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908 sats \ 5 replies \ @saunter 25 Nov 2022 \ on: Jon Atack AMA bitcoin
How do you see the best way to strengthening Bitcoin privacy?
From my humble point of view, the best way is to look at, evaluate, code review and test the proposals to do so, as this is what seems to be the bottleneck that constrains progress.
I think it's worth mentioning that privacy is vital, but we nevertheless cannot trade off decentralization, censorship resistance or robustness for it.
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Perhaps an under-appreciated way is user education.
One, use bitcoin in a direct peer-to-peer way as much as possible, and separate that use from any that involves CEX/KYC/AML gateways.
Two, in addition to not reusing addresses and other privacy practices that are described in https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy (highly recommended reading), my understanding is that not many node operators are running behind a VPN (from talking to people and from polling the audience at conference talks).
Three, fewer still are using alternative P2P networks like I2P with their nodes that could provide private peer connection redundancy when Tor isn't working well.
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I2P node here :) happy to help, I agree, it's important to run node in this networks.
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Obviously some of us prefer to go with the "What are you gonna do about it" Open and exposed route lmao
^For anyone reading, don't do this. It isn't an effective way to support Bitcoin or anything really.
So, my issue with I2P and Tor Bitcoin nodes, is that I understand that they all connect to each other, not within the privacy protocols, but by taking an exit node first. This centralizes where an eclipse attack needs to take place in order to be effective.
Now, I understand that BIP 324 is going to be very helpful in shielding node runners from ISP's without centralizing network traffic to exit nodes. https://bip324.com/
As such I'm very excited for BIP 324 to be merged once its ready!
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Thanks for running an I2P node! (Now add a CJDNS one :)
Note that I2P doesn't have the centralization issues of Tor. The I2P network is both distributed and dynamic, with no trusted parties.
A single honest peer is enough to defeat an Eclipse attack.
Using a VPN would encrypt your node p2p traffic without waiting for BIP 324.
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