Monero's Achilles' heel ?

[qwizzie]

Achilles' heel : a weakness or vulnerable point.

You Can Link Monero Transactions – But Which? And What's the Impact?
http://www.coindesk.com/monero-link-transactions-debate/

On Twitter, Reddit and across social media, a heated discussion has been playing out over findings published on MoneroLink.com.
Launched on 14th April, the website provides a block explorer that lets users follow the inputs and outputs of a majority (62%) of transactions
conducted before January 2017, a feat that was widely thought to be impossible.

The explorer is a practical implementation of techniques published in a research paper by Andrew Miller and Kevin Lee of the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, and Arvind Narayanan and Malte Möser of Princeton University.

Since its publication, much debate has taken place over whether the findings of the paper have been presented accurately, and equally, whether
the monero team's own research – which founder Riccardo Spagni says highlighted the same findings in 2015 – has communicated well enough
to give users of the network a clear understanding of its limitations.

[NeuroticFish]

Achilles' heel : a weakness or vulnerable point.

You Can Link Monero Transactions – But Which? And What's the Impact?
http://www.coindesk.com/monero-link-transactions-debate/

From what I've read it affects only the very old transactions, which were made back then with mix in 0-3. There were plenty of warnings about such transactions in the past.
Also even Coindesk agrees that the new transactions, since RingCT is in use, are safe.

While it's an interesting tool and warning, it's a little late (RingCT is on since January) so I see it as an attempt to attract the investors to another anon coins.
Monero is still under active development, so the "hackers" are still one or more steps behind.

[qwizzie]

Achilles' heel : a weakness or vulnerable point.

You Can Link Monero Transactions – But Which? And What's the Impact?
http://www.coindesk.com/monero-link-transactions-debate/

From what I've read it affects only the very old transactions, which were made back then with mix in 0-3. There were plenty of warnings about such transactions in the past.
Also even Coindesk agrees that the new transactions, since RingCT is in use, are safe.

While it's an interesting tool and warning, it's a little late (RingCT is on since January) so I see it as an attempt to attract the investors to another anon coins.
Monero is still under active development, so the "hackers" are still one or more steps behind.

the website provides a block explorer that lets users follow the inputs and outputs of a majority (62%) of transactions
conducted before January 2017, a feat that was widely thought to be impossible.

Transactions before January 2017 does not sound very old ... it could almost be read as : "only transactions from the last 4 months are fully secure now""

[NeuroticFish]

Transactions before January 2017 does not sound very old ... it could almost be read as : "only transactions from the last 4 months are fully secure now""

January 2017 is the point RingCT came live. From that point the transactions are much more secure.

Before January 2017 some 62% of transactions can be "read". There are 2 directions here:
* in the early days the mixin was not enforced and many used 0-1 mixin on the daily basis.
* that was decided at some point to be "not good enough" and the default was changed (to 4), the minimum being also changed to 2.

However, anybody wanted to really hide the transaction could have used a big mixin even in the early days.

Again, all this brings nothing new for the ones with the tiniest interest in Monero.

[qwizzie]

Transactions before January 2017 does not sound very old ... it could almost be read as : "only transactions from the last 4 months are fully secure now""

January 2017 is the point RingCT came live. From that point the transactions are much more secure.

Before January 2017 some 62% of transactions can be "read". There are 2 directions here:
* in the early days the mixin was not enforced and many used 0-1 mixin on the daily basis.
* that was decided at some point to be "not good enough" and the default was changed (to 4), the minimum being also changed to 2.

However, anybody wanted to really hide the transaction could have used a big mixin even in the early days.

Again, all this brings nothing new for the ones with the tiniest interest in Monero.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Febo]

Monero was more anonymous in 2014 then DASH will ever be. And more then 99.99% coins today is. But Monero is work in progress. With Ring CT it gained huge step forward, but this is not the end.   Monero will be more anonymous after Autumn when there will be minimum mixing.  and even more after Kovri will be added.

Anonymity is least to worry about with Monero. 2 years ago now or 2 years from now.

[Rockie1234]

If they had a GUI wallet then I think that Monero's popularity would increase dramatically (a wallet that could be installed and was not command line based). Until then, I can't see many users of coins such as Bitcoin, who are used to using simple wallets, to change. Privacy is important, but how many ordinary people want to use command line?

[nemgun]

If they had a GUI wallet then I think that Monero's popularity would increase dramatically (a wallet that could be installed and was not command line based). Until then, I can't see many users of coins such as Bitcoin, who are used to using simple wallets, to change. Privacy is important, but how many ordinary people want to use command line?

I don't think that a GUI wallet is one of their priority, they should and have to focus on providing an annonymous environment because if they fail, their existence is pointless.
And prior to provide a GUI wallet, they should work on integration, because XMR is one of the harders coins when it comes to integration. because they lack of methods that ease this process. Especially the wallet management but i guess it is mandatory for privacy.
They might have a future, if they decide to work on all these sides, sooner is better.

On the other side, DASH is doing great about integration, and the update looks primising, and they have a long advance on XMR regarding merchants integration and many other stuff, like light wallets, light nodes, web wallets (with update) and many other features.

I would like people to stop comparing these two coins because they are totally different, each one provides different features, it is pointless to compare them.

And don't forget that DASH is more mature in development then XMR because it is a fork of Bitcoin, so they have an enormous advance compared to XMR who is a new cryptocurrency, building from scratch (except the cryptonote thing).

[Rockie1234]

If they had a GUI wallet then I think that Monero's popularity would increase dramatically (a wallet that could be installed and was not command line based). Until then, I can't see many users of coins such as Bitcoin, who are used to using simple wallets, to change. Privacy is important, but how many ordinary people want to use command line?

I don't think that a GUI wallet is one of their priority, they should and have to focus on providing an annonymous environment because if they fail, their existence is pointless.
And prior to provide a GUI wallet, they should work on integration, because XMR is one of the harders coins when it comes to integration. because they lack of methods that ease this process. Especially the wallet management but i guess it is mandatory for privacy.
They might have a future, if they decide to work on all these sides, sooner is better.

On the other side, DASH is doing great about integration, and the update looks primising, and they have a long advance on XMR regarding merchants integration and many other stuff, like light wallets, light nodes, web wallets (with update) and many other features.

I would like people to stop comparing these two coins because they are totally different, each one provides different features, it is pointless to compare them.

And don't forget that DASH is more mature in development then XMR because it is a fork of Bitcoin, so they have an enormous advance compared to XMR who is a new cryptocurrency, building from scratch (except the cryptonote thing).

You have a point, but I think you're not understanding something. Why is Monero's price not increasing? Because the market does not believe it is worth more than its current price. While a GUI would make no difference to many supporters, it would interest a large amount of Bitcoin users. In order for it to become more widely adopted, it needs to attract many people, not just the diehard anonymity supporters who don't mind using something inconvenient like command prompt.

[Febo]

I dont know where you 2 guys live but Monero have GUI for almost half a year.  And is far best GUI any coin have. Why dont you test it yourself?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/62e1mc/mandatory_upgrade_monero_01031_wolfram/


Or just check one video of how to install and use previous version. Now is already v2 like a month old.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uFPZjz5Xw



Monero is silently making huge jumps. Other coins hype every tiny step they do, Monero dont.



One huge jump is a full Monero node on android: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/651un2/monero_v01031_cli_for_android_arm64/  Not sure if any other coin have this. Where is a will there is way.

[nemgun]

I dont know where you 2 guys live but Monero have GUI for almost half a year.  And is far best GUI any coin have. Why dont you test it yourself?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/62e1mc/mandatory_upgrade_monero_01031_wolfram/


Or just check one video of how to install and use previous version. Now is already v2 like a month old.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uFPZjz5Xw



Monero is silently making huge jumps. Other coins hype every tiny step they do, Monero dont.

Just tested, the GUI is nice, but i haven't managed to connect to the testnet. So they made a wrapper who calls the different binaries, like monerod, RPc, Wallet ...
I checked the log and it is full of fatal errors, especially from the peers files, so i cannot connect to the network, it may require more work but it s great. Maybe they are waiting to get a stable GUI wallet and then they will talk about it.

How about the integration ? they still lack methods to integrate, and wrappers for the other languages.

[Anno MMXVI]

There has been security flaws in all the crypto-currencies, even Bitcoin ! Now that Monero is safe, I think that these problems are from the past. What matters if there is a problem is if you are brave enough to solve it instead of running away. And Monero did it brillantly.

[Snail2]

You have a point, but I think you're not understanding something. Why is Monero's price not increasing? Because the market does not believe it is worth more than its current price. While a GUI would make no difference to many supporters, it would interest a large amount of Bitcoin users. In order for it to become more widely adopted, it needs to attract many people, not just the diehard anonymity supporters who don't mind using something inconvenient like command prompt.

I've told the monero fanboys a couple of times back in 2015 and 2016 that XMR can be the best coin, it can cure cancer and do miracles but it not going to gain widespread support and adoption, until the client isn't easy to handle even for my grandmother, and only a few fans and a bunch of stoners knows about it's existence.
Two things made Microsoft big (however Windows always been a trash): 1. easy to use GUI, 2. Tons of marketing. ...and that's why DASH is doing better than XMR now, despite the clunky technology and all the questionable activities around the launch. Back then they never listened, nowadays as I see at least they put together a good client.

[nemgun]

You have a point, but I think you're not understanding something. Why is Monero's price not increasing? Because the market does not believe it is worth more than its current price. While a GUI would make no difference to many supporters, it would interest a large amount of Bitcoin users. In order for it to become more widely adopted, it needs to attract many people, not just the diehard anonymity supporters who don't mind using something inconvenient like command prompt.

I've told the monero fanboys a couple of times back in 2015 and 2016 that XMR can be the best coin, it can cure cancer and do miracles but it not going to gain widespread support and adoption, until the client isn't easy to handle even for my grandmother, and only a few fans and a bunch of stoners knows about it's existence.
Two things made Microsoft big (however Windows always been a trash): 1. easy to use GUI, 2. Tons of marketing. ...and that's why DASH is doing better than XMR now, despite the clunky technology and all the questionable activities around the launch. Back then they never listened, nowadays as I see at least they put together a good client.

Totally right, that's what i always say about XMR, having to work with multiple binaries isn't convenient, even if you are a good programmer and could use scripts to manage them, yet it is annoying.
I like to compare the actual XMR to ETH, it was like that when they started, we had two binaries, eth and GETH and had to run both. now you just need Geth, and XMR should focus on this, a single binary to run the daemon, RPC interface, Wallet ... it will easy the development a lot, especially for the GUI who is actually messy at some points.

[JosNekoKopa]

Every anonymous coin heel is new coin, with better solutions for existing problems, and while we speaking some new kids developing something completely new.

Second, money invested in it is crucial. If you spend some money for fuders you can bring down any coin. Also we all know how good PR can be eficient.

Third there is no such thing like unbreakable code or total security..Evrithing can be compromised.

Now you can see how actually they are very vulnerable!

[Febo]

GUI works perfectly fine to me. I really have no ideas what dont work on your side.  Sync it and get few XMR and you can send them fast secure and if you want also anonymously.

If you have questions best is to look here: https://monero.stackexchange.com/   If your question dont exist ask it.

[nemgun]

GUI works perfectly fine to me. I really have no ideas what dont work on your side.  Sync it and get few XMR and you can send them fast secure and if you want also anonymously.

If you have questions best is to look here: https://monero.stackexchange.com/   If your question dont exist ask it.

Oh, i can get it to work, it is not the problem, just tried like an unexperienced user. It is not the first time i use XMR, usually i work with the binaries.
by the way, i tried to connect to the testnet, so maybe it is still not functional. I will try later with clearnet.

[NeuroticFish]

Thank you for the clarification.

You're welcome.
You could close the thread, since it became a battleground like most threads about Monero.
Quite a shame, since it started nice. Maybe too nice

[edmundduke]

Moneros Achilles' heel is the constant shilling and spam it got in the past. There are a lot of traders and crypto user who avoid it just because of it's past.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

You guys are missing the point. There is no altcoin today that is more anonymous than Monero. Read the response put up on GitHub. Monero price is depressed because of the FUD and traders are pumping other coins like Litecoin right now. But that will change and bitcoin will flow back into Monero so buy while you can get a bargain. Monero is a long term hold because bitcoin mixers no longer work and Monero is the best way to anonymize bitcoin.