Blinded paths are a real improvement. They're not a magic shield. Don't let anyone tell you they make your node untraceable. Here are the actual attacks to keep in mind:
- Fee/CLTV correlation. An adversary watches channel policy updates across the network and tries to match them to parameters in your blinded paths. If you use your exact real channel fees in the blinded path, every fee update you make re-identifies you. Fix it: add a margin buffer above your real fees. The route blinding attack analysis covers this in detail.
- Graph analysis on small nodes. If you have 2 channels, there are exactly 2 candidates for your introduction node. An adversary can try both. Blinded paths help, but a poorly connected node is still a poorly connected node. More channels with diverse peers means better privacy.
- Payment probing. Someone can attempt to route payments toward the introduction node, fail deliberately at each step, and use the failure messages to narrow down where you actually sit. Dummy hops are the mitigation — they make it impossible to know how far along the blinded path the real recipient is.
- Introduction node visibility. The intro node KNOWS it's the intro node. It sees a payment arriving for a blinded route. It doesn't know WHO the recipient is, but it knows something blinded is downstream. Pick your peers with at least some trust. Don't use a peer you'd never trust with your routing business as your introduction node.
The question is: WHO is going to attack me? And for what?
Yes, blinded paths are a good improvement, but I will challenge you to trace my LN payments if you can.
And you forgot to say about MPP.
IMHO is more important to run a LN node than just a simple BTC Core or Knots (or whatever other one) node.
True, MPP is another topic itself. I was focusing on blinded paths after your poll #1461422
Running a LN node was requiring a Core or Knot node until not long ago. This is changing and now Neutrino is opening up new doors. I mean look at Shockwallet/LNpub for example
Anyhow, even when running a private node, blinded path should be always considered when generating invoices. Still not comprehend why not many end user wallet have not implemented yet.
More about blinded path here #1461622
Is useless if your LSP/peers and the whole path is not supporting/activating it in their node config. It simply doesn't work.
Worth giving it a try not? you never know you may have well selected your peers ~lol if it fail one can always go naked
The 1st peer maybe have activated blinded path, but can you know if the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th also have it? No.
So you risk making a LN invoice that can never be paid.
Until all LN nodes will not have by default blinded path active, this is going nowhere.