Using electrum.blockstream.info server?

[Josson]

I have just read on Electrum's Twitter page [https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet] a recommendation to use electrum.blockstream.info as a server instead of having the server selected automatically.

Q1. What is this supposed to be good for? Occasionaly Electrum is slow synchronizing at launch, but otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much problem-free the way it's set-up.

Q2. Slight problem — this electrum.blockstream.info server is nowhere to be found in my server list...

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[TryNinja]

Q1. What is this supposed to be good for? Occasionaly Electrum is slow synchronizing at launch, but otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much problem-free the way it's set-up.

They seem to talk about this is their blog page: https://blockstream.com/2020/06/16/en-esplora-and-other-alternatives-to-electrumx/

Q2. Slight problem — this electrum.blockstream.info server is nowhere to be found in my server list...

You can just write electrum.blockstream.info in the "server" field (with port 50002) to use it.

[Josson]

What's out there is much too technical for a puny consumer like me, but at least it tells me that it's all bona fide. So, at least for now, I've added that server as per your instructions. Thanks a lot!

[NeuroticFish]

By default, the Electrum wallet app connects to a random set of Electrum servers. This is not great from a privacy perspective because it announces your wallet’s addresses and balances to unknown third parties. And it’s well known that, unfortunately, many public Electrum servers are run by blockchain analysis companies and worse.

I dare to ask, can Blockstream be trusted they won't do analysis on our wallet data or sell that data to chain analysis companies?
I mean, I don't want to simply switch from Microsoft to Google, just because the second's ad looks better.

[bob123]

I dare to ask, can Blockstream be trusted they won't do analysis on our wallet data or sell that data to chain analysis companies?

It is not like an electrum server automatically knows which addresses belong to your wallet.
I mean.. if you send a transaction, obviously.
Depending on how often your IP changes etc., that's not too much of an issue.

But by just import private keys or watching addresses, a server can not determine which addresses actually belong to you. They are masked and the server can only determine a superset of those addresses.

However, i personally like to automatically select a new server upon each time starting up electrum.

[pooya87]

i strongly advise against it. blockstream is a company and centralized companies should never be trusted in bitcoin world. they WILL definitely track and store all your addresses and IP addresses and link them together. and while using an Electrum node you are sending all your addresses to that node so it is an easy task to achieve. if anything i would suggest banning that node or disconnecting from it anyway you can.

random nodes run by individuals has a much lower chance of recording your information.

[Josson]

i strongly advise against it. blockstream is a company and centralized companies should never be trusted in bitcoin world. they WILL definitely track and store all your addresses and IP addresses and link them together. and while using an Electrum node you are sending all your addresses to that node so it is an easy task to achieve. if anything i would suggest banning that node or disconnecting from it anyway you can.

random nodes run by individuals has a much lower chance of recording your information.

Allow me to chime in again. Exactly for those reasons I would have discarded it and not even have bothered, but the reason I came here and asked the question was that Thomas Vögtlin himself, the creator of Electrum, is endorsing it. Or so it seems to someone who is not a user of Twitter. I mean, he should know, shouldn't he?

[nc50lc]

Is there any reference where ThomasV endorsed Blockstream's server?

If it's the link to "Retweet" in the OP, then there's no direct endorsement happened,
it's much more of a bump or news of a new server using a new server implementation though (Esplora?).

[Josson]

Is there any reference where ThomasV endorsed Blockstream's server?

If it's the link to "Retweet" in the OP, then there's no direct endorsement happened,
it's much more of a bump or news of a new server using a new server implementation though (Esplora?).

Well yes. I'm (gratefully) no user of Twitter, but if T.V. lets that “Retweet” sit for several days on his account page, doesn't that imply that he approves of it?

Also: there's always a certain level of trust required for people to function at all. I have to trust my VPN when they tell me they don't keep any logs. Apparently this Blockstream company also states that they do no such thing. If T.V. is trusting them, shouldn't I also trust them? Until evidence of the contrary...

[nc50lc]

If it's the link to "Retweet" in the OP, then there's no direct endorsement happened,
-snip-

Well yes. I'm (gratefully) no user of Twitter, but if T.V. lets that “Retweet” sit for several days on his account page, doesn't that imply that he approves of it?
-snip-

It doesn't look like an "approval" to me, I'll stand by what I've said: it's "bumping the news".

Also: there's always a certain level of trust required for people to function at all. I have to trust my VPN when they tell me they don't keep any logs. Apparently this Blockstream company also states that they do no such thing. If T.V. is trusting them, shouldn't I also trust them? Until evidence of the contrary...

It's up to you to stick to a single server.
Me, I'm using any server as long as it's functional and leave it to Electrum's random server selection unless there's a vulnerability in the client's version.

[Lucius]

Well yes. I'm (gratefully) no user of Twitter, but if T.V. lets that “Retweet” sit for several days on his account page, doesn't that imply that he approves of it?

Also: there's always a certain level of trust required for people to function at all. I have to trust my VPN when they tell me they don't keep any logs. Apparently this Blockstream company also states that they do no such thing. If T.V. is trusting them, shouldn't I also trust them? Until evidence of the contrary...

We can interpret this retweet as we wish, but it is an indisputable fact that it was created on the official Electrum Twitter and that in a way it represents the official opinion of one or more people behind that profile. If I disapprove of something, then I will certainly not share it with hundreds or thousands of my followers.

If you want to raise your privacy level consider the option to use your own server, or to always use TOR/VPN so that no one can analyze you. As mentioned several times, no one controls the servers used by Electrum - so any 3 letter agency can have them, same as a bunch of bad people looking for a new way to scam Electrum users.

The fact is that today everyone is spying on everyone, and those who say they don't do it are especially suspicious.

[Josson]

Well, thanks folks, your views are much appreciated and they answer it all, as far as I'm concerned. So unless the real Thomas V. comes and opinates differently, I'm back to being served randomly.

[malevolent]

random nodes run by individuals has a much lower chance of recording your information.

Individuals can often be easily bribed or otherwise corrupted, vide Mycelium creator who went on to start Chainalysis and sybil-attack the Bitcoin network. Blockstream and the people behind it so far haven't proven themselves to have such inclinations, on the contrary their block explorer provides privacy tips (which by itself may not be much but it at least gives some insight as to what their motivations are).

[pooya87]

i strongly advise against it. blockstream is a company and centralized companies should never be trusted in bitcoin world. they WILL definitely track and store all your addresses and IP addresses and link them together. and while using an Electrum node you are sending all your addresses to that node so it is an easy task to achieve. if anything i would suggest banning that node or disconnecting from it anyway you can.

random nodes run by individuals has a much lower chance of recording your information.

Allow me to chime in again. Exactly for those reasons I would have discarded it and not even have bothered, but the reason I came here and asked the question was that Thomas Vögtlin himself, the creator of Electrum, is endorsing it. Or so it seems to someone who is not a user of Twitter. I mean, he should know, shouldn't he?

it should not matter one bit. you should always use your own judgement, and that is my judgement of the situation. and it is not just blockstream, any other company specially when they are located in US should be considered risky for your privacy.

random nodes run by individuals has a much lower chance of recording your information.

Individuals can often be easily bribed or otherwise corrupted, vide Mycelium creator who went on to start Chainalysis and sybil-attack the Bitcoin network. Blockstream and the people behind it so far haven't proven themselves to have such inclinations, on the contrary their block explorer provides privacy tips (which by itself may not be much but it at least gives some insight as to what their motivations are).

that is why i said "lower chance".
it is not only about the company wanting to do it themselves, it is about how easier it is for the government to put pressure on a company to do what they demand than it is to do it to an individual.

and finally when it is publicly endorsed to connect to a specific server it raises a lot of red flags because it is suspicious and there simply is no reason for you to connect to only one specific server since there is no advantage or anything like that. not to mention that connecting to random nodes distributes the traffic instead of focusing it all on one node.

[malevolent]

that is why i said "lower chance".
it is not only about the company wanting to do it themselves, it is about how easier it is for the government to put pressure on a company to do what they demand than it is to do it to an individual.

I think an average individual is more likely to buckle under government pressure, they might not have the resources to fight compared with a well-financed company.

[pooya87]

I think an average individual is more likely to buckle under government pressure, they might not have the resources to fight compared with a well-financed company.

an individual will easily shut down their node without any problem and there is nothing the government could do to force them to remain on. a company on the other hand can be pressured to keep their node online and comply with their demands to start recording and reporting everything.
additionally the individual can leak that demand on the internet and warn people while the company can be legally forced to keep it a secret.

[malevolent]

an individual will easily shut down their node without any problem and there is nothing the government could do to force them to remain on. a company on the other hand can be pressured to keep their node online and comply with their demands to start recording and reporting everything.
additionally the individual can leak that demand on the internet and warn people while the company can be legally forced to keep it a secret.

Is that the law in the country where Blockstream is incorporated in? Are requests from authorities to incorporate spying features into a company's product legally enforceable?

Even if they are, it's harder to keep a secret when more people get to know of it.

[Lucius]

Is that the law in the country where Blockstream is incorporated in? Are requests from authorities to incorporate spying features into a company's product legally enforceable?
Even if they are, it's harder to keep a secret when more people get to know of it.

I did not find information on where the company is headquartered, but of the 4 main offices, two are located in Canada, 1 in the US and one in the EU (Victoria, Montreal, Mountain View, and Milan).

Their privacy policy is pretty standard and says, among other things :

If you are a non-U.S. user of the Sites, by visiting the Sites and providing us with data, you acknowledge and agree that your Personal Information may be processed for the purposes identified in the Privacy Policy. In addition, your Personal Information may be processed in the country in which it was collected and in other countries, including the United States, where laws regarding processing of Personal Information may be less stringent than the laws in your country. By providing your data, you consent to such transfer... Additionally, we may use third-party analytics services to collect and analyze data automatically collected from site users; the type and nature of those services may change without notice. Data collected this way is governed by the terms and conditions of those third party services.

Personal information we gather is for internal use only. We will not authorize the release of this information to anyone outside Blockstream, except: when we believe it is necessary to comply with the law.

In other words, if the authorities ask for something, it is very likely that they will get it. It is not at all clear to me why someone still believes that companies like this can do business without cooperating with the authorities? Information is the most valuable commodity, and to spy on someone you don't need their consent - you just need to make sure the equipment they use has some kind of little chip that does the dirty work. Well the Chinese have been spying on the US and the whole world for the past 20 years like that, and no one had a clue about it.

[malevolent]

In other words, if the authorities ask for something, it is very likely that they will get it. It is not at all clear to me why someone still believes that companies like this can do business without cooperating with the authorities?

It's one thing to provide information someone already possesses (e.g. server logs which could be semi-frequently purged), and it's another to be coerced to introduce changes to a service that could deanonymize its users, such as as trying to link Bitcoin addresses with IP addresses, and at the company's expense at that.