Re: [Tails-dev] Set coin selection to "privacy" by default i…

Intrigeri,

> Hi Michael,
>
> Michael English:
>> It also helps to reduce blockchain UTXO (unspent transaction
>> outputs) bloat,
> This makes me curious. How does this help with that property, exactly?
> My intuition tells me that by restricting the set of coins that can be
> spent to one single address, on the contrary, the software has fewer
> possibilities to optimize towards 1. reusing existing unspent outputs;
> and thus 2. avoiding to create more.
>
> Also: where was this text quoted from?
Reducing UTXO bloat is not the reason for enabling this feature in
Tails. I don’t want to try to explain this because I think that it
distracts from the conversation. The point here is privacy.

I quoted the text from the application itself. I wanted you to have easy
access to the official documentation on coin selection.
>> Routing transaction relay through Tor is only part of the solution. The blockchain is
>> a public ledger that can be analyzed anytime after the initial transaction broadcast.
>> Private coin selection impedes correlation of transaction inputs and outputs that
>> could link back to an identity.
> Sure. I hope our doc clearly states that it's very hard to use Bitcoin
> in a privacy-preserving way, for some various value of "privacy".
>
> Cheers,
Yes, the documentation already states that bitcoin is not anonymous.
Rather, it is pseudonymous and very resistant to censorship. I think
that it is still worth the effort to make using bitcoin in Tails as
anonymous as possible. The feature should be enabled by default because
it is very easy for Tails users to overlook its availability.

Cheers,
Michael English