public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>
To: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Development <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>,
	Justus Ranvier <justusranvier@riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Encrypt bitcoin messages
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:41:27 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <b7934ce1-a22f-42d2-92ed-bc5a1c3a27be@email.android.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJHLa0PnvpAaTgaUej=1G7CJ9=BYSjEWvXybfEaG9pFJxsM8fQ@mail.gmail.com>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256



On 19 August 2014 20:21:35 GMT-04:00, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com> wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 8:16 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org> wrote:
>> That is simply incorrect. The resources required to do that kind of
>monitoring are very high; even the NSA can't pull it off consistently
>for
>
>Hardly.  For example, when a new block arrives on the network, a
>single observer at a single location may obtain a binary "likely|not
>bitcoin protocol" decision from a spike in usage correlated with
>sudden, global network activity after a period of inactivity.  I'll
>not detail all such metrics.

Emphasis on "likely", at best. Forcing you adversary to rely on uncertain statistics is a huge improvement over the status quo. Secondly your example is of a new block; the more general concern is determining where a given transaction originated. In the best of circumstances determining the origin of a few hundred bytes of days interspersed in dozens of kB/s of buffered data streams is very difficult and expensive even without padding and/or random delay features.

Again, I've spoken to people like Jacob Applebaum about this who have a solid understanding of what the NSA is actually capable of, and they've confirmed the above. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Of course, that's not to say we shouldn't cost-benefit analysis the implementation; not using straight OpenSSL for this is a wise decision. Hence the suggestion of using the existing and tested Tor support to encrypt by default.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: APG v1.1.1

iQFQBAEBCAA6BQJT8+62MxxQZXRlciBUb2RkIChsb3cgc2VjdXJpdHkga2V5KSA8
cGV0ZUBwZXRlcnRvZGQub3JnPgAKCRAZnIM7qOfwhZe/CADI+XvuCzK6N0/UUieD
WzrGexWQsqNxX2hYQpzAiYT3Y5k4CCJ3yvett0udYKS3Piqd/ihvj9RfjWe5nO+d
snPGNwFU7jSRJ+hwPdnlHfFW99LCkKOzBX0hgC+qg11SyLKcsBwE3qaiFM47G1hy
r4f1qX3Te2Kt0bUxP65d1M0Js1M0x+qLxXs6e9Gy3scFSpDjeoamgliJ6jBeeX9U
8H0mambip5CZ+diGbaMeCCRJd19XH7Nz0QgcznYScmz/3krQhtIdEJKts7bs87vh
vZyH7M4wVCiIDmDNxAIO2slo3+eopEvbOPgqjT7L72jrQgp3zVUtbJDzpSAgcB+M
vLhB
=AuCe
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----




  reply	other threads:[~2014-08-20  0:41 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 32+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <CA+8=xuJ+YDTNjyDW7DvP8KPN_nrFWpE68HvLw6EokFa-B-QGKw@mail.gmail.com>
2014-08-19  9:49 ` [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Encrypt bitcoin messages Raúl Martínez
     [not found]   ` <0C0EF7F9-DBBA-4872-897D-63CFA3853726@ricmoo.com>
2014-08-19 15:11     ` Raúl Martínez
2014-08-19 15:30       ` Richard Moore
2014-08-19 16:07         ` Justus Ranvier
2014-08-19 16:38           ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-08-19 16:58             ` Angel Leon
2014-08-19 17:19               ` Christophe Biocca
2014-08-19 17:35             ` Johnathan Corgan
2014-08-19 23:38               ` J Ross Nicoll
2014-08-19 23:39                 ` Justus Ranvier
2014-08-19 23:54                   ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-08-19 23:40                 ` Jeff Garzik
2014-08-20  0:16                   ` Peter Todd
2014-08-20  0:21                     ` Jeff Garzik
2014-08-20  0:41                       ` Peter Todd [this message]
2014-08-20  0:59                         ` William Yager
2014-08-20  1:14                           ` Peter Todd
2014-08-20  1:19                             ` William Yager
2014-08-20  1:27                               ` Peter Todd
2014-08-20  0:49                     ` Justus Ranvier
2014-08-20  0:57                       ` Peter Todd
2014-08-23 16:17                   ` xor
2014-08-23 16:50                     ` Justus Ranvier
2014-08-23 17:50                       ` Troy Benjegerdes
2014-08-23 18:22                         ` William Yager
2014-08-23 18:44                           ` Mike Hearn
2014-08-23 19:02                             ` Luke Dashjr
2014-08-23 22:51                               ` Peter Todd
     [not found] <c45a638f1e1640fe84bef01d12cda4c3@hotmail.com>
2014-08-20  3:23 ` Un Ix
2014-08-20  5:40   ` Cameron Garnham
2014-08-20 14:37     ` Mike Hearn
2014-08-23  6:39       ` Troy Benjegerdes

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=b7934ce1-a22f-42d2-92ed-bc5a1c3a27be@email.android.com \
    --to=pete@petertodd.org \
    --cc=bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net \
    --cc=jgarzik@bitpay.com \
    --cc=justusranvier@riseup.net \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox