Dero Homomorphic Encryption v Cryptonote Obfuscation for Privacy in Blockchain
Updated December 2023
The Cryptonote protocol used by Monero, Zano, Haven and a lot of other projects quite often seems to get conflated with encryption when Cryptonote uses sender/receiver obfuscation as key images and stealth addresses. This is partly due to the UTXO model not lending itself to encryption as well as an account model does.
An algorithm is used for both encryption and obfuscation. The main difference between them is that even if the algorithm is known for encryption, the encrypted data cannot be understood without the key required for decryption. An encryption scheme such as ElGamal relies on the discrete logarithm problem and RSA encryption relies on the factoring of large prime numbers problem.
Encryption refers to the technique of keeping sensitive information confidential by changing the form of information. It is changed into an unreadable form called ciphertext in order to keep it secure. Obfuscation is quite similar to encryption, it refers to converting the data into some difficult form. Obfuscation is similar to encryption as it is based on the same concept of encryption; to provide security. Similar in concept/idea, not function.
On the other hand, obfuscated data can be simply understood by knowing the algorithm used for obfuscation. It does not require the key. Obfuscated entities can be reverse engineered which means that code can be decompiled and studied. It can be as simple as even reversing the orders of letters. Unlike encryption, it does not require the information of keys to know the original information. For obfuscation, the person can undo the obfuscation without the need of any keys. This is not to suggest it is easy, just possible.
- https://www.getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.html
- https://web.getmonero.org/2018/09/25/a-post-mortum-of-the-burning-bug.html
With Cryptonote (Monero) you have sender’s and receivers each in their own identified pool, senders obfuscated with ring signatures as key images, and receivers obfuscated with the dual-key stealth address system (one-time address).
Dero Homomorphic Encryption Blockchain Protocol (DHEBP) uses an ElGamal Homomorphic encryption scheme, with ElGamal encrypted ring signatures used for anonymity of senders AND receivers, all in 1 single pool so it is also harder to detect which is sender and which is receiver for extremely strong, tamper proof anonymity. It is also worth noting that Dero has the first and only fully TLS/SSL encrypted P2P network in crypto, that is, the node traffic itself is also encrypted to prevent snooping from ISP’s and such.
Dero network is encrypted anonymity and confidentiality with a fully encrypted P2P network, creating by far the most private blockchain network in crypto. All of this, whilst being able to easily run a node on a raspberry pie and mine on a mobile device with it’s bespoke ASIC/FGPA resistant mining algorithm and bespoke sigma mining method.
DHEBP is built and maintained by it’s original developers for maximum safety and security, unfortunately this cannot be said for any Cryptonote projects.
Every avenue has been researched with DERO, and the most effective, simple, secure, private, lightweight, scalable, decentralised, trustless platform possible to create has been created. DHEBP released onto mainnet February 26, 2022
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DHEBP released onto Mainnet February 26th 2022
https://medium.com/deroproject/stargate-a-private-decentralized-application-platform-d166baa7cc2
https://github.com/deroproject/derohe#readme
by: TheObjectiveAlpha
