Author Topic: TITAN Privacy Now and in the future.  (Read 4564 times)

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Offline bytemaster

Can someone get this on the Wiki?
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline bytemaster

I wanted to take a moment to set the record straight on the current state of TITAN so that people don't rely on it too much at this point in time. 

Today
TITAN is first and foremost a tool to aid in the usability of the system and automate the best practice of generating a new address for every transfer.  As it exists today, TITAN transfers can be analyzed very much like Bitcoin transfers because underneath the fancy elliptic curve crypto is a simple blockchain based upon keys and addresses.  Transactions still combine inputs and send the "change" back to the address the funds came from. 

What this means is that while you cannot tie account names to balances, you can tie transactions together just like you can in Bitcoin.

In the Near Future
While it is possible to perform network analysis on transactions that combine multiple addresses. If you were to always make transactions that transfer the full balance from one address to another and never combine balances from two or more addresses then you do not leak information about the relationship between addresses.   BitShares currently implements a "multi-part" transfer feature in the console.  This feature will generate as many transactions as necessary to transfer the desired amount from one person to another.   These independent transactions are unlinkable and could be going to One person, N people, or simply back to yourself assuming they were broadcast at random intervals rather than "all at once".   

Over time this process will fragment the balances as large chunks are only ever divided and never combined.   It is critical that we have a means of recombining balances into larger chunks so that the number and size of transactions on the blockchain can be kept to a minimum.   After enough 1-1 transfers the ownership is sufficiently ambiguous that balances can be combined without leaking information.   The management of this can be automated on the blockchain to ensure that your privacy is sufficiently protected.

The challenge with multi-part transactions is that they cost more fees (one per transaction) and they take more time because they need to be spread out to sufficiently disassociate them and lastly, the receiver needs to be able to recombine them.   Fortunately the TITAN memo feature can facilitate the regrouping of the multi-part transactions in the receivers client.

What this means today is that you should not assume your balances are untraceable.  It is only as private as using Bitcoin best practices.   

 
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.