My latest invention is eXaMineR: a free and open source tool for tracing monero transactions
Learn more here: https://stacker.news/items/634963
Discussion
do you sleep? π€£
Are monero txs now traceable?
Its still getting delisted everywhere so i doubt it, but there is already work underway to go to full membership proofs and the option to increase ring size in the meantime. The best thing about monero is that its always incrementally improving where it matters most, unlike bitcoin.
no
they always have been
but it seems to take a considerable amount of manual work
I only have two automated heuristics right now and they only identify the sender in about 1 in 15 cases
I plan 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
Lol
I've already seen several users challenge you to trace their Monero transactions and nothing but crickets from you π¦π¦π¦
"they only identify the sender in about 1 in 15 cases"
In other words - random chance π€¦ββοΈ
"I still think you'll need a considerable amount of off chain data"
Monero never claims to protect the privacy of things that are external to it's blockchain...no crypto can
Someone challenged me to trace his transaction to its source yesterday on Bawdy Anarchist's twitter space and I denied the ability to do so. I want to build more automatic decoy eliminators because without them you need lots of off chain data that I don't know how to get or that is expensive to acquire. I am not sure how far you can get using only chain heuristics to identify the true spender; I suspect it's higher than 1 in 15 but lower than 100%.
One monero dev offered a helpful cli tool that detects all instances when a stealth address has appeared in a ring; this is something my tool is currently missing and would greatly help with building taint trees. I hope that through community effort my tool continues to improve in effectivelness. The bad guys shouldn't be the only ones with a tool like this, and before yesterday only ciphertrace had a tool like this (that I know of anyway)
>"they always have been (traceable)"
>"Someone challenged me to trace his transaction to its source yesterday on Bawdy Anarchist's twitter space and I denied the ability to do so"
wtf bro π
I listened to part of your conversation with Bawdy and enjoyed it. Agreed with almost everything you said there. I just think you claim too much on social media, or use terms in an unorthodox way which is why you get all these reply guys like myself.
Looking forward to you and Luke talking on Seths pod next π
more lies lol
since you insist on acting like a 12 yr old I'll treat you like one
in the context of a cryptocurrency a "transaction tracing tool" would be able to identify the source, destination and amount of transactions.
random chance identifies the sender in "about 1 of 15 cases"
the recipient that is published on-chain is a one time stealth address. not useful for tracing since SAs break the transaction graph.
and amounts remain opaque.
additionally, if it takes "a considerable amount of off-chain information" to *actually use* NOBODY is tracing monero transactions.
Because that off-chain data generally doesn't exist.
(may be exceptions concerning individuals of interest targeted by 3 letter agencies. know your threat model)
this tool doesn't trace monero transactions, by definition.
it's a block explorer.
just let it be a block explorer and quit trying to use semantics to push inaccurate fud.
> in the context of a cryptocurrency a "transaction tracing tool" would be able to identify the source, destination and amount of transactions
I don't think it has to automatically do that. A tracing tool is good if it helps automate some parts of the tracing task even if other parts remain manual.
> random chance identifies the sender in "about 1 of 15 cases"
But random guessing uses no data. This tool uses *data* to identify the sender. A random guess would not be grounds for doing anything. A statistical analysis is worth a lot more.
> the recipient that is published on-chain is a one time stealth address. not useful for tracing since SAs break the transaction graph.
They do not break the transaction graph. Stealth addresses do not appear just once, they appear again whenever the recipient spends his money and possibly in other transactions as decoys. Filtering out the decoys leaves you with only the true spend tx. You can do that *because* there is a tx graph that stealth addresses appear multiple times in.
> and amounts remain opaque
Except part of the amount is visible (the fee) and gives you info about the amount in the outputs as well as in the inputs
> additionally, if it takes "a considerable amount of off-chain information" to *actually use* NOBODY is tracing monero transactions
Seems like you contradict yourself here. First you say "nobody" and argue that the data doesn't exist, then you admit some people might do it and governments might have that data.
Not a good look.
Read the comments. These supposed bitcoiners blindly believe outlandinsh claims without verifying just because they like the "conclusion".
Interesting. Havenβt dug into this but does it work by being a part of a mix yourself?
I have a way to manually identify yourself as a decoy but I haven't automated that 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, do if you've been used as a decoy you can automatically filter that out.
Right now it uses two 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 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. Ones that are significantly older stick out like a sore thumb.
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 dislike shitcoins all day every day, but after watching your video (and reading the post) - the presented details do not match the claims made...? I don't understand the logic behind determining decoys and the robustness of doing so from your demo video.
Which claim doesn't match? A lot of people seem to be assuming, wrongly, that this is a *fully automated* tracing tool. It's not. Most of it is manual.
Yeah it gives the impression that it is a relatively easy or automated way to trace and deanonymize monero transactions, which isn't the case.
There is nothing new here..
Its a great way to keep track of ALL that *off-chain data* you've been collecting on Monero txs π
and it'll tell you if some inputs are suspiciously old.
very low bar for "tracing tool"
Then help me fix it please
I'd like it to be up to par with the ciphertrace tool that inspired me
I'm sure they have a lot more data to work with but I suspect you can get pretty far with on chain heuristics and maybe it's not that hard to source whatever off chain data ciphertrace is using
Manual 16^16 bud
claiming this tool "traces monero transactions" is more disingenuous bullshit.
and your video is a whole lot of
"oh well this is a bad example..."
"so if you have off-chain data on a tx..."
"this is demo info I put in earlier..."
sad.
good visualization tool though
The video is for people that are in bitcoin to stay in bitcoin or maybe some smart people will think its cool and switch to monero. Laughable. How are people defending servalance money and nobody calling them out on it. Linux people wake up you are the monero target audience we fit like hand and glove or mulder and scully.
Not really in regards to a good visualization tool. Much desired.
This looks like a good tool for helping to visualize the monero blockchain actually.
It doesn't trace transactions, don't get excited.
The video you linked actually inadvertently explains why Monero is untraceable. I made a YouTube comment explaining why
So far heβll only respond if you lick the tip of his bs
I replied to your comment, looks like you misunderstand how monero works. You said stealth addresses are used once and never seen again but in reality they appear on the blockchain multiple times: when the recipient receives money, when he or she spends that money, and possibly multiple other times as decoys
The point is that SAs break the transaction graph, making tracing the flow of funds impossible.
1. each SA only appears for a single output
2. it's impossible to know which is the true spend
Exactly. I had another look at the block explorer and docs, then made a correction comment and came to the same conclusion
The comment didnβt post. Keep in mind YouTube creators can delete comments on their videosβ¦
> it's impossible to know which is the true spend
Not impossible. My tool *automatically* detects the true spend 1 in 15 times. Better tools (like ciphertrace's) do better.
Lightning is superior.
Thereβs a reason the IRS never made a bounty for Lightning and said it wasnβt an issue in their report from 2020.
you can't stop lying can you?
you are using heuristic analysis, which is NOT a deterministic relationship.
your tool identfies the *likely true spend
at a certain (undefined) probability
and it does it no better than random chance
(but automatically! π)
I suggest if you're actually interested in operating in good faith you prioritize telling the user the probability your heuristic analysis is accurate.
ie, the odds an old ouput decoy WOULD be used in a ring etc
Guess I tagged the wrong account, lol!
