Wasabi and Samourai Wallets - Reading Assignment

Privacy Coins - Ultimate Course
#1

Read the article about the latest PR battle between Wasabi and Samourai. Answer the questions and post your answers below:

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2019/08/06/a-battle-between-bitcoin-wallets-has-big-implications-for-privacy/

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
  3. How does Samourai protect against Sybil attacks?
  4. What ‘trade-off’ does Samourai make in order to achieve #3? Why is Wasabi critical of this?
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#2
  1. the core design of both Samourai and Wasabi actually has more in common than most realize.

Speaking to CoinDesk, the co-founder of Samourai Wallet, who goes by the initials SW, said that at one point in time, Samourai and Wasabi were the same application.

Lead developers TDevD (Samourai) and nopara73 (Wasabi) worked together on building an implementation of long-standing bitcoin privacy tech CoinJoin called ZeroLink.

“We just had a difference in implementation desire,” said SW. “So we split. We forked the project and just implemented it the way we wanted to implement it.”

Samourai’s implementation of ZeroLink (called Whirlpool) has a different pricing mechanism than Wasabi, though this is not the only difference between the two wallet applications. As a result, SW maintains that Whirlpool makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

  1. Sybil attack: where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number.

  2. Wasabi wallet dont relies on a centralized, backend server to process users’ extended public keys.
    .
    Samourai Wallet implementation of ZeroLink (called Whirlpool) has a different pricing mechanism than Wasabi, though this is not the only difference between the two wallet applications. As a result, SW maintains that Whirlpool makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

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#3

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    The share the same core protocol.

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’? A Sybil Attack is where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Wasabi’s technique is to hide your unspent transactions in a sufficiently large crowd

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Samourai’s implementation of ZerLink has a different pricing mechanism than Wasabi.

3 Likes
#5
  1. They both shared originally the the protocol: CoinJoin.
  2. Somebody falsifies a big number of new identities, pretending to represent a considerable number o participants.
  3. The idea is to hide an individual transaction among a number of at leas 100 other transactions.
  4. It is more expensive to hack the identity of a user by using ZeroLink.
1 Like
#6

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    They both use ZeroLink, an implementation of bitcoin privacy tech CoinJoin.

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    An attack where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be a much larger in number.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    The coordinator must not be trusted and everybody knows what the coordinator knows.
    With Samourai you send al of your public keys in the form af an extended public key (XPUB) that let´s Samourai have unique access to al your current and future addresses.

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Whirpool makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

1 Like
#7
  1. They are both privacy wallets, their lead developers worked together on a CoinJoin project and they share the same protocol.
  2. A Sybil attack happens when a number of users create new accounts by using fake identities so that unaware users on the network are “surrounded” by fake accounts, leading to anonymity reduction.
  3. The use of the Mixing Technique basing on which they are able to hide UTXOs among others, by creating a large “pool” of peers.
  4. Samourai’s implementation of the protocol makes it more expensive for malicious actors to be able to attack users and their privacy, since the pricing mechanism on which it is based is higher than the one used by Wasabi.
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#9
  1. Their purpose is to enhance Bitcoin transactions privacy.
  2. In a Sybil attack , the attacker subverts the reputation system of a network service by creating a large number of pseudonymous identities and uses them to gain a disproportionately large influence.
  3. Wasabi’s technique is to hide your unspent transactions in a sufficiently large crowd
  4. Due to a different price mechanism, it makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonimity of other users through a Sybil attack.
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#10

  • How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    They used to be the same project called Zerolink that in a certain moment forked, splitting the project in 2 separate companies.

  • What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    Sybil attacks happen when one user create many fake alter egos that act like independent users, so to make it look like that the attacked is in a privacy sound environment because shared with many participants , when instead is being fed fake informations.

  • According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Wasabi wallet is more cost-effective to operate and doesnt have a backend system where the developers has access to the Tx data (but act on 100 peers to mix with, making a sybil attack more effective and not extremely expansive from the attacker) .

  • According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    With Whirlpool is more expensive also for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack(but Whirlpool privacy can be broken because Samourai relies on a centralized backend server to process users so is necessary a level of trust from users that Samourai is not going to sell their public key data to third parties or authority).

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#11
  1. they share the same core protocol
    2.an attck where someone creates many false address to appear more numerous then he really is
    3.wasabi- the coordinator does not need to be trusted- samurai you send all your xpub to them . that gives them good visibility
  2. samurai implementation of zerolink makes it more expensive to hack
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#12

  1. Both originate from CoinJoin proposal. Both are meant to create privacy on the Bitcoin network.

  2. Sybil attack in this case is when one users holds a large potion of the addresses in the anonymity set. Not the be mistaken with Sybil attack on Bitcoin network. Meaning controlling a large majority of the full nodes.

  3. Wasabi wallet does not relay on a central server to process TX.

  4. Samurai wallet uses a large anonymity set of 100 addresses.

1 Like
#13

1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?

The 2 lead developers worked together and split because they had a different desire on how to implement CoinJoin (ZeroLink) in their wallet.

2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?

A sybil attack (explained in the Bitcoin attacks > Sybil Attacks lecture, see also sybical attacks reading assignment) is when a single perpetrator creates many identities, e.g. to have better chances of achieving a certain result (e.g. in a contest where every vote counts, creating many fake profiles to get more votes). In this case, the website was allegedly accused to have many fake identities participating in the coinjoin, while in reality the users were much less. But that was an allegation: it was not possible to prove it.

3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?

The main advantage of Wasabi is to hide UTXOs in a ‘sufficiently’ large crowd (peers) of 100 people.

4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?

SW maintains that Whirlpool makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

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#14

1, They both started as the same project and later forked.

  1. It is the type of attack when attacker controls a cluster of addresses pretending to be a large group and thus reducing the anonymity set.

  2. It does not rely on centralized backend server to process public keys.

  3. It makes Sybil attacks more expensive.

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#15
  1. The share the same core protocol → CoinJoin
  2. A Sybil attack happens when a number of users create new accounts by using fake identities so that unaware users on the network are surrounded by fake accounts, leading to anonymity reduction.
  3. Wasabi hides UTXOs in a sufficiently large crowd.
  4. It makes Sybil attacks more expensive.
1 Like
#16

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    It was one project that splits. Both use Coinjoin.

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    A small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Divvying up costs later on in the process is actually more “cost-effective” and points out that anonymity using Whirlpool can always be broken given that Samourai relies on a centralized, backend server to process users’ extended public keys.

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Samourai’s implementation of ZeroLink (called Whirlpool) has a different pricing mechanism and makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

1 Like
#17

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    They started out as the same application, but the lead developers of Wasabi and Samourai disagreed on the implementation of the CoinJoin called ZeroLink, so each of them did their own one

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    In the Sybil attack, a small group of users falsifies identities to appear as a large group of users, therefore decreasing the anonymity set when they are included in CoinJoin.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Wasabi is cheaper to use and does not require trust in a centralized server.

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Samourai’s pricing mechanism makes it more expensive for malicious actors to attack.

1 Like
#18

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    At one point in time, Samourai and Wasabi were the same application.
    Lead developers TDevD (Samourai) and nopara73 (Wasabi) worked together on building an implementation of long-standing bitcoin privacy tech CoinJoin. called ZeroLink.

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    Sybil attack is where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Wasabi wallet dont relies on a centralized, backend server to process users’ extended public keys.

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Whirlpool makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

1 Like
#19

  1. They run on the same base protocol.

  2. Small group of users creates identities and pretends to larger. Users become less anonymous

  3. . It does not use a backend server to process public keys.

  4. It makes Sybil attacks more expensive.

1 Like
#20
  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    • Originating from the same predecessor application ZeroLink, they are both wallets that implement privacy through the coinjoin technique.
  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    • One entity can create multiple pseudonymous identities to gain more (voting) power on a network.
  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    • Decentralized
  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    • It is more expensive for attackers to perform a sybil attack
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#21

1- They both make bitcoin transactions more private and share the initial codebase which was an implementation of the CoinJoin privacy system.

2- Sybil Attack is a type of attack seen in peer-to-peer networks in which a node in the network operates multiple identities actively at the same time and undermines the authority/power in reputation systems.

3- Does not trust any central server.

4- SW makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

1 Like
#22

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    Both share the initial codebase which was an implementation of the CoinJoin privacy system.

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    A privacy attach where a number of users falsify new identities, to make the “illusion” of having a lot of users in a CoinJoin transaction.

  3. According to the article, what is Wasabi wallet’s main advantage?
    Not relying on a backend server (centralized party) to create the CoinJoin transactions.

  4. According to the article, what is Samourai wallet’s main advantage?
    Makes sybil attacks more expensive.

1 Like