From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.191] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-3.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1XJuZ4-00028x-Ba for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 20 Aug 2014 01:19:50 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.216.45 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.216.45; envelope-from=will.yager@gmail.com; helo=mail-qa0-f45.google.com; Received: from mail-qa0-f45.google.com ([209.85.216.45]) by sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1XJuZ3-00088A-Fw for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 20 Aug 2014 01:19:50 +0000 Received: by mail-qa0-f45.google.com with SMTP id cm18so6366765qab.32 for ; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:19:44 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.140.28.6 with SMTP id 6mr68271420qgy.90.1408497584011; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:19:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.140.51.37 with HTTP; Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:19:43 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <0C0EF7F9-DBBA-4872-897D-63CFA3853726@ricmoo.com> <33D4B2E3-DBF0-444E-B76A-765C4C17E964@ricmoo.com> <53F37635.5070807@riseup.net> <53F38AC9.4000608@corganlabs.com> <53F3DFF7.9070709@jrn.me.uk> <3476b0a1-e08a-46bf-9ee4-ef56fcb02d72@email.android.com> Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:19:43 -0500 Message-ID: From: William Yager To: Peter Todd , Bitcoin Dev Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1139807629818505010566fd X-Spam-Score: -0.6 (/) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (will.yager[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record 1.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature X-Headers-End: 1XJuZ3-00088A-Fw Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Encrypt bitcoin messages X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 01:19:50 -0000 --001a1139807629818505010566fd Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 8:14 PM, Peter Todd wrote: > > Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. > I'm not. I don't think this proposal is even good. > You realize that by your own definition even the NSA is mostly a "weak > passive attacker" They do *not* have the ability to attack more than a > small, targeted, subset of connection for both technical and political > reasons. For starters, MITM attacks are easily detected - "Bitcoin network > attacked by unknown agents! Has your ISP been compromised?" would make for > great headlines and would soon see the problem fixed both technically and > politically. > > Again, the NSA might get an absolutely trivial amount of data from monitoring connections on the Bitcoin network. A bit of publicity is *not* worth drastically increasing the software complexity of the client. > In any case, my suggestion of enabling hidden service support by default > adds both encryption and reasonably good authentication. Enabling hidden service support by default would introduce an insanely huge attack surface. And you're conflating two different things; using Tor is valuable to Bitcoin because it would provide some anonymity. The encryption aspect is pretty much useless for us. --001a1139807629818505010566fd Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 8:14 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petert= odd.org> wrote:

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
=

I'm not. I don't think this propos= al is even good.
=C2=A0
You realize that by your own definition even the NSA is mostly a "weak= passive attacker" They do *not* have the ability to attack more than = a small, targeted, subset of connection for both technical and political re= asons. For starters, MITM attacks are easily detected - "Bitcoin netwo= rk attacked by unknown agents! Has your ISP been compromised?" would m= ake for great headlines and would soon see the problem fixed both technical= ly and politically.


Again, the NSA might get an absolutely= trivial amount of data from monitoring connections on the Bitcoin network.= A bit of publicity is *not* worth drastically increasing the software comp= lexity of the client.
=C2=A0
In any case, my suggestion of enabling hidden service support by default ad= ds both encryption and reasonably good authentication.
Enabling hidden service support by default would introduce an i= nsanely huge attack surface.=C2=A0

And you're conflating two different things; using T= or is valuable to Bitcoin because it would provide some anonymity. The encr= yption aspect is pretty much useless for us.
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