Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: jubalix on March 12, 2014, 01:21:34 AM



Title: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: jubalix on March 12, 2014, 01:21:34 AM
I recently watched a youtube video on the issues with using block explorers, eg they can IP log and have a good idea if that IP is related to those addresses if you keep looking

Is their a way to look at a blockexplorer efficiently without revealing your IP.

also Would a protocol update that allows the block chain to be queried sort of real time with each not thowing out a portion of the blockchain they hold, so as to distribute the query load? or some other scheme



Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: DeathAndTaxes on March 12, 2014, 01:23:51 AM
You already have a full copy of the blockchain to query you just need a framework built around it to handle the querying in a user friendly manner.

As for hiding your IP address use a VPN and/or Tor.


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: cr1776 on March 12, 2014, 01:27:54 AM
I recently watched a youtube video on the issues with using block explorers, eg they can IP log and have a good idea if that IP is related to those addresses if you keep looking

Is their a way to look at a blockexplorer efficiently without revealing your IP.

also Would a protocol update that allows the block chain to be queried sort of real time with each not thowing out a portion of the blockchain they hold, so as to distribute the query load? or some other scheme



Tor or i2p might be useful. Anonymizer.com type services  - If it is only an ip logging threat from the block explorer you are concerned about.

You can always run bitcoind locally and query it.

It would be cool to set it up via DNS so you could query <address here>.something.com

There are probably lots of other options too

:-)



Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: jubalix on March 14, 2014, 10:04:57 AM
I recently watched a youtube video on the issues with using block explorers, eg they can IP log and have a good idea if that IP is related to those addresses if you keep looking

Is their a way to look at a blockexplorer efficiently without revealing your IP.

also Would a protocol update that allows the block chain to be queried sort of real time with each not thowing out a portion of the blockchain they hold, so as to distribute the query load? or some other scheme



Tor or i2p might be useful. Anonymizer.com type services  - If it is only an ip logging threat from the block explorer you are concerned about.

You can always run bitcoind locally and query it.

It would be cool to set it up via DNS so you could query <address here>.something.com

There are probably lots of other options too

:-)



hmm sort of like a namecoin but for blockchains sat round the place

query coin.....


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: wumpus on March 14, 2014, 12:51:05 PM
Install a local block explorer, for example abe or insight.


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: itod on March 14, 2014, 01:10:37 PM
I recently watched a youtube video on the issues with using block explorers, eg they can IP log and have a good idea if that IP is related to those addresses if you keep looking

Is their a way to look at a blockexplorer efficiently without revealing your IP.

also Would a protocol update that allows the block chain to be queried sort of real time with each not thowing out a portion of the blockchain they hold, so as to distribute the query load? or some other scheme



You can always run bitcoind locally and query it.

You can't use bitcoind to query arbitrary address, you have to use custom scripts/software. Abe is very popular, but it can take weeks to initially process blockchain into MySQL database, depending on your machine.


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: DeathAndTaxes on March 14, 2014, 03:08:36 PM
I recently watched a youtube video on the issues with using block explorers, eg they can IP log and have a good idea if that IP is related to those addresses if you keep looking

Is their a way to look at a blockexplorer efficiently without revealing your IP.

also Would a protocol update that allows the block chain to be queried sort of real time with each not thowing out a portion of the blockchain they hold, so as to distribute the query load? or some other scheme



You can always run bitcoind locally and query it.

You can't use bitcoind to query arbitrary address, you have to use custom scripts/software. Abe is very popular, but it can take weeks to initially process blockchain into MySQL database, depending on your machine.

You can used bitcoind to query arbitrary addresses however you need to set "txindex=1" in the bitcoin.conf and then you will need to complete a new reindex (so all tx not just your txs) are in the chainstate.  The reindex can take quite a while.  Once complete you can pull the details of any tx using getrawtx RPC call (if you enable verbose output then it will decode the raw tx as well).

Example a random TxId I grabbed from blockchain.info
Code:

bitcoind getrawtransaction 845326bfd357b596583c57fd38fe4c03580ed2e34432dd291331b80afdba8df5 1

{
    "hex" : "010000000153696653456f982861019adf40e815846a3e029268643fcbe1f8e51eaedc18ac740100006b48304502206393076a070c3d6dd6ba69135c31d30e9bcf27954acc926df0451cbda3c27e0b022100de5939e4c47e82e35b5562eee4d5935b196b290c92cbe53c009b02bcfd4be1f8012103dfa8afd3692243029cc501a766c91cb64103b57b89da4b88409798005ea00f00ffffffff0110270000000000001976a914b6f2962a13103000913e170daaef7d0f43f8349c88ac00000000",
    "txid" : "845326bfd357b596583c57fd38fe4c03580ed2e34432dd291331b80afdba8df5",
    "version" : 1,
    "locktime" : 0,
    "vin" : [
        {
            "txid" : "ac18dcae1ee5f8e1cb3f646892023e6a8415e840df9a016128986f4553666953",
            "vout" : 372,
            "scriptSig" : {
                "asm" : "304502206393076a070c3d6dd6ba69135c31d30e9bcf27954acc926df0451cbda3c27e0b022100de5939e4c47e82e35b5562eee4d5935b196b290c92cbe53c009b02bcfd4be1f801 03dfa8afd3692243029cc501a766c91cb64103b57b89da4b88409798005ea00f00",
                "hex" : "48304502206393076a070c3d6dd6ba69135c31d30e9bcf27954acc926df0451cbda3c27e0b022100de5939e4c47e82e35b5562eee4d5935b196b290c92cbe53c009b02bcfd4be1f8012103dfa8afd3692243029cc501a766c91cb64103b57b89da4b88409798005ea00f00"

            },
            "sequence" : 4294967295
        }
    ],
    "vout" : [
        {
            "value" : 0.00010000,
            "n" : 0,
            "scriptPubKey" : {
                "asm" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 b6f2962a13103000913e170daaef7d0f43f8349c OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
                "hex" : "76a914b6f2962a13103000913e170daaef7d0f43f8349c88ac",
                "reqSigs" : 1,
                "type" : "pubkeyhash",
                "addresses" : [
                    "1HgLb8CiUAARApzqFJosM1DFtcQvAgh2Qv"
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: itod on March 14, 2014, 05:34:04 PM
You can't use bitcoind to query arbitrary address, you have to use custom scripts/software. Abe is very popular, but it can take weeks to initially process blockchain into MySQL database, depending on your machine.

You can used bitcoind to query arbitrary addresses however you need to set "txindex=1" in the bitcoin.conf and then you will need to complete a new reindex (so all tx not just your txs) are in the chainstate.  The reindex can take quite a while.  Once complete you can pull the details of any tx using getrawtx RPC call (if you enable verbose output then it will decode the raw tx as well).

I think you are mistaken, we were talking about querying arbitrary address, not transaction, finding address is not possible using just bitcoind. You have to first find the transactions which include that arbitrary address, and there's no built in mechanism in the reference client to do that.


Title: Re: Is thier a way to look at a blockexplorer efficently without revealign your IP.
Post by: biteasy on March 14, 2014, 06:12:26 PM
I don't know what everybody else is doing, but in Biteasy.com (https://www.biteasy.com), I assure you that we don't log which IPs visit which addresses or anything else that can compromise privacy so feel free to play with our REST API (https://www.biteasy.com/developers) to achieve what you want.