Bitcoin Whitepaper on Privacy - Reading Assignment

[Daniel_Fuchs]

1. keep public key anonymous and transaction public
2. change key pair every transaction
3. if you know the owner of a public key, you can follow the transactions -> the owner may can be found via transaction patterns

[bruno]

1. The basic method of maintaining anonymity is to break the flow of information, this means keeping public keys anonymous.
2. Satoshi suggests that a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner.
3. A multi-input transaction is the weakness, because if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.

[Maximus]

@Grant_Hawkins

• What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
• What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
• What weakness does this additional method have?

1. Keeping your Public key anonymous
2. Generating a new key/address for each transaction.
3. If a owner of a key/address is revealed then he could be linked to other previous transactions. .

[Villaltac]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
3. What weakness does this additional method have?

1a. The basic method of maintaining anonymity is by keeping private keys anonymous. This allows you to publicly broadcast your transaction but without giving out any identifiers.

2a. A new key pair should be used to avoid being linked to a common owner.

3a. If the owner of a key is revealed then linking could reveal other transactions that belong to the same owner.

[CryptoLee6]

1. Keep public keys anonymous.
2. Changing public key for every transaction
3. Owner and transaction can be linked together.

[Dimitar_Stefanov]

1. The anonymity is achieved by being unable to map public key to identity.
2. A new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them
   from being linked to a common owner
3. Using multi input transactions may reveal the common owner.

[Hsu_Li]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
   By keeping public keys anonymous.

2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
   A new key pair will be used for each transaction.

3. What weakness does this additional method have?
   Multi-input transactions may reveal that the inputs belong to the same owner, which reveals the owner, which can then be linked to other transactions.

[CryptoDragon]

1. one can try to maintain anonymity by keeping the owner of the public address anonymous.
2. one can use a new public/private key pair for each new transaction.
3. when doing multi-input transactions, different public addresses could be linked to each other.

[thenjose]

1- the public can see what is being transacted and when but not who did what.

2- new public key for each transaction.

3- in multi input transactions, if the identity of the owner of a key is revealed he could be linked to other transactions.

[MichaelHuynh]

• What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
  Keeping public keys private.
• What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
  a new keypair should be used for each transaction
• What weakness does this additional method have?
  If the owner is revealed it would be able to reveal all other transactions that belong to the same owner.

[andrewfleming]

@Grant_Hawkins

• What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
• What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
• What weakness does this additional method have?

1. The basic method of maintaining anonymity consists of keeping your public keys and your identity separate.

2. The additional method Satoshi suggests regarding maintaining anonymity is using a brand new key pair per each transaction.

3. The weakness in the above method is the fact that multi-input transactions may be unavoidable; thus, anyone looking at the block explorer can see transactions from separate addresses sitting in the same wallet. If your identity is ever linked to any of these addresses, anonymity vanishes.

[diogozas]

1- By keeping public keys anonymous, the public can see that someone is sending
an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone (similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges).

2- New public keys should be used for each transaction to keep them
from being linked to the owner.

3 - If the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to
the same owner.

[Dejan]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
   • Keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone.
2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
   • A new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner.
3. What weakness does this additional method have?
   • Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.

[jopo]

The owner of a public address is not known. Everybody can see that a transaction happened, but not who are the people behind it.

He suggested to use a new public address for every transaction.

If at one point a public address can be linked to a person (e.g. through a KYC procedure) it might be possible to also find out his other addresses and transactions. For example, if the user made transactions with multiple inputs it is clear that all input addresses are “owned” by him.

[cme]

@Grant_Hawkins

Look at the Bitcoin Whitepaper (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf ) and answer these questions from section 10. Privacy. Post your answers below.

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
3. What weakness does this additional method have?

1. keeping public keys anonymous, do not anyone know your public keys.
2. keep using a pair of keys (private+public) to just 1 transaction (do not reuse keys for several txs)
3. if the identity of ownership of a public key is known eventually other conclusions may be drawn by linking this address/identity to other transactions.

[Jshanks21]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?

“By keeping public keys anonymous.” While the public can see that a transaction of a recorded amount was made, the participants in the transaction can remain unknown. The documentation relates this to information released by stock exchanges who reveal the time and size of individual trades but not the identity of the buyer or seller.

2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?

Using a new key pair after each transaction to prevent them from being linked to a single owner. So only use a public address for one transaction and generate a new one from your private key for each future transactions.

3. What weakness does this additional method have?

Multi-input transactions may reveal a common owner of multiple addresses. If you send more Bitcoin than any one of your addresses has access to, most wallets will take UTXOs from other public addresses generated by your private key to make up the difference. This suggests all input addresses included in the transaction belong to the same private key, hence the same owner.

[paschkka86]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
   By keeping private keys anonymous. The public can see that transaction but have no idea about the parties.

2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
   To use a new key pair for each new transaction

3. What weakness does this additional method have?
   Once the owner of a key is revealed, it’s possible to link all transactions which belong to the same owner.

[PWNSAUCE]

What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?
“by keeping public keys anonymous.” Anonymity can be maintained.
In practice, this requires the use of a VPN or other anonymization method when performing transactions. As it is possible for the miner, and other nodes, to see the IP; where a transaction was initiated from, when not otherwise obfuscated.

What additional method does Satoshi suggest?
Using a new key pair for each transaction.

Some software wallets provide this function automatically, however inversely, use of paper wallet can further complicate this, as a new paper wallet needs to be created to receive change from each transaction, and the alternate change address added to the transaction increasing fees.

What weakness does this additional method have?
Difficult to achieve with paper wallet storage. Not automatically implemented by many wallets.

[begood]

1.By keeping public key anonymous.
2.Generate a new public key for each TX
3. If you know the public key, you will be able to trace down previous TX (identifier, sender, amount, IP address)

[rickyd]

1. What is the basic method of maintaining anonymity?

Public keys are anonymous.

2. What additional method does Satoshi suggest?

Using different addresses for each transaction.

3. What weakness does this additional method have?

Transactions with multiple inputs can link these transactions to a common owner. If the owner of this key is known, other transactions using that public key can be traced to the same owner.