比特币匿名声明经受考验

研究人员开发了新技术，通过 1600 万笔交易和 1200 万个在线来源的公钥来追踪比特币的流动。

The blockchain is a series of transactions, each one referencing the previous transaction, to form a chain. Transactions are grouped into blocks, with each block referencing the previous one and serving as a timestamp that validates the transactions it contains. Blocks are then formed into chains and made publicly available to every user within the system.

区块链是一系列交易，每笔交易都引用前一笔交易，形成一条链。交易被分组为块，每个块引用前一个块并充当验证其包含的交易的时间戳。然后，块被形成链并公开提供给系统内的每个用户。

Meiklejohn and her fellow researchers developed a new clustering heuristic, or systematic method of associating data, to comb through the massive database of blockchain transactions and link transactions. Their algorithms put Bitcoin’s anonymity claims to the test.

Meiklejohn 和她的研究人员同事开发了一种新的聚类启发式方法，即关联数据的系统方法，以梳理区块链交易和链接交易的海量数据库。他们的算法对比特币的匿名性进行了考验。

“Our work seeks to better understand the traceability of Bitcoin flows and, through this understanding, explore the evolution of how Bitcoin has been used over time,” they said.

他们表示：“我们的工作旨在更好地了解比特币流动的可追溯性，并通过这种理解，探索比特币随着时间的推移如何使用的演变。”

The team built on past efforts to cluster public keys, or Bitcoin user addresses, based on evidence of shared spending authority. Once they could positively identify one public key, they could link an entire cluster of transactions containing that same public key.

该团队以过去的努力为基础，根据共享支出权限的证据，对公钥或比特币用户地址进行集群。一旦他们能够肯定地识别一个公钥，他们就可以链接包含相同公钥的整个交易集群。

They also employed a re-identification attack. Essentially, they opened accounts and made purchases from a broad range of Bitcoin merchants and service providers. Since they were at one end of the transaction, they could positively identify the other end as the service provider.

他们还采用了重新识别攻击。本质上，他们从众多比特币商家和服务提供商处开设账户并进行购买。由于他们位于交易的一端，因此他们可以肯定地将另一端识别为服务提供商。

Employing this meticulous methodology, Meiklejohn was able to follow the money, or Bitcoins, through a seemingly impenetrable web of 16 million transactions and 12 million public keys to their online sources. Her novel tracing technique eventually led law enforcement to user addresses of criminals. With a subpoena in hand, officials could put a name to the crime. Today, variants of these algorithms are in daily use in both government enforcement and private sector compliance roles, supported by a range of crypto tracing companies including Chainalysis, Elliptic, TRM Labs, and CipherTrace (now part of Mastercard).

运用这种细致的方法，Meiklejohn 能够通过一个看似坚不可摧的网络来跟踪资金或比特币，该网络由 1600 万笔交易和 1200 万个在线来源的公钥组成。她新颖的追踪技术最终引导执法部门找到了犯罪分子的用户地址。有了传票，官员们就可以对犯罪行为进行定名。如今，这些算法的变体在政府执法和私营部门合规角色中日常使用，并得到一系列加密追踪公司的支持，包括 Chainaanalysis、Elliptic、TRM Labs 和 CipherTrace（现已成为 Mastercard 的一部分）。

Today, Meiklejohn is a professor in cryptography and security at University College London (UCL) and a staff research scientist at Google.

如今，Meiklejohn 是伦敦大学学院 (UCL) 的密码学和安全学教授，也是 Google 的研究员。

Levchenko is an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois; McCoy is a professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering; Jordan is the founder and CEO of anti-drone startup, SkySafe; and Pomarole is an investor and consultant for Brazilian tech startups.

Levchenko 是伊利诺伊大学电气与计算机工程系副教授；麦考伊是纽约大学坦登工程学院教授； Jordan 是反无人机初创公司 SkySafe 的创始人兼首席执行官； Pomarole 是巴西科技初创公司的投资者和顾问。

IMC 2024 is the 24th in a series of flagship conferences sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM, a professional forum for the discussion of topics in the field of communications and computer networks. This three-day event focuses on Internet measurement and analysis in areas such as technical design and engineering, regulation and operations, and the social implications of computer networking.

IMC 2024 是 ACM SIGCOMM 主办的一系列旗舰会议中的第 24 届会议，ACM SIGCOMM 是一个讨论通信和计算机网络领域主题的专业论坛。这个为期三天的活动重点关注技术设计和工程、监管和运营以及计算机网络的社会影响等领域的互联网测量和分析。

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