Author: Aymeric Vitte 2020-06-08 16:43:27
Published on: 2020-06-08T16:43:27+00:00
A recent discussion on bitcoin-dev highlighted the issue of running both Bitcoin and Lightning nodes on clearnet, which increases their vulnerability to attacks. The argument was that if both are run on clearnet, they are automatically linked, making them easier to attack. However, running Lightning on Tor could prevent such linking, although there is still a possibility of being linked by on-chain transaction monitoring. Despite this, it would increase the effort required to launch an attack, thus decreasing the chances of being targeted.However, it was also pointed out that running mixed Bitcoin and/or LN nodes in clearnet and Tor, with or without different IPs, is not difficult for a Tor attacker to identify. This could be done, for example, by pinging the nodes with a new received tx to see who has it in mempool. This method is similar to "Deanonymizing the VPN peers" and uses the clearnet/VPN "mixity" to deanonymize users.In conclusion, the general advice is to not use the Tor network for services it is not designed for, as it may lead to unintended consequences such as increased vulnerability to attacks.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T02:12:11.287722+00:00