Hmm, I only scan read this thread, but as bitcoinj based wallets are one of the primary guilty parties in address re-use I'll just pop in to give my view:
People already have the right incentives to not re-use coins (privacy). SPV wallets suck at it today because I chose backup safety over privacy, but BIP32 let's us have our cake and eat it in that regard and it's now being implemented. So at some point SPV wallets will update and addresses will start automatically changing, users won't have to do anything. I'm figuring out ways existing wallets can be upgraded in place.
Punishing address re-use NOW, when many users who are doing it don't have any good way to stop, is just attempting to pressure volunteer wallet developers through their userbase. That's not cool. I already spend a lot of my spare time at evenings and weekends fixing bugs and keeping up with the Bitcoin protocol (20% only gets you so far and can't always be taken). Being "forced" to do it by punishing my users would be quite upsetting, especially as it's coming anyway and Bitcoin-Qt itself doesn't even implement BIP32 properly yet (AFAIK only Electrum has done this?).
Topic: Miners: Time to deprioritise/filter address reuse! - page 11. (Read 51830 times)
The right way for an organization that desires this level of transparency is to use BIP32 and publish their extended public key.
This would be all well and good if every wallet client (or even most of them) actually, you know, implemented BIP32! As it is, the best you can do is point me to a python tool? I'm capable of using it, but that just seems like a massive pain in the ass to go to. (Oh look, someone used another one of my addresses! Better boot to linux, generate the private key, and import it into my wallet!) And that's for me, a software engineer. What about the less tech-savvy users?
Moreover, most Bitcoin-related websites don't have BIP32 support either! They take one address for withdrawals. Some allow you to give multiple addresses, if they're a bit fancier, but even then, I'm supposed to post 50 addresses and log in to switch the address every time I get a payout?
And then there's Blockchain.info. Did you know Blockchain.info wallets reuse addresses by default unless you create new ones?
I appreciate the intent behind this proposal, but I don't think we're ready for this change yet. I do agree that we need to do this at some point in the future, but shouldn't we, you know, roll out the infrastructure necessary to make it actually workable first?
The right way for an organization that desires this level of transparency is to use BIP32 and publish their extended public key.
The single address model for simplicity is like trying to use a screwdriver as a hammer.
The single address model for simplicity is like trying to use a screwdriver as a hammer.
My overall point is that this kind of solution tends to raise costs for certain use cases.
BIP32 is all well and good, but requires significant tooling for a donation-accepting entity to implement, requires much broader dissemination among wallet clients, and is largely incompatible with the widely-deployed single-address model already in use by many entities.
I'm not here to scream bloody murder about Luke's initiative, but rather to encourage looking at this from as many sides as possible. CoInvalidation etc. present real threats to Bitcoin as a privacy-enhancing system, but, as I think I demonstrated above, privacy is not the sole or even primary concern for every use case.
The non-profit sector, and donors to it, would also benefit from such radical transparency. Charities that can prove that they're not blowing donor funds on exorbitant executive pay, corporate jets, fancy hotels and catering, for example, and are actually delivering real benefits to people in need (or at least working diligently toward what they've promised to donors), globally visible (at least up to the fiat interface or the real-world-goods/services interface), supplant and, er, out-compete, those which waste so much on overheads. For them and for donors, globally visible public records are a desirable feature, at least for the ones that survive the transition to a cryptocoin economy.
As another example, I operate a Bitcoin legal defense fund for the accused Dread Pirate Roberts (link in my sig). The transaction record to the fund's sole address shows that I've disbursed nothing of what's been given, and it needs to stay that way until I can properly justify an expenditure.
All of these models, and others, can benefit from reusing addresses tied to individual and/or institutional identity, and address re-use carries a massive benefit in simplicity ("donate here" QR codes on paper flyers? yes we can!), despite the known drawbacks. Deprioritizing or (especially!) filtering transactions seems to raise the costs for implementing such models, significantly.
The right way for an organization that desires this level of transparency is to use BIP32 and publish their extended public key.As another example, I operate a Bitcoin legal defense fund for the accused Dread Pirate Roberts (link in my sig). The transaction record to the fund's sole address shows that I've disbursed nothing of what's been given, and it needs to stay that way until I can properly justify an expenditure.
All of these models, and others, can benefit from reusing addresses tied to individual and/or institutional identity, and address re-use carries a massive benefit in simplicity ("donate here" QR codes on paper flyers? yes we can!), despite the known drawbacks. Deprioritizing or (especially!) filtering transactions seems to raise the costs for implementing such models, significantly.
The single address model for simplicity is like trying to use a screwdriver as a hammer.
Luke, can you describe more clearly what the patch does?
in particular:
- one reuse of any given address per block, or one address reuse per block?
- does it concern only inputs, outputs, or both? for example, an address
that has several inputs and tries to spend them all is deprioritized or not ?
right now the [rationale/code] and [reasoning/action] ratios are really too low.
in particular:
- one reuse of any given address per block, or one address reuse per block?
- does it concern only inputs, outputs, or both? for example, an address
that has several inputs and tries to spend them all is deprioritized or not ?
right now the [rationale/code] and [reasoning/action] ratios are really too low.
One very common scenario is to use a bitcoin address as the identification. This may be used in faucets, mining pool, gambling sites, and maybe future block-chain based exchanges. If address reusing is discouraged, any alternative is suggested? To introduce another identity-> bitcoin address translation layer?
Maybe you mean outgoing only? An bitcoin can accept many incoming transactions, but it can send out coins only once? That's a little bit better, but still in many scenarios people are expecting coins are sent from the same address. Mastercoin is an example.
If people want to hide their trace, they can choose not to reuse addresses. If people don't care, why have to increase the difficulty for them? Why not just let the users to make the decision?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Identity_protocol_v1 ? Maybe you mean outgoing only? An bitcoin can accept many incoming transactions, but it can send out coins only once? That's a little bit better, but still in many scenarios people are expecting coins are sent from the same address. Mastercoin is an example.
If people want to hide their trace, they can choose not to reuse addresses. If people don't care, why have to increase the difficulty for them? Why not just let the users to make the decision?
I can very well understand Luke's motivation for publishing and implementing this patch as a counterweight to CoinInvalidation and similar awfulness. Admittedly, my poor brain hasn't had time to sort through all the pros and cons here. But:
Er, not so. If you're arguing from the standpoint of a profit-driven business in a competitive landscape or from the standpoint of an individual burdened by increasingly pervasive financial surveillance, you're right, but those are not the only use cases for a currency.
There are lots of people around the world continuously pushing for more and more transparency in government finance, the logical endpoint of which is real-time, globally-visible transactions records for state treasury accounts. Most inputs (taxes, fines, fees, etc.) blinded for privacy reasons, and most outputs (salaries, goods, services, etc., but not, for example, welfare payments) required to be explicitly linked to an identity, for transparency and accountability purposes. Want to work for the state or one of its corporate appendages/owners? Be transparent and accountable.
The non-profit sector, and donors to it, would also benefit from such radical transparency. Charities that can prove that they're not blowing donor funds on exorbitant executive pay, corporate jets, fancy hotels and catering, for example, and are actually delivering real benefits to people in need (or at least working diligently toward what they've promised to donors), globally visible (at least up to the fiat interface or the real-world-goods/services interface), supplant and, er, out-compete, those which waste so much on overheads. For them and for donors, globally visible public records are a desirable feature, at least for the ones that survive the transition to a cryptocoin economy.
As another example, I operate a Bitcoin legal defense fund for the accused Dread Pirate Roberts (link in my sig). The transaction record to the fund's sole address shows that I've disbursed nothing of what's been given, and it needs to stay that way until I can properly justify an expenditure.
All of these models, and others, can benefit from reusing addresses tied to individual and/or institutional identity, and address re-use carries a massive benefit in simplicity ("donate here" QR codes on paper flyers? yes we can!), despite the known drawbacks. Deprioritizing or (especially!) filtering transactions seems to raise the costs for implementing such models, significantly.
(At another level, all of this sums down to mining pool centralization as systemic risk, but that's another discussion entirely.)
Globally visible public records in finance are completely unheard-of. They are undesirable and arguably intolerable.
Er, not so. If you're arguing from the standpoint of a profit-driven business in a competitive landscape or from the standpoint of an individual burdened by increasingly pervasive financial surveillance, you're right, but those are not the only use cases for a currency.
There are lots of people around the world continuously pushing for more and more transparency in government finance, the logical endpoint of which is real-time, globally-visible transactions records for state treasury accounts. Most inputs (taxes, fines, fees, etc.) blinded for privacy reasons, and most outputs (salaries, goods, services, etc., but not, for example, welfare payments) required to be explicitly linked to an identity, for transparency and accountability purposes. Want to work for the state or one of its corporate appendages/owners? Be transparent and accountable.
The non-profit sector, and donors to it, would also benefit from such radical transparency. Charities that can prove that they're not blowing donor funds on exorbitant executive pay, corporate jets, fancy hotels and catering, for example, and are actually delivering real benefits to people in need (or at least working diligently toward what they've promised to donors), globally visible (at least up to the fiat interface or the real-world-goods/services interface), supplant and, er, out-compete, those which waste so much on overheads. For them and for donors, globally visible public records are a desirable feature, at least for the ones that survive the transition to a cryptocoin economy.
As another example, I operate a Bitcoin legal defense fund for the accused Dread Pirate Roberts (link in my sig). The transaction record to the fund's sole address shows that I've disbursed nothing of what's been given, and it needs to stay that way until I can properly justify an expenditure.
All of these models, and others, can benefit from reusing addresses tied to individual and/or institutional identity, and address re-use carries a massive benefit in simplicity ("donate here" QR codes on paper flyers? yes we can!), despite the known drawbacks. Deprioritizing or (especially!) filtering transactions seems to raise the costs for implementing such models, significantly.
(At another level, all of this sums down to mining pool centralization as systemic risk, but that's another discussion entirely.)
I don't agree at all that this solves anything and thus was forced to opt for one of the personal assault options (why not word it less personal? yeah, tonal bitcoins edit war haha).
blacklisting would not work on an address basis but on an output basis and all of this output's descendants would be flagged, so it makes no change to incentivize using more addresses.
At first I was afraid your patch was about some security issue from private keys being revealed but now I feel like this move is simply bad for mobile clients that typically use just one address, for vanity addresses, for charities, satoshi dice (your biggest friend?), etc.
Is at least only the transaction from that address throttled or is it also the transaction to known addresses?
blacklisting would not work on an address basis but on an output basis and all of this output's descendants would be flagged, so it makes no change to incentivize using more addresses.
At first I was afraid your patch was about some security issue from private keys being revealed but now I feel like this move is simply bad for mobile clients that typically use just one address, for vanity addresses, for charities, satoshi dice (your biggest friend?), etc.
Is at least only the transaction from that address throttled or is it also the transaction to known addresses?
Cool. I can talk to some other pool owners I know.
I think the message would be to educate them on this— that they can have users provide a single public key and then generate unique sequential addresses without any further user interaction where the user will have the private key... and find out what they need to make it a reality.Wallet support for being able to easily just ask for a xpub address is in the pipeline (at least from armory, electrum, and bitcoin-qt) but not there yet— so the only people who could use it now would be people doing it manual style like I just described, but it would be good to get the pipeline primed. E.g. are there OSS tools that they're using that need the support added to them?
Cool. I can talk to some other pool owners I know.
Unfortunately, wallet software has not matured enough for that yet.
Well, you don't have to wait for wallet software yet.Here is an example:
Grab pycoin:
https://github.com/richardkiss/pycoin
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -u -g > private_key
$ cat private_key
xprv9s21ZrQH143K4SHxWhmMDebDpB85Jo9wgwxnbHwXeGs5nnfCdwohgHv3bMnVGZMtgsVkNp1FsuA jSFu7caFh6qMrQ4ognrs5MUkoQChT1QM
Thats a private key, put it someplace safe. Now:
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -f private_key -s 0.pub
xpub69Nh7f4uTEF6N1CdXpEp44AevN31pt1KdS8S4mqoLk2X4CS684gY2enwoJdmeaemB2atbU5gF1s waCwpaP4aAhgsFUzRMyHckSyoi8rbsbi
Thats a public key, it's what you'd give to eligius.
Eligius would generate addresses for you:
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -k xpub69Nh7f4uTEF6N1CdXpEp44AevN31pt1KdS8S4mqoLk2X4CS684gY2enwoJdmeaemB2atbU5gF1s waCwpaP4aAhgsFUzRMyHckSyoi8rbsbi -a -s 0
1B7Y1zpPqcNoXDeB9NqRXg97gHCTYuQzNv
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -k xpub69Nh7f4uTEF6N1CdXpEp44AevN31pt1KdS8S4mqoLk2X4CS684gY2enwoJdmeaemB2atbU5gF1s waCwpaP4aAhgsFUzRMyHckSyoi8rbsbi -a -s 1
1Q53tMUTzKjxYjnSFC58MtCQs6tEszUu7M
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -k xpub69Nh7f4uTEF6N1CdXpEp44AevN31pt1KdS8S4mqoLk2X4CS684gY2enwoJdmeaemB2atbU5gF1s waCwpaP4aAhgsFUzRMyHckSyoi8rbsbi -a -s 2
1LyNrtpHuEjHMTmg9PWRxeP7jCpZuKiBsr
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -k xpub69Nh7f4uTEF6N1CdXpEp44AevN31pt1KdS8S4mqoLk2X4CS684gY2enwoJdmeaemB2atbU5gF1s waCwpaP4aAhgsFUzRMyHckSyoi8rbsbi -a -s 3
16QPNHmkac7JurbJLwmBvkPjrFgNR13yvt
and you can generate the matching private keys in WIF format:
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -f private_key -s 0/0 -w
L4DobQyRtccLvA3Hna5DDpUSfKdWx7wLMbTA9DXgUfq61vypeckb
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -f private_key -s 0/1 -w
L4tytdhG8p6oJXQpFmCrZ4GWRVfHJe8FthxDTGn7HHYc6Yx7ZtuT
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -f private_key -s 0/2 -w
L5iwTNQYuwC6VG4SnsFKSULB6mvCjW6om1L9AifAYC2FPGi3ZGwV
$ python pycoin/scripts/genwallet.py -f private_key -s 0/3 -w
L4mAzvyZvRdtLa2u2BhT8dxLFDELgWR5p8wipSrJ6iLXhXzNDFaq
No reason to delay supporting this on eligius, as at least some users could be using it today.
This is a good start. I think you've hit a real sweet spot with this and I hope all the miners take it up.
Without shutting anyone down, It puts just a bit of pressure on everyone to find ways to make it easier and simpler to use new addresses every time.
And the pressure is adjustable; as it gets easier to do the right thing, it's easy to "dial up" the number of blocks between reuses making the wrong thing ever just a little bit less tenable.
One problem though is 'perverse incentives' for miners in the form of transaction fees. In est, the more miners deploy this patch, the greater the additional revenue enjoyed by the miner who does *not* deploy this patch. This is because the miner who does not deploy the patch will be picking up tx fees from tx left "on the ground" by miners who have deployed it.
As yet, I have never reused an address. I intend not to. I wish my client made it easier to be sure.
If it's this important shouldn't Eligius start forcing new addresses for every withdrawal?
Yes, migrating to HD/recurring invoice ids has been on the todo list for Eligius for a long time.Unfortunately, wallet software has not matured enough for that yet.
If it's this important shouldn't Eligius start forcing new addresses for every withdrawal? Think the miners would go along with that?
It's easy to force your changes when the users of the pool can just passively go along with it. It's a lot tougher when you force them to actively make a decision on the issue.
It's easy to force your changes when the users of the pool can just passively go along with it. It's a lot tougher when you force them to actively make a decision on the issue.
If no other pool ever adopts a similar set of rules then at most the impact is 15% slower confirmation times.
What about non-standard transactions? Isn't eligius the only game in town for that?
Seeing as how it's common practice to re-use addresses I'd say the users have already decided. Why should you, the 15% mining pool host say otherwise?
Satoshi wrote it into the white paper as an additional privacy measure not as a mandate!!
""As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. ""
Who are you to penalize me based on your personal opinion?
Satoshi wrote it into the white paper as an additional privacy measure not as a mandate!!
""As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. ""
Who are you to penalize me based on your personal opinion?
Because miners can choose which tx to include in a block based on whatever criteria they decide? If no other pool ever adopts a similar set of rules then at most the impact is 15% slower confirmation times.
Seeing as how it's common practice to re-use addresses I'd say the users have already decided. Why should you, the 15% mining pool host say otherwise?
Satoshi wrote it into the white paper as an additional privacy measure not as a mandate!!
""As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. ""
Who are you to penalize me based on your personal opinion?
Satoshi wrote it into the white paper as an additional privacy measure not as a mandate!!
""As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. ""
Who are you to penalize me based on your personal opinion?
Not sure what you point was. The title is "DEPRIORITIZE" and that is exactly what it would do. It creates a method for privacy and security minded individuals to create an incentive for like minded individuals. Nothing more. Nothing is being forced. Nothing is being prevented.
I know this is slightly off-topic, but why is it not being forced? Why not have that stuff as a fundamental part of the protocol? It seems that address reuse is causing nothing but harm, and after reading this thread, I don't see any legitimate reason why it's absolutely needed. So why not just eliminate address reuse altogether?Furthermore, in the meantime address reuse has gotten way too common for donations, so will need some gradual change.
Finally, it's uncertain and unlikely that 51+% of miners are willing to shutdown this tolerance entirely right away.
If there was a clear agreement from maybe 75% of miners that this needed to be done, though, it could be...
Not sure what you point was. The title is "DEPRIORITIZE" and that is exactly what it would do. It creates a method for privacy and security minded individuals to create an incentive for like minded individuals. Nothing more. Nothing is being forced. Nothing is being prevented.
I know this is slightly off-topic, but why is it not? Why not have that stuff as a fundamental part of the protocol? It seems that address reuse is causing nothing but harm, and after reading this thread, I don't see any legitimate reason why it's absolutely needed. So why not just eliminate address reuse altogether?
Protocol change would mean a hard fork and getting consensus on even mundane changes (google threads about P2SH) is very tough. Getting consensus (or super super majority) on a contraversial change to make a hard fork go smoothly is essentially DOA.
I see. That's good I suppose. Otherwise Bitcoin could be changed too easily.
But this sounds like a worthy cause. Maybe this is something that should be tried in the future.
Jump to: