I am aiming to try to get some more short videos done to try and explain the basics of what XSPEC can do and try to explain the features in simple terms. You don't need to have in depth knowledge of the tech to use the coin however, but there are plenty of resources that will explain the basic features. I have put up a couple of links here that will explain things like stealth addresses, ring signatures and Tor. The underlaying maths might be complicated but the principal is not to difficult to understand if you want to spend some time on it.
I will try to explain in short how XSPEC solves the privacy concerns that exists in Bitcoin and I'll put some links if you want to explore further:
Bitcoin problem - Open IP addresses
Any sufficiently resourceful and motivated attacker can identify as many 60% of Bitcoin clients on the network with relative ease. This method works by fingerprinting users based on the connections they have to other nodes on the Bitcoin network. These connections should be different for each connected user as the connections are randomized. When a user connects to another node, their IP address is broadcast to that node. If the attacker is connected to enough nodes, these broadcasts can be watched and fingerprinting can be done.
https://www.cryptolux.org/index.php?title=Bitcoin&oldid=1257 (deanonymization attack on the Bitcoin P2P network)
Solution in XSPEC
Spectrecoin clients run a native Tor integration and the seed nodes also runs Tor. That means that ALL the IP addresses of ALL the participants on the Spectrecoin network remains hidden. The only visible node addresses on the Specrecoin network are .onion addresses. Thus, the users can be confident that their real IP will stay hidden. I am aware of various articles that talk about de-anonymizing Tor, but this only applies where there are exit nodes or where the network consists of both clearnet nodes and Tor nodes. In XSPEC the WHOLE network, i.e. every single node is a Tor nodes and so none of these attacks as described will be possible. In addition as stated in the OP, we have also integrated OBFS4 that will mask the Tor traffic to look like normal traffic. This is unique to XSPEC.
Bitcoin problem - Address reuse
Bitcoin addresses were never meant to be used twice and the fact that they can is a ‘fluke’ in the system. There are 1.46 × 10^48 possible bitcoin addresses, which gives every person on Earth 2.05×10^38 different addresses to use if needs be. When addresses are reused, all other transactions performed by that address can be seen by examining the block chain. Address reuse also reduces the security of the bitcoins stored in those addresses. Transaction signing requires 256 bytes of random data (rvalue) so that the private key cannot be reverse engineered. If the rvalue is not truly random then the private key can be determined, which can be used to sign other transactions for that particular bitcoin address. This attack can be negated by not reusing addresses, as once a transaction is signed from a bitcoin address, it remains empty.
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/25814/ecdsa%C2%ADsignature%C2%ADand%C2%ADthe%C2%ADz%C2%ADvalue
Solution in XSPEC – Dual Key Stealth Addresses
The basic principal with stealth addresses is to avoid address reuse. With a stealth address you can publish ONE stealth address and every payment made to that stealth address will appears as being received by a different ‘normal’ address.
http://sx.dyne.org/stealth.html
XSPEC takes this one step further by introducing anonymous ‘spectre tokens’ and introduce transactions signed by what is known as traceable ring-signatures. Do not let the word ‘traceable’ fool you, it simply means that once a transaction has been signed it will be impossible to use the same signature / ‘spectre token’ again.
https://eprint.iacr.org/2006/389.pdf