Authenticated Data Structures for Privacy-Preserving Monero Light Clients

Kevin Lee, Andrew Miller

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Monero, a leading privacy-oriented cryptocurrency, supports a client/server operating mode that allows lightweight clients to avoid storing the entire blockchain, instead relying on a remote node to provide necessary information about the blockchain. However, a weakness of Monero's current blockchain data structure is that lightweight clients cannot authenticate the responses returned from a remote node. In this paper, we show that malicious responses from a remote node can lead to reduced privacy for the client. We discuss several lightweight mitigations that reduce the attack's effectiveness. To fully eliminate this class of attack, we also show how to augment Monero's blockchain data structure with an additional index that clients can use to authenticate responses from remote nodes. Our proposed solution could be implemented as a hard fork, or alternatively through a 'Refereed Delegation' approach without needing any fork. We developed a prototype implementation to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 3rd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, EURO S and PW 2018
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages20-28
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781538654453
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 6 2018
Event3rd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, EURO S and PW 2018 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Apr 24 2018Apr 26 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings - 3rd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, EURO S and PW 2018

Other

Other3rd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, EURO S and PW 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period4/24/184/26/18

Keywords

  • Authenticated Data Structures
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • Privacy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Computer Networks and Communications

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Authenticated Data Structures for Privacy-Preserving Monero Light Clients'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this