep records for a long period, which theoretically might be later accessed by authorities, might offer considerable privacy. I ...
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1
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Can multiple different addresses in a wallet be linked easily?
Is it easy to link multiple transactions each with a different receive address to the same wallet?
What if after going to this wallet the Bitcoin was converted to Monero?
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How Crypto Payment Processors Handle Wallet Balance Privacy?
If an online store accepts crypto payments directly into its wallet there is a problem:
"Anyone can make a small transfer to any BTC address derived from the MPK so they can watch the store's and its ...
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1
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How do I verify my privacy on Bitcoin Core
Based on my question, you can tell that I'm not experienced by any stretch of the imagination. However, I'm eager to learn.
I spent quite some time setting up a full node on a headless 2011 Mac Mini ...
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I've combined dust with other, valuable UTXO's. Can I de-link them?
Long ago, when Bitcoin was only a geeky novelty with very little fiat value, I mined some BTC in a mining pool. There were several transactions resulting in (fractions of) newly generated coins sent ...
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What hierarchical deterministic derivation path is used for FIDO authentication on a Ledger Nano S?
What hierarchical deterministic derivation path is used for FIDO authentication on a Ledger Nano S? Does it ask for a different key each time or is it always the same key?
If I connect to Google for ...
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Are transactions from two separate bitcoin accounts on Ledger Nano S independent of each other?
John Doe creates two separate bitcoin accounts on a ledger nano s and funds the accounts from two separate sources. The first funding source is a known terrorist organization and the second funding ...
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0
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Listening only for local inbound connections over "clearnet", and using Tor for external connections
I want to connect some wallets to my node in my LAN, over regular connection (not Tor), but I don't want my node to use this "clearnet" connection for anything else (for example to connect ...
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Bitcoind is able to listen both to clearnet and Tor networks but broadcast transaction only over Tor?
I know bitcoin core node can listen to both Tor and clearnet connections, but in this situation is it possible to broadcast transaction only over the Tor network and not clearnet? I'm asking it for ...
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What are the privacy implications of sharing or publishing the .onion address of a bitcoin node?
Some tutorials redact the .onion address of their nodes for privacy reasons: https://coldcard.com/docs/img/econoalch/Sparrow47.png
What are the attack vectors that they are defending themselves from? ...
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Which are considered not-for-public fields of the ones returned by getaddressinfo?
Create a new address in a descriptor wallet, then getaddressinfo - a result like the following is output:
{
"result": {
"address": "bc1qf...",
"...
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Why participants transact bitcoins use pseudonyms rather than persistent real-world identitie?
I recently read an article that tries to make reveal the identity of participants which transact bitcoins. my question is why participants use pseudonym instead of real-world identities and cause ...
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Received Random Unconfirming BTC
I've been using BTC for years now. This is the first time this has happened.
Woke up yesterday to an unconfirmed transaction of around $30. Completely confused, I wondered where this came from.
...
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2
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Deanonymizing dust attack
What is the counter measure against dust attack, in case somebody tries to deanonymize me?
Is there a possibility how to prevent somebody to send you intentional small dust, so that he can track your ...
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Does it affect bitcoin's privacy if I create an explorer that works differently?
Does it affect bitcoin's privacy when I create an explorer that works differently and tracks inputs based on LIFO (Last In First Out)? Does it affect bitcoin protocol's fungibility?
Context: FIFO is ...
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Why would I prefer a full client over a light client that depends on a centralized server?
There are Bitcoin wallets like "Sparrow" which use a central service for maintaining the Blockchain, so I don't have to download 400GB to start using Bitcoin.
Now, why should I use Bitcoin ...
- 72.6k
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What is the standard or best practice for bitcoin wallet address labeling, if any?
Transferring wallet address labels from different wallets is non-trivial today, as there is no standard for this metadata it seems.
Could address labelling be included in wallet config files at ...
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Does coinjoin provide better privacy than coinswap?
In July 2020 one Twitter user shared a zcash transaction id which had shielded addresses however another user was able to get the transparent address from it. This was possible because t-z conversion ...
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1
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Can I create an entirely new m-of-n multi-sig wallet with the same seed phrases as an existing one by increasing n and discarding the new seed phrase?
If I were to create a 2-of-4 multi-sig wallet using the 3 seed phrases of an existing 2-of-3 wallet, plus a new seed phrase that I instantly destroy, would I then effectively have a new completely ...
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Linking a transaction to a Bitcoin user
Has anyone tried and perhaps succeeded at linking a transaction to a possibly controversial site (such as Wikileaks) to a Bitcoin forum user by their forum signatures? I know a lot of people disclose ...
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Why criminals still use bitcoin mixers when there is other blockchains?
I came across the following article
Allen Goldmann, A person is trying to hide $5 million in stolen Bitcoins from a Darknet marketplace, Forbes, November 28, 2022
where some criminal tried to ...
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Mobile wallet with unnecesary input heuristic
The iOS wallet I use leaks privacy by not implementing an option to use the unnecesary input heuristic.
I would prefer a wallet that defaults to the unnecesary input heuristic, or at least allows an ...
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Descriptors of potentially fraudulent bitcoin transactions
I'm looking into suspicious bitcoin transactional patterns and I was wondering whether there is someone with experience in that area.
If we consider transactions as iid data, then what descriptors (...
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What is the risk involved in fedimint?
I want to know the risks involved in fedimint? Fedimint is something that was shared as improving privacy for bitcoiners.
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Bitcoin Mixing? Is it even real?
I have been trying to find a "bitcoin mixing" service but it seems that ALL the "bitcoin mixing" sites I have looked at are scam. Does anybody know of any that are actually real and do what they say ...
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Are "coin mixers" actually a real thing? Can they be trusted?
Ever since I started hearing about Bitcoin, people have been mentioning "coin mixers" to me, and told me to use them. However, even early on, when they were practically throwing away ...
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1
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What actually did Alexander Vinnik / BTC-e do?
As far as I undesrstood, Vinnki / BTC-e just allowed anonymous operations, nothing more. They didn't steal money, Vinnik didn't launder it himself. Other criminals just used BTC-e for their activities,...
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Is it possible to determine what node a transaction originated from?
Let's say node-A is propagating a transaction to it's peers on the network: node-B, node-C, etc. Is there any way for the other nodes to know that node-A is the originator of that transaction, as ...
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In what ways does BGP hijacking affect Bitcoin?
Based on this answer from 2014, bitcoin nodes are vulnerable to BGP hijacking although I am looking for more details about how BGP hijacking attack could affect Bitcoin p2p network.
What could be ...
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Is it possible to identify UTXOs signed by HD wallets?
I was wondering if the fact that a transaction was created by an HD wallet can be somehow read off from the UTXO, or any other data available in the blockchain.
Theoretically, it is not required in ...
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How is it possible to launder bitcoins?
Some services, such as bitcoinlaundry.com, claim that they can launder your bitcoins.
Since all bitcoin transactions are publicly logged, how is this done? Wouldn't it be possible to trace back the ...
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Would quantum computing be able to deanonymize CoinJoin transactions?
Using the worst case scenario of this question, namely:
Bitcoin ECDSA algorithm would be broken. Because quantum computers can easily decrypt the private key using the public key, anyone with a ...
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Determining change address
hoping to gain a bit more clarity on how change addresses work here.
In the attached example, can the change address be identified with 100% certainty? Is there a potential scenerio where it could be ...
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Bitcoins Anonymity - Do Exchanges Break It?
If I used to pay for bitcoin for something illegal (as defined by my country), and the public key of the wallet I used to spend the bitcoin became known, could authorities subpoena bitcoin exchanges ...
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Why anonymity is important in blockchain, what are the core reasons?
I have searched a lot about this topic, but couldn't get a perfect answer. Why is anonymity is important in blockchain if the transactions are legit, What are the core reasons for importance of ...
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Broadcasting fake Lightning channels
As I understand it, right now every public Lightning Network channel must be tied to a UTXO. This is required in order to prevent nodes from spamming the gossip network with nonexistent channels, but ...
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Why should I use a Bitcoin Mixer?
I understand that I can use Bitcoin anonymously using Bitcoin Core with Tor running a full node or with Electrum using Tor running an SPV node, why should I also use a Bitcoin Mixer?
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Can one trace a criminal with his Pubkey?
Say FBI arrested a guy who bought some drugs using bitcoin. Then, is it possible for FBI to trace a drug dealer using the arrested guy’s PrivateKey and his transaction histories?
If my understanding ...
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