by "unencrypted" I mean this: (1) all 16 members of the ring signature are provided in plaintext -- everyone can see them (2) the "real" sender is definitely one of them -- only 15 ring members are decoys, you can't make them "all" decoys because, as part of monero's design, you must put the real sender's pubkey in the ring signature
by "crackable" I mean this: chain analysts can use data from their own wallets and those of their partners to eliminate some of the decoys in the ring signature -- e.g. if one of the decoy pubkeys belongs to them, and they know they didn't sign the transaction, they can remove that decoy, thus narrowing down the list of possible senders. Often, they can narrow it down to just one person, thus "cracking" monero's ring signature privacy and identifying the real sender. Here is a video where they do this multiple times, starting at minute 26:55
> How about I'll pick a transom and you'll "crack" the true spend?
Sure, I'll do my best! I wrote a free and open source tool for this -- you can paste any monero tx and it will try to identify the true spend: https://github.com/supertestnet/examiner
It doesn't usually find it but sometimes it does. Give me a tx and I'll try it!
Then you do my challenge, OK? The one where you pay a lightning invoice of my choice and tell me (1) the recipient's pubkey (2) the total balance held by that pubkey -- i.e. the same info I can get by paying a monero address
For future reference, here is the invoice I'd like you to pay after I've completed your challenge:
{
"id":"171ce29778da6ef1145f09673f9f71ad6a4dce9784fec92f78d96ebc2266f40f",
"pubkey":"2183e94758481d0f124fbd93c56ccaa45e7e545ceeb8d52848f98253f497b975",
"created_at":1748730465,
"kind":1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"91f2087e00ab742ce35eef533bae6dd110e9fe77dda9398f1ab9859a292e8b45",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"4a0267babbc977b6de5206ed811585ed943e230d091456e0d6786849e968b50b",
"",
"mention"
],
[
"e",
"ad7a03a3ed7a671559c3330591bbb43ccad5e7e59b9d95958d1ac52ed397c535",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"2183e94758481d0f124fbd93c56ccaa45e7e545ceeb8d52848f98253f497b975",
"",
"mention"
],
[
"p",
"f985d309197c805e1719c73185b574fc3ee407d7c1b6157dee99c6ace2599bbb"
],
[
"q",
"4a0267babbc977b6de5206ed811585ed943e230d091456e0d6786849e968b50b"
],
[
"r",
"https://github.com/supertestnet/examiner"
]
],
"content":"\u003e in what way is it \"crackable\"?\n\nI answer in this post:\n\nnostr:nevent1qqsy5qn8h2aujaakmefqdmvpzkz7m9p7yvxsj9zkurt8s6zfa95t2zcpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0qgszrqlfgavys8g0zf8mmy79dn92ghn723wwawx49py0nqjn7jtmjagrqsqqqqqpdwyjzk\n\n\u003e How about I'll pick a transom and you'll \"crack\" the true spend?\n\nSure, I'll do my best! I wrote a free and open source tool for this -- you can paste any monero tx and it will try to identify the true spend: https://github.com/supertestnet/examiner\n\nIt doesn't usually find it but sometimes it does. Give me a tx and I'll try it!\n\nThen you do my challenge, OK? The one where you pay a lightning invoice of my choice and tell me (1) the recipient's pubkey (2) the total balance held by that pubkey -- i.e. the same info I can get by paying a monero address\n\nFor future reference, here is the invoice I'd like you to pay after I've completed your challenge:\n\nlightning:lnbc10079970p1p5rhqjdpp5wmje0gndr5cmnxwzala7jmuc3jylc33ef4kyhurgx5fdjks3rkwshp5he4v6k88ag5vmms9j7z43lc4u8apl0qd8ftdx2zqzdmtx596x60scqzdyxqrrxssp55gdlkuh6zp2mxx8sqwcz4372y7vhc757pn6rzf0y779e2k8c2yfs9qxpqysgqzl2v27xj5jzm8x45wt6kzkcnxnakmac5xy0c40y79jw6v2s43vqqcv9jralfaz7dl6nxkp0r8qxm7rwppydrfm2spmtu3f24thk5nycq9a9upl",
"sig":"99c0e347e8fff973996597d2b063a84c5901451ceddfd692b92a7da40e2daac591fbc1a7d9b1e47e99585d114dbfd7fc6463e6bee9df78551889ffe72589193d"
}
