Transaction Tracking with Clustering

[coinbureau]

The Bitfury group, which is a large mining company, has recently disclosed that they have developed an algorithm that is able to track Bitcoin transactions.

More particularly, the algorithm expands on traditional blockchain auditing software and uses "transaction clustering" in order to identify a collection of addresses and associate them with one entity.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitfury-unveils-technology-track-bitcoin-transactions/

While they say they are doing this in order to track crime on the blockchain, many view it as an invasion of privacy on the network which leads to mistrust in other participants. 

What are your views? Do you think that it is more indication that users should consider privacy conscious coins?

[nightmanisrightman]

It is like they are trying to give us more reasons for privacy coins . I get why they are doing it but this is only going to further develop the need for privacy coins and I must say thank you Bitfury, you making my 2018 look brighter even more so now!

[emuLOAD]

The blockchain is public and openly available, and no claim of anonimity. That the "block-chain" contains, because of its very design, a visible history of all transactions is well known and obvious.

Just as it is obvious and expected that data scientists would quickly learn to analyze it.

There are other coins for some less public transactions, Bitcoin was never meant to be, and it's fine that way.

[squatter]

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitfury-unveils-technology-track-bitcoin-transactions/

While they say they are doing this in order to track crime on the blockchain, many view it as an invasion of privacy on the network which leads to mistrust in other participants. 

What are your views? Do you think that it is more indication that users should consider privacy conscious coins?

I was unpleasantly surprised a year or two ago when I realized that part of Bitfury's R&D was into blockchain analysis. It should come as no surprise that blockchain analysis is maturing as so much money continues to flow into Bitcoin and other coins.

But naturally, I no longer view Bitfury as a company to root for. They're working with the enemy now.

There are other coins for some less public transactions, Bitcoin was never meant to be, and it's fine that way.

I don't think that's entirely true. I think that the privacy implications weren't entirely clear at the outset. The norm of using change addresses (including multiple change addresses per transaction) was obviously privacy-oriented. I think the point of Bitcoin's design was transparency, but I don't think that Satoshi necessarily intended for it to degrade user privacy.

[emuLOAD]

Change address has nothing to do with privacy. It's simply the technical product of the basics of Bitcoin. You can only spend full output (well, to simplify), which means you need to be given change. that's all.It provides a tiny ammount of anonimity in the mere sense that it's non-trivial to see your current balance, but that's about it. It wasn't designed to keep you safe from prying eyes.

Privacy is preserved by not associating your keys to your personal identity in any way, shape, or form.

[squatter]

Change address has nothing to do with privacy. It's simply the technical product of the basics of Bitcoin. You can only spend full output (well, to simplify), which means you need to be given change. that's all.

Change addresses have everything to do with privacy. That's the only reason they exist. They aren't required to receive "change" from partially spent outputs. If you don't use change addresses, change is simply returned to the sending address.

It provides a tiny ammount of anonimity in the mere sense that it's non-trivial to see your current balance, but that's about it. It wasn't designed to keep you safe from prying eyes.

Transactions can be constructed such that it isn't clear which addresses are change addresses and which are payments. Further, multiple change addresses can be used. An observer cannot know (without other corroborating information) which of the involved addresses are under the control of one person (or group of people).

Privacy is preserved by not associating your keys to your personal identity in any way, shape, or form.

Obviously. But that may be impossible. You could be compromised in various ways, no matter how good your operational security is. I always consider that at some point, my identity will be linked to some outputs, whether through a third party service or a compromise. Therefore, it's irrational to be sloppy and link all my wallets and addresses together.

[BTCforJoe]

I can imagine that BitFury will be working with governmental agencies like the FBI and the NSA and IRS to provide their data findings for suspected or known criminals. This is now a watchdog company? Tsk tsk.

Wouldn't the use of mixers provide more privacy and help eliminate output trails and put up a huge privacy wall for trackable transactions? And change addresses are extremely common in wallets nowadays.

In a way, this news doesn't bother me because I have nothing to hide with my involvement and endorsement of Bitcoin, but I am no longer a fan of BitFury for being the company that has decided to research and cluster these known addresses... This type of service and technology is going to be sought after by 3-letter agencies, and I'm not confident that BitFury will remain confidential regarding this matter... *le sigh*

[Anniee123]

The Bitfury group, which is a large mining company, has recently disclosed that they have developed an algorithm that is able to track Bitcoin transactions.

More particularly, the algorithm expands on traditional blockchain auditing software and uses "transaction clustering" in order to identify a collection of addresses and associate them with one entity.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitfury-unveils-technology-track-bitcoin-transactions/

While they say they are doing this in order to track crime on the blockchain, many view it as an invasion of privacy on the network which leads to mistrust in other participants. 

What are your views? Do you think that it is more indication that users should consider privacy conscious coins?

However, the privacy token may face more serious national policies, so in my opinion, it may not be a good choice.

[Pursuer]

I read about this yesterday and I still don't understand what is "new" about what they are doing here. we have always known that there were companies doing blockchain analysis like the one owning the walletexplorer.com website, and we have always known of different methods to "unreliably" track transactions in the past too. and so far nothing has changed about blockchain to change anything about their methods.

While they say they are doing this in order to track crime on the blockchain, many view it as an invasion of privacy on the network which leads to mistrust in other participants. 

What are your views? Do you think that it is more indication that users should consider privacy conscious coins?

I don't consider this an invasion of privacy because we have always known that all our transactions will always be stored on the blockchain for everyone to see. so we knew what we were getting into and bitcoin never promised high level of anonymity and privacy either.

and people who want to do illegal activities and hide their tracks will use either cash or truly anonymous coins like monero and I don't see why this has to change just because of this news.