VI. CONCLUSION AND FORECAST



The proposed solution closes the continuously rising security gap most people are exposed to while

working with cryptocurrencies and computers at all. This is achieved by the usage of carefully selected

software, a dedicated step-by-step guide build on top of a security-privacy-centric approach and the

compilation of lots of additional background information for further studying.



The main benefits are the use of free and open-source software. There is no need to work with and

thereby trust closed-source software with also a price tag attached just like Microsoft Windows or Mac

OS X, etc. Because the solution is based entirely on Debian GNU/Linux, a free Linux distribution and

other free and open-source software which are all actively developed and reviewed by the research

community distributed all over the planet.



In addition to the privacy features already implemented in the DASH cryptocurrency, the user will be

anonymous online which is an important fact (if additional important security rules such as not

providing personal information, etc. are satisfied continuously) in terms of anonymizing network traffic

over Tor protecting against traffic analysis. This is guaranteed as long as the user works with Whonix

and Tails which are pre-configured to connect to the Internet over Tor exclusively. Therefore data leaks

such as “user is connecting to the DASH network at date X, time Y and building connections with

DASH nodes K, L, M, ...” caused by very different reasons leading to fundamental violation of privacy

are reduced drastically. From now on the DASH software can be utilized anonymously because the user

even hides the fact that he/she is using the DASH software behind Whonix which routes all network

traffic over Tor. In NOT doing so it is obvious to an adversary to figure out very easily what websites

the user visits on a regular basis, which programs on the target's machine interact with the Internet and

more generally speaking in what the user is interested in at all over long time periods. Gathering all this

information together can be used to de-anonymize and to target a specific user very easily.



The new MN will help to further stabilize, increase the security, increase the decentralization and

expand the two-tier DASH MN network.