Does AccountDelete removes transaction history?

[localhost]

Hi, 

If I have XRP on exchange:

1. I send it from exchange to XRP account 1

2. I send it from XRP account 1 to XRP account 2

3. I delete XRP account 1

Can I track my XRP (on Bithomp for example) and find out it came from exchange to XRP account 2 by going trough deleted XRP account 1 (Thus revealing that XRP account 1 was mine in the past)?

 

Thanks 

[Caracappa]

16 minutes ago, localhost said:

Hi, 

If I have XRP on exchange:

1. I send it from exchange to XRP account 1

2. I send it from XRP account 1 to XRP account 2

3. I delete XRP account 1

Can I track my XRP (on Bithomp for example) and find out it came from exchange to XRP account 2 by going trough deleted XRP account 1 (Thus revealing that XRP account 1 was mine in the past)?

 

Thanks 

Yes. The history of the deleted account will still show on Bithomp. Otherwise it would be perfect to delete the tracks of scammers and frauds

So unfortunately you have to think of something else to hide your tracks.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Caracappa

[localhost]

12 minutes ago, Caracappa said:

Yes. The history of the deleted account will still show on Bithomp. Otherwise it would be perfect to delete the tracks of scammers and frauds

So unfortunately you have to think of something else to hide your tracks.

You shouldn't presume that my question points to my plan of actions  That said, thank you for your clarification!

[localhost]

That rises a new question. 

What if a scammer deleted his account which was used for many shady transactions, and then new user gets that account.

How can we be sure that the current user is not the fraudster? All the past fraudsters transactions are now users transactions?

[Caracappa]

11 minutes ago, localhost said:

That rises a new question. 

What if a scammer deleted his account which was used for many shady transactions, and then new user gets that account.

How can we be sure that the current user is not the fraudster? All the past fraudsters transactions are now users transactions?

I don't think an old adress can be used again. It's not like with bank accounts that are being used again. Adresses are randomly generated and the chance someone gets the same (if technically even possible) is zero.

The variables by using 26 letters (capital and small) and 10 numbers times 32 characters preceded by 'r' become enormous. It would be 62^32=uncountable.
But perhaps a more technical person can answer that.

 

[localhost]

2 minutes ago, Caracappa said:

I don't think an old adress can be used again. It's not like with bank accounts that are being used again. Adresses are randomly generated and the chance someone gets the same (if technically even possible) is zero.

The variables by using 26 letters (capital and small) and 10 numbers times 32 characters preceded by 'r' become enormous. It would be 62^32=uncountable.
But perhaps a more technical person can answer that.

 

AccountDelete makes that account free to claim again, that i do know. 5 XRP fee.

Edited August 25, 2020 by localhost

[jetbrzzz]

29 minutes ago, Caracappa said:

I don't think an old adress can be used again. It's not like with bank accounts that are being used again. Adresses are randomly generated and the chance someone gets the same (if technically even possible) is zero.

The variables by using 26 letters (capital and small) and 10 numbers times 32 characters preceded by 'r' become enormous. It would be 62^32=uncountable.
But perhaps a more technical person can answer that.

 

https://xrpl.org/accounts.html#deletion-of-accounts

"After an account has been deleted, it can be re-created in the ledger through the normal method of creating accounts. An account that has been deleted and re-created is no different than an account that has been created for the first time."

While technically unlikely to randomly generate the same account twice, it's physically possible according to that. I think the implication here is that the Pub and Pvt key are already known (rando gen. via wallet_propose), have been deleted with AccountDelete, then those pub/pvt keys are passed on to a new user for re-creation via refunding with 20 XRP. Idk the use case for that specific situation but there it is.

Plus the account sequence for the newly "re-created" account will pick up where the ledger is at the time of re-creation. So if there were any confusion between the old owner/new owner you could just point to the last known account sequence right before you deleted it to show when you 'released the rights' to that account.

Vice versa if the old account was used for less than lawful things, the new owner could point to the account sequence at time of re-creation with plausible deniability for any transactions preceding that sequence, theoretically.

[Duke67]

1/ Account Delete does NOT delete the account's history.

2/ The deleted account can be brought back to life simply by sending at least 20 XRP to its public address. You should keep the account's secret if you want to use it again.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Duke67

[Caracappa]

1 hour ago, Duke67 said:

1/ Account Delete does NOT delete the account's history.

2/ The deleted account can be brought back to life simply by sending at least 20 XRP to its public address. You should keep the account's secret if you want to use it again.

Ok. So the issue localhost states, in where a new person gets the old adress would not be possible. As that new person does not have the secret key. Anyone can reinstate an adress by sending 20xrp to it, but acces to it remains via de secret.

[Dogowner5]

Two different scenarios here.  
 

First is the original account holder re-using the account (she still has the key) and the second is someone creating a new key pair and ‘colliding’ with the deleted account address.

Neither is a concern because the first is just the same person ‘undeleting’ and the second is so unlikely that it won’t happen before the sun goes nova.  Or after.

[Duke67]

19 hours ago, Dogowner5 said:

Neither is a concern because the first is just the same person ‘undeleting’ and the second is so unlikely that it won’t happen before the sun goes nova.  Or after.

Exactly.

[nikb]

On 8/25/2020 at 7:56 AM, Caracappa said:

I don't think an old adress can be used again. It's not like with bank accounts that are being used again. Adresses are randomly generated and the chance someone gets the same (if technically even possible) is zero.

The variables by using 26 letters (capital and small) and 10 numbers times 32 characters preceded by 'r' become enormous. It would be 62^32=uncountable.
But perhaps a more technical person can answer that.

 

Addresses can be reused. One can create and delete the same account multiple times; all it takes is knowing the private key and having enough XRP to pay the fees. So in practical terms, only a person with access to the secret seed can "reuse" an old address and you're right that the probability of randomly "regenerating" the key of another account is basically nil. Let's do some math:

The secret seed (the string beginning with s), from the which the public/private keypair (and thus the address) is derived is 128 bits long, so the actual value is 2^128, which is much smaller than 62^32. For details on the key derivation process, check out the documentation.

Assuming a random 128-bit value (i.e. preventing brainwallet attacks) and using the birthday attack and the convenient table in that article, we know how many tries would be required: way, way, way too many. If you could try a million keys per second, it would take longer than the age of the Universe to try enough to have a 1% chance of guessing a secret seed that could derive a public/private keypair for a specific account.