Nostr Web Client

So the thing that can be tracked is that you sent some amount somewhere? Genuinely curious what the extent is.

Yes, amounts aren't visible and the receiver in a Monero transaction can potentially be any Monero user

But keep in mind once the receiver goes to spend they're now affected by the sender anonymity side of things (duh) so are vulnerable to those certain attacks. This is Moneros biggest weakness relatively speaking to it's other privacy layers. That's where the problems happen.

In theory every hop from the original transaction has an exponential affect on your sender anonymity i.e. three transactions with the current ring size of 16 would be 16^3 = 4,096 potential spenders = 0.02% chance of correctly finding the true spender in a best case scenario (that chance varies in the real world course depending on a lot of other heuristics/patterns/factors)

FCMP (Full Chain Membership Proofs) upgrade that is coming out sometime later this year will get rid of the issues with rings sigs and make every user on the entire blockchain a potential spender of any given transaction. Massive upgrade.

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Discussion

Jimmy Bond 10mo ago

"once the receiver goes to spend they're now affected by the sender anonymity side of things"

But that just means that you can see that this wallet sent "something". Correct?

Saberhagen The Nameless 10mo ago

Something like:

[sender = 1 of these 16] sent [amount = ?] to [ receiver = ?]

Amount and receivers are zero-knowledge.

Senders are zero-knowledge within their ring (one of 16, which is why it's the weakest part, but you don't know which one is the real spender).

Does that make sense?

Jimmy Bond 10mo ago

I recently heard someone on monerotopia say that if you're using a public node, you should assume that they have all of your transaction info. That was in relation to some recent privacy concerning news item. Is that not accurate? Even a public node doesn't know who I'm sending to and how much?

Saberhagen The Nameless 10mo ago

No, that's not completely accurate. A public node can't see all your transaction info. But it is true that a public node has *more* pieces of info than if you used your own node of course

What remote nodes CAN see: IP address, last block synced, potentially reduce sender privacy by feeding you manipulated decoys

You can mitigate/eliminate the things above by using a VPN/Tor, switching remote nodes periodically, and if your transaction fails (potential sign of decoy manipulation) switch to a different node as a precaution and try again

>"Even a public node doesn't know who I'm sending to and how much?"

Correct

What remote nodes CANNOT see: amounts, addresses(receivers), your previous transaction histories, wallet balance

But best practice for the best possible privacy is to use your own node

https://localmonero.co/knowledge/remote-nodes-privacy?language=en

Saberhagen The Nameless 10mo ago

Yes, you can see someone in a ring *might* have sent something (you don't know for sure because it could just be a decoy).

But you also have no idea how much or to whom it was sent.

Jimmy Bond 10mo ago

OK, so that's not really much of an issue.