XMR vs DRK

[Gladimor]

What's missing in this thread is an actual DRK developer don't you think? The flow of information in here is very one sided.

this is a Monero troll thread, almost no drk people here. why would a drk dev take time off developing to argue with XMR trolls?

EDIT: plus you don't need a dev because Monero dev 'Fluffy' made 3 propositions about DRK being insecure today, the first 2 were proved wrong and the third he is ignoring any replies, scroll back.

The Monero devs are very close with their community. Completely different from the DRK dev(s), that make decisions on their own/in isolation.

[Gladimor]

It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

The main DRK dev needs to participate more in community discussion, especially something like this. The XMR devs are already very close with their community, which is a very good thing.

[megges]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

ok enough is enough, you wanted a thread to discuss xmr <-> drk, i have done my best to provide you some insight of drk, but everytime these troll posts came up ...

so im out for now ... no intrest in explaining anything to trolls like this, who have no intrest in discussing anything technical.

And yes there seems some nice XMR guys, i enjoyed some conversations in here thanks for that.

[majamina]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

What a silly post.

Nobody from the DRK team has posted AFAIK, so your point is invalid.

Fluffypony is clearly a very smart guy and has made some great contributions to the discussion. However, he was highly critical of Darksend based on a flawed understanding and also made some rather odd claims about masternode security requirements. His core argument around compromising the masternode network was based on gaining control of a number of nodes that he couldn't quantify, meaning he couldn't demonstrate whether such an attack would be practical.

[majamina]

It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

The main DRK dev needs to participate more in community discussion, especially something like this. The XMR devs are already very close with their community, which is a very good thing.

Evan is active in the DRK community, just not heavily on BCT...hardly surprising given the signal/noise ratio here.

[DaveyJones]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

What a silly post.

Nobody from the DRK team has posted AFAIK, so your point is invalid.

Fluffypony is clearly a very smart guy and has made some great contributions to the discussion. However, he was highly critical of Darksend based on a flawed understanding and also made some rather odd claims about masternode security requirements. His core argument around compromising the masternode network was based on gaining control of a number of nodes that he couldn't quantify, meaning he couldn't demonstrate whether such an attack would be practical.

why does it have to be practical ? The only question i would have for myself if it is possible? Why quantity over quality?

[majamina]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

What a silly post.

Nobody from the DRK team has posted AFAIK, so your point is invalid.

Fluffypony is clearly a very smart guy and has made some great contributions to the discussion. However, he was highly critical of Darksend based on a flawed understanding and also made some rather odd claims about masternode security requirements. His core argument around compromising the masternode network was based on gaining control of a number of nodes that he couldn't quantify, meaning he couldn't demonstrate whether such an attack would be practical.

why does it have to be practical ? The only question i would have for myself if it is possible? Why quantity over quality?

because if it's impractical to mount such an attack, it won't be mounted...

[Swandeli]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

What a silly post.

Nobody from the DRK team has posted AFAIK, so your point is invalid.

Fluffypony is clearly a very smart guy and has made some great contributions to the discussion. However, he was highly critical of Darksend based on a flawed understanding and also made some rather odd claims about masternode security requirements. His core argument around compromising the masternode network was based on gaining control of a number of nodes that he couldn't quantify, meaning he couldn't demonstrate whether such an attack would be practical.

Do you code or know any cryptography at all? All of Fluffypony's points were valid concerning the abundant flaws found in Darkcoin. It doesnt matter if such an attack is practical, its that its possible. If the government wanted they could easily take control of every single darkcoin masternode online, which is 90%+ of them. Its hard to believe that some altcoiners actually back up a coin that didnt just have a instamine, but also has rotten features as well.

[majamina]

Do you code or know any cryptography at all? All of Fluffypony's points were valid concerning the abundant flaws found in Darkcoin. It doesnt matter if such an attack is practical, its that its possible. If the government wanted they could easily take control of every single darkcoin masternode online, which is 90%+ of them.

Another strange post.

- He made a fundamentally flawed argument around Darksend transactions and change addresses, which was corrected

- He listed all kinds of security requirements (DR infrastructure?) for masternodes which are simply not required by the design

- Every single darkcoin masternode online would be 100% of them. By definition, a darkcoin masternode has to be online to be a masternode.

- Whether a single government could take control of 100% of them is highly questionable. Support your argument.

[DaveyJones]

When reading the posts, Fluffypony comes off as someone who is giving both sides of the story simultaneously. Doesn't seem one sided at all to me. It's just that Darkcoin has no attributes and nothing going for it tech wise, so it's getting destroyed that way in conversation. It's like those on the monero team are the 160 IQ nerds and those on the darkcoin team are the half retarded bill boos.

What a silly post.

Nobody from the DRK team has posted AFAIK, so your point is invalid.

Fluffypony is clearly a very smart guy and has made some great contributions to the discussion. However, he was highly critical of Darksend based on a flawed understanding and also made some rather odd claims about masternode security requirements. His core argument around compromising the masternode network was based on gaining control of a number of nodes that he couldn't quantify, meaning he couldn't demonstrate whether such an attack would be practical.

why does it have to be practical ? The only question i would have for myself if it is possible? Why quantity over quality?

because if it's impractical to mount such an attack, it won't be mounted...

Sure but i guess "if" the 3 Letter Agencies really wanted to get an insight, it would not be that impractical anymore to even corrupt/steal/sniff a number of like 10k of MNs, as i guess a large % of MN are hosted in rather easy to access countries DCs. Given the afford and possibilities the NSA alone has... guess thats why other people in this thread were pointing to Snowden

[Swandeli]

Do you code or know any cryptography at all? All of Fluffypony's points were valid concerning the abundant flaws found in Darkcoin. It doesnt matter if such an attack is practical, its that its possible. If the government wanted they could easily take control of every single darkcoin masternode online, which is 90%+ of them.

Another strange post.

- He made a fundamentally flawed argument around Darksend transactions and change addresses, which was corrected

- He listed all kinds of security requirements (DR infrastructure?) for masternodes which are simply not required by the design

- Every single darkcoin masternode online would be 100% of them. By definition, a darkcoin masternode has to be online to be a masternode.

- Whether a single government could take control of 100% of them is highly questionable. Support your argument.

- Online as in hosted online, not necessarily on an external server, used the wrong words there

- Taking control of 100% of nodes online, especially since most of them are hosted on places like Amazon, would be an extremely easy task, it wouldn't even cost the government any money

You're acting as if it's secure to host nodes online that deliver something as crucial to the network as darkcoins coinjoin "anon feature". Heads up, it's not. I'm even actually having a hard time thinking of a "decentralized system" less secure than darkcoins masternodes.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

The mere existence of an attack vector is a concern if you're attempting to build a robust system to defend against motivated and deep pocketed attackers.

Even though I believe XMR's privacy implementation to be an order of magnitude more secure than DRK's, I still wouldn't trust XMR against an NSA-level adversary. At least not yet.

Last year the Monero network was hit by one of the most sophisticated attacks ever seen in crypto (at least according to TacoTime). The idea that an NSA-level adversary could not silently compromise masternodes or defeat darksend through statistical analysis is just absurd.

If you're trying to protect your privacy from your neighbor, sure. Darksend is probably sufficient. However, If you're concerned about illegal activity or government level adversaries, no anon tech is ready for that (yet).

TLDR: "good enough" is never good enough when it comes to three-letter agencies. It's gotta be air tight.

[5w00p]

It appears that the name change is official, at least on Polo.
DashRiprockCoin.

[smooth]

The mere existence of an attack vector is a concern if you're attempting to build a robust system to defend against motivated and deep pocketed attackers.

Even though I believe XMR's privacy implementation to be an order of magnitude more secure than DRK's, I still wouldn't trust XMR against an NSA-level adversary. At least not yet.

Last year the Monero network was hit by one of the most sophisticated attacks ever seen in crypto (at least according to TacoTime). The idea that an NSA-level adversary could not silently compromise masternodes or defeat darksend through statistical analysis is just absurd.

If you're trying to protect your privacy from your neighbor, sure. Darksend is probably sufficient. However, If you're concerned about illegal activity or government level adversaries, no anon tech is ready for that (yet).

TLDR: "good enough" is never good enough when it comes to three-letter agencies. It's gotta be air tight.

There is a huge middle ground here. Like for example, your neighbor or business competitor pays a competent private investigator. Currently that means they probably are going to get into a lot of your information that you normally think of as private. Any system like this that becomes popular will spawn a cottage industry of compromising it if there are weak spots.

[iCEBREAKER]

you admit xmr team is building rock solid stuff. I am suggesting for you now as drk prise has risen significiantly to cash some (not all) of your drk and diversifying into xmr. After all the crypto is like a raffle and it is good to have some variety in portfolio in case some coin rises significiantly.

I do have an XMR position, but only like 10% of my DRK holdings so barely a hedge.

What I'm questioning about XMR is time-to-market and the real-world necessity of the ultra-robust tech. If DRK is fit-for-purpose in the majority of real-world use cases and gets over the line first in terms of adoption and scalability, where does that leave XMR?

For which real world cases is Darksend not secure enough?

We don't yet know.  That's the problem.  With its massive (or as majamina so delicately put it, "interesting") Masternode attack surface, anyone using DARK to purchase botanicals unwelcome in the WASP warfare/welfare state is risking their freedom by trusting unproven network security and crypto systems.

[Melbustus]

So I guess I'll get this thing started.

The problem that i see with dark is not necessarily whether it works or not. This criticism applies even if it does work. My big problem, and the reason I didn't buy it a long time ago even though I was shopping for anonymity focused projects, is that its just so god damn inelegant. Its like instead of approaching the problem from a fresh perspective and inventing something novel and clever, the devs decided to take the whack a mole approach. You whack the first problem over the head with a blunt instrument, this creates more problems, and you whack those over the head with another bunt instrument, thus creating more problems. The way i picture it in my head, and we see this in cartoons sometimes, someone is trying to stop a hose from spraying so they stick their thumb in the hole, the pressure builds up and water sprays out of another hole somewhere, and they stick their toe in that hole, then water erupts from somewhere else and they stick their other thumb in that hole. This is all I could picture in my head while hearing a description of dark for the first time.

Its just so god damned ugly. Maybe it works, but even if it does it's a vulgar solution to the problem, where as ring signatures and unlikable deterministic addresses is so beautiful and elegant and simple. Reading the white paper for the first time I was just struck with the beauty and elegance of the approach.

That's really all I have to say. Also I just want to put this here. My nomination for dark mascot.



Successfully keeping the juice contained since 2014, one eye patch and glass eye at a time.

*edit* let me add a better explanation of why i made this comment so people dont think im just name calling.

Coins need to be mixed so you guys implement coinjoin at the protocol level. But then you cant just have every random user hosting coinjoin sessions because then you would open an attack vector for troll coinjoin hosts so you make master nodes. But then you cant just have anyone joining in the coinjoin because you could dos by requesting transactions but not signing so you implement the idea of collateral to be part of the session. But then now you have no incentive for the masternodes to form so you give them part of the collateral. It wouldnt be mixed enough if you did this at the transaction level so you have the blockchain tumbling peoples coins all the time. This is ridiculously expensive so you greatly subsidize the darksend transactions inorder to hide the huge cost of anonymity in your system. Now you have to worry about people trying to send transactions to each other through darksend so you have to try to come up with some clever mechanism to avoid this problem.

+1.

[Anon136]

so what do you think guys. this thread will be a success if it managed to redirect some of the debate in our respective threads. is it a success? have you dark boys noticed a reduction in anti dark coin rhetoric in your thread since the creation of this thread? monero boys, have you noticed a reduction in anti monero rhetoric in your thread? just curious.

[qvan]

so what do you think guys. this thread will be a success if it managed to redirect some of the debate in our respective threads. is it a success? have you dark boys noticed a reduction in anti dark coin rhetoric in your thread since the creation of this thread? monero boys, have you noticed a reduction in anti monero rhetoric in your thread? just curious.

i think so....but dashcoin have two threads now..i prefer the other one with 4000+ pages, very active   and i have lots of buddies there 

[majamina]

Sure but i guess "if" the 3 Letter Agencies really wanted to get an insight, it would not be that impractical anymore to even corrupt/steal/sniff a number of like 10k of MNs, as i guess a large % of MN are hosted in rather easy to access countries DCs. Given the afford and possibilities the NSA alone has... guess thats why other people in this thread were pointing to Snowden

OK let's look at the MN distribution today:





25% in the US, lots in Europe, the remainder in all sorts of places.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all the US nodes are easily compromised. I don't agree with this, but let's assume it anyway. 75% of the network is still OK - Darksend is secure. To take the next big chunks they need to convince the French, Germans & Dutch...now I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with European politics but we're getting into some interesting territory here. Let's again assume this happens, for the sake of argument. Now 75% of the network is compromised and reporting activity back to the TLA, which is still not good enough to compromise Darksend with masternode blinding. Feel free to correct.

From here you're moving into Eastern Europe, China, Russia, Iceland etc. Different ball game as everyone knows.

We also need to consider the dynamic nature of the network. Nodes appear and disappear in different countries every day. TLAs would be playing whack-a-mole trying to break nodes, particularly if there was any hint that nodes were becoming compromised. In this case you could expect the community to be aggressive in moving nodes to 'safe havens'.

Finally - this is the picture TODAY. We are seeing trading volume coming in from China. If DRK topples LTC then this will seriously ramp up, then you will see many MNs in China. Just one example of how distribution may change over time.

[majamina]

- Online as in hosted online, not necessarily on an external server, used the wrong words there

you mean VPS, right?

- Taking control of 100% of nodes online, especially since most of them are hosted on places like Amazon, would be an extremely easy task, it wouldn't even cost the government any money

this is a crazy statement. You think compromising 2,000 VPS instances across 30+ countries would be 'extremely easy' and 'wouldn't even cost the government any money'.

You're acting as if it's secure to host nodes online that deliver something as crucial to the network as darkcoins coinjoin "anon feature". Heads up, it's not. I'm even actually having a hard time thinking of a "decentralized system" less secure than darkcoins masternodes.

No, I'm acting as if a distributed P2P system that runs on 1000s of lightweight nodes, across 30+ international borders, maintained on a variety of OS platforms, in a variety of hosting scenarios, that will still function if a large portion of it's nodes are compromised, is impractical to mount a successful attack against.