Author: Chris Belcher 2020-06-10 20:10:19
Published on: 2020-06-10T20:10:19+00:00
The email thread on bitcoin-dev discusses the flaws of CoinJoin, PayJoin and CoinSwap in terms of taint analysis. Taint analysis is a technique used to attack privacy protocols by associating particular Bitcoin addresses with certain activities. The commonly accepted categories of coin histories are "clean", "dirty" and "suspicious". By using CoinJoins, a user changes the history of their coins from "clean" to "suspicious" and therefore faces an increased risk of being targeted by adversaries. On the other hand, PayJoin and CoinSwap do not signal the user's desire for privacy, but they may still fall under suspicion if the taint analysis algorithm is reprogrammed to track privacy protocol transactions.One way to resist taint analysis attacks is to involve other parts of the Bitcoin economy in transactions. Another option is to use Bitcoin as money, earning it, spending it with merchants, who then spend it with other merchants or pay their employees, where most entities along those links actually don't use a taint analysis algorithm.Although unobservable privacy is useful in improving privacy and stopping censorship of privacy protocols, it may not be a permanent solution to taint analysis. The only permanent solution is to use Bitcoin as money away from centralized choke points that can censor transactions and demand personal information.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T02:21:33.481598+00:00