Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Encrypt bitcoin messages

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:21:35 -0400

On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 8:16 PM, Peter Todd <[email-masked]> wrote:
> On 19 August 2014 19:40:39 GMT-04:00, Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>Encryption is of little value if you may deduce the same information
>>by observing packet sizes and timings.
>
> That is simply incorrect. The resources required to do that kind of monitoring are very high; even the NSA can't pull it off consistently for

Hardly.  For example, when a new block arrives on the network, a
single observer at a single location may obtain a binary "likely|not
bitcoin protocol" decision from a spike in usage correlated with
sudden, global network activity after a period of inactivity.  I'll
not detail all such metrics.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/