DASH - Reading Assignment

Privacy Coins - Ultimate Course
#81
  • Masternodes mix inputs from multiple addresses of the same denomination. Ownership of the coin is mixed with three different senders and sent back to the individuals wallet with a change address. No private info is saved on the masternodes.
  • Masternodes collect and mix the inputs from different users.
  • If a masternode is hacked and compromised.
  • Masternodes are privy to transaction info from PrivateSend, so if a Masternode in ill-intentioned or hacked, then privacy can be compromised.
#82

  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
    PrivateSend attempts to conceal the link between tx input origin and output destination by mixing Dash with other users’ Dash several times before sending them to where they need to go.

  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
    Masternodes attempt to be a decentralised third party that essentially does the leg work of finding other users who wish to join their coins and then initiates that process (without taking custody of the coins like BitLaundry).

  3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
    An attacker could link the addresses by taking control of the Masternode that initiates the mixing process. Alternatively if the attacker knows both Alice and Bob’s addresses (or the attacker implements dusting attacks and gains information about their addresses)
    you would be able to follow, with some level of certainty, the txs on the blockchain to find an amount from Alice, less the approximate fees, ending up in Bob’s wallet.

  4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
    PrivateSend implementation requires a third party (a Masternode) to initiate the coin mixing with other users. This inherently adds an extra step that could essentially be another attack vector. This process also requires trust in the third party not to be collecting/gathering/disseminating info you are trying to keep private. The time it takes for mixing could be seen as an added risk as well as the requirement for mixing is that your wallet remains open while the mixing takes place. This means that you have your wallet open and connected to the internet generally for a longer period than you would for a normal Bitcoin tx…therefore the potential for more vulnerability to you must be considered.

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#83

  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
    by mixing several transaction Privatesend can hide the ownership of the coins

  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?

  3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
    if the hacker manages to connect to the masternode they can see the whole transaction, Wallet A-> Wallet B

  4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
    The users reveals that he want privacy–> bigger target for hackers.

#84
  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
    The trail of ownership of the coins. It implements the CoinJoin solution by using Dash’s Masternode system.
  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
    A masternode collects the coins from different users, mixes them together in the CoinJoin Transaction
  3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
    The mixing masternodes can link the sending and receiving addresses together; they know exactly which coins are going where.
  4. In what way could PrivateSend be riskier than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
    Masternodes could be run by government agencies, spies, analytics companies and other interested parties
#85

PrivateSend gives you true financial privacy by obscuring the origins of your funds. All the Dash in your wallet is comprised of different “inputs”, which you can think of as separate, discrete coins.
process to mix your inputs with the inputs of at least two other people in a single transaction (up to 16 “mixing rounds” in smaller portions of the currency)

  1. Not requiring someone to construct the Coinjoin transaction, masternodes collect and mix the coins.

  2. by attacking the masternode (the mixing masternodes can link the sending and receiving addresses back together)

  3. just by using it I am expressing my need/want for privacy, also there is a middleman (Private Send)

#86
  1. PrivateSend on Dash does not need any personal information and can break down transactions into smaller denominations like 0.1,0.01, or 1 and etc then transfer to the masternodes for coin mixing process by your request.
  2. Masternodes improve on initial CoinJoin proposal through implementing mixing process with other users with multiple rounds and send inputs back with different addresses to conceal coins. It also contains 1000 addresses for your wallet to use for this purpose and can renew when you enable it automatically.
  3. If one of them is an attacker then its easy for one of them to link their addresses but i guess its take a lot or resources and time to do so, maybe its not worth it but depends on the time and money on the line.
  4. Not sure those actors on the other side of PrivateSend mixing are legit and also how trustless the mixing process will be.
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#87

  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method? Private send obscures the origins of your funds by mixing your inputs via using standard denominations and master nodes to to process the inputs of at least two other people in a single tx.

  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal? Transactions are immediate and there is no need for waiting for a block to fill up or for a centralized authority to process them.

  3. Alice sends some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses. Since a new (LLMQ) Long Living Masternode Quarum, is created every 12 hours using DKG Distributed Key Generation, then there is a centralized trust factor that these Quarums are comprised of honest people. If this Quarum happens to be untrustworthy or malicious, the addresses contained in them could be linked, abused, and given away to third parties or regulatory bodies, and the node itself could be hacked.

  4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction? Masternodes could themselves be run by hackers or by government and watchdog agencies, red flagging private send transactions in the name of catching “criminals” and watching for suspicious activity.

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#88
  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
  • It conceals where your Dash came from by mixing your input with two other Wallet owner’s transactions.
  1. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
  • Masternodes help increase the speed of transacting because transactions are verified much faster because these nodes are dedicated to doing this verification and these verifications are sent throughout the network.
  1. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link
    their addresses.
  • The transaction goes as an Output to Bob’s account. It arrives as an input but is first mixed with other transactions to conceal their connection to the origin and the destination. As an attacker, I would find a way to mix my own transactions with these accounts and track the other two users as I am the third of the other two mixed transactions.
  1. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
  • The fact that you have to have automatic backup enabled to continue to use PrivateSend is risky.
  • To have a masternode you only need 1000Dash. This is very affordable to Government Agencies and Financial Institutions who can acquire as many as they want and have as many Private Transactions sent to them.
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#89
  1. PrivateSend gives financial privacy through a decentralized implementation of CoinJoin…
    PrivateSend gives you true financial privacy by obscuring the origins of your funds. PrivateSend uses an innovative process to mix your inputs with the inputs of at least two other people in a single transaction, so the value in Dash never leaves your wallet. You retain control of your money at all times.
  2. Masternodes collect and miix the coins
    3.hacking the masternode.
    4.You have to trust the masyernode.
#90

1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
PrivateSend allows for privacy of the sender and receiver. It does through a method of coin mixing.

2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
The Masternodes collect and mix the coins for the parties involved.

3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
If he can access the information held within the masternodes being used he can know the addresses of the sender and receiver.

4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
Using PrivateSend could indicate that you have something to hide. It could appear more suspicious than a regular Bitcoin transaction.

#91

  1. PrivateSend conceals the origin of the funds and details of the transaction by mixing your inputs with the inputs of at least two other people in a single transaction.

  2. Masternodes improve the initial CoinJoin proposal by breaking up the inputs into denominations and mixing each denomination with at least two other people who are using that denomination, and it does this between 1 and 16 rounds.

  3. An attacker could link their addresses if they are running a masternode or if they hack a masternode.

  4. A PrivateSend transaction could be more risky than a normal Bitcoin transaction because you have to trust the masternode which could be run by spies or government agencies or they could just be corrupt.

#92

  • What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
    It obscures the origins of a users funds by mixing coins to produce a Dash coin that has no history from the user.

  • How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
    It collects and mixes the jcoins. Improves governance.

  • Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
    If attackers get hold of the transactions before they are mixed.

  • In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
    PrivatSend relies on a system of instantSend to confirma transactions instead of the usual multiple confirmations in Bitcoin.

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#93

1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
Private Send uses the same logic as CoinJoin on Bitcoin. By mixing coins from 3 different senders Private Send conceal their addresses.

2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
A masternode collects the coins from different users, mixes them together in the CoinJoin Transaction

3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
If the attacker runs the masternode he knows the sender’s address and the recipients address.

4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
Masternodes could be run by government agencies, spies, analytics companies and other interested parties

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#94

1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
Privatesend conceals the origin address of the user by using the method of the coinjoin, which will use other address who contain a similar amount of output like the current address, but the difference is that, in the private send, there are 1000 address can be used by the wallet instead of using your own real address.

2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
In the case of master nodes, the coinjoin works in a background that is decentralized, so it is much safer than that in Bitlandury.

3. Alice sends some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
Alice has automatic backups enabled, and then her function of private send also disabled, and then it is easy to be attacked. I don´t know, maybe by using a dusting attack, and you reuse the address which you have used before.

4. In what way could PrivateSend be riskier than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
If you have automatic backups enabled.

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#95
  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method? PrivateSend conceals the origins of your funds. The method PrivateSend uses is an innovative process to mix your inputs with the inputs of at least two other people in a single transaction, so the value in Dash never leaves your wallet.
  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal? Masternodes are specifically configured software nodes on the network. These masternodes are informed then that you are interested in mixing a certain denomination. No identifiable information is sent to the masternodes.
  3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses. An attacker cannot link their addresses. No identifiable information is sent to the masternodes, so they never know “who” you are.
  4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction? PrivateSend is less risky than BTC transaction because PrivateSend transactions take a only one to two seconds for confirmations. Since BTC transacti
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#96

Why do you think automatic backups would pose a threat to PrivateSend? :slight_smile:

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#97

There is a risk of malicious MNs in the network, like one run by a government agency.

Therefore there is still a potential risk and trust required in the MN in contrast to CoinJoin where you trust a third party :slight_smile:

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#98
  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
  • It splits the transaction amount in denominations of 10, 1, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, and sends requests to masternodes. When two other users send similar denominations, the mixing begins. The denominations are mixed and sent back to the users (but to new addresses). The process is repeated for each denomination. The more privacy you want, the more rounds of mixing you should request (1 - 16). The mixing is done in the background (by masternode and wallet communication, as I understand).
  • No identifiable information is sent to the masternodes, so they never know “who” you are. But then how do they know there to send the mixed denominations?
  1. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
  • Several rounds of mixing;
  • The user receives denominations back on different addresses on each round.
  • Does the receiver also get several denominations on separate addresses? If not, it should be rather easy to track starting from the receiver.
  1. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
  • Attacker would have to observe the blockchain for some time, note the similar denominations that are likely to be mixed, and then track each denomination.
  1. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
  • Alice must trust Bob, as she won’t be able to prove if she sent money to him and how much.
  • Deliberately choosing PrivateSend indicates that there may be some reason why you want to keep the transaction private. It is like screaming: “Look at this, I have something to hide!”

I subscribe to The Dollar Vigilante newsletter, and they are bearish on Dash. As it is paid content, it maybe wouldn’t be nice to quote, but basically these are the problems they see:

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#99

They do, which is an issue if the MN is malicious.

The receiver get a “kupon” that allows them to spend denominations at any time. But the main improvement in contrast to CoinJoin is that you don’t need to coordinate with other participants when you want to send funds since the process is automatic. :slight_smile:

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#100

  1. What information does PrivateSend conceal, and by what method?
    amount and destination of funds
    mixing standard denominations to and from accounts beforehand

  2. How do masternodes improve on the initial CoinJoin proposal?
    They join standard denominations from multiple accounts beforehand

  3. Alice send some DASH to Bob using PrivateSend. Describe how an attacker could link their addresses.
    by checking the input node for the denominations and comparing it to the amount sent to BoB.

  4. In what way could PrivateSend be more risky than a normal Bitcoin Transaction?
    It needs to back up to retain the possibility to make new addresses

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