This isn't deanonymization, it is modifying and infiltrating nodes to then listen what is happening from naive users connecting to them.
There was never an expectation of privacy when you connect to servers outside your control with non-encrypted data. That is the reason why the article itself mentions that this isn't working when running your own node, as most people do.
This is the same thing as complaining that Monero is no longer anonymous because Windows is capturing screenshots and keyboard presses when you open the desktop app.
Monero remains anonymous by default.
> running your own node, as most people do.
Huh, surprising -- it's very different from most people using most software. (Of course HN is not most people.)
I tried to fill myself in by asking Claude Opus neutrally "do most users of Monero run their own node?" and was told it couldn't find good data, it's community-promoted behavior, but there were multiple reasons for skepticism.
I have no idea, I'm just noting my surprise.
I don't know what asking AI adds to the discussion.
Well reading comprehension tells us they were surprised that most monero folks run their own nodes and that they were unable to find supporting information.
Your comment however does actually add nothing.
In practice they (allegedly) took anonymouse transaction and linked it to real world identity. Call it what you want.
The transaction wasn't really anonymouse in the first place, but I agree that the UI should warn users more when working in "light wallet" mode.
It always seemed weird from Day 1 when I reviewed Monero vs Zcash to rely on anonymization that depends on other nodes and number of honest peers, instead of relying on technical anonymization that Zcash does, seems much more reliable and long-term workable, even though it was much harder and took them longer to arrive at good solutions.
If Zcash had privacy by default, they would have won against Monero for being the private cryptocurrency. As it stands, any private transaction on the Zcash chain stands out like a sore thumb and the use of de-anonymized transactions around it make it easy to figure out how much money was moved. It was a missed layer 8 opportunity on the part of Zcash.
This attack doesn't seem to work if you run a monero node, though.
You'd have a bit more credibility if your complaint was more up to date :) Zcash wallets have defaulted to shielded accounts and transactions for some time already.
It took at least half a decade if not a full decade to get to the obvious place and I (and everyone else) wrote Zcash off in that time.
> and I (and everyone else) wrote Zcash off in that time
Seemingly in the ecosystem you exists in yeah, but in the world at large Zcash seems to have at least 6x the volume. I guess "everyone else" didn't get your memo. Regardless, I don't really care personally which one is better or which one you specifically use, as long as what we say is being truthful :)
Are you referring to on-exchange volume of a coin that has pumped 10x in a few months? And it's only 6x the on-exchange volume of monero? It sounds like people still don't use it. If you look at the blockchain, you will see very few transactions per block (literally less than one per minute), so it seems the volume is almost entirely on the exchanges. It's probably people speculating on privacy for some reason, combined with some dumping of the pre-mine.
The majority of the on-chain use is also public transactions, so it seems the "privacy by default" setting doesn't really matter.
I know (and many others do as well, it’s not that hidden) of the group that pumped Zcash. Very well executed pump
You said
> As it stands, any private transaction on the Zcash chain stands out like a sore thumb
Is that actually still the case or has the change to defaults made anonymity more common?
If you look at recent mined blocks, a majority of transactions are still public. So yes, even if the default is shielded wallets and private transactions for a specific wallet, most of the chain is not using them.
Chainanalysis is certainly not running the Tor attack as described here.
It’s technically possible, but not really practical. We’d have seen darknet markets as they currently exist eradicated a long ago.
September 17, 2024
surprising how often this happens...
So chainalysis is working for governments now? I guess it makes sense.
Now? Chainalysis has always worked for governments…
It was basically spawned out of the government needing help with investigating crypto - I think it was Mt. Gox…
Exactly. “Tracers in the Dark” (https://a.co/d/aos3Nka) does a good job of telling that story and a couple of others from the early days of blockchain analytics