Questions tagged [security]
This tag should be used for questions regarding security issues with the design or implementation of Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies.
673
questions
0
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1answer
31 views
Beneficial proofs of work [duplicate]
I'm new to this community and a Bitcoin novice.
I believe to have understood the concept and purpose of proof of work but also, that the high energy consumption of proofs of work is a major problem ...
0
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0answers
30 views
BIP32 HD Wallet vs HMAC vs Hashing
I've been working on a website which will be caring out various cryptographic operations. On the website users can post Ads. Each Ad has a monotonically increasing unique ID. For each Ad, I would like ...
2
votes
1answer
47 views
Why is no security lost by using 32-byte public keys in Schnorr signatures instead of 33?
There is currently a discussion on the mailing list about truncating the 33rd byte from public keys when used in bip-schnorr.
Public keys are (x, y) coordinates and compressed public keys simply ...
2
votes
1answer
39 views
Why doesn't the Bitcoin-qt client ask for the Wallet passphrase upon startup?
I've just encrypted my wallet.dat file using the "Settings -> Encrypt Wallet" menu option.
I then closed the client and re-opened it.
I was expecting to be prompted to put in the wallet password ...
1
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2answers
22 views
Organization to keep track of wrongfully obtained bitcoins
I am curious whether there are any organizations that are actively trying to monitor bitcoins from illegal sources.
I understand that 'when done properly' you can make bitcoins practically ...
1
vote
1answer
43 views
Prove that xpub matches xprv?
I'm researching a paper wallet system where I generate an HD xpub/xprv
using an offline laptop. I write down the xprv by hand. I capture the
xpub via QR code using my phone, to transfer to an online ...
0
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0answers
27 views
Wallet recovery from seed phrase [duplicate]
How does a wallet become recovered based on a seed phrase? From what I understand, the seed phrase is another way of representing the private/public keys. Since address reuse is frowned upon, and we ...
3
votes
1answer
81 views
What are the potential security issues when running a Lightning Node on my home network?
If I was to run a lightning node on my home network (and for example, not running the node through TOR), what should I worry about?
Furthermore, what OS, settings and software should I use to ...
1
vote
1answer
35 views
What makes Bitcoin transaction secure against attackers/hackers?
Wanted to know what is it that makes bitcoin transaction secure and make it less vulnerable to attackers and hackers
3
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2answers
300 views
To what extent does asymmetric cryptography secure bitcoin transactions?
Is there a specific attack or bug which asymmetric cryptography prevents during bitcoin transactions?
0
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1answer
53 views
Possibility of a DDoS attack
Theoretically. This is not a mechanism of any kind of attack, but It's about the "lost" coins. May be. It is just for an educational experiment.
What if someone has the ability to send transactions ...
0
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2answers
35 views
How do I find out where a bitcoin address is from?
I am not looking necessarily a name but more like is it an offline, coinbase, blockchain.com, etc...
I had $80 sent from my account yesterday and it says it went to ...
2
votes
1answer
42 views
Does assumevalid lower the security of Bitcoin?
Bitcoin's assumption was to download the blocks and verify it in order to prevent getting fooled.
But by default, the assumevalid option is enabled in the software, which, as I understand it, makes ...
2
votes
1answer
49 views
Is this a collision attack or a 2nd-preimage attack?
This question revolves around Bitcoin Optech newsletter #51 (1) and an email thread from the bitcoin-dev mailing list (2). I asked the same question in a reply-email of the newsletter and the response ...
10
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2answers
2k views
Long term BTC investing
my question is, what is the safest way of buying and holding bitcoin for the long term?
And I mean 10-20 years, either a lump sum or through dollar cost averaging, is a paper wallet the answer? Or ...
3
votes
1answer
43 views
How many nodes is too many?
Has anyone done the math on this?
For example, if we had 10’s of millions of nodes all connecting to 8 peers would there be some latency issues in propagating blocks across the network in the 10 ...
1
vote
2answers
49 views
Is it possible to separate blockchain and wallet functions?
I'm looking for a way to use bitcoin-core in monero-way (It uses separate blockchain daemon and wallet daemon).
I'd like to run bitcoin-qt interface on my laptop and connect to external node with ...
19
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6answers
7k views
51% attack - apparently very easy? refering to CZ's “rollback btc chain” - How to make sure such corruptible scenario can never happen so easily?
I was shocked to see binance CZ comment to literally "roll back" the bitcoin chain by just "calling" in some favors from "friendly" Asian miners .
This ONE person could effectively do it??? I mean ...
2
votes
1answer
74 views
How much of the Bitcoin Source code is untouchable? [CVE-2018–17144]
My understanding is that CVE-2018–17144 (inflation bug introduced in 0.15) was partially a result of how convoluted the original code is.
Regardless of the specific CVE-2018–17144 example, are there ...
0
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3answers
76 views
Bitcoin scam artist
A guy I have been talking to says he is having trouble accessing his account and asked me to make a wallet in blockchain and then wants my login, password, and wallet id so he can use it in another ...
1
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2answers
106 views
What’s the purpose of checking for input overflow?
Everyone knows this famous fix for block 74638 which still exists in other files. But there’s something I can’t understand, why check for inputs overflow since it’s not possible to have enough utxo ...
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0answers
11 views
Does Bitcoin security rely on the assumption of nearly continuous transactions? [duplicate]
So for an attacker not to overcome good nodes, I believe we rely on the fact that blocks are always being produced, making the attacker essentially outpaced. But in the extreme and ridiculously ...
0
votes
1answer
41 views
Automatically close the bitcoin-qt when enable SSL for RPC
I Just try to enable SSL for bitcoin-qt RPC call. I follow the SSL on RPC
link to archive my target. But I am getting the following error and close the bitcoin-qt automatically.
I am using the ...
0
votes
1answer
32 views
How does the Blockchain detect a cheater, who manipulates the blockchain?
Let's assume we have 100 blocks. One miner x has the intention to manipulate block 90. So he has to recalculate the hash for block 90. Following he also has to recalculate the hashes for block 91-100. ...
2
votes
1answer
54 views
Malicious full nodes causing denial of service attacks
To control >51% of the mining power in bitcoin is impractical due to the immense investment that will be required. Also, The Bitcoin Core client has DoS protection against malicious nodes forwarding a ...
0
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0answers
29 views
secure Multi-Party Computation (sMPC) in Enigma?
In Enigma whitepaper (>> Link to the Enigma paper <<), in section 5.1 "Overview of secure multi-party computation", page 4, explains how to divide a secret s into multiple shares, using ...
0
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1answer
69 views
Private key generation doubt
I read that the private key pk has to be any number between 1 and n, where n is almost 10^77.
Since pk' s function is practically to be used as a scalar for multiplying the generator point G, why does ...
0
votes
1answer
38 views
Are transactions with the same ScriptSig a security problem?
For instance while looking at the transaction stack of my address, tracing it to exchanges I use, I came across this:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/...
2
votes
1answer
396 views
Are lightweight LN wallets vulnerable to transaction withholding?
As far as I know, LN requires the user to watch the blockchain in order to perform penalty in time. However, running full node is probably a heavy burden to some users, especially to mobile phones. I ...
0
votes
1answer
26 views
Security of ChaChaPoly (IETF rfc7539) in the noise protocol framework of the Lightning Network
According to this paper ChaChaPoly is secure against chosen known plaintext attacks. I wonder however if that security assumption is weakened by a lot since messages sent on the transport layer of the ...
1
vote
2answers
72 views
Why was noise XK fundamental pattern chosen in the transport layer (BOLT 08) of the lightning network
I am currently reviewing the transport layer of the Lightning network protocol. It builds on top of the noise protocol framework handshake patterns.
What I don't get: Why was the fundamental pattern ...
6
votes
1answer
124 views
Why is the length of the transport messages on the lightning network encrypted?
From BOLT 08 we can see that every message is sent in the following way:
2 byte: length
16 byte: MAC
[length] byte: Encrypted message
16 byte: MAC
In reality these messages will be send over TCP/...
5
votes
1answer
117 views
Does MuSig have the same security as 2-2 multisig?
Disclaimer: This question is of theoretical importance to me trying to educate myself better on cryptographic principles and signature schemes. I don't intend to imply that in practice schnorr ...
0
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0answers
46 views
How may bitcoins hash algorithm be secured in the future from quantum computing brute forcing?
Other threads already answer very clearly that quantum comps could easily "break" /attack bitcoins chain.
Now: Are there any ideas among the bitcoin devs circulating out there, how to save bitcoin ...
0
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2answers
48 views
If a bitcoin wallet service provider terminates a users account, what happens to the funds?
A friend of mine has/had a bitcoin wallet service provided by an online marketplace. Sounds like he had some kind of disagreement with the site administrators and they terminated his account. At that ...
0
votes
1answer
109 views
Permissioned or Permissionless blockchain? Which one is PoS more adapted for?
Since in proof-of-stake (PoS) there is no mining process, according to functionality of permissioned and permissionless blockchains, which type is PoS more adapted for?
In the other words, is a PoS-...
0
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2answers
133 views
How secure is using TOR in Lightning Network?
In following paper (Link to the paper) we read:
"combining Tor and Bitcoin creates an attack vector for the
deterministic and stealthy man-in-the-middle attacks. A low-resource
attacker can ...
0
votes
1answer
92 views
Does a HD Wallet log my IP when i do a transaction?
Companies like BitPay and Electrum, can log my IP when I make a transaction, right? If so, should I use a Web Wallet (plus VPN) for transactions?
3
votes
1answer
68 views
Does LN require an on-chain “emergency lane” to mitigate systemic risks?
According to LN social slides, a fee market (in other word: "congested mempool", to my understanding) is good. But, there's systemic risks around penalty mechanism, so some sort of on-chain scaling (...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
How could an LN node acquire inbound liquidity? Is there any systemic risk?
I once heard that LN could support dual-funded channels. It doesn't seem so complicated, but currently, I don't know any LN wallet which supports creating dual-funded channels.
By the way, I'm also ...
10
votes
1answer
2k views
Bitcoin automatically diverted to bech32 address
I sent bitcoin to an address starting 3Cn using Electrum but the blockchain viewers seem to show that it has gone to an address beginning bc1 as shown in the link below.
Transaction Viewer
How can ...
0
votes
3answers
87 views
Is it smart to just create wallet and then delete it, writing down the address?
What are possible downsides of practice where I download a bitcoin wallet on my phone, write down the seed and the address, purge the app into nonexistence and continue my happy life, sharing my ...
7
votes
2answers
2k views
Is a bitcoin address collision possible if generating 90 million addresses every 4 hours?
I am running a test to see if I can obtain a successful bitcoin address collision after generating billions of addresses. I am not entirely sure how I would check them yet. Basically I have an extra ...
6
votes
2answers
204 views
Can a full node provide a bogus block bloomfilter to a Neutrino node?
When a thin client using BIP157/BIP158 (Neutrino) requests the block filter for the latest block, would it be possible for the full node serving this request to attack the Neutrino node by providing a ...
0
votes
2answers
162 views
LND Security best practices? Disaster recovery?
Can anyone share a knowledge how to
_ secure LND node
_ backup node with all Channels
I think only a seed will not be sufficient.
What is your plan B in case of disaster? How to do an Emergency ...
0
votes
2answers
69 views
How could a lightweight wallet determine the validity of 0-conf transaction?
I found that a lot of people are interested about security of 0-confirmation payments. But, it seems that most discussions focused on double-spending (like broadcasting two or more conflicting-but-...
14
votes
1answer
2k views
What is the origin of insecure 64-bit nonces in signatures in the Bitcoin chain?
In Biased Nonce Sense: Lattice Attacks against Weak ECDSA Signatures in Cryptocurrencies Joachim Breitner and Nadia Heninger use a lattice based algorithm to recover private keys from signatures in ...
4
votes
1answer
166 views
Lightning Network: asymmetry in the information tracked by each participant?
In following paper, written by Christian Decker et al., there is a paragraph that is not clear to me.
eltoo: A Simple Layer2 Protocol for Bitcoin
"The central idea of Lightning is to invalidate ...
1
vote
1answer
51 views
Security implications of removing CHECKSIG in a test
If I conduct an htlc transaction on testnet that does not include OP_CHECKSIG will it still cost an attacker more than (say) $10 in processing power or storage to subvert my tests?
Details: I'm ...
0
votes
1answer
171 views
Why are the inputs of Bitcoin transactions signed?
This is my understanding of what a transaction looks like:
inputs:
input0:
txid: <funding tx0 TXID>
outputID: <output ID of UTXO in the funding tx0>
scriptSig: <...
