Skip to content

Commit c3d8b5d

Browse files
authored
chore: Update privacy main.md (AztecProtocol#3760)
Fixed a broken link and made a few small clarifying + grammatical changes Please provide a paragraph or two giving a summary of the change, including relevant motivation and context. # Checklist: Remove the checklist to signal you've completed it. Enable auto-merge if the PR is ready to merge. - [ ] If the pull request requires a cryptography review (e.g. cryptographic algorithm implementations) I have added the 'crypto' tag. - [ ] I have reviewed my diff in github, line by line and removed unexpected formatting changes, testing logs, or commented-out code. - [ ] Every change is related to the PR description. - [ ] I have [linked](https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/linking-a-pull-request-to-an-issue) this pull request to relevant issues (if any exist).
1 parent 4567ec4 commit c3d8b5d

File tree

1 file changed

+6
-4
lines changed

1 file changed

+6
-4
lines changed

docs/docs/dev_docs/privacy/main.md

+6-4
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -55,13 +55,15 @@ If a public function sends a message to be consumed by a private function, the a
5555

5656
Information about the nature of a transaction can be leaked based on the timing of that transaction.
5757

58-
If a transaction is executed at 8am GMT, it's much less likely to have been made by someone in the USA. That's information, right there.
58+
If a transaction is executed at 8am GMT, it's much less likely to have been made by someone in the USA.
5959

6060
If there's a spike in transactions on the last day of every month, those might be salaries.
6161

62+
These minor details are information that can disclose much more information about a user than the user might otherwise expect.
63+
6264
Suppose that every time Alice sends Bob a private token, 1 minute later a transaction is always submitted to the tx pool with the same kind of 'fingerprint'. Alice might deduce that these transactions are automated reactions by Bob. (Here, 'fingerprint' is an intentionally vague term. It could be a public function call, or a private tx proof with a particular number of nonzero public inputs, or some other discernible pattern that Alice sees).
6365

64-
Tl;dr: app developers should think about the _timing_ of user transactions, and how this might leak information.
66+
TL;DR: app developers should think about the _timing_ of user transactions, and how this might leak information.
6567

6668
### Function Fingerprints and Tx Fingerprints
6769

@@ -99,7 +101,7 @@ Ethereum has a notion of a 'full node' which keeps-up with the blockchain and st
99101

100102
This pattern is likely to develop in Aztec as well, except there's a problem: privacy. If a privacy-seeking user makes a query to a 3rd-party 'full node', that user might leak data about who they are; about their historical network activity; or about their future intentions. One solution to this problem is "always run a full node", but pragmatically, not everyone will. To protect less-advanced users' privacy, research is underway to explore how a privacy-seeking user may request and receive data from a 3rd-party node without revealing what that data is, nor who is making the request.
101103

102-
App developers should be aware of this avenue for private data leakage. **Whenever an app requests information from a node, the entity running that node is unlikely be your user!**
104+
App developers should be aware of this avenue for private data leakage. **Whenever an app requests information from a node, the entity running that node is unlikely to be your user!**
103105

104106
#### What kind of queries can be leaky?
105107

@@ -119,7 +121,7 @@ But if a user is not running their own node, they would need to query the very-l
119121

120122
We're researching cryptographic ways to enable users to retrieve sibling paths from 3rd-parties without revealing leaf indices.
121123

122-
> \* Note: due to the non-uniformity of Aztec transactions, the 'privacy set' of a transaction might not be the entire set of transactions that came before. See here (LINK).
124+
> \* Note: due to the non-uniformity of Aztec transactions, the 'privacy set' of a transaction might not be the entire set of transactions that came before.
123125
124126
##### Any query
125127

0 commit comments

Comments
 (0)