Justin Drake: “All ETH staker IPs are tracked”

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Researcher at the Ethereum Foundationdiscovered that ETH stakers' IP addresses are being tracked. He suggests that this is only part of the sensitive metadata of ether owners that is being tracked.

On the Bankless Podcast, Ethereum ResearcherFoundation (EF) Justin Drake reported that, according to his data, all IP addresses of ether stakers (ETN) can be tracked and correlated with the data of the owners of the crypto asset. Drake did not disclose his source of information, citing internal EF data.

In addition, the researcher claims that the collectionIP address data is just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, this is just part of a larger collection of Ether owner metadata, which includes deposit addresses, withdrawal addresses, commission recipients, and much more.

Drake suggested that in this wayData is collected and analyzed on the most active and engaged members of the Ethereum community. Deliberate misuse of sensitive data can pose a serious threat to Ethereum, such as making the network vulnerable to Sybil attacks.

First of all, the impact of Sybil's attackmay be aimed at gaining undue influence on decisions made online. Depending on the goal, it is enough for an attacker to create or control a certain number of pseudonyms, which will allow them to gain disproportionate control over network solutions.

Another negative consequence could bea situation where someone, in addition to collecting information, will deliberately censor the network and deny access to individual users or reject transactions. Drake's message has podcast listeners excited. Commenting on his speech on Twitter, some users called the broadcast “the real coin of observation.” 

This is not the first time that the crypto communityI am concerned about the issue of personal data confidentiality. In November, ConsenSys, the team behind the Ethereum Metamask wallet, began collecting IP addresses to comply with KYC and AML requirements.