Author: odinn 2015-03-23 02:44:56
Published on: 2015-03-23T02:44:56+00:00
The message shared is a warning to those who are doing surveillance on the network and gathering information for later use, such as Chainalysis. It is suggested that these operations cease, as it is likely that eventually, the tables will be turned and they will be the ones facing legal repercussions. The legality of logging incoming connections and making statistical analysis on them is uncertain, but it is noted that one Bitcoin service has been collecting IP addresses for years and given them to anyone visiting their website, which is considered wrong. The context also includes a discussion on determining the flow of funds between countries by figuring out which country a transaction originates from. To do this accurately, many nodes are needed, and a class C IP range was chosen as bitcoin core and others only connect to one node in any class C IP range. However, breadwallet did not follow this practice, which risked getting tar-pitted. The nodes used in this operation responded with valid blocks and merkle-blocks and allowed everyone connecting to track the blockchain, but did not relay transactions. Many implementations enforce non-standard rules for handling transactions. In hindsight, the team should have relayed transactions and advertised address from "foreign" nodes, which would have fixed the problems that breadwallet experienced.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T18:35:31.192066+00:00