[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[smooth]

Smooth says "you don't even need the daemon binary installed"

Fluffypony says "Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk"

Can you define binaries in this case because it seems like one of you are saying they are needed and one of you says they are not.

He was just saying to copy the whole package to a RAM disk. The reason being that normally the wallet file is created in the current directory when you use simplewallet --generate-new-wallet and normally that is where the binaries are. Since its a RAM disk, the wallet file will be lost for good when you power down. Good idea, and a good second level of protection in case you don't follow my advice to use a long random password.

The distinction between his suggestion and mine is that I pointed out you don't need the daemon binary (bitmonerod). You still need the wallet binary (simplewallet)

[Johnny Mnemonic]

... but it's not the highest priority at the moment, as payment IDs don't leak anything of significance ...

A unique payment ID will reveal all associated transactions, which can give away the total payment amount. This kind of defeats the purpose of the denominated transactions, doesn't it?

[smooth]

... but it's not the highest priority at the moment, as payment IDs don't leak anything of significance ...

A unique payment ID will reveal all associated transactions, which can give away the total payment amount. This kind of defeats the purpose of the denominated transactions, doesn't it?

It doesn't give away the payment amount (at least not the exact amount) because there is no way to tell the difference between payment and change.

The purpose for that is slightly different from denominations though. Denominations are used to standardize output sizes for mixing purposes (only outputs of the same size can be mixed).

Payment ID should usually be unique, in which case it wouldn't be helpful in linking transactions, but that is not enforced, and people reuse them a lot (like BTC addresses), which is not ideal. As fluffypony said, we are working on something better.

[fluffypony]

... but it's not the highest priority at the moment, as payment IDs don't leak anything of significance ...

A unique payment ID will reveal all associated transactions, which can give away the total payment amount. This kind of defeats the purpose of the denominated transactions, doesn't it?

It doesn't.

1. How do you know that nobody else has used the same payment ID? Because the payment ID is visible, and I (for one) have often grabbed an existing payment ID from the blockchain for my own use.

2. Even if you do "group" transactions together, and even if they happen to be the only occurrences of that payment ID, knowing that the transactions are somehow related is meaningless. Unless you crack the public-key cryptography, you won't know where each output is destined for.

[GingerAle]

... but it's not the highest priority at the moment, as payment IDs don't leak anything of significance ...

A unique payment ID will reveal all associated transactions, which can give away the total payment amount. This kind of defeats the purpose of the denominated transactions, doesn't it?

It doesn't.

1. How do you know that nobody else has used the same payment ID? Because the payment ID is visible, and I (for one) have often grabbed an existing payment ID from the blockchain for my own use.

2. Even if you do "group" transactions together, and even if they happen to be the only occurrences of that payment ID, knowing that the transactions are somehow related is meaningless. Unless you crack the public-key cryptography, you won't know where each output is destined for.

gotcha. so, when the actual transaction is broken up into denominations, the same payment ID is copied with each denomination ?.... (essentially... im sure its waaay more complex).

anyhoo, I'm gonna prove it to myself tonight by playing with https://minergate.com/blockchain/mro/blocks

[smooth]

gotcha. so, when the actual transaction is broken up into denominations, the same payment ID is copied with each denomination ?.... (essentially... im sure its waaay more complex).

Each transaction has (at most) one payment ID. The transaction has multiple denominations. The same payment ID applies to all of them.

[sorryforthat]

Is there a way for me to connect simple wallet to a daemon that is running else where, like mymonero, and have access to my XMR with the ability to send?

[smooth]

Is there a way for me to connect simple wallet to a daemon that is running else where, like mymonero, and have access to my XMR with the ability to send?

Yes you can do that, with some loss of privacy, and trusting the remote node not to send you made up information (not really an issue if you are just spending).

Here's info about one node you can use: https://www.moneroclub.com/node

[Drhiggins]

Gonna try that node https://www.moneroclub.com/node tomorrow for a friend of mine I built a rig for.

Her daemon/wallet machine does not have enough RAM to run the daemon on her Windows 8 build.  Looks simple enough to modify.

I haven't set up any listings yet on MoneroClub but hope to soon.

[saddambitcoin]

Wow, it's cool to have women in the Monero club. 

[sorryforthat]

Gonna try that node https://www.moneroclub.com/node tomorrow for a friend of mine I built a rig for.

Her daemon/wallet machine does not have enough RAM to run the daemon on her Windows 8 build.  Looks simple enough to modify.

I haven't set up any listings yet on MoneroClub but hope to soon.

It worked great, had my wallet up and running in less than 10 minutes and able to send with no issues

Thanks a lot Smooth for getting back so fast with an answer it is greatly appreciated.

[richwang]

Official Monero Forum Link

Monero Monday Missives

December 15th, 2014

Hello, and welcome to our twenty-first Monero Monday Missive!

Major Updates

1. We're aware of the 0.8.8.6 slow startup issues on some Windows environments (over an hour for the daemon to startup for some people). We believe we've identified the problem, and will be rolling out a test fix in the next couple of days, for inclusion in 0.8.8.7

2. There have been a number of patches merged over the past week to fix issues with simplewallet's new multi-language mnemonics

External Projects

MyMonero: due to a very broad DDoS attack at the data center in which MyMonero is hosted (not targeted at MyMonero) the service was offline on Sunday for a 12 hour stretch. We are putting some effort in place to ensure this does not happen again in future. New features added this past week: a "copy to clipboard" helper is now available on the right of your Monero address on your dashboard, as well as on the login key review screen and account details screen. In addition, clicking on a transaction in the dashboard or your transaction history screens will show additional details, such as the payment ID used.

ForkGuard: added MyMonero.com and MoneroClub.com

I2PD: massive progress was made this week adding support for the su3 router update format (the previous .sud / .su2 format being deprecated), which is used to deliver updates to all routers on the i2p network, including: router update alerts, plugin update alerts, reseed data, and news feed items. Details on the su3 format can be found here: https://geti2p.net/en/docs/spec/updates

Dev Diary

Account: still more fixes to the restore paths and multi-lang mnemonics, known issues with UTF-8 on Windows remain

Core: libunbound lookups moved to a thread in order to trap for failing / slow DNS lookups

Until next week!

updated by fluffypony

nice update

[GreekBitcoin]

Monero Status Android Widget

A friend of mine made an android widget and app.

After monerochain.info going down and serious lack of time pretty much killed it, Monero Status is back!

Google Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tr.monerostatus

Pics are obviously kinda outdated!:



Updates:

• Well, the app and widget is working again.
• Mintpal removed.
• A specific bug crashing the app is fixed.

If anyone feels like donating: 47g3CVqBdmPZgPEA8m2hjT4aosiNhmELD3jdQVbtbooVGuCjHfY7aBUQo5p2Qirk7629LiFZWH7ZWMZ nSAZ5n7paP7ePThK
Many thanks to all donators!

Please make feature requests or tell us about bugs!

[Volture]

Is Monero anonymous? Why what pros/cons compared to the Darkcoin tech?

[GingerAle]

Is Monero anonymous? Why what pros/cons compared to the Darkcoin tech?

Yes, monero is anonymous. Some here would respond by saying that nothing can ever be truly anonymous, but I think considerable effort would need to be expended to reveal identity in monero.

This gif explains the differences from darkcoin tech, but from what I gather from darkcoin - it relies on masternodes to do some kind of mixing, which to me is a type of centralization, and to me decentralization is the whole point of cryptocurrencies, so yeah.

Monero has anonymity tech baked in - stealth addresses, ring signatures (mixing)



http://bit.ly/why-monero has a lot of good info, and the accompanying thread.

I'd say that right now, the one downside of monero is the ease of use. I'm a noob to cryptocurrencies, with no experience in linux, and I was able to get it to work - so its not that hard.

There is a webwallet that makes things a lot easier - https://mymonero.com, and the devs are working on a great GUI wallet that can be seen in this fireside chat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlTDS3iCqRY

Also, the technology behind a coin is only as good as the development behind it. The monero dev team is committed and very helpful. Additionally, the community is tight - the monero network survived an attack at some point in the summer of 2014, mainly because the community banded together to protect something they believe in.

[Volture]

Hmm interesting. If ring signatures "does the trick", it seems like Darkcoin will have a hard time to claim territory on the market - considering that it has a more complicated approach.

Lets see what happens. I feel the wind of change blowing by.

[primer-]

Come on mods, delete the f.. scam posts...

[tacotime]

Is Monero anonymous? Why what pros/cons compared to the Darkcoin tech?

Monero endeavours to make privacy in transactions mandatory for ALL transactions, small or large. Unlike privacy forks built on top of Bitcoin, there will soon be no way to opt out of privacy for Monero. Privacy in Monero requires absolutely no external factors that are points of failure like DarkCoin, e.g. masternodes. Instead, the privacy is baked in by cryptographic mechanisms that are provably sound mathematically.

[Volture]

Is Monero anonymous? Why what pros/cons compared to the Darkcoin tech?

Monero endeavours to make privacy in transactions mandatory for ALL transactions, small or large. Unlike privacy forks built on top of Bitcoin, there will soon be no way to opt out of privacy for Monero. Privacy in Monero requires absolutely no external factors that are points of failure like DarkCoin, e.g. masternodes. Instead, the privacy is baked in by cryptographic mechanisms that are provably sound mathematically.

Ok. Whats your thought on this: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/researchers-trace-bitcoin-users-ip-addresses-by-looking-at-transactions
Is this the reason why Bitcoin has declined the past months? Would it be impossible to achieve an analysis like this on the Monero blockchain?

[grendel25]

Is Monero anonymous? Why what pros/cons compared to the Darkcoin tech?

Monero endeavours to make privacy in transactions mandatory for ALL transactions, small or large. Unlike privacy forks built on top of Bitcoin, there will soon be no way to opt out of privacy for Monero. Privacy in Monero requires absolutely no external factors that are points of failure like DarkCoin, e.g. masternodes. Instead, the privacy is baked in by cryptographic mechanisms that are provably sound mathematically.

Isn't' it better to have the flexibility to opt out?  Couldn't tell if you were citing this as a pro or a con.  I still think it's important to have other strong coins such as Monero in the marketplace but more fore the reason of having alternatives if bitcoin ever becomes too unattainable.  If they both have the same features and you can buy stuff with it then who cares if the feature you use was the result of a fork or add-on or whatever.