Researchers Develop Method to Trace Ethereum Validators’ IP Addresses

Ethereum researchers have developed a method to deanonymise network validators, potentially revealing the IP addresses of over 15% of node operators. 

To gather information, the researchers analyse messages exchanged by validators, as detailed in their paper, “Privacy Problems in the P2P Network, and What They Tell Us.” Deanonymisation can be performed by nodes acting as “silent observers,” or third parties. 

“Our deanonymisation technology is simple, cost-effective, and capable of identifying more than 15% of Ethereum validators with data in just three days,” the paper states. 

The method was developed by observing Ethereum’s attestation mechanism, which divides validators into 64 committees, assigns certain node operators as attestation aggregators, and organises them into subnets. 

Each node subscribes to two subnets and maintains communication with at least one participant. This allows researchers to track aggregator messages and deanonymise nodes. 

“By deploying our registration client on four nodes over three days, we were able to deanonymise more than 15% of Ethereum validators in the P2P network. […] If more nodes are deployed and the analysis is conducted for a longer period, we anticipate the figure will increase,” the paper notes. 

In September, a leaked video from Chainalysis revealed a method for tracking Monero (XMR).