Wasabi and Samourai Wallets - Reading Assignment

Privacy Coins - Ultimate Course
#183

1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?

The lead developers worked on a project called ZeroLink together before. They had a difference of opinion on some aspects of the program so they split it.

2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?

A small group of users create new identities to appear like a larger group or enterprise.

3. How does Samourai protect against Sybil attacks?

By making it very expensive for malicious actors to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

4. What ‘trade-off’ does Samourai make in order to achieve #3? Why is Wasabi critical of this?

Samourai relies on a centralized system to process the public keys while Wasabi does not like the idea of a centralized system having all the public keys.

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#184

1.- They are a fork of the same protocol.

2.- Someone falsifies new identities to threaten other user’s privacy by making their anonymity set smaller.

3.- Samourai offered hiding inputs by mixing them.

4.- Samourai relies on centralization, Wasabi doesnt like centralization.

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#185
  1. they forked from the same project
  2. creating false identities to reduce the size of the anonymity set
  3. by increasing the expense
  4. using a centralized server
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#186
  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    They are both Bitcoin wallets that use CoinJoin to improve user privacy. Both are built from an implementation of CoinJoin called ZeroLink.
  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    An attack where one user or a small group of users creates a lot of identities to have more influence over the network. For example, by having a lot of identities on a wallet that uses CoinJoin, one has a better idea of where other user’s payments are going.
  3. How does Samourai protect against Sybil attacks?
    Samourai’s implementation of ZeroLink, called Whirlpool, has a different pricing structure which they claim helps prevent Sybil attacks.
  4. What ‘trade-off’ does Samourai make in order to achieve #3? Why is Wasabi critical of this?
    Samourai uses a centralized backend server to process user’s extended public keys (xpub) which gives them access to all current and future addresses. This information could be hacked or could be sold and this defeats the purpose of using Samourai.
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#187

Wasabi and Samourai wallets share the same core protocol.
Sybil Attack is where a small number of users create many new identities appearing much larger in number.

Wasabi hides your utxo in a large crowd
ZerLink has a different pricing mechanism than Wasabi.

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#188

  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?
    They’re conjoined by coinjoin…their wallets provide mixing capability

  2. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?
    A single entity that produces multiple identities to gain a disproportional influence during an attack. So if the attackers knows that the majority of transaction are connected to wallets under his control, then by exclusion can uncover the transaction of another person

  3. How does Samourai protect against Sybil attacks?
    Price mechanism which makes it costly to perform a Sybil attack.

  4. What ‘trade-off’ does Samourai make in order to achieve #3? Why is Wasabi critical of this?
    It relies on a centralized backend server to process users public keys representing a security risk.

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#189
  1. Wasabi and Samourai wallets were the same application at one point in time, which subsequently forked into two wallets in the way they were implemented later on.
  2. A ‘Sybil attack’ (named after Sybil Dorsett, a Multiple Personality Disorder sufferer) occurs when one person tries to take over the network by creating multiple accounts, nodes or computers.
  3. Samourai protects against Sybil attacks by the implementation of a CoinJoin type of system ZeroLink (called Whirlpool). As a result, Samourai claims that this makes it more expensive for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.
  4. The ‘trade-off’ Samourai makes in order to achieve #3 is that when you use the wallet, you send them all of your public keys in the form of an extended public key (XPUB). This then let’s Samourai have unique access to all of your current and future addresses. Wasabi is critical of this because anonymity using Whirlpool can always be broken given that Samourai relies on a centralized, backend server to process users’ extended public keys.
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#190
  1. The core design is very similar, and originally Samourai and Wasabi were the same wallet.
  2. A sybil attack occurs when a small number of users (or only one user) assumes many identities (nodes) on the blockchain. This reduces the anonymity set and is often very cheap.
  3. By having a centralized backend server that processes users’ XPUB.
  4. The tradeoff IS the server. This does protect against Sybil attacks but it requires a lot of trust from the users (especially since they are presumably privacy oriented users). It also means that if the server goes down the service won’t work.
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#191

Wasabi and Samourai resulted from a split of the Zerolink Coinjoin.

Sybil attack is when one of the users’ anonymity has been compromised through a small number of users in the mix falsifying identity, the anonymity of the rest of the users belong to mixing is also reduced.

Samouri Wallet is more expensive for users to conduct Sybil attacks.

The trade off is that Samourai isn’t completely trustless where the user’s extended public key is stored within Samourai’s servers.

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#192

  1. They share the same protocol

  2. A small group of users create false identities and pretend to be much larger in number, the users then become less anonymous

  3. It dose not rely on a central server

  4. Higher fees making it more expensive to do a sybil attack

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#193
  1. They both shared originally the the protocol: CoinJoin.
  2. Somebody falsifies a big number of new identities, pretending to be a large group
  3. The idea is to hide an individual transaction among a group of transactions (100)
  4. It is more expensive to hack the identity of a user by using ZeroLink.
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#194

  1. Both Wasabi and Samourai wallets are related in that their core design are very similar. However, what makes them different from one another is that they have different pricing mechanisms.

  2. A Sybil attack is an attack on a persons anonymity, exposing that person’s name and other personal information. (I actually learned about Sybil attacks in Ivan’s Bitcoin Attacks course earlier this summer.)

  3. Samourai protects against Sybil attacks in that it implements ZeroLink, or Whirlpool, making it expensive for hackers to unleash attacks and steal someone’s information.

  4. In order to achieve #3, Samourai makes a “trade-off” with users’ public keys and processes them using a centralized server. Wasabi is critical of this because the process “is actually more ‘cost-effective’.”

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/a-battle-between-bitcoin-wallets-has-big-implications-for-privacy

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#195

  1. They were at one point in time the same application. Lead developers of Samourai and Wasabi built bitcoin privacy tech CoinJoin called ZeroLink.

  2. Sybil attack is when a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number. The anonymity set, or crowd, in which a user can hide their bitcoin transactions in not actually as large.

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

  4. Whirlpool can be broken because Samourai relies on a centralized, back end server to process users extended keys.

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#196

  1. Wasabi & Samurai wallets are competitors. At one point in time, Samourai and Wasabi were the same application building an implementation of long-standing bitcoin privacy tech CoinJoin called ZeroLink. The project forked due to different implementation desire of the latter.

  2. A Sybil attack is an attack, where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number. This would mean that the anonymity set, or crowd, in which a user can hide their bitcoin transactions is not actually as large as it should have been. That means that if, say, of a 100, 20 peers are actually just one user and the identity of this user is uncovered, privacy levels for all other users in the same mixing pool are reduced.

  3. Samourai’s implementation of ZeroLink called Whirlpool makes it more expensive (different pricing mechanism than Wasabi) for malicious actors in the system to break the anonymity of other users through a Sybil attack.

  4. The trade-off is between privacy & centralisation. Wasabi is critical of this, because when you use the wallet, you send Samourai all of your public keys in the form of an extended public key (XPUB) that let’s Samourai have unique access to all of your current and future addresses (reliance on a backend server).

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#197
  1. They are privacy wallets on btc using coinjoin implementation to mix de transactions making it hard to track the origin
  2. Where a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number
  3. By hidding your tx in a large number of tx bundles
  4. It has a centralized backend server to process users extended public keys
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#198
  1. How are Wasabi and Samourai wallets related?

Both use ZeroLink. In addition, the lead developers of Wasabi and Samourai, worked together on building the implementation ZeroLink.

  1. What is a ‘Sybil attack’?

When a small number of users falsifies new identities and pretends to be much larger in number. This would mean that the anonymity set, or crowd, in which a user can hide their bitcoin transactions is not actually as large as Wasabi suggests.

  1. How does Samourai protect against Sybil attacks?

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

  1. What ‘trade-off’ does Samourai make in order to achieve #3? Why is Wasabi critical of this?

It uses a centralized backend server to process the extended public keys. Wasabi is critical because it says the anonymity of Whirpool can be broken because it uses a centralized backend server.

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#199

1.) They once were 1 application. Both Parties worked on CoinJoin.
They forked their project after having different ideas.
2.) Faking anonymity set by a small number of users pretending to be much larger in number
3.) By making it more expensive to break anonymity of other Users through a Sybil attack.
4.) Reliance on a backend Server to process users’ extended public keys.

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#200

This article seems to be gone now @Grant_Hawkins

#201

Hey @Baidis, I have updated the link. You can check now. :slight_smile:

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#202

  1. Wasabi and Samouri wallets both derive from a single implementation that was eventually split due to later differences of opinion on the best implementation.

  2. A 'Sybil attack is when a single or few actors create multiple accounts, intending to present as several participants in a coinjoin transaction, thus decreasing the anonymity set of other participants. Other participants are not normally aware of their exposure.

  3. It is claimed that Samouri’s implementation makes it more expensive to launch 'sybil attacks.

  4. Wasabi is critical of the central server used to process users’ extended public keys.

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