Bitcoin XT contains an unmentioned addition
which periodically downloads lists of Tor IP addresses for
blacklisting, this has considerable privacy implications for
hapless users which are being prompted to use the software.
The feature is not clearly described, is enabled by default,
and has a switch name which intentionally downplays what it is
doing (disableipprio). Furthermore these claimed anti-DoS
measures are trivially bypassed and so offer absolutely no
protection whatsoever.
Connections are made over clearnet even when using a proxy or
onlynet=tor, which leaks connections on the P2P network with
the real location of the node. Knowledge of this traffic
along with uptime metrics from bitnodes.io can allow observers
to easily correlate the location and identity of persons
running Bitcoin nodes. Denial of service can also be used to
crash and force a restart of an interesting node, which will
cause them to make a new request to the blacklist endpoint via
the clearnet on relaunch at the same time their P2P
connections are made through a proxy. Requests to the
blacklisting URL also use a custom Bitcoin XT user agent which
makes users distinct from other internet traffic if you have
access to the endpoints logs.
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