Studying Bitcoin Privacy Attacks and Their Impact on Bitcoin-Based Identity Methods

Simin Ghesmati (Corresponding author), Walid Fdhila, Edgar Weippl

Publications: Contribution to bookContribution to proceedingsPeer Reviewed

Abstract

The Bitcoin blockchain was the first publicly verifiable, and distributed ledger, where it is possible for everyone to download and check the full history of all data records from the genesis block. These properties lead to the emergence of new types of applications and the redesign of traditional systems that no longer respond to current business needs (e.g., transparency, protection against censorship, decentralization). One particular application is the use of blockchain technology to enable decentralized and self-sovereign identities including new mechanisms for creating, resolving, and revoking them. The public availability of data records has, in turn, paved the way for new kinds of attacks that combine sophisticated heuristics with auxiliary information to compromise users' privacy and deanonymize their identities. In this paper, we review and categorize Bitcoin privacy attacks, investigate their impact on one of the Bitcoin-based identity methods namely did:btcr, and analyze and discuss its privacy properties.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBusiness Process Management
Subtitle of host publicationBlockchain and Robotic Process Automation Forum - BPM 2021 Blockchain and RPA Forum, Proceedings
EditorsJose Gonzalez Enriquez, Søren Debois, Peter Fettke, Pierluigi Plebani, Inge van de Weerd, Ingo Weber
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherSpringer International Publishing
Pages85-101
Number of pages17
Edition1
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-85867-4
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-85866-7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Publication series

SeriesLecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume428
ISSN1865-1348

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 102016 IT security

Keywords

  • Bitcoin
  • Blockchain
  • BTCR
  • Decentralized identifier
  • DID
  • Privacy

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