Nostr Web Client

Coinjoin solutions that plug into Chainalysis and preemptively blacklist UTXOs are working against you. They purport to protect your privacy while selling you out to oligarchs, bureaucrats and a class of people that wants to enslave you.

Wasabi devs should be ashamed of themselves, especially since nobody approached them to start doing that -- they simple lost their nerve and submitted of their own accord, out of fear. If you're afraid, don't offer such platforms in the first place. Or do a better job of protecting your anonymity as a privacy dev.

https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1539618567276093441

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Discussion

Kruw 2y ago

Wasabi is open source softtware, it cannot "sell out" their users, and give any information to chain surveillance groups they cannot already see on the blockchain. Wasabi protects the IP addresses of its users with Tor and the Bitcoin addresses of its users with compact block filters, so no xpub is leaked to a trusted third party.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

But you do run UTXOs trying to register for coinjoin against Chainalysis blacklists, don't you? Or if not, what exactly are you using Chainalysis for? Please, let's clear this up once and for all.

"It's open source" is classic hand waving for the plebs who can't read code. You can be open source and still do untoward things.

Kruw 2y ago

Blacklisting is a coordinator policy, not a wallet policy. If you are going to accuse an open source wallet of selling out your privacy, then the burden of proof is on you to point to the part of the open source code that is leaking private information.

But you can't prove this accusation, because you can't fix what isn't broken.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

Does Wasabi allow one to change coordinators in a simple way, i.e. without recompiling or digging through obscure configuration files?

If not, it's corralling users into a solution where their data is run against blacklists compiled by an anti-privacy industry is disingenuous.

Kruw 2y ago

It doesn't support switching coordinators through the gui, feel free to submit a PR if you think it's important.

Now that you know about how Wasabi cannot leak any private information thanks to using Tor and block filters by default, how about you issue a correction about your claim that Wasabi sells out your privacy to oligarchs instead of protecting it?

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

1. I don't want to contribute code to solutions written by incompetent or bad faith actors.

2. The Samourai guy in the link I posted already explained how you're obligated to share data with Chainalysis.

3. For what reason is the Wasabi coordinator working with Chainalysis? Samourai isn't doing it and they don't claim to have been pressured.

4. Let's say I get a "bad" UTXO through an OTC trade. Why should I be blacklisted from using Wasabi in order to increase the privacy of my UTXO?

Kruw 2y ago

Again, there'a no data to share because there's no data collected: Wasabi uses Tor to protect your IP and block filters to protect your xpub.

In a free market, customers are free to choose their businesses and businesses are free to choose their customers. If you don't succeed with the default coordinator, then feel free to use a different one.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

I completely agree about the free market principle. We'll keep better building tools and helping people move away from shady, bad-faith "free market agents" to who value human freedom and privacy.

Kruw 2y ago

I agree! We should boycott developers who lie to their users about their software in order to pretend it matches the privacy of their competitors. Samourai is not a "full node wallet" and never has been, the developers have no limits to the deception they impose on their users.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

Yeah there's no good reason to boycott BIP157. It's the best trade off we have between privacy and the ability to ship p2p functionality in light clients.

They do let you run your own Dojo, but that not being the default is just as bad as Wasabi not allowing non-blacklisting coordinators without recompilation.

So we have two wrongs here and that doesn't make a right.

Kruw 2y ago

Arguments against the coordinator customer policy are not arguments against the privacy capabilites of the wallet.

Pretend you could choose the red wallet coordinator guys in one click through the Wasabi GUI, and the red guys would coordinate WabiSabi (not whirlpool) coinjoins for you. Would you agree that the Wasabi client is strictly better privacy than the leaky red wallet, and choose the Wasabi client + WabiSabi protocol to coinjoin since you get support your preferred coordinator using either software?

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

Correct. Sending out xpubs by default isn't great.

That said, their coordinator doesn't require client xpubs. That's strictly a shortcoming of their wallet architecture. You can still write third party wallets talking to Whirlpool through Tor, without losing privacy. Or you can set up a Dojo on your own computer. Whereas your coordinator interacts with Chainalysis no matter what.

Would you be so kind as to answer my question from the other post, about why you chose to plug into Chainalysis in the first place. Was there external pressure? Why are you guys so evasive about it?

Kruw 2y ago

I'm not a lawyer, I don't have access to the email address where people are instructed to send their legal concerns, but I imagine that inbox is not empty of government threats.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

Fair enough. That said, going public with your identities seems to have been a bad idea because you're now in a position where you can be blackmailed and threatened. But what's done is done.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

And appealing to the "free market" is a cop out. Do you want to answer the question why you need such partners and solutions to begin with, when your competitors don't?

Kruw 2y ago

That's a good point! The most likely explanation is that since a red colored competitor collects their users' xpubs by default, regulators have no reason to interrupt their spying. They can just use the honeypot for surveilling red wallet users who are under the influence of a false sense of security.

Think about it this way. Say the government wanted to ban self custody, and there were two hardware wallet companies. One hardware wallet sends all the private keys to their central server by default, and the other hardware wallet generates the keys offline and never leaks them. The government has no reason to target the former because it's not an effective self custody wallet, it serves as bait for those who didn't verify the claims of sovereignty by the developers.

Alfred Hodler 2y ago

I see what you're getting at but accusing them of being a honeypot is a pretty harsh. I agree that their default model is far from ideal however.

You're still not explaining why Wasabi needs to run UTXOs against Chainalysis. Was there pressure from the regulators? Or are you trying to preempt something?