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

[Anon136]

In theory, could my anonymity be compromised by too many other people publishing their view keys?

Well let's assume everybody did. Then you would have a coin where all transactions are traceable (except yours, and yours would be the only ones left so...). That's obviously not the goal here, but if everybody wants that, there's nothing you can do. You can't hide a needle without a haystack.

However, it is indeed not good to encourage too much reliance on view keys. That's why, for example, MRL-0004 has an alternate method for auditing of individual transactions that does not involve the broad brush of a view key.

I know you guys aren't aiming to be alphabet proof but perhaps one day in the future it could be a goal and it is concerning because we might imagine that some mass surveillance agency might be able to put together a rather comprehensive database of view keys.

[ShapeShift.io]

ShapeShift.io has added Monero (XMR) to Instant Altcoin Exchange

XMR users can now exchange instantly with Bitcoin and 25+ other altcoins with ShapeShift. No account needed.

[smooth]

In theory, could my anonymity be compromised by too many other people publishing their view keys?

Well let's assume everybody did. Then you would have a coin where all transactions are traceable (except yours, and yours would be the only ones left so...). That's obviously not the goal here, but if everybody wants that, there's nothing you can do. You can't hide a needle without a haystack.

However, it is indeed not good to encourage too much reliance on view keys. That's why, for example, MRL-0004 has an alternate method for auditing of individual transactions that does not involve the broad brush of a view key.

I know you guys aren't aiming to be alphabet proof but perhaps one day in the future it could be a goal and it is concerning because we might imagine that some mass surveillance agency might be able to put together a rather comprehensive database of view keys.

Well if "they" are spying on everyone's computer to collect up view keys, then pretty much all is lost right? At that point, collecting everyone's private keys (of all sorts) and transaction logs is on the table.

As far as collecting view keys from centralized services, that's why I say that methods of accomplishing the goals that don't require sharing view keys are preferable and are a goal. For example, several pages back I wrote up a proposal for doing trustless SPV-like lightweight wallets that don't require sharing a view key.

[cAPSLOCK]

ShapeShift.io has added Monero (XMR) to Instant Altcoin Exchange

XMR users can now exchange instantly with Bitcoin and 25+ other altcoins with ShapeShift. No account needed.

Whee...  worked like a charm, and stupidly fast too.

[explorer]

In theory, could my anonymity be compromised by too many other people publishing their view keys?

Well let's assume everybody did. Then you would have a coin where all transactions are traceable (except yours, and yours would be the only ones left so...). That's obviously not the goal here, but if everybody wants that, there's nothing you can do. You can't hide a needle without a haystack.

However, it is indeed not good to encourage too much reliance on view keys. That's why, for example, MRL-0004 has an alternate method for auditing of individual transactions that does not involve the broad brush of a view key.

I know you guys aren't aiming to be alphabet proof but perhaps one day in the future it could be a goal and it is concerning because we might imagine that some mass surveillance agency might be able to put together a rather comprehensive database of view keys.

Once the view key has been seen by someone other than yourself, consider the privacy of that address compromised and migrate funds to a secure (private) address. Better yet, never share a view key except for purpose specific, (single use?) addresses.  Let them watch a vacant house all they want.

[smooth]

In theory, could my anonymity be compromised by too many other people publishing their view keys?

Well let's assume everybody did. Then you would have a coin where all transactions are traceable (except yours, and yours would be the only ones left so...). That's obviously not the goal here, but if everybody wants that, there's nothing you can do. You can't hide a needle without a haystack.

However, it is indeed not good to encourage too much reliance on view keys. That's why, for example, MRL-0004 has an alternate method for auditing of individual transactions that does not involve the broad brush of a view key.

I know you guys aren't aiming to be alphabet proof but perhaps one day in the future it could be a goal and it is concerning because we might imagine that some mass surveillance agency might be able to put together a rather comprehensive database of view keys.

Once the view key has been seen by someone other than yourself, consider the privacy of that address compromised and migrate funds to a secure (private) address. Better yet, never share a view key except for purpose specific, (single use?) addresses.  Let them watch a vacant house all they want.

Correct. View key is 1/2 of your private key. It makes sense to share this for specific reasons, but not in general.

[pookielax31]

Big Day for XMR I see..congrats on the LTB and Shapeshift.io...Still keeping an eye over here

Edit: Very well spoken on Lets Talk Bitcoin

[wpalczynski]

On another note...

Atrides, dwarfpool owner, is every scammers wet dream, here's why :

He operates the second largest pool, dwarfpool. Current hash rate 3.3MH/s.
The only pool that DOES NOT publish full block history! I've asked him to make this data available and was told every time to f..off. so I've scraped his "Last 30 blocks" page every 1 hour and have been doing it for some time now.

His efficiency for the last 2000 blocks is 81% !
No other pool has such low efficiency, feel free to check them all, both big and small, botnet-friendly and private. Such bad efficiency can only lead to one conclusion - HE IS SIPHONING!

Now take a look at https://github.com/freebazaar?tab=activity
Back in January Atrides asked the community for 10k XMR in donations to begin work on an openbazaar fork. Devs were quick to give support and asked the community to donate as much as possible. When someone suggested that the coins be kept in an escrow Atrides refused and the devs made no attempt to force the escrow or even suggest the donators do their own due diligence.

Move your hash elsewhere people!@#
I also expect the community to demand asnwers and a deadline from this professional scammer.

ugh. someone should really develop a pay per post forum software. This FUD cleanup is getting exhausting.

re: dwarfpool accusation, I have no idea. Based on your other "research" related to monero, my gut is to not trust anything you post.

re: freebazaar, this point is so old its getting old. Those that donated get private updates. Also, during the fundraising, there was no cheerleading from the core dev team. I remember being excited about it. I don't have the time to fish and find the posts (maybe Dr. Bookmarks will have them handy). Is it not happening as swiftly as people would like? Probably. But yah know what else has the same problem? Everything in the world thats worth a damn.

Discussion starts around here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9994963#msg9994963

Reading that immediately set off huge alarms for me. Most notably re: asking for donations without any mention of actual costs (10k moneroj for what, exactly?), and using urgency to leverage fear as a lure for donations.  

He said the money was to fund him working on it part time for a few months.

I'm disappointed by the progress, but I'm not ready to call it a "scam"...yet.

If I recall correctly the timelines he proposed at the inception of this project were very unrealistic (very aggressive).  He also got somewhat offended when someone proposed escrow for the project funds.

Both raised flags for me.

[smooth]

On another note...

Atrides, dwarfpool owner, is every scammers wet dream, here's why :

He operates the second largest pool, dwarfpool. Current hash rate 3.3MH/s.
The only pool that DOES NOT publish full block history! I've asked him to make this data available and was told every time to f..off. so I've scraped his "Last 30 blocks" page every 1 hour and have been doing it for some time now.

His efficiency for the last 2000 blocks is 81% !
No other pool has such low efficiency, feel free to check them all, both big and small, botnet-friendly and private. Such bad efficiency can only lead to one conclusion - HE IS SIPHONING!

Now take a look at https://github.com/freebazaar?tab=activity
Back in January Atrides asked the community for 10k XMR in donations to begin work on an openbazaar fork. Devs were quick to give support and asked the community to donate as much as possible. When someone suggested that the coins be kept in an escrow Atrides refused and the devs made no attempt to force the escrow or even suggest the donators do their own due diligence.

Move your hash elsewhere people!@#
I also expect the community to demand asnwers and a deadline from this professional scammer.

ugh. someone should really develop a pay per post forum software. This FUD cleanup is getting exhausting.

re: dwarfpool accusation, I have no idea. Based on your other "research" related to monero, my gut is to not trust anything you post.

re: freebazaar, this point is so old its getting old. Those that donated get private updates. Also, during the fundraising, there was no cheerleading from the core dev team. I remember being excited about it. I don't have the time to fish and find the posts (maybe Dr. Bookmarks will have them handy). Is it not happening as swiftly as people would like? Probably. But yah know what else has the same problem? Everything in the world thats worth a damn.

Discussion starts around here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9994963#msg9994963

Reading that immediately set off huge alarms for me. Most notably re: asking for donations without any mention of actual costs (10k moneroj for what, exactly?), and using urgency to leverage fear as a lure for donations. 

He said the money was to fund him working on it part time for a few months.

I'm disappointed by the progress, but I'm not ready to call it a "scam"...yet.

If I recall correctly the timelines he proposed at the inception of this project were very unrealistic (very aggressive).  He also got somewhat offended when someone proposed escrow for the project funds.

Both raised flags for me.

The red flags are reasonable.

However, when the amount raised feel a bit short of his target and people still wanted to go forward, he stated that he would work on it but at a slower pace. So the original timelines aren't directly applicable.

[wpalczynski]

On another note...

Atrides, dwarfpool owner, is every scammers wet dream, here's why :

He operates the second largest pool, dwarfpool. Current hash rate 3.3MH/s.
The only pool that DOES NOT publish full block history! I've asked him to make this data available and was told every time to f..off. so I've scraped his "Last 30 blocks" page every 1 hour and have been doing it for some time now.

His efficiency for the last 2000 blocks is 81% !
No other pool has such low efficiency, feel free to check them all, both big and small, botnet-friendly and private. Such bad efficiency can only lead to one conclusion - HE IS SIPHONING!

Now take a look at https://github.com/freebazaar?tab=activity
Back in January Atrides asked the community for 10k XMR in donations to begin work on an openbazaar fork. Devs were quick to give support and asked the community to donate as much as possible. When someone suggested that the coins be kept in an escrow Atrides refused and the devs made no attempt to force the escrow or even suggest the donators do their own due diligence.

Move your hash elsewhere people!@#
I also expect the community to demand asnwers and a deadline from this professional scammer.

ugh. someone should really develop a pay per post forum software. This FUD cleanup is getting exhausting.

re: dwarfpool accusation, I have no idea. Based on your other "research" related to monero, my gut is to not trust anything you post.

re: freebazaar, this point is so old its getting old. Those that donated get private updates. Also, during the fundraising, there was no cheerleading from the core dev team. I remember being excited about it. I don't have the time to fish and find the posts (maybe Dr. Bookmarks will have them handy). Is it not happening as swiftly as people would like? Probably. But yah know what else has the same problem? Everything in the world thats worth a damn.

Discussion starts around here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9994963#msg9994963

Reading that immediately set off huge alarms for me. Most notably re: asking for donations without any mention of actual costs (10k moneroj for what, exactly?), and using urgency to leverage fear as a lure for donations.  

He said the money was to fund him working on it part time for a few months.

I'm disappointed by the progress, but I'm not ready to call it a "scam"...yet.

If I recall correctly the timelines he proposed at the inception of this project were very unrealistic (very aggressive).  He also got somewhat offended when someone proposed escrow for the project funds.

Both raised flags for me.

The red flags are reasonable.

However, when the amount raised feel a bit short of his target and people still wanted to go forward, he stated that he would work on it but at a slower pace. So the original timeline's aren't directly applicable.

Fair enough.  It's not like it is, or was back then a lot of money that was crowdfunded considering the assumed complexity of such a project.  If he delivers a working market I'll be impressed even if it takes him a long time.

[Drhiggins]

Listen the interview with our core dev Fluffypony on LetsTalkBitcoin:

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/ltb-e202-understanding-monero

Anon136, this is what you were asking for right?  

For anyone new to Monero this is a must listen! ^^  Fluffypony does a fantastic job explaining Monero.  It gave me a better overview of the coin myself.  For me even more reason to buy and mine XMR.  Love how this coin has a good community and involved devs.  

[osensei]

ShapeShift.io has added Monero (XMR) to Instant Altcoin Exchange

XMR users can now exchange instantly with Bitcoin and 25+ other altcoins with ShapeShift. No account needed.

Nice to see it finally implemented, hopefully this will bring more people into Monero.

You still get a better deal from https://xmr.to for your moneroj.

[vokain]

On another note...

Atrides, dwarfpool owner, is every scammers wet dream, here's why :

He operates the second largest pool, dwarfpool. Current hash rate 3.3MH/s.
The only pool that DOES NOT publish full block history! I've asked him to make this data available and was told every time to f..off. so I've scraped his "Last 30 blocks" page every 1 hour and have been doing it for some time now.

His efficiency for the last 2000 blocks is 81% !
No other pool has such low efficiency, feel free to check them all, both big and small, botnet-friendly and private. Such bad efficiency can only lead to one conclusion - HE IS SIPHONING!

Now take a look at https://github.com/freebazaar?tab=activity
Back in January Atrides asked the community for 10k XMR in donations to begin work on an openbazaar fork. Devs were quick to give support and asked the community to donate as much as possible. When someone suggested that the coins be kept in an escrow Atrides refused and the devs made no attempt to force the escrow or even suggest the donators do their own due diligence.

Move your hash elsewhere people!@#
I also expect the community to demand asnwers and a deadline from this professional scammer.

ugh. someone should really develop a pay per post forum software. This FUD cleanup is getting exhausting.

re: dwarfpool accusation, I have no idea. Based on your other "research" related to monero, my gut is to not trust anything you post.

re: freebazaar, this point is so old its getting old. Those that donated get private updates. Also, during the fundraising, there was no cheerleading from the core dev team. I remember being excited about it. I don't have the time to fish and find the posts (maybe Dr. Bookmarks will have them handy). Is it not happening as swiftly as people would like? Probably. But yah know what else has the same problem? Everything in the world thats worth a damn.

Discussion starts around here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9994963#msg9994963

Reading that immediately set off huge alarms for me. Most notably re: asking for donations without any mention of actual costs (10k moneroj for what, exactly?), and using urgency to leverage fear as a lure for donations.  

He said the money was to fund him working on it part time for a few months.

I'm disappointed by the progress, but I'm not ready to call it a "scam"...yet.

If I recall correctly the timelines he proposed at the inception of this project were very unrealistic (very aggressive).  He also got somewhat offended when someone proposed escrow for the project funds.

Both raised flags for me.

The red flags are reasonable.

However, when the amount raised feel a bit short of his target and people still wanted to go forward, he stated that he would work on it but at a slower pace. So the original timeline's aren't directly applicable.

Fair enough.  It's not like it is, or was back then a lot of money that was crowdfunded considering the assumed complexity of such a project.  If he delivers a working market I'll be impressed even if it takes him a long time.

Not exactly to me; the behavior isn't consistent with the words said. If not working more part time because of funds was the case, why would atrides not simply keep donations open?

[smooth]

Not exactly to me, the behavior isn't consistent with the words said. If not working more part time because of funds was the case, why would atrides not simply keep donations open?

He did, and I sent a small additional donation after the initial round, but the rate had died down to the point where it was clear the original target was not going to be reached in any reasonable period of time.

If it was just a scam to raise donations, why bother with the code work (though it didn't appear to be a huge amount) in March? He's not asking for donations now, so there is no reason to keep up appearances if he didn't actually intend to do the work.

[vokain]

Not exactly to me, the behavior isn't consistent with the words said. If not working more part time because of funds was the case, why would atrides not simply keep donations open?

He did, and I sent a small additional donation after the initial round, but the rate had died down to the point where it was clear the original target was not going to be reached in any reasonable period of time.

If it was just a scam to raise donations, why bother with the code work (though it didn't appear to be a huge amount) in March? He's not asking for donations now, so there is no reason to keep up appearances if he didn't actually intend to do the work.

Okay I see now.

I haven't had a close look at the repo but I thought its lack of work was also suspect, but managing another project would be reason enough to give him some benefit of the doubt, unless he was referring to his mining pool...

Speaking of which, a decent reason I'd imagine why he'd bother is that he still has a usable reputation with his mining pool. Why prematurely sabotage that when he can just string suckers along for no cost?

I've seen and had my fair share of burns, hence my pessimism when I see things to be weary of. Again, I always hope for the best.

[smooth]

Not exactly to me, the behavior isn't consistent with the words said. If not working more part time because of funds was the case, why would atrides not simply keep donations open?

He did, and I sent a small additional donation after the initial round, but the rate had died down to the point where it was clear the original target was not going to be reached in any reasonable period of time.

If it was just a scam to raise donations, why bother with the code work (though it didn't appear to be a huge amount) in March? He's not asking for donations now, so there is no reason to keep up appearances if he didn't actually intend to do the work.

Okay I see now. I haven't had a close look at the repo but I thought its lack of work was also suspect, but managing another project would be reason enough to give him some benefit of the doubt, unless he was referring to his mining pool...

Speaking of which, a decent reason I'd imagine why he'd bother is that he still has a usable reputation with his mining pool. Why prematurely sabotage that when he can just string suckers along for no cost?

I've seen and had my fair share of burns, hence my pessimism when I see things to be weary of. Again, I always hope for the best.

Agree on all counts. Of course, he his pool is successful and he wants to protect its reputation, it would be dumb to ruin his reputation over one fundraiser.  But you never know, dumber scams have happened.

My guess, quite honestly, is that once he got into the work he found out that open bazaar was in worse shape than he realized in terms of maturity, and hard to make it work at all, much less with Monero. That would agree with everything else I've heard about the project.

He may also be a bit embarrassed about not being able to deliver, though if my suspicions as to the cause are correct, he really shouldn't be. Usually in these cases better communication is preferable even if the message is a disappointing one. But again I don't know. (Although I donated, I never bothered paying attention to the private messages to donators.)

[vokain]

I find that reason very agreeable, I'm not at all familiar with OpenBazaar. I guess we can wait until OB matures, and if it doesn't atrides still has opportunity to return the funds. Cheers.

[Anon136]

In theory, could my anonymity be compromised by too many other people publishing their view keys?

Well let's assume everybody did. Then you would have a coin where all transactions are traceable (except yours, and yours would be the only ones left so...). That's obviously not the goal here, but if everybody wants that, there's nothing you can do. You can't hide a needle without a haystack.

However, it is indeed not good to encourage too much reliance on view keys. That's why, for example, MRL-0004 has an alternate method for auditing of individual transactions that does not involve the broad brush of a view key.

I know you guys aren't aiming to be alphabet proof but perhaps one day in the future it could be a goal and it is concerning because we might imagine that some mass surveillance agency might be able to put together a rather comprehensive database of view keys.

Once the view key has been seen by someone other than yourself, consider the privacy of that address compromised and migrate funds to a secure (private) address. Better yet, never share a view key except for purpose specific, (single use?) addresses.  Let them watch a vacant house all they want.

Correct. View key is 1/2 of your private key. It makes sense to share this for specific reasons, but not in general.

fortunately it will probably be rare for people to share their view key anyway. i mean if they are in monero they are in monero for a reason.

[Anon136]

Right at this moment I'd say this is a super solid play:

should go post it in their thread with the caption

*cough* just sayin

i wouldn't do it because i don't have the constitution for trolling but it would be funny.

[cAPSLOCK]

Right at this moment I'd say this is a super solid play:

-snip gigantic image-

should go post it in their thread with the caption

*cough* just sayin

i wouldn't do it because i don't have the constitution for trolling but it would be funny.

That was what I wanted to do first.  But to be honest all the trolling has be kinda of worn out, and I have no hard feelings to the DASH camp.  I think they are at more risk because of today's developments in monero than they realize.

I also think the Monero community is only beginning to wake up to what xmr.to + shapeshift + database means in terms of our utility.