S01E05 – Privacy, Security, and the Blockchain (Arvind Narayanan)

Subscribe to Curious: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

I’m joined today by Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor at Princeton University, who is an assistant professor at Princeton and an affiliate scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.

He’s well know for his work on privacy, security, and de-anonymization, and he’s one of the foremost scholars on privacy and security in cryptocurrency and the blockchain.

In this episode, we cover…

* What led Arvind to become so fascinated with privacy and de-anonymization.
* How the public – and even experts – dramatically underestimate the ability to take “anonymous” data and link it back to identities through relatively simple processes.
* The fragility of privacy.
* The vast amount of data leaks even in cryptocurrencies.
* The limitations of smart contracts.
* Current and potential future societal impacts of blockchain technology.
* Why some technology threats are vastly over-examined and others are ignored.

Featured Guests

Arvind Narayanan

Selected Links

Arvind Narayanan
When the cookie meets the blockchain: Privacy risks of web payments via cryptocurrencies
Arvind on Twitter
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction
An Empirical Analysis of Linkability in the Monero Blockchain