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

[dEBRUYNE]

I know you can hop on github and follow the commits... but not everyone in here is able to translate that into something meaningful.

When the devs are busy, maybe some of the technically adept monero supporters could translate it and put it in this thread now and then?

That is a good suggestion. if someone wants to take it on i volunteer to answer questions that might come up about the purpose of or function of various commits and pull requests.

Perhaps it would be a good idea if you made some kind of digest like GingerAle did, but then with the week's commits? If it requires too much of your free time, the funding system would be a proper place to get some funds for it in my opinion. Furthermore, like Gingerale, I guess you'll receive some donations without even asking for it.

[GingerAle]

I know you can hop on github and follow the commits... but not everyone in here is able to translate that into something meaningful.

When the devs are busy, maybe some of the technically adept monero supporters could translate it and put it in this thread now and then?

That is a good suggestion. if someone wants to take it on i volunteer to answer questions that might come up about the purpose of or function of various commits and pull requests.

Perhaps it would be a good idea if you made some kind of digest like GingerAle did, but then with the week's commits? If it requires too much of your free time, the funding system would be a proper place to get some funds for it in my opinion. Furthermore, like Gingerale, I guess you'll receive some donations without even asking for it.

Smooth - if you've got time, a digest of the weeks commits would be great. Again, though, I feel the week timeframe is just too frequent. This is open source. Stuff happens in fits and bursts. Hell, even on github, there's a metric for "longest streak", so its a recognized phenomena that contributors get zoned in on a problem for days, and then might not touch it for a while. I don't know what a "team" for this effort could do - the questions would be "hey smooth, whats happening in this commit? And this one?" But if you mean someone to format something, then send you a document to answer the questions, and then its posted - then a team effort makes sense.


Also, a technical question:

I don't know if you've been following the stress tests in bitcoin:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1098263.220;topicseen

But one of the things that popped up was Elegius pool filtering the spam transactions. In general there's a camp that encouraged this mining behavior, but there were also plenty that were frightened by the "slippery slope" nature of this happening. I have more tact than to start bandying about the fact that in Monero you wouldn't be able to filter these transactions.. but could you? I don't know exactly what the spam filter was, but apparently the spam transactions were easily spotted by eye.... would spam filtering be possible in monero? There wouldn't be consistent addresses, so that method is out. There wouldn't be consistent output usage, so that method is out...

[binaryFate]

But one of the things that popped up was Elegius pool filtering the spam transactions. In general there's a camp that encouraged this mining behavior, but there were also plenty that were frightened by the "slippery slope" nature of this happening. I have more tact than to start bandying about the fact that in Monero you wouldn't be able to filter these transactions.. but could you? I don't know exactly what the spam filter was, but apparently the spam transactions were easily spotted by eye.... would spam filtering be possible in monero? There wouldn't be consistent addresses, so that method is out. There wouldn't be consistent output usage, so that method is out...

The filtering of Eligius is pretty simple, they block common addresses (see https://blockchain.info/popular-addresses) of well-known gambling services such as LuckyBit or SatoshiDice.
This is justified by the fallacy "gambling = spam". I'm pretty sure that if porno related services would have well-known recurring bitcoin addresses, luke-jr would try to call it spam too. He's the guy recording the bible in the blockchain, remember?

Anyway, Monero is exempt from such possibility thanks to stealth addresses. There is no such list of popular addresses like Bitcoin. There is no destination that can be identified as belonging to a service or person.
If you do an analogy with net neutrality, Bitcoin is subject to censorship from miners and full nodes the same way TCP/IP is subject to censorship by ISPs and cable operators. Monero is intrinsically censorship free.

EDIT: Ah and btw, Eligius filtering uses prefix, not specific addresses. So if you happily create a vanity bitcoin address starting with 1Lucky, Eligius will filter your bitcoin activity because you'll be associated to the LuckyBit service.

[Atrides]

Deleted. We will work on trademark issue

[superresistant]

"Monero" is under attack by TrademarkFuckers.
I've got today the abuse.
I don't get any earning from moneroclub site and don't want to cover legal costs. Therefore the project will move to the new domain.
I find that very dangerous for Monero community. This trademark fucker can destroy any monero site.
BTW1, "monero" is esperanto word, how it is possible to register common words from dictionary?
BTW2, bitcoin TM is registered by community. Didn't someone from monero community happen to register trademark "monero"?

Oh fuck.

[iCEBREAKER]

"Monero" is under attack by TrademarkFuckers.
I've got today the abuse.
I don't get any earning from moneroclub site and don't want to cover legal costs. Therefore the project will move to the new domain.
I find that very dangerous for Monero community. This trademark fucker can destroy any monero site.
BTW1, "monero" is esperanto word, how it is possible to register common words from dictionary?
BTW2, bitcoin TM is registered by community. Didn't someone from monero community happen to register trademark "monero"?

Oh fuck.

Streisand Effect in 10...9...8...   

[myagui]

This looks like an interesting trademark case. Generally speaking, a trademark cannot be registered if it is a dictionary word and the business/trademark context aligns with the dictionary definition.

One can trademark "Money" for a brand of IceCream or Clothes, but not "Money" for any money related activities. Seeing as the trademark is for "Moneero", and their business relates to various financial activities & services, it strikes me comical that this ever got registered. Perhaps due to Esperanto not being an official language in any recognized independent territory?

I think it was ArsTecnica who dabbled on crypto-currency experimentation a while back, and has had plenty of articles and stories concerning trademarks and litigation abuse in the technology space. A good writeup to them could get us a solid (informal) legal review of the matter, as well as a lot of exposure. 1 Stone -> 2 Birds, any takers?

[fluffypony]

Hi all - just to formally state: we're aware of the trademark claims, and after consulting with the EFF we are now working with the Software Freedom Law Center to figure out how best to deal with it. Please be aware that it is a slow process we have to work through, and there isn't much we can state publicly, until we are told otherwise by the attorneys. We will keep everyone updated as and when we are able to:)

Edit: any who have received trademark complaints, who don't need to stay pseudonymous, and want to work with us on this, please email us: dev@getmonero.org

[nioc]

If all else fails we could always rebrand as Mochento.

Cursory google search reveals few meaningful hits - as it's literally a made up word that I just made up.

But if anyone asks, you could always just say that 'it's meaning is obfuscated by unique ring-signature technology.'

 

Watch out, Monsanto will be coming after you.

[vokain]

"Monero" is under attack by TrademarkFuckers.
I've got today the abuse.
I don't get any earning from moneroclub site and don't want to cover legal costs. Therefore the project will move to the new domain.
I find that very dangerous for Monero community. This trademark fucker can destroy any monero site.
BTW1, "monero" is esperanto word, how it is possible to register common words from dictionary?
BTW2, bitcoin TM is registered by community. Didn't someone from monero community happen to register trademark "monero"?

Oh fuck.

Streisand Effect in 10...9...8...   

Wow.. had almost forgotten about this wrangling. This is getting kinda funny.

It's an open & shut case.

Monero and Moneero are two separate words. If you try and make the case that they're the same, then where do you draw the line?

Two E's are not the same as one E.

But if you try to make the case that it's imitation then all you have to do is prove that it's not imitation. Which should be easy.

Will be good exposure for Monero and it's a case that Moneero can't win. Perfect recipe.

I just sent the Moneero bizdev guy a warning email too :p

[LuxMoneroj]

Just FYI for those that didn't catch the announcement on Reddit.

Android/iOS + Client Side Web Client Coming Soon

Currently a logo contest here. The 25 XMR award is already funded.

[LuxMoneroj]

Donated 10 XMR to Moneromooo for http://moneroaddress.org/

This is great work!

Edit: Will also donate ~50+ to the Monezor project soon. Hope roosmaa is feeling better.

[oniromancia]

This looks like an interesting trademark case. Generally speaking, a trademark cannot be registered if it is a dictionary word and the business/trademark context aligns with the dictionary definition.

One can trademark "Money" for a brand of IceCream or Clothes, but not "Money" for any money related activities. Seeing as the trademark is for "Moneero", and their business relates to various financial activities & services, it strikes me comical that this ever got registered. Perhaps due to Esperanto not being an official language in any recognized independent territory?

I think it was ArsTecnica who dabbled on crypto-currency experimentation a while back, and has had plenty of articles and stories concerning trademarks and litigation abuse in the technology space. A good writeup to them could get us a solid (informal) legal review of the matter, as well as a lot of exposure. 1 Stone -> 2 Birds, any takers?

If they don't want to negotiate a settlement for using this set of letters when someone files a trademark infringement lawsuit against you, then you have to defend you in court and file and pursue any counterclaim you have against them. In all honesty, if its not yet even registered you better pay them money compensation and small attorney’s fees. That's it. This is better than recovery after possible reputation damage.

[binaryFate]

This is better than recovery after possible reputation damage.

Not entirely clear to me: you're saying the reputation damage is on Monero side?
If so, I found that hilarious. The "moneero" company (who btw after raising private equity by issuing shares in 2013 - I almost bought some - apparently completely failed and went on a total pivot of their service. It was not called moneero by then) is the only one who has reputation to lose, if they believed to have any in the first place.
It will blow up in their face in terms of public image, and I'll be happy to let them know through private channels. Let's also let them know through public channels (twitter, reddit...).

[Minotaur26]

This is better than recovery after possible reputation damage.

Not entirely clear to me: you're saying the reputation damage is on Monero side?
If so, I found that hilarious. The "moneero" company (who btw after raising private equity by issuing shares in 2013 - I almost bought some - apparently completely failed and went on a total pivot of their service. It was not called moneero by then) is the only one who has reputation to lose, if they believed to have any in the first place.
It will blow up in their face in terms of public image, and I'll be happy to let them know through private channels. Let's also let them know through public channels (twitter, reddit...).

I think what you are missing is they do have a trademark in the financial services arena, with prior use, I think is going to be interesting how it plays out. It seems like they are acting within their rights, look at this info, specially First commercial use date, the areas of business for which they have a trademark, the opposition time frame is already past and they were granted the trademark, plus they even filed before Monero even existed, they filed in January 2014.  I think they have a solid case, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[myagui]

I don't think there's much value in us speculating when fluffy already posted the possible clarification that matters right now.

Here's that recent example at ArsTechnica that came to mind:
IMAX apologizes to Ars for its trademark retraction demand

Note: The context in this IMAX piece is completely unrelated from the case here with Moneero/Monero, just pointing out that I totally agree with Binaryfate with concerns to public image and reputation damage. 

[Atrides]

It's a screenshot from letter by "Moneero" company. They agreed that "monero" is a common word.


And now they write us:
"We have trademark moneey, therefore you can not use money in domain names"

[binaryFate]

Yeah my point is I'm not competent to judge the legal side but the public image angle is something that might well backlash into this company. Additionally to attacking a FOSS project, there are many Bitcoin early adopters that are somehow involved in Monero, and it's not like the Bitcoin ecosystem is so huge that the moneero company could not care about what the "community" think of them.

[binaryFate]

It's a screenshot from letter by "Moneero" company. They agreed that "monero" is a common word.


And now they write us:
"We have trademark moneey, therefore you can not use money in domain names"

Good, they told you how to refute their claim. 

[Atrides]

It's a screenshot from letter by "Moneero" company. They agreed that "monero" is a common word.


And now they write us:
"We have trademark moneey, therefore you can not use money in domain names"

Good, they told you how to refute their claim. 

It not against me, it was against "Monero" trademark a half year ago.