Details
Seyed Ali Tabatabaee(University of British Columbia)
Abstract
As adoption of blockchain-based systems grows, more attention is being given to the privacy of these systems. Early systems like BitCoin provided few privacy features. As a result, systems with strong privacy guarantees, including Monero, Zcash, and MimbleWimble have been developed. Compared to BitCoin, these cryptocurrencies are much less understood. In this paper, we focus on MimbleWimble, which uses the Dandelion++ protocol for private transaction relay and transaction aggregation to provide transaction content privacy. We find that in combination these two features make MimbleWimble susceptible to a new type of denial-of-service attacks. We design, prototype, and evaluate this attack on the Beam network using a private test network and a network simulator. We find that by controlling only 10% of the network nodes, the adversary can prevent over 45% of all transactions from ending up in the blockchain. We also discuss several potential approaches for mitigating this attack.
Time
Monday, 25 April, 2022
17:00 – 18:30
[Hybrid] AND-4-53, Andreasstrasse 15, 8050 Zürich
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Speakers
Seyed Ali Tabatabaee
A Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, where I work under the supervision of Dr. William Evans. My research interests encompass Algorithms, Game Theory, and Blockchains. My research goal is to design system models that incorporate provably efficient algorithms, incentivize self-interested agents to behave constructively, and decentralize power. I received my B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology and my M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.
Timeline
| Time | Speaker | Event Title | Presentations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:00 -17:15 | Welcome & Introduction | ||
| 17:15 -18:00 | Seyed Ali Tabatabaee | One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch: Transaction DoS in MimbleWimble Blockchains | |
| 18:00 -18:30 | Q&A |
Sponsors
UZH Blockchain Center
