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

[rangedriver]

Feel free to upvote the Monero post here:-

https://www.reddit.com/r/HackBloc/

and here:-

https://www.reddit.com/r/anarchy/

It's the YouTube vid from the Bitcoin Conference.

Thanks!

[smooth]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested. i think he chose the right direction with implementing a new command instead of possibly compromising the old one.
i know, you developers like to work directly on the trunk and branching is for kids. but please use a wise mix out of open source and high risk financial software developement style. be conservative, you have all the support of the community to do so.

yes, mergin the branches is also risky from a quality point of view, and developers dont like it becasue its a lot of unecessary work to them (especially when developing API's), but taging diectly from the trunk can also have very ugly outcomes sometimes. If you freeze it may be ok, but freeze must be long enough to really test it.

this should not be critism - i am just a quality assurance guy burnt by reallity far too many times and just want to share my point of view. You have to be conservative, but also one day you have to release, its a very very thin line and i have all the trust in the core team to make the right moves at the right time.

To clarify a bit what fluffypony explained, what you see on the project master (trunk) are commits that were merged there from other forks (moneromooo's fork in the case of the new transfer_split algorithm) via pull requests. That isn't obvious in the commit list (the commits themselves look the same), although the merge also shows up as a later commit.

[XMRChina]

Ive been spending less time on bitcointalk, but continue to work hard. Lots more needs to be done in the next few weeks!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend

[child_harold]

To conclude my stint as interloper…

Thanks to all of you for your invaluable time and patience. I am quite aware I may have stepped out-of-line from time-to-time but that’s what people like us do: step out-of-line. We are all free thinkers or at least should be, and we can congratulate ourselves

I have been reading into the cryptonote, bytecoin and monero story for almost a month and there is yet much reading left. Sufficed to say I have reached no firm conclusions, save one. Most important is the continued development of anonymous digital currencies for the betterment of man. As such I look forward to seeing the next crypto innovations, whoever creates them.

In brief what I found perhaps most surprising in this is that both fluffypony and smooth are convinced the cryptonote team is in cahoots with the bytecoin team. For me this raises lots of questions which I wont bore you with now, save one:

Does monero's attack on bytecoin purpose to destroy the future of arguably the most innovative anonymous crypto-currency ever developed? (especially because the cryptonote and bytecoin teams may well be the same or consist of some of the same members). If so, at what cost?

I'd like to see monero stand on its own without feeling the need to bash bytecoin in order to prop itself up. I read GingerAle's welcome to monero text which was mostly good besides the gratuitous shiv in bytecoin.

There may be an irony in all of this. By the time the world hears about monero it'll be at least 80% mined (if it isn't already). Whist you were "open' about your launch this coin has been mostly mined by small circles of people, perhaps not much larger than those presumably small circles who quietly mined bytecoin. What may be of most significance (or should be) is the security, quality and usability of the product. Their histories may prove not to be as important to those seeking privacy as to those seeking privacy in monero. You may say they might be able to de-anon tx's but their distro is always improving (presumably) and your distro is not demonstrably better. The shift from suspicion of guilt to certain guilt and lynch mobs without hard-proof is unsettling to me and I think monero should consider not firing off the rethink-your-strategy post so liberally when without all the facts at hand even smooth admits is prone to error.

I'll continue to watch both projects (and Shadow) and their development.

Best wishes.

[iCEBREAKER]

monero's attack on bytecoin

ZOMG LOOK AT ALL THESE ATTACKS ON LINUX:

https://ubunturoot.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-72.png

Oh wait...

Forking is not an attack (unless it's done in the sneaky subversive manner of BitcoinXT).

Bytecoin (and all CN coins) benefit from Monero's myriad innovations.

[smooth]

I'd like to see monero stand on its own without feeling the need to bash bytecoin in order to prop itself up.

A "need" which you've invented in a transparent attempt to straw-man Monero into some kind of malicious intent.

Calling out an apparent premine fraud is not an "attack' (nor is forking, as iCEBREAKER correctly points out) and as I've explained before, you still have the history entirely backwards: The suspicions, investigations, and challenges of Bytecoin's history are not the product of Monero, Monero is the project of those concerns.

Most of us started out as intrigued by the Bytecoin technology and story and only decided to fork it (and support the fork) once it became apparent that story was bullshit, and its promoters had by then lost the support and confidence of the community.

There may be an irony in all of this. By the time the world hears about monero it'll be at least 80% mined (if it isn't already).

Monero will be 82% mined a bit under 4 years after launch (not really though, since there are perpetual rewards, so no one will ever feel it is "too late" to mine). If no one has heard of it by then, we'll have done something very wrong, or perhaps done our best but it just didn't work out anyway. In fact a lot of people have heard of Monero, even now, a year or so after launch.

More importantly, though, they will hear about a first four years that were a transparent project, open to any willing participants, with a verifiable history. Which is to say it won't look like a non-transparent likely fraud that will impair its success forever.

[americanpegasus]

More importantly, though, they will hear about a first four years that were a transparent project, open to any willing participants, with a verifiable history. Which is to say it won't look like a non-transparent likely fraud that will impair its success forever.

 
 
But we should probably publish a blurb to the bitcoin blockchain or two so that people don't claim we falsified all the history in 2018.  (.... aka the power of a public AND a private ledger for civilization)

[smooth]

More importantly, though, they will hear about a first four years that were a transparent project, open to any willing participants, with a verifiable history. Which is to say it won't look like a non-transparent likely fraud that will impair its success forever.

 
 
But we should probably publish a blurb to the bitcoin blockchain or two so that people don't claim we falsified all the history in 2018.  (.... aka the power of a public AND a private ledger for civilization)

Maybe that has already been done

[child_harold]

I'd like to see monero stand on its own without feeling the need to bash bytecoin in order to prop itself up.

A "need" which you've invented in a transparent attempt to straw-man Monero into some kind of malicious intent.

Calling out an apparent premine fraud is not an "attack' (nor is forking, as iCEBREAKER correctly points out) and as I've explained before, you still have the history entirely backwards: The suspicions, investigations, and challenges of Bytecoin's history are not the product of Monero, Monero is the project of those concerns.

Most of us started out as intrigued by the Bytecoin technology and story and only decided to fork it (and support the fork) once it became apparent that story was bullshit, and its promoters had by then lost the support and confidence of the community.

There may be an irony in all of this. By the time the world hears about monero it'll be at least 80% mined (if it isn't already).

Monero will be 82% mined a bit under 4 years after launch (not really though, since there are perpetual rewards, so no one will ever feel it is "too late" to mine). If no one has heard of it by then, we'll have done something very wrong, or perhaps done our best but it just didn't work out anyway. In fact a lot of people have heard of Monero, even now, a year or so after launch.

More importantly, though, they will hear about a first four years that were a transparent project, open to any willing participants, with a verifiable history. Which is to say it won't look like a non-transparent likely fraud that will impair its success forever.

Citing a post (which you admit could contain errors due to lack of available facts) again and again and leveraging every opportunity to remind the world about this incomplete theory as though it were gospel might be considered an attack. Maybe you think Im the only guy in the BCT community crazy enough to give bytecoin a chance but Im a member of this community nonetheless. It is tacky, unclassy and demeaning to you both to constantly cite rethink's post.

Got the numbers wrong - my bad. I see you're closer to 40-50% after year one and in 12 months from now you'll be around 60-70%.
https://moneroeconomy.com/wiki/emission-rate

[Hueristic]

Hold shift and right-click on folder and select "Open command window here".

A very useful trick that I can never remember when I need it. Maybe writing this will finally fix it in my mind..

It is very helpful for "cmd noobs" because they don't have to worry about finding the right directory, etc.

Nice, Never knew that. When was it added? I always added it to the right click menu.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt]
@=”Command Prompt:”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt\Command]
@=”cmd.exe /k cd %1″

At least since Vista. I don't feel like digging up an XP machine ATM, but I *think* it has it as well.

Never used vista, probably why I missed it. I'll check XP l8r. Thx.

Just checked, this is not an option for XP.

Well there ya go. Stop using old, no-longer-supported OSes.

LOL, every new Release I have to spend time removing unwanted and unvetted closed source services. XP is more secure than any newer M$ release. Relying on M$ and their backdoor updates is retarded in the extreme.

On another note.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/24/uk-met-police-snowden-investigation-journalists/

[smooth]

Citing a post (which you admit could contain errors due to lack of available facts) again and again and leveraging every opportunity to remind the world about this incomplete theory as though it were gospel might be considered an attack. Maybe you think Im the only guy in the BCT community crazy enough to give bytecoin a chance but Im a member of this community nonetheless. It is tacky, unclassy and demeaning to you both to constantly cite rethink's post.

"Constantly?" "Gospel?"

You really have a thing for straw man arguments and attempting to frame something you don't like in particular manner, because that's not being done at all.

If people (e.g. you) ask about the history, then, yes, it is reasonable to reference the best-written, best-researched, and most-scrutinized post/thread on the topic. If you have another such well-researched, well-written and well-scrutinized source to suggest, please let me know, and I'll include that the next time when the topic comes up.

The only argument I could see for not referencing under those circumstances it would be to try to bury the history, the inconsistencies, and the likely fraud. Why would you want to do that?

Got the numbers wrong - my bad. I see you're closer to 40-50% after year one and in 12 months from now you'll be around 60-70%.
https://moneroeconomy.com/wiki/emission-rate

In fact I get 39.6% per year, but that is somewhat misleading because of the perpetual rewards (also reward penalties will slightly reduce it, so 39.6% is the maximum, not the actual). There is no fixed percentage set aside for early adopters. If not added to, a fixed holding will slowly be diluted by new mining over time forever.

[Hueristic]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested....

I took a look and this code is beyond me. I am way behind the curve these days. Can someone explain what Data extra contains?

[smooth]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested....

I took a look and this code is beyond me. I am way behind the curve these days. Can someone explain what Data extra contains?

tx_extra has the one-time key for each transaction (used for stealth addresses) and also the optional payment ID. No part of that is being changed in this commit (or at least it shouldn't be -- if you see otherwise please point it out). What is changed is the method of splitting up large payments into multiple transactions.

[Hueristic]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested....

I took a look and this code is beyond me. I am way behind the curve these days. Can someone explain what Data extra contains?

tx_extra has the one-time key for each transaction (used for stealth addresses) and also the optional payment ID. No part of that is being changed in this commit (or at least it shouldn't be -- if you see otherwise please point it out). What is changed is the method of splitting up large payments into multiple transactions.

Thanks, from what I could see that contains very sensitiveness material and should be monitored for any unvetted forwarding. I just don't have the skills to see if that gets snuck in anywhere.

Is there a basic breakdown list of all variables, methods/functions/procedures descriptions and a block diagram available?

[smooth]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested....

I took a look and this code is beyond me. I am way behind the curve these days. Can someone explain what Data extra contains?

tx_extra has the one-time key for each transaction (used for stealth addresses) and also the optional payment ID. No part of that is being changed in this commit (or at least it shouldn't be -- if you see otherwise please point it out). What is changed is the method of splitting up large payments into multiple transactions.

Thanks, from what I could see that contains very sensitiveness material and should be monitored for any unvetted forwarding. I just don't have the skills to see if that gets snuck in anywhere.

Is there a basic breakdown list of all variables, methods/functions/procedures descriptions and a block diagram available?

No. The only thing we have reviewed and documented at that sort of at that level is the crypto-ops library.

Reviewing and writing up of design documents or diagrams like that is definitely welcome. Also just plain code comments, although much of that is a lot better than when we got it (looked like many of the comments had been programmatically stripped out).

[Hueristic]

commits are still comming in like crazy and there is no end in sight, i love it!

BUT please be carefull, stuff like this https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commit/988fe1f843f4f95e4a9a6068d21cefbcc4ff5821 should be very carefully tested....

I took a look and this code is beyond me. I am way behind the curve these days. Can someone explain what Data extra contains?

tx_extra has the one-time key for each transaction (used for stealth addresses) and also the optional payment ID. No part of that is being changed in this commit (or at least it shouldn't be -- if you see otherwise please point it out). What is changed is the method of splitting up large payments into multiple transactions.

Thanks, from what I could see that contains very sensitiveness material and should be monitored for any unvetted forwarding. I just don't have the skills to see if that gets snuck in anywhere.

Is there a basic breakdown list of all variables, methods/functions/procedures descriptions and a block diagram available?

No. The only thing we have reviewed and documented at that sort of at that level is the crypto-ops library.

Reviewing and writing up of design documents or diagrams like that is definitely welcome. Also just plain code comments, although much of that is a lot better than when we got it (looked like many of the comments had been programmatically stripped out).

Bummer, without those there is no way I could catch up with the amount of time I'm able to invest. :|

This is the only coin so far I've cared enough about to even look at the code.

[kazuki49]

Thanks, from what I could see that contains very sensitiveness material and should be monitored for any unvetted forwarding. I just don't have the skills to see if that gets snuck in anywhere.

If the network can accept "harmful" custom transactions then the problem is not where you are looking.

[Hueristic]

Thanks, from what I could see that contains very sensitiveness material and should be monitored for any unvetted forwarding. I just don't have the skills to see if that gets snuck in anywhere.

If the network can accept "harmful" custom transactions then the problem is not where you are looking.

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of sensitive data being redirected. I know I would use that vector if I wanted to uncover that info. I certainly would not broadcast erroneous packets to alert the network. But like I said, I'm not up to the code anymore and haven't protected networks in 15 years so I'm so far behind the curve I would probably be useless even if I did catch up.

[americanpegasus]

Bummer, without those there is no way I could catch up with the amount of time I'm able to invest. :|

This is the only coin so far I've cared enough about to even look at the code.

You're right.  This is the first time I've ever looked at hard code for a cryptocurrency either (just now).  
  
I've programmed in another life, but even I can see that this would be a nightmare for a new and talented developer to start working on.  They would have to solve a massive labyrinth before they could even begin to contribute meaningfully.  
  
We know that there will be many talented coders in China, Korea, and Japan who would love to assist with the project but may not be able to if there isn't a "Dwarf Fortress for Newbs" style intro for them.  Isn't there some kind of tool out there which can automatically (or semi-auto) create graphic representations of code to help new programmers understand what they are looking at?  
  
Expecting developers to properly document and comment on their code is like expecting the federal reserve to properly manage the economy.  Sure, it's nothing but good intentions at first, but we all know that human nature inevitably fucks things up.  I would even think that an inevitable full time position would be analyzing and commenting on the code, and translating it into vernacular so it's not some mathemagical object that us plebs can't decipher.

[smooth]

Bummer, without those there is no way I could catch up with the amount of time I'm able to invest. :|

This is the only coin so far I've cared enough about to even look at the code.

You're right.  This is the first time I've ever looked at hard code for a cryptocurrency either (just now).  
  
I've programmed in another life, but even I can see that this would be a nightmare for a new and talented developer to start working on.  They would have to solve a massive labyrinth before they could even begin to contribute meaningfully.  
  
We know that there will be many talented coders in China, Korea, and Japan who would love to assist with the project but may not be able to if there isn't a "Dwarf Fortress for Newbs" style intro for them.  Isn't there some kind of tool out there which can automatically (or semi-auto) create graphic representations of code to help new programmers understand what they are looking at?  
  
Expecting developers to properly document and comment on their code is like expecting the federal reserve to properly manage the economy.  Sure, it's nothing but good intentions at first, but we all know that human nature inevitably fucks things up.  I would even think that an inevitable full time position would be analyzing and commenting on the code, and translating it into vernacular so it's not some mathemagical object that us plebs can't decipher.

Doxygen is supported. It can generate docs and graphs which is better than nothing, but to be really useful requires annotations, which mostly don't exist. Adding them is a good project, but the issue is that incorrect annotations are probably worse than none at all, and to add correct ones require that you already understand how the code works...

Attacking this in bite-size pieces is somewhat feasible though. So i someone feels qualified to understand how some of the code works, pull requests to add annotations are a great way to contribute.

Intro here: http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/manual/docblocks.html