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[NotATether]

The software is already done: Bitcoin privacy has been solved by WabiSabi coinjoins

Bitcoin’s privacy has been solved as much as the EU will find a solution to prviacy using CBDCs. There’s gonna be no privacy.

If you think you can prove my claim about Bitcoin privacy being solved by the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol wrong, then try to link the outputs to any inputs of this transaction yourself: https://mempool.space/tx/d465033214fd2309dcce5a90c45fcaa788aa4394ee36debe07aad8d8a37907d2

Regulators won't bother trying to crack the coinjoin, they will just ban mixers and privacy wallets just like they tried to do with privacy coins such as Monero.

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[1714258538]

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[Kruw]

Regulators won't bother trying to crack the coinjoin, they will just ban mixers and privacy wallets just like they tried to do with privacy coins such as Monero.

If regulators wanted to ban all private transactions, they would have to ban Lightning as well.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If you think you can prove my claim about Bitcoin privacy being solved by the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol wrong, then try to link the outputs to any inputs of this transaction yourself

I acknowledge that some Wasabi coinjoins are successful, and provide decent privacy. What I don't see you seem concerned is the coinjoins which appear to involve reuse of addresses. The only thing you do is deny they come from Wasabi, despite all the arguments put forth by numerous Twitter users.

Regulators won't bother trying to crack the coinjoin, they will just ban mixers and privacy wallets just like they tried to do with privacy coins such as Monero.

Meanwhile there is a decentralized marketplace where you can exchange BTC for XMR anonymously.

[Kruw]

I acknowledge that some Wasabi coinjoins are successful, and provide decent privacy. What I don't see you seem concerned is the coinjoins which appear to involve reuse of addresses. The only thing you do is deny they come from Wasabi, despite all the arguments put forth by numerous Twitter users.

I've already explained that address reuse is bad for privacy, it's in the Bitcoin whitepaper:  

Everyone already knows you shouldn't reuse addresses, it's in the Bitcoin whitepaper:

As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.

[20kevin20]

If you think you can prove my claim about Bitcoin privacy being solved by the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol wrong, then try to link the outputs to any inputs of this transaction yourself: https://mempool.space/tx/d465033214fd2309dcce5a90c45fcaa788aa4394ee36debe07aad8d8a37907d2

LOL you’re seriously doing this? Should I give you my IBAN as a proof banks solve fiat privacy?

RO49CITI1537389202 come on, I challenge you to find anything about my recent transactions. This is proof banks solve privacy to you, right?

It’s not about me linking outputs to inputs. I’m a criminal. Your blockchain analysis partner tells you to deny participation of my UTXOs in the next CoinJoin. By default, you’re only allowing those you trust. This shrinks the list of possible identities behind UTXOs to as many as you like.

Explain how in your world list-shrinking censorship solves privacy.

Use case for your new partnership and censorship: when they want to find out what I’m doing with my money, insert decoy UTXOs, deny everyone else’s UTXOs for just 1 round of CoinJoin and allow only me in for that round, together with your decoys. Now I get an “unlinkable” CoinJoin you and your partner knows everything about. Censorship solves privacy, everyone!

[Kruw]

If you think you can prove my claim about Bitcoin privacy being solved by the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol wrong, then try to link the outputs to any inputs of this transaction yourself: https://mempool.space/tx/d465033214fd2309dcce5a90c45fcaa788aa4394ee36debe07aad8d8a37907d2

LOL you’re seriously doing this? Should I give you my IBAN as a proof banks solve fiat privacy?

It’s not about me linking outputs to inputs. I’m a criminal. Your blockchain analysis partner tells you to deny participation of my UTXOs in the next CoinJoin. By default, you’re only allowing those you trust. This shrinks the list of possible identities behind UTXOs to as many as you like.

Explain how in your world list-shrinking censorship solves privacy.

Use case for your new partnership and censorship: when they want to find out what I’m doing with my money, insert decoy UTXOs, deny everyone else’s UTXOs for just 1 round of CoinJoin and allow only me in for that round, together with your decoys. Now I get an “unlinkable” CoinJoin you and your partner knows everything about. Censorship solves privacy, everyone!

The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is uniquely resilient against the sort of Sybil attack you just described, I explain how a malicious coordinator can be detected by clients here: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1643265823409143810

[20kevin20]

The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is uniquely resilient against the sort of Sybil attack you just described, I explain how a malicious coordinator can be detected by clients here: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1643265823409143810

You just explained to me that everything needed for an attack is around 15BTC and linking the right UTXOs at the right time to my identity and you can successfully attack me.

If I never heard about CoinJoin but used BTC before, it’s very likely I made enough mistakes to link most of my addresses or even all of them to my identity. Using block explorers to search for my addresses, using custodial wallets, posting my addresses on giveaways or whatever. We’ve all made mistakes. As much as I try to hide, my privacy is probably already shredded and blockchain analysis has probably linked dozens of UTXOs to me if not more.

Explain again how censorship solves privacy?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I've already explained that address reuse is bad for privacy, it's in the Bitcoin whitepaper

Which is exactly my point. But you don't seem concerned with Wasabi doing address reuse in coinjoins according to all those people who argue it does.

The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is uniquely resilient against the sort of Sybil attack you just described, I explain how a malicious coordinator can be detected by clients here: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1643265823409143810

I think you're missing something here. Suppose the coordinator isn't trying to attack. What if Coinfirm does? According to Wasabi's source code, every non-private input must be authorized by Coinfirm. What if they someday decide to blacklist arbitrarily more than usual, to have their analysis ahead? They're a chain analysis company in the end. Their incentive is to de-anonymize the transactions, how can you trust them with a software that supposedly does the opposite?

[witcher_sense]

I think you're missing something here. Suppose the coordinator isn't trying to attack. What if Coinfirm does? According to Wasabi's source code, every non-private input must be authorized by Coinfirm. What if they someday decide to blacklist arbitrarily more than usual, to have their analysis ahead? They're a chain analysis company in the end. Their incentive is to de-anonymize the transactions, how can you trust them with a software that supposedly does the opposite?

You have a point. What if they allow only "illegal" UTXO to participate in a CoinJoin transaction? All outputs of such a transaction can also be assumed to be associated with illegal activity and can be further tracked by Coinfirm. Potentially, Wasabi Wallet CoinJoin can act as a honeypot for criminals because it consolidates all inputs and outputs into clusters convenient for chain surveillance.

I can't verify that this is not already happening because Coinfirm API is not open-source.


Attack scenario: Coinfirm makes the Wasabi Wallet coordinator accept only dirty UTXOs in a single transaction and then tries to catch at least one of the criminals on the output side. It is kind of a Sybil attack but you don't need to pay additional fees and apply extensive filtering to UTXOs since they all belong to bad guys.

[Kruw]

The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is uniquely resilient against the sort of Sybil attack you just described, I explain how a malicious coordinator can be detected by clients here: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1643265823409143810

You just explained to me that everything needed for an attack is around 15BTC and linking the right UTXOs at the right time to my identity and you can successfully attack me.

As I explained in the Twitter post, you can't be successfully Sybil attacked because you would be able to detect the coordinator is malicious when you are not allowed to register a second UTXO that is already private.

The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is uniquely resilient against the sort of Sybil attack you just described, I explain how a malicious coordinator can be detected by clients here: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1643265823409143810

I think you're missing something here. Suppose the coordinator isn't trying to attack. What if Coinfirm does?

You have a point. What if they allow only "illegal" UTXO to participate in a CoinJoin transaction? All outputs of such a transaction can also be assumed to be associated with illegal activity and can be further tracked by Coinfirm. Potentially, Wasabi Wallet CoinJoin can act as a honeypot for criminals because it consolidates all inputs and outputs into clusters convenient for chain surveillance.

I can't verify that this is not already happening because Coinfirm API is not open-source.

Attack scenario: Coinfirm makes the Wasabi Wallet coordinator accept only dirty UTXOs in a single transaction and then tries to catch at least one of the criminals on the output side. It is kind of a Sybil attack but you don't need to pay additional fees and apply extensive filtering to UTXOs since they all belong to bad guys.

It doesn't make a difference if Coinfirm is involved, the Sybil attack could be detected and interpreted as a malicious coordinator by clients the exact same way.

I've already explained that address reuse is bad for privacy, it's in the Bitcoin whitepaper

Which is exactly my point. But you don't seem concerned with Wasabi doing address reuse in coinjoins according to all those people who argue it does.

What do you mean "I don't seem concerned"?  I have never made any exceptions for address reuse being okay:

Right. So address reuse is stupid, but when Wasabi reuses addresses, that's ok?

No, it's not okay, which is why exactly Wasabi generates a new receive address for every transaction.  Please see the Wasabi docs:

https://docs.wasabiwallet.io/why-wasabi/Coins.html#address-reuse
https://docs.wasabiwallet.io/using-wasabi/Receive.html#the-problem-with-address-reuse

[BlackHatCoiner]

It doesn't make a difference if Coinfirm is involved, the Sybil attack could be detected and interpreted as a malicious coordinator by clients the exact same way.

I'm reading the coin approval part, from the Wasabi's coin verification unit test[1]:

Code:

0. Assume a third party (coinVerifier) which will approve coins, and a list with 5 coins (outputs). 
1. Create an empty list which will contain the "naughty coins".
2. For each coin, request it to the third party.
3. If coin is not approved, add it to the list and go to step 2 until no other coins are left.

Could you explain how the Sybil attack will be detected? To me it seems like the coordinator makes an http request to the third party (as shown in here[2]), and simply proceeds to the coinjoin, given the naughty coin list that was authorized by the third party.

What do you mean "I don't seem concerned"?  I have never made any exceptions for address reuse being okay

I don't have anything else to say about that. I've already said it enough times, lots of Twitter users argue Wasabi does reuse addresses. You don't seem concerned about those cases.

[1] https://github.com/zkSNACKs/WalletWasabi/blob/795496595fae2f52730e1556bb6cafd2c649bb97/WalletWasabi.Tests/UnitTests/WabiSabi/Backend/CoinVerifierTests.cs#L129-L143
[2] https://github.com/zkSNACKs/WalletWasabi/blob/fb92f43b73f7991f82652a1763f0847526ffb9d6/WalletWasabi.Tests/RegressionTests/CoinVerifierApiClientStressTests.cs#L33

[20kevin20]

So,

• You’re advertising Wasabi as an open source software pretending it solves Bitcoin’s privacy but you’re also happily working with a very anti privacy corporation and their closed source API
• You’re literally talking about how a highly centralized enemy of our privacy is not going to hurt our privacy, make discriminatory or malicious moves or try to hurt us. You’re literally basically asking us to trust.
• The most mind blowing part of this list: You are openly arguing and contradicting with any of your real, legitimate past user of yours, on the forum where they were openly, strongly supporting your software as the best thing ever for our privacy and you are literally trying your best to convince everyone else who wasn’t part of what Wasabi used to be that Wasabi is better now than it was before. This is just ridiculous!!!

Dear Kruw, since all of this mind blowing shit is already being said and done by you, I have a question. What is your motive and who is your real target audience or base of customers? Judging by the way it looks, we aren’t the customers you’re looking for anymore. You’re literally contradicting and openly attacking some users who were probably doing more marketing for your software up to a point, and you know which point I’m talking about. You becoming traitors.

This raises some big question marks and red flags over the question I underlined above. If your purpose here is to mislead and pretend you’re our saviors, I’m starting to believe you’re turning into the exact opposite of the way you want the public to see Wasabi and your team.

[Kruw]

Could you explain how the Sybil attack will be detected?

Yes:  You try to register a private coin in the same round as your non private coin that is the supposed target of the attack.  If your private coin isn't denied, then the round is not under a Sybil attack.

You’re literally talking about how a highly centralized enemy of our privacy is not going to hurt our privacy, make discriminatory or malicious moves or try to hurt us. You’re literally basically asking us to trust.

You do not have to trust a coinjoin coordinator with your privacy or your funds.

Dear Kruw, since all of this mind blowing shit is already being said and done by you, I have a question. What is your motive and who is your real target audience or base of customers? Judging by the way it looks, we aren’t the customers you’re looking for anymore. You’re literally contradicting and openly attacking some users who were probably doing more marketing for your software up to a point, and you know which point I’m talking about. You becoming traitors.

Since all you are promoting trusted third parties to custody your coins with and keep your transaction history private then I guess you aren't target audience Wasabi is looking for: The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is non custodial and trustless, which must be why it doesn't make any of you happy

[20kevin20]

Could you explain how the Sybil attack will be detected?

Yes:  You try to register a private coin in the same round as your non private coin that is the supposed target of the attack.  If your private coin isn't denied, then the round is not under a Sybil attack.

OK I have  no private coins right now. All the private coins were spent and there’s obviously no way you can buy a private BTC. Tell me how this magical detection of an attack works on my case, considering my BTC wallet’s past can be linked together so all my UTXOs can be linked to the same identity.

Since all you are promoting trusted third parties to custody your coins with and keep your transaction history private then I guess you aren't target audience Wasabi is looking for: The WabiSabi coinjoin protocol is non custodial and trustless, which must be why it doesn't make any of you happy

Lol I was waiting for this answer to come. You must have a lot of ego and frustration to  resort to attacking me as well now. What I or anyone else is promoting is none of your business. You’re a business. I’m  your customer. If it’s someone who must do research about the other it should be me researching you, not the other way around. I used to admire your software, but right now the only thing I admire is your fantastic way of skipping 90% of the questions you don’t like and evasively answering the other 10%.

My advertised service doesn’t promote themselves as the solution to Bitcoin privacy, doesn’t claim it’s non custodial or trustless. They’re sincere and at this point I much rather use them than your sketchy software.

I think you may have a problem, do you even realize you’re literally going after everyone here and your competitors too by weirdly deeply researching who we are and openly, aggressively targeting us? Maybe you don’t realize this and I’m the first to bring it up for you.. but it seems like a problem if you ask me.

Now let’s focus on Wasabi. This is not about MixTum, not about Samourai who you decided to attack either, not about what o_e_l_e_o has in their signature or anyone else who to you is now an enemy you have to attack. You’re Wasabi and we’re (were) your customers. Do you actually think this is a progress for Wasabi? Are you guys cheering about your customers not liking stuff? Woohoo, we’re arguing with our customers about the things they don’t like because we’re obviously smarter and better than them!

To answer your statement about me not being happy   , has your mind ever had this thought that maybe, just maybe, some of us simply ran out of alternatives and the services we promote are literally the only services providing privacy that we still like? If you think I should be happy about Wasabi working with Coinfirm then you live in a big delusion lol.

Pretenders and liars don’t really get much advertisement from me tbh, so maybe think about that as well

Side note: if I had a Bitcoin business, the worst fear of mine would be Loyce and o_e_l_e_o complaining. At that point, I know I’m doing something wrong. If someone had a Bitcoin business, when the business is targeting and arguing with LoyceV or o_e_l_e_o , I know something’s up and fishy. You very well know this too. the difference is you just don’t care because you have no morals left.

[n0nce]

Guys, there is no need to argue about the details. We got the real answer here (emphasis mine).

Nobody's supporting mass surveillance here. Quite the opposite in fact. Delivering a Bitcoin privacy solution that's lightyears ahead of the others, is the best testimony to that. zkSNACKs operates with utmost transparency, pushing for a future where privacy is respected and mass surveillance becomes increasingly difficult. The folks at zkSNACKs are dedicated to this cause and tirelessly work on innovative solutions. One of these solutions: Wasabi Wallet, became so successful that the people behind it do not have the luxury to live in lalaland anymore. Working on privacy is risky and it does no good for anybody to go head first into the wall.

I always suspected it: they simply reached a point where they got an 'offer they could not deny' or something like a choice between (a) shutting down their business or (b) going to bed with authorities.

Drew too much attention, 'became too successful', whatever you wanna call it.
Sadly, being centralized by design, the coordinator is a central point of failure and here, it failed.

I do believe they had the choice to be honest and tell their users they have to shut down & maybe start working on a new, decentralized product. But it seems like they chose to give in and start spying & censorship to be able to let the business continue as usual.

[20kevin20]

Guys, there is no need to argue about the details. We got the real answer here (emphasis mine).

I missed the reply from @nopara73 although it’s quite obvious that’s what happened, they couldn’t’ve changed their mind all of a sudden and their explanations surely almost never make sense. I wouldn’t even mind so much that they chose to go to bed with authorities. I just can’t stand how they’re trying to manipulate everyone else into thinking their Coinfirm affiliation doesn’t support surveillance. If they didn’t try to convince us they’re the solution to privacy and if they didn’t start throwing darts at everyone here who’s disappointed and has questions for Wasabi, I doubt anyone would’ve cared.

Okay, you had the choice to start all over and discard your current lifestyle or continue business but accept the compromise that ends everything you stood for. No problem, nobody cares, there’ll be a little disappointment and that’s all. What they’re doing though is leaving behind their own morals every time they argue and they’re choosing to not only go to bed with authorities but also manipulate, and I can’t stand or support that choice.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Tell me how this magical detection of an attack works on my case, considering my BTC wallet’s past can be linked together so all my UTXOs can be linked to the same identity.

It obviously can't. If your coins are refused, you have no idea if it is due to Sybil attack or if Coinfirm has simply decided your coins are naughty and are not allowed to be coinjoined. And Wasabi obviously won't tell you:

You acknowledge that zkSNACKs Ltd.'s decision to take certain actions, including suspending for any reason at our sole discretion, may be based on confidential criteria that are essential to zkSNACKs Ltd.'s risk management and security protocols. You agree that zkSNACKs Ltd. is under no obligation to disclose the details of its risk management and security procedures to you.

What they’re doing though is leaving behind their own morals every time they argue and they’re choosing to not only go to bed with authorities but also manipulate, and I can’t stand or support that choice.

Absolutely. The blockchain analysis is awful, but the lies and gaslighting are a close second. If they were determined to go down this path but still actually cared about privacy or their users in any way whatsoever, then they should have come out and said "Here is the blockchain analysis company we are using, here is the criteria for what we will be blacklisting, here is how the process works, here is how much it is costing us per UTXO, here is how much information said company is gathering on you and your UTXOs, here is how that data is stored and transmitted, here is the list of third parties that data is being shared with, here is the list of governments/entities forcing us in to this decision, here is how best to avoid being subjected to this mass surveillance, here is a one-click set up to run your own coordinator, here is a list of coordinators which don't do this..." etc,. etc. I still wouldn't be using Wasabi, but the fall out on Reddit, Twitter, here, etc. would all be much less. Instead they flat out lie, gaslight anyone who points out the obvious, and dox their competitors.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Yes:  You try to register a private coin in the same round as your non private coin that is the supposed target of the attack.  If your private coin isn't denied, then the round is not under a Sybil attack.

What if:

• I don't have private coins?
• Both my private and non-private coins are accepted, but every single other (from the round) is denied and replaced with third party's coins?

Guys, there is no need to argue about the details.

I know, but it's quite funny to see that stubborness. I mean, he is genuinely attempting to persuade us that having a surveillance company decide who deserves to gain privacy is the optimal privacy technique. I can't leave that shit unchallenged. 

[Kruw]

My advertised service doesn’t promote themselves as the solution to Bitcoin privacy, doesn’t claim it’s non custodial or trustless. They’re sincere and at this point I much rather use them than your sketchy software.

If they're sincere, then why are they requiring their customers to trust them with their funds in privacy instead of coordinating trustless noncustodial WabiSabi coinjoins?  There's no excuse for them collecting the funds and data of their customers when WabiSabi allows them to provide trustless privacy to their customers.

I do believe they had the choice to be honest and tell their users they have to shut down & maybe start working on a new, decentralized product. But it seems like they chose to give in and start spying & censorship to be able to let the business continue as usual.

What is your design proposal for a new, decentralized privacy product?  I'm open to suggestions.

It obviously can't. If your coins are refused, you have no idea if it is due to Sybil attack or if Coinfirm has simply decided your coins are naughty and are not allowed to be coinjoined.

You would know because the coin is private, therefore it can't be refused due to its history.

What if:

• I don't have private coins?

Then get some if you are really that paranoid about testing for Sybil attacks.

• Both my private and non-private coins are accepted, but every single other (from the round) is denied and replaced with third party's coins?

How would the malicious coordinator know not to deny and replace your private coin along with every single other one?...

I know, but it's quite funny to see that stubborness. I mean, he is genuinely attempting to persuade us that having a surveillance company decide who deserves to gain privacy is the optimal privacy technique. I can't leave that shit unchallenged.  

The "optimal privacy technique" is called the WabiSabi protocol, which is open source and able to be used by anyone.  "Having a surveillance company decide who deserves to gain privacy" is not a criticism of the WabiSabi protocol at all.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It obviously can't. If your coins are refused, you have no idea if it is due to Sybil attack or if Coinfirm has simply decided your coins are naughty and are not allowed to be coinjoined.

You would know because the coin is private, therefore it can't be refused due to its history.

What if:

• I don't have private coins?

Then get some if you are really that paranoid about testing for Sybil attacks.

Lmfao. "Use a different service to make your coins private before using them with Wasabi" is the best take I've heard yet.

Or, you know, just skip that second step and just use a different service altogether.