There is myriad of potential improvements being discussed and worked on in back channels that I doubt any of those entities is going to discuss here until it has been announced by the various entities that are working on solutions. So all you are likely to get here are comments from n00bs that don't really know what is going on. Or general statements from experts who don't want to spill all the beans yet. For example, the failure to point out that the following suggestion will not be effective against the national security agencies (which are likely now functionaries for future tax clawbacks): But now a privacy-noob sees (or at least I hope they do) that this is a flawed technique and can move toward a better understanding of privacy. Some of this stuff has been hard-coded into their psyches by endless repetition from weekend privacy warriors or Bitcoin supremacist who either don't know the error of their methods or are too invested to correct them in a meaningful way. |
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This is a general discussion on how to best achieve Privacy and Security with cryptocurrencies. At the moment I'm not imposing moderation, but if spam, trolling, or FUD gets to a point where meaningful discussion is impossible, the thread will be moderated or terminated. Privacy (personal security) is much like nutrition in that you not only need to read the label, but understand what you are looking for. And as with nutrition, you must not only be vigilant but learn new behaviors to stay as healthy as possible. If you are running Windows, this is a good way to find out how infected your computer is: malwaretips.com/blogs/malware-removal-guide-for-windows/Most complete article I've found on the ins and outs TOR*: lifehacker.com/how-can-i-stay-anonymous-with-tor-1498876762Very general comparison of TOR, Freenet, and I2P: null-byte.wonderhowto.com/inspiration/anonymity-networks-dont-use-one-use-all-them-0133881/Guide to setting up I2P: https://rebuildingalexandria.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/secure-and-anonymous-file-sharing-using-torrents-on-the-i2p-network-library-nu-exiles-take-a-look/*I'd like something more current, but this should indicate how hard good security can be and that TOR, like any tool, should be wielded with skill and preferably with the most recent version. If you have an updated link for securing your TOR connection, please post and I will include it in the OP. |
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The substance of his concerns is legitimate and it has been passed on to the mathematicians of MRL who are analyzing it. My intuition is that the probability of the saturation traceability occurring in practice is extremely low and it therefore doesn't matter, but that isn't a reason to dismiss the issue outright, it still needs to be analyzed and if necessary addressed.
Here is the link to my last comments to fluffypony. Note smooth is only referring the saturation that I had mentioned to him back during the BCX incident. In my recent post, I am also pointing out that the timing of the transactions mixed can lead to degenerate cases of mixes. I suspect he maybe didn't realize I added that point since we last spoke and thus he may be underestimating the likelihood of occurrence. You'll need to ask smooth. I also replied in the Monero thread. I'm sure Smooth isn't underestimating or ignoring your concern and is waiting for more feedback from the other developers. |
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I do hope Monero can make those improvements (if they agree) asap and not lose any time while they are the only available on chain anonymous choice. Competition will heat up soon with Blockstream's Confidential Transactions and Monero should make sure they don't have any fundamental (even theoretical) weaknesses in their anonymity before CT is released probably towards end of this year (or slightly sooner or later).
I did private message (on this forum) him, tacotime, and smooth with a link to my second reply.
The substance of his concerns is legitimate and it has been passed on to the mathematicians of MRL who are analyzing it. My intuition is that the probability of the saturation traceability occurring in practice is extremely low and it therefore doesn't matter, but that isn't a reason to dismiss the issue outright, it still needs to be analyzed and if necessary addressed.
I'll keep a tab on this and post if there is an update on any of the Monero threads. |
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X-post TPTB_need_war thought this was being ignored, though I don't think Fluffy had a chance to read it and it got buried in the thread.
He wants to launch his own coin from scratch, that should tell you. The substance of his concerns is legitimate and it has been passed on to the mathematicians of MRL who are analyzing it. My intuition is that the probability of the saturation traceability occurring in practice is extremely low and it therefore doesn't matter, but that isn't a reason to dismiss the issue outright, it still needs to be analyzed and if necessary addressed. Thanks Smooth. I will pass this along. |
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X-post TPTB_need_war thought this was being ignored, though I don't think Fluffy had a chance to read it and it got buried in the thread. If the actual input to a transaction (in Monero terminology this is the output of the prior transaction) is not also an input to another transaction's ring signature (and when all the other inputs to the ring are spent) or if it is also the input to a subsequent ring in which all the other inputs were outputs created after the said transaction was created, then the anonymity of the said transaction is entirely unmasked.
This is really what MRL-0004 deals with (the section on Temporal Association attacks). A lot of this changes with the recommendations MRL4 made, which will come in a hard fork later this year (once we've established a forking strategy, per this forum post). I don't check this thread, so if you reply and don't hear back from me in a couple of days just send me a PM nudging me:) The MRL4 imperfect heuristic mitigations notwithstanding, the only absolute solution is to require that sets of outputs be mixed with and only with each other (and the number of inputs per ring must be constant). This also enables pruning the Cryptonote block chain. There I have just given away one of my prior design "secrets" (that I no longer need to keep secret because I stumbled onto a consensus network design which no longer needs pruning and is transaction technology agnostic). Perhaps others already suggested this? P.S. for those who have already spent their coins to a third party, your hard fork will come too late. Hope you can make necessary improvements sooner. The following should have been implied, but let me make it more explicit, which may also resolve the issue with exchanges and getting this fix into Monero asap (although I have not studied that issue, only heard about it second hand). The only sane way my above suggestion can be implemented is that outputs eligible for fixed size mixins must be marked as such by the transaction that created them, otherwise if the fixed size (and outputs) mixins were global then there is no way to merge the leftover change from several transactions into one transaction. I believe BoolBerry had a conceptually similar mechanism to mark outputs with some specific attribute for mixing. So the marked outputs must be mixed with and only with the "next N outputs of same denomination on the block chain" when they are spent. Thus when you want to mix your outputs with assurance against unmasking due to Combinatorial Cascade and Temporal Association, then you mark the output for fixed size mixing. In my opinion, this is an emergency fix because afaics the anonymity is broken as it is now, but I can't say that I've done any deep analysis on how likely the unmasking is on existing patterns in the Monero block chain. Hope this helps, displays my gratitude to those who rewarded me for my effort during the BCX incident, and most importantly hope Monero can implement it asap because I would like to make my best attempt to create a use case gift to XMR HODLers soon and this fix may be required. Perhaps someone else had already suggested this idea, I don't know. The pruning comes from the fact that if the mixes are fixed size then after N transactions of the same ring have been seen, those outputs (that are inputs to those N rings) can be pruned from the UXTO. |
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Right now I wouldn't say Monero isn't anonymous.
See my post to fluffypony several days ago. I explained precisely why it is not. I suggested to them what they need to do to fix it. There was no reply. In addition to that issue, I also don't think the I2P integration is reliably anonymous (but I can't prove that and neither can they prove my concern is not valid). So that is two vectors of potential unreliability. I would not trust my anonymity entirely to Monero. If you are always on an unregistered internet connection when you transact Monero (and never do any other activity on that connection!) and if you mix your coins "zillions" (10? 100? 1000?) of times with Monero rings as they are currently structured, then you could probably be reasonably sure you are anonymous. If they implement my suggested fix, then you won't need to mix zillions of times to gain confidence because the combinatorial anonymity set will be well defined and not subject to domino collapse by combinatorial correlation analysis. I'll have to go back and read it, but as of yesterday, Fluffy did answer your first post, but not the second post. To his credit he did say to nudge him with a PM if you had further concerns. I doubt he even read the second post. I'll post it on the main Monero thread and see if that gets a response. When I get a response, I will post it on this thread as I can only keep track of so many threads in a day and don't want to add another one to follow. Thats why I said we can't make Bitcoin mainstream until anonymity features are implemented. Imagine a world with a public ledger where there is nowhere to have any privacy. Right now I wouldn't say Monero isn't anonymous.. i think it's the most anonymous way we have now to do transactions online, but Monero is a small niche, to access it you need Bitcoin first, which defeats the point, so we need to work on Bitcoin's anonymity to not have to depend on some alt.
gmaxwell knows this is a serious issue and that's why he's pushing into that direction. The methods we have now to achieve some sort of privacy with bitcoin are pretty archaic (generating addresses each time, coin mixing... that's not proper anonimity).
After watching the fight over blocksize, you think Bitcoin is going full-anonymous? Things that will happen before that debate even starts: --Evan Duffield will donate all his instamined dash to the Red Cross. --Hillary Clinton will dominate the primary debates with 3 words, "I am Satoshi." --Edward Snowden will throw out the first pitch in the World Series. --Dick Cheney will admit he was wrong about everything. --Monero will release an official GUI. |
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Awesome!!! Wow, that was quick :-D Oh! And look... all the usual suspects...
I wish they included technical analysis. There are few top coins that would lose ground on lack of technical merit. |
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Chinese will contribute zero to Monero.
Care to explain? |
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I wouldn't have half the money I have now if I didn't "baghold"
If you are a trader, the last thing you want is to be is holding a large amount of coin you only value as a means to acquire BTC or $. If you are an investor and have researched a coin, and better yet, use it, then bag-holding is what you want to be doing. Though the term bag-holder is meant to refer to someone who got it wrong and is sitting on a useless asset, it is commonly misused on this forum as anyone who is sitting on a large stash of a particular coin. No one knows for certain what coins will succeed or fail, so bag-holder is premature in this sense. It's just a different mind-set. Both are a lot of work and require a skill-set (to be successful), but some people are wired better for one approach over the other. The major difference is that the bag-holder gets to acquire spending power by sitting on what the trader wants and the trader gets to acquire what is most valued without taking the initial risks of getting the future market wrong. There are a few people like Risto ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=68520) who are good at both. |
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@generalisethis - you asked why TPTB are not fighting bitcoin tooth and nail?
...
I will argue that bitcoin, while it may be suited as a reserve currency, will
do nothing to halt the advance of a kakistocracy. Bitcoin has many similarities to
gold and to other precious metals. These have all failed in the past, for the
reasons given above. The blockchain is the new technology, can we use it to
our advantage?
Since my first post on bitcointalk.org, I have argued for a better cryptocurrency.
This is my constant position, and like you, I am interested in self preservation.
Bitcoin may be the best lifeboat available, but is it good enough?
They are not fighting it because it (and arguably Monero too) are not anonymous. Thus all the incriminating evidence is being piled on to the block chain which they can use to expropriate you in the future. No it isn't good enough, but if you read my posts over the past 2 weeks ( start with this one and read backwards in the thread), you will know roughly what I am working on that is good enough. I've been following those posts as my interest is in cold-hard digital cash. Have you actually nudged Fluffy on your questions on Monero's anonymity? The work they are doing is fantastic (and from all observations, sincere), and I'd hate to see them thrown under the bus without even knowing the full measure of your criticisms. |
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Your choices are your choices. Either choose or do not.
"Is it because problems are infinite or the correct solution has yet to be found?"
This relates to Crony Capitalism, and the Law. Most professions avoid paradox but within
Law it is everywhere. I will give an example, but caution against arguing from the
particular to the general.
Two bitcoiners enter into a contract. They agree that 2+2 does not equal 4 but one argues
for 3 and the other 5. They seek arbitration, and the decision is that the contract is null
and void. There is no correct solution and each proposition is equally valid or invalid. (If you
prefer you can argue whether 0 is positive or negative). The essential point in Law is that
both positions can be true but only one can prevail. That is paradox.
The point I want to make here is that bitcoiners should establish a principle in Law that the
Arbitrator should act for the Cryptocurrency community in general, and in this case for the
Bitcoin community in particular. There will be issues that cross national boundaries hence the
Bitcoin Community needs their Contract Law to favour their Community. They need their own
form of Crony Capitalism, and their own version of the TPP, TTIP.
There are other relevant matters, but it is better to proceed step by step.
That's fine and I don't agree or disagree with it as outlined here--as long as we are calling it what it is and not packaging it as "Mankind's Salvation." As for my choice, I believe Bitcoin, Monero, et al, are economic tools which can be wielded with political aims (if that's your thing), but now is more the time to position yourself behind which tool will be more useful (more disruptive) rather than try to impose your will on a nascent market that could swing wildly without the slightest (obvious) provocation. Am I the only one who thinks it is weird that the TPTB aren't fighting BTC tooth and nail in the street? "All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him." Sun Tzu Now, that said, the war council is greedy and doesn't understand all the implications of this pet dragon. They think they have put a rein on its neck and forced it to bow before their superior leadership, that they have found a new demigod to force secrets from the subservient while filling their coffers with untold wealth--but they have yet to see its darker kin who wait behind the palace walls. or"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." John Lennon My main point, is that no one will give a shit a thousand years from now, and this great battle will most likely be another chapter of status (human) qou in a history that may or may not be transferred to an algorithm by our less human, more AI offspring. As Nick Land said, "Nothing human makes it out of the near-future...." I'm more interested in watching the great evolutionary transference than any short-lived victory over the overlords while becoming just another overlord who will be taken out by another regime intent on taking out the freshly appointed overlord. In the meantime, I'm going to use the best tech available to satisfy my primal urge to procure the best available housing and food stuffs and to procreate with the best mate(s) available  --the rest is not seeing the huge forest of primate-evolutionary-adaption-with-little-to-no-political-change from the always well fertilized tree of political revolution. |
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Define the choices. Every age has had men and women who have claimed a solution to mankind's problems and every age has failed. Is it because problems are infinite or the correct solution has yet to be found? Add Ockham's razor. "Keep on trying." Stevie Wonder |
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I just voted for Monero to be listed on Cryptsy. You are currently in 2nd position with 27,170 votes.  is it gonna be big deal though, I mean the option to trade on more exchanges is fine, but with Cryptsy rep? A $ to XMR option would be nice. Tired of telling my friends they have to buy BTC to buy XMR. |
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No more than Microsoft was to Netscape was to Mosaic.
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In reference to c & d by moneero. It's not a loaded question. It was a genuine request for clarity. However, I've since spoken to the devs privately and they have confirmed that they are on top of the situation. It's potentially very serious, and right now it is best that the details are kept private. That said, if you have any particular concerns I'd suggest contacting the devs directly.
Is it True? |
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Polo trollbox MOD said it's FUD.
IRC says otherwise. No-one is trying to short, at least not as far as I know. As investors however we have a right to know what is going on, especially if XMR is soon to be toast. "Keeping things under wraps" is not acceptable. Citations needed--asking for proof is not keeping things under wraps, it is not jumping to the wrong conclusion in what so far has been a newb post (that i had to find) on reddit that has zero citations. By the way, if you look at the copyright for Moneero it is for 2015 and not 2014 when Monero was branded. I'm guessing Moneero added an e to keep from being sued by Monero, not vice versa. Until some proof is provided, I'm going to err on the side of motivated party spreading FUD. |
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