A major point of defeating the common input heuristic and others is to make "super-clusters". A small number of users that "don't care" about possibly touching tainted coins can render many chain analysis techniques unworkable in practice for enforcement. You don't need 100% coverage to defeat the heuristic. On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 9:40 AM nopara73 via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > The problem with CoinJoins is that desire for privacy is explicitly > signalled by them, so adversaries can consider them "suspicious." PayJoin > and CoinSwap solve this problem, because they are unnoticeable. I think > this logic doesn't stand for scrutiny. > > From here on let's use the terminology of a typical adversary: there are 3 > kinds of coin histories: "clean", "dirty" and "suspicious". > The aftermath of you using a "dirty" coin is knocks on your door. You > using a "suspicious" coin is uncomfortable questions and you using a > "clean" coin is seamless transfer. > > In scenario 1, you start out with a "clean" history. By using CoinJoins > you make your new coin's history "suspicious" so you have no incentive to > CoinJoin. By using CoinSwap/PayJoin your new coin can be either "clean" or > "dirty". What would a "clean" coin owner prefer more? Take the risk of > knocking on the door or answering uncomfortable questions? > > In scenario 2, you start out with a "dirty" history. By using CoinJoins > you make your new coin's history "suspicious" so you have an incentive to > CoinJoin. By using CoinSwap/PayJoin your new coin can either be "clean" or > "dirty". What would a "dirty" coin owner prefer more? And here's an > insight: you may get knocks on your door for a dirty coin that you have > nothing to do with. And you can prove this fact to the adversary, but by > doing so, you'll also expose that you started out with a "dirty" coin to > begin with and now the adversary becomes interested in you for a different > reason. > > You can also examine things assuming full adoption of PJ/CS vs full > adoption of CJ, but you'll see that full adoption of any of these solves > the tainting issue. > > So my current conclusion is that PJ/CS does not only not solve the taint > problem, it just alters it and ultimately very similar problems arise for > the users. Maybe the goal of unobservable privacy is a fallacy in this > context as it is based on the assumption that desiring privacy is > suspicious, so you want to hide the fact that you desire privacy. And the > solution to the taint issue is either protocol change or social change > (decent adoption.) > > PS.: Please try to keep the conversation to the Taint Issue as this email > of mine isn't supposed to be discussing general pros and cons of various > privacy techniques. > > Any thoughts? > > -- > Best, > Ádám > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev >