101: Anonymity | ForkLog

ForkLog 31 24.04.2024

What is proof-of-personhood (PoP)?

How proof-of-personhood is used in Web3 to defend against Sybil attacks and AI abuse.

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ForkLog 23 31.10.2022

What are rollups, and how do they scale Ethereum?

How rollups work and how they scale Ethereum; why they use zero-knowledge proofs; and which L2 projects deploy them. Answers in cards.

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ForkLog 31 10.10.2022

Brave browser and the BAT cryptocurrency: a detailed review

How does Brave tackle intrusive web advertising? Why is it suited to decentralised applications? What can the Basic Attention Token (BAT) do? We answer these and other questions about the project in this Cryptorium review.

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ForkLog 78 19.09.2022

What is the Tornado Cash mixer, and why was it sanctioned?

Why do experts think the US overreached in blacklisting Tornado Cash? What are the charges against its co-founder Alexey Pertsev? Is there any chance users will recover more than $430m in frozen crypto? Answers, in brief.

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ForkLog 41 31.03.2022

What is a VPN?

A guide to VPNs: how they work, the benefits and the drawbacks.

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ForkLog 13 03.08.2021

What is self-sovereign identity (SSI)?

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a set of personal attributes that an individual can control, share with any private or public entity, and revoke access to at any time at their discretion.

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ForkLog 17 23.02.2021

What are Confidential Transactions (CT)?

What are Confidential Transactions? Note: This article is outdated and awaiting an update. Confidential Transactions (CT) is a cryptographic protocol that hides the recipient’s address and the actual amounts on transaction inputs and outputs from third parties, while still allowing anyone to verify that total outputs do not exceed total inputs—enough to validate a transaction.

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ForkLog 10 30.05.2020

What is Taproot?

Taproot—Bitcoin’s BIP-340/341 upgrade—combines Schnorr signatures with a Merkle-based script tree to make complex contracts resemble simple single-key spends, improving privacy and efficiency while freeing block space. It builds on MAST concepts without burdening ordinary transactions.

Human written

ForkLog 27 29.05.2020

What is ECDSA in Bitcoin?

1 What is ECDSA? ECDSA (short for Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) is a scheme based on elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC). The ECDSA algorithm uses an elliptic curve and a finite field to create signatures that anyone can verify while only the signer can produce them. In Bitcoin, the signed data are transactions that transfer ownership.

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ForkLog 39 06.05.2020

What is CoinJoin? What is ZeroLink? What is STONEWALL?

1 What is CoinJoin? CoinJoin is a technique for anonymising bitcoin transactions. 2 Who created CoinJoin, and when? The CoinJoin protocol was introduced in 2013 by Gregory Maxwell, a Bitcoin Core and Blockstream developer. 3 What problem does CoinJoin solve? Contrary to a common refrain, bitcoin does not offer full anonymity. Analysis of the public blockchain can link transactions to an individual. […]

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ForkLog 38 02.05.2020

What is a multisignature? What is a ring signature?

1 What is a multisignature? A multisignature (multisignature or multisig) is a technique for authorising transactions with multiple private keys to improve security and privacy. It is a type of threshold signature implemented through conditions in a cryptocurrency’s scripting language. 2 How and when did multisignatures emerge? Although widely used in cryptocurrencies, the underlying principles long predate bitcoin.

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ForkLog 25 09.04.2020

What is the darknet? What is Tor?

1 What is the darknet? Attention! The article is outdated and awaiting an update. The darknet is a hidden network on the internet in which connections are established only between trusted peers using non‑standard ports and custom protocols. The term “darknet” is often used interchangeably with “dark web”, the part of the web accessible via overlay networks—that is, darknets.

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#101: Anonymity