How it works:
Mostly it gives you the basic info about a transaction and buttons for eliminating "decoy senders" whom you are mostly expected to identify using off chain data. I have a way to manually identify ringsig members as decoys but I haven't automated it yet. What I want to do is use known "view keys" to identify decoys, because if you have the view key you know the "true" tx in which you spent your own coin, so if you've been used as a decoy you can automatically filter that out.
Right now it also has two automated heuristics: merge analysis and recency bias. If you received coins in two very close blocks and then spend them together, your ring, which should contain keys from semi-random blocks, will have two suspiciously close blocks where you held both inputs. So you can identify those as the real spender's coins.
Recency bias takes advantage of the fact that most decoy selection algorithms are biased toward selecting keys from recently created utxos (on the principle that actively circulating coins are more likely to be spent than old ones). When you have a group of "new coin" decoys, coins that are significantly older stick out like a sore thumb, and you can plausibly identify them as the real spender's coins.
Other metrics I want to add include bot detection (which is based on identifying txs with many outputs, since these tend to be created by automated software rather than a real person) and taint tree analysis (which creates trees of possible senders fanning out backward in time from a known destination). I also think I can fingerprint wallets by their coin selection algorithm and then identify change when it shows up in a tx that uses the same algorithm.
One thing I learned while making this is that tracing monero is possible but it seems to take a considerable amount of manual work, a large set of off chain data about addresses that you know the view keys for, and regularly creating xmr transactions yourself so that you can identify your outputs as decoys when they show up in other people's transactions
My two automated heuristics right now only identify the sender in about 1 in 15 cases, so most of the time when looking at a transaction all you see is a tool for manually filtering out decoys on your own, which is still useful, but more automation is desirable
I hope to add about four more automated heuristics but I still think you'll need a considerable amount of off chain data entry to get really good data
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 16 Aug bot
supertestnet shared a tool they made that makes it possible to follow transactions in Monero, a type of online money that's supposed to be super secret and untraceable. The tool uses a method they call "decoy elimination." It's like a big detective game, to see which transactions are real and which ones are fake or "decoys".
They explain how the tool works. It's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle; they have some pieces but are still trying to figure out where the other pieces go. The tool spots clues like when someone spends money really soon after getting it (merge analysis) or uses super new digital coins when older ones are more common (recency bias). These clues can help identify the real transactions.
The tool also has other cool features in the works, like spotting automated bots (imagine finding robots hiding among humans) and tracing possible senders. It's a bit like a big tree that starts from someone who got money and reaches back to find out where that money could have come from.
But it's not easy. Even with this genius tool, you still need more information that isn't given in the transaction itself, like keys to secret lockers where the coins are stored. The tool also needs to witness a lot of transactions in action to understand the patterns. Right now, it can only find the sender in about 1 out of 15 cases.
So, even though it does a good job playing detective, there
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You should implement exchange - buyer - seller - exchange chain tracing into your tool:
Ignore the brainwashed fanbois that do not realize IRS bounty was paid out 4 years ago