Running a BIP 324 Bitcoin Node Can Help Make You and The Network More Private
3254 sats \ 4 comments \ @BITC0IN 16 Apr 2023 bitcoin
BIP 324 is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal that outlines a protocol for encrypted peer-to-peer communication between Bitcoin nodes. The protocol uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to establish a secure connection between nodes, which helps to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and improve the overall security of the Bitcoin network.
There are a few reasons why it's important to run a Bitcoin node that supports BIP 324. First, it helps to ensure that your node is communicating with other nodes securely, which helps to prevent attacks that could compromise the integrity of the Bitcoin network. Second, it helps to improve the overall privacy of your node by encrypting your communications with other nodes. Finally, supporting BIP 324 helps to contribute to the ongoing development and improvement of the Bitcoin protocol, which is important for ensuring the long-term viability of the network.
Overall, if you're running a Bitcoin node, it's a good idea to make sure that it supports BIP 324 to help ensure the security and privacy of your node, and to contribute to the ongoing development of the Bitcoin network.
Find out more at https://bip324.com/
or watch a video on BIP324
Lastly, please note that you can currently run a BIP324 node, but it is still in beta and being actively worked on by the developer community.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @BITC0IN OP 16 Apr 2023
I made a few errors with this thread. Please see pwuille's corrections for more details on what I got wrong or view a revised version of my thread in a separate comment below.
Below is pwuille's response from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/12ofdk4/running_a_bip_324_bitcoin_node_can_help_make_you/jgip26u/
The protocol uses Transport Layer Security (TLS)
While the construction does have some properties of TLS, it's not based on it. The BIP explicitly goes into why TLS isn't used.
which helps to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks
Depending on the interpretation of that term, maybe, but stating this outright is a bit misleading. Bitcoin nodes have no identities (as they don't trust any of their peers anyway), so the traditional concept of a man-in-the-middle doesn't apply. What BIP324 is raise the cost for wide-scale surveillance, by forcing any spy to actively intercept any connection, or run their own nodes, rather than being able to observe passively.
Now, in some cases nodes may connections that are deliberate rather than automatic, where the node operator wants to connect to specific other node. For example, you run two nodes and want them connected to each other. In that case, ideally, there does exist a means for ascertaining the connection isn't being man-in-the-middled. BIP324 has affordances for extensions that enable it (in form of a session id that can be compared out-of-band, or otherwise authenticated), but the functionality isn't actually part of the current spec as there is active research on that topic.
and improve the overall security of the Bitcoin network.
Definitely.
Overall, if you're running a Bitcoin node, it's a good idea to make sure that it supports BIP 324 to help ensure the security and privacy of your node, and to contribute to the ongoing development of the Bitcoin network.
That's really premature at this point.
Source: am co-author of the BIP.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BITC0IN OP 16 Apr 2023
BIP 324 is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal that outlines a protocol for encrypted peer-to-peer communication between Bitcoin nodes. The protocol uses Transport Layer Security to establish a secure connection between nodes, which helps to prevent man-in-the-middle-like attacks and improve the overall security of the Bitcoin network. More fundamentally, BIP324 raises the cost of wide-scale surveillance on the Bitcoin network, by forcing any spy to actively intercept any connection, or run their own nodes, rather than being able to observe passively.
There are a few reasons why it's important to help test-run a Bitcoin node that supports BIP 324. First, it helps to ensure that your node is communicating with other nodes securely, which helps to prevent attacks that could compromise the integrity of the Bitcoin network. Second, it helps to improve the overall privacy of your node by encrypting your communications with other nodes. Finally, supporting BIP 324 helps to contribute to the ongoing development and improvement of the Bitcoin protocol, which is important for ensuring the long-term viability of the network.
Overall, if you're running a Bitcoin node already and want to experiment with running a Beta BIP 324 node you can do so today.
Find out more at https://bip324.com/
or watch a video on BIP324
Please note that you can currently run a BIP324 node, but it is still in beta and being actively worked on by the developer community.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BITC0IN OP 16 Apr 2023
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @btcschellingpt1 16 Apr 2023 freebie
Excellent to see this progressing forward; important to improve the privacy in the base layer gossip between nodes .. great work!