Lot of people report that they have passed validation on my_idena mobile app. No one reported any insecurities.
The question is, do you have node on VPS? If no, my_idena app will not help you.

Alternatives are, install AnyDesk free remote pc software which you can use on your mobile or other pc, to connect to your laptop during validation. Its little tricky you have pinch and zoom, but if you can use other pc to connect to your laptop, experience is great. Test it to see if it fits your needs.

Other option is to export your private key and use it to do validation using web app. For that you need to connect to someone's shared node. Idena developers host shared node but you must contact them over Telegram to get api key to connect to their shared node. Alternative to that is, I will host shared node also and you can contact me over telegram to get api key for connecting to my shared node. https://t.me/realRioda

It was closed alpha few validations ago, like oracles now.
It was introduced as open beta here
https://t.me/IdenaAnnouncements/631

Yes, you can run single shared node for your family and friends, i recommend 2core 4gb as we are still in beta testing, i heard that on that 35 were validated without problem, i will try to test up to 50 next validation

There is guide by Mahmoud on idena forum for full shared node with domain public setup here:
https://discuss.idena.website/d/36-running-your-own-shared-node-step-by-step-tutorial

Here is my own variant you can use to setup local lan shared node(local ubuntu pc or VM) or on vps, but only for close family and friends, because they will make tunnel to connect and will have full access to vps
Its a self installing script + instructions

Web validation and Shared node in LAN setup: (in firefox, hit enter again in url when you have opened link to get you to the guide, must fix it)
https://idena.site/faq_tutorials.php#answer49

Closed alpha testing has started today 

That is true, for sharding to be implemented we do not need 8-9k nodes, if you are looking at this as litteral as possible.
Developers said that their calculations are that in current state, network can validate 8-9k identities, and that they want network to reach that number or as close as possible to reach maximum validation robustness without sharding. And then to take that model and make shardes of it for maximum network capacity with sharding enabled.

Current limiting factor for number of identites that can be validated, not the number of nodes, that is not the point (especialy now when we have shared node and web validation capability), is the number of transactions that can be packed in blocks during short session. And from there we have that 8-9k limit. But as this is theory, we will see how the new tecnology decentralised blockchain pop network performs in practise. We are the first testing this technology.

I will soon give link to a web validation workflow for people with bad pc/internet, or for people who don't have pc at all, so they can do validation on my shared node. I am hostin shared node on vps with 2 cores 4gb ram, it should be enough for 50 people.
We have given huge potential in bringing in more users, it's partialy up to us to use that. For hardware resources that could run only 2 nodes safely, we now have increase of x25, that is huge in my opinion. It's kind of sharding before sharding.

Sharding is not needed untill we reach 8-9k identities. We have long way to reach that number. There is no network congestion. If there was network congestion I and other people who are more tech savy and know how to setup idena good, would randomly fail validation due to congestion. But that is not the case. Regular people just fail at running node as good as they should. Shared node as a service will be salvation for them. I have allready started making list of people who failed validation and talked to me. I have offered to them to try Web validation over shared node that I will have up and running for next validation.

I have written post about good setup for validation long time ago and i send it to every new member that i chat with:

It is recommended to go to through pre-validation check of your technical setup of Idena App and node. It will be a lot of information, try to do things that seem easy enough for you to do. Please consider these few advices:

1. Time synchronisation
Time synchronisation is of great importance for successful validation. Experience tells me that Windows users are affected mostly with time synchronisation issue. Thing is, windows has built-in time synchronisation which synchronises time once in 7 days. So it is very likely that you will be out of sync to some extent on validation day. To check how much in sync your PC is right now, visit time.is website.
Problem:
What can out-of-sync cause during validation? It can fool Idena app to show you wrong time during short session. You can have 16 seconds displayed as remaining time, but in fact if your PC time is out of sync for let's say 19 seconds, you have already missed the time to submit your answers, so you can fail validation short session with result "Late Submission".
Solution:
Install free program that can sync your time more often. You can download it by visiting website NetTime, or download it directly from this http://www.timesynctool.com/NetTimeSetup-314.exe. Allow it to be installed as a service so it runs automatically in the background.


2. Internet connection
Idena at home:
If you run node in a home environment, there is whole lot of things to consider that can cause problems:
- Router quality: Did your internet start disconnecting from time to time while using idena? Many home routers are made in low quality and can't handle this kind of traffic and connections that Idena is making. Regular cisco will work like a charm. If you replace your current router that is disconnecting with some regular cisco or mikrotik, you will not have problems. You can restart your router one day before validation so it clears its cache if it has any, so it can serve you as good as it can on validation day.
- Wi-Fi: Are you running Idena on laptop over Wi-Fi? How good is your Wi-Fi? Since wifi is something unpredictable, if you know from experience that your wifi is sometimes unstable, it is recommended to hook up a lan cable during validation session so you avoid potential problems.
- Other people in house and programs: Are you running other programs like torrent or are you on a shared internet? Turn off all other things that are using internet during validation time, and ask your roommates/family members not to use internet during validation time (It's just 15min once in a 2 weeks).
- Internet speed: I don't have exact data but 2mbps of upload speed would be questionable recommended minimum for validation of one Idena on that internet using --profile=lowpower option. See how to setup that option on this video (read video description).


3. Hardware resources and performance
Hardware requirements is complicated subject as there are many possible setups and pc hardware on which you can run full Idena App or just node. As I don't have much experience with all devices (like RaspberryPi or Mac's) and operating systems like all possible Linux distributions, I will try to give general suggestions.
CPU power: validation is more cpu intensive than in-between validation node mining. So if your mining is working ok, that does not mean that your validation will go ok if you limit your CPU for Idena in some way. If you use Idena on laptop on windows and connect to it remotely, don't close lid of your laptop as it will disable graphics card and your CPU will maybe have problem to deal with all that needs to be done and possibly go out of sync during validation. Also some PC's/Operating systems disable graphics card if you don't have monitor attached, that can also cause issues in getting all computational load on CPU.
RAM memory: I have noticed that node starts by using 200MB of RAM. Over time, if you don't restart it, it consumes more and more memory. I have seen it go up to 800MB after 7-10 days of non stop activity. This is very problematic for VPS that have 1GB of RAM. If you have swap file(virtual memory on hard disk), it will help but not for long. After some time I guess CPU has to deal with node and ram and swap and node starts to go offline from time to time. It is very recommended to restart your node one day before validation. Not right before validation as then load on network is high and if you are not lucky, you might not connect to peers fast enough. After you restart node, it will go to using 200MB of ram and it will be in best condition for validation.
Please don't use VPS's with Windows and 2GB of ram, you will maybe pass one validation, but will fail next for sure. For VPS with Windows, 4GB is minimum for normal funcioning for you to be safe and not fail validation.

Great article

https://thedailychain.com/idena-and-the-oracle-problem/

I'm not sure, I was just reposting. Next time I will be more carefull what I repost and to check things out myself.
Note to self, never trust anyone else.

Well... community dev Mahmoud solved 700 nodes theory



It's ViteX exchange address
https://x.vite.net/trade?symbol=IDNA-000_BTC-000

It's not mandatory, it's for closed alpha testing of a web app for validation.

That is still in development, the fork got us node and protocol that supports this. Now I think we need to wait for new version of Idena client that supports it.

We have channel on discord for my_idena. There I have seen that some people have done last validation and one before succesfully, only thing that was buggy is:
"Neotame: Ok, i finished, same problem with loading flips on start but quick reloding of the app fixed the problem
RedDwarf: Yes me too... after reloading it’s ok..."

This member had some issue:
"Bugaga: I haven't succeed. I got empty flips, and a force quit didn't help.
Can't post pictures here
I have Redmi 7 Note"

If I was you, I would rather consider installing AnyDesk on both smartphone and PC where you have idena and do validation that way.
Also, we are eagarly waiting for a web client from idena developers, it's in active development. Not sure, but maybe we get some working version before next validation.

Follow idena Announcment channel on telegram to stay in loop.

The Idena consists of 2 components, Idena App (client) and node. Node's folder grow over time and if you have trouble with free space on C: you can run node externaly and run it with parameter --datadir="D:\something\node\datadir"

For full list of arguments, see here
https://github.com/idena-network/idena-go

To see how to run node externaly, see here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2qi8MbR3I&t=267s

How to move my identity address to another machine?

In order to run the node with your existing address on another machine, make a copy of your node's private key. You can find the private key file in the directory where the node is located:
./datadir/keystore/nodekey
Copy the nodekey file to the new location and restart the node there.

DDOS attack is not inexpensive. It would most possibly cost attacker more than he would gain.
On the other hand ddos protection is about 1$ per month at vps provider, in case someone experience this kind of attack.

Yes that is correct, also you can go to practise flip solving here:
https://flips.idena.io/?pass=idena.io
You can enter whatever in the first field, it does not matter.

Take a look at these youtube videos to see real validation recorded by our members:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNZfc15h43o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYEc3Ku3AC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ0kSXBi_FQ

Developeres mentioned that they think that the network without sharding will be able to pull 8-10k nodes.

As far as I can see, the production of blocks was going fairly well.
On the link below you can see the last blocks of the epoch 51. It shows the validation was progressing and how the network worked.
https://scan.idena.io/epoch/51#blocks

Only hickup that I saw was this:


At that point in long session, network formed committee of nodes that were problematic, probbably low hardware resources, hogged ram or low powered cpu that were not able to produce 3 blocks.
Before that we see around 150 transactions per block. After that network got to a node with good hardware, and it produced block with 588 transactions.

VPS's with 1GB of ram are barely making it through. If you restart your node on VPS, you will clear it's hogged memory and it will perform perfect. But if you let it run for 10 days or so without restart, it will hog up ram memory, continue to use swap(virtual memory) and will start performing slowly and even posibbly go out of sync.
https://github.com/idena-network/idena-go/issues/514
Some optimisations if possible regarding this are needed if we want to stay in the 1GB ram requirements.

Judging by the block sizes during validation, we had that block with 588tx that was near 230KB. Block max is 300KB currently.
Untill we start seeing more of these bigger blocks we are not nearing network maximum.

We saw a growth of +300 in number and it came with good news and price increase, which is great. I'm sure we would have more validated identities if new people could understand that they can't sync their node few hours before validation, from VPS, they probably can, but from home enviroment, higly unlikely.

Other problem that is happening in high number is so called "Late subbmision" where you do the validation and submit on time, but something is not right and your answers are not submitted on time for short session. I have never experienced this during my validations. So it's not random bug, I think that it happens in two cases:
1. You run node+client in home enviroment and have poor connection/router that causes node to go out of sync, even if your client does not show you these small time periods when your node is not in sync. Or your local PC time is not synced, check on www.time.is
2. You run node at 1GB VPS but you have not restarted it for a long time, ram hogged, node out of sync. Also if node is ok and your time at local pc is out of sync, that can also be an isuue.

So, now, we have:
- "Late sync" people (wasted invites)
- "I forgot" people (killed newbies)
- "Late subbmision" people (bug)

Make sure you have decent hardware. If you run your node at home, run it with lowpower and profile=server. Make sure you restart node, 1 day before validation if you run on 1GB vps. Make sure your time is synced.

Video that shows how to run node on windows with lowpower and profile=server options that will cause your node to make less connections and put less strain on your probable low-end home router.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2qi8MbR3I

Can't state that it's fake volume , but more exposure is great, as well CMC.

Hotbit hosted AMA on their Telegram, it was wild, lots of users had many questions, i guess over 300 questions were asked.

Fresh info:
Plans: Currently we are developing the oracle voting mechanism. It will be available in Q4 2020. We are also working on predefined smart contracts to enable community-driven funding, prediction markets, dispute resolutions, paid votings, paid polls, games, etc

I still preffer and recommend qTrade over hotbit. Hotbit withdraw fee is 10 iDNA, while on qTrade is 1 iDNA.

Also Idena is on CMC, great news.

Date is 2020-08-12 idena is ranked 2471 on CMC
price is 13c

Next validtion should be wild. And still there is lot of work to develop surrounding ecosystem.

Take a few minutes to read new article on medium. What are your thoughts?

Idena oracles
https://medium.com/idena/idena-oracles-c6e5b1908c9f