Chinese researchers propose anonymity-minded overhaul of Bitcoin inspired by Tor

Link

The Shenzhen researchers framed TRR (Transaction Remote Release) as a wholesale change to the Bitcoin network. In a new TRR-enabled Bitcoin environment, multiple nodes would encrypt Bitcoin transactions layer by layer, thereby emulating Tor and hopefully stymying current network-analysis techniques that can unmask Bitcoin users.

TRR is apparently faster than Tor, because it only transmits Bitcoin transaction data. It also won't be blocked by nation-states, unlike Tor, nor is it as vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. On the other hand, TRR might be vulnerable to fake requests and ensuing denial-of-service attacks.

Read the white paper


Comments


[10 Points] AndThenHeSays4:

Duuuuude I hope someone smarter than me can validate this because that would be awesome. World governments would flip out more than they already are right now.


[5 Points] william_junior:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.06160

The abstract of the paper is maybe a little more informative. In particular, this research is meant to only address network vulnerabilities, like sybil attacks etcetera. It doesn't deal with the blockchain - and analysis thereof - itself.

There's a claim to fame though, namely that this new technique would be better than using bitcoin over tor, which another paper claims was problematic
http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6079

Didn't look any deeper into those myself, but these two would be the papers of interest I guess, when trying to delve deeper.

Edit: Well, I did look at the 2nd one now, and it amounts to a man-in-the-middle attack. Which is why, even over tor, one should always use SSL to connect to bitcoin servers. Electrum does this, afaik. Of course, there's still the possibility that the mitm might feed the client a forged certificate. So that seems to be the residual risk, but altogether it looks like a fairly organized attack that wouldn't be easy to keep secret and suitable only for a brief, targeted attempt at dismantling a high profile market, for example. Just my 2 cents.


[1 Points] DreadPRoberts2:

please make this true.


[0 Points] young_k:

Bitcoin did not respond to a request for comment about TRR.

Of course not...Andressen wouldn't waste his time with something as trivial as anonymity! He's much more concerned with increasing the block size and turning the original principals of bitcoin into a joke.