Communications of the ACM
Bitcoin Lets Users Avoid Censorship
A student has developed software that encrypts messages for the Bitcoin network.
Credit: Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven University of Technology student Krzysztof Okupski has developed software that encrypts messages for the Bitcoin network. The system consists of two programs, one that posts messages and creates 1 million Bitcoin accounts, free of charge, enabling money to be transferred between those accounts.
Okupski says users have many options due to the number of different accounts and because they can divide money into multiple parts.
The second program reads messages and converts the chain of transactions back into text. All that is required is an identifier through which the program knows where it has to begin reading the transactions.
With Okupski's system, it would cost about 50 cents to send an A4 page of text. He says the system also enables users to avoid censorship because a regime would not be able to restrict messages that are posted in the transaction chain anywhere else in the world.
"Even if only your account number is known by the Bitcoin network, it's still possible in theory--using the [Internet protocol] address--to trace the owner of an account," says Boris Skoric, Okupski's supervisor and a researcher at Eindhoven. "But the readers of messages are always totally anonymous."
From Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands)
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