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

[BoscoMurray]

I've compiled Monero successfully on two different Linux Mint 17.1 boxes. These instructions look correct. I'm on a Mac right now, so I can't delve into this deeper at the moment. Just know that it does work. I can try and help later today or tomorrow. Also, the monero IRC channel is usually very helpful.

If you could it would be appreciated. I should specify, it's Mint Mate 17.2 I have installed. I'll try and get some time in the Monero IRC channel later today too.

[fluffypony]

I started liquidating and buying xmr about 2 months ago mostly because project is beefy. I understand putting the gui off is a good move because you want the back end super solid before even going there. But its interesting that this would also work as an invitation to old btc money who become interested. People have trouble taking alts seriously in general, but especially if they havent been around long. Some old btc cat checks out monero, grasps the tech, then sees there's not official gui. I think this to him says its still early to hop in. And I wonder if the decrease in priority related to the gui is partially to continue the invitation to hop in at a good price, with obvious rise still lying ahead. <removes tinfoil hat>

Heh heh...unfortunately it's nothing as clever as that:) We were full steam ahead with the GUI, but after the block 202612 attack we realised that we were doing so without preserving the security of our users. Because we're responsible (in a sense) for ensuring the general security of other people's money we realised we had to take a step back and start really digging into the internals that we had previously thought we'd leave for later. We announced this intention in the 12th Monero Missive, point 6. Subsequent to that we've grown to realise just how rocky those internals were, and we've devoted an inordinate amount of time to documenting, refactoring, replacing, and fixing various bits and pieces.

I'd sorta started learning enough python and extremely-intro cryptography to make sense of some of the tech behind monero. Ive been spending time diving into python and have a nice trader bot going. It is no rockstar but definitely makes me more income than drk MN income as well as my 6x280xs.

If you're interested in the cryptography (and like python) then you may be interested in some of the work the MRL have been doing:

https://github.com/ShenNoether/MiniNero
https://github.com/ShenNoether/LMDBExplorer

[robricc]

I've compiled Monero successfully on two different Linux Mint 17.1 boxes. These instructions look correct. I'm on a Mac right now, so I can't delve into this deeper at the moment. Just know that it does work. I can try and help later today or tomorrow. Also, the monero IRC channel is usually very helpful.

If you could it would be appreciated. I should specify, it's Mint Mate 17.2 I have installed. I'll try and get some time in the Monero IRC channel later today too.

OK, I just installed a fresh Mint 17.2 in a VM and indeed, there are dependencies above what's needed for Ubuntu. The process should look more like this:

Code:

sudo apt-get install git gcc-4.9 cmake libunbound2 libevent-2.0-5 libgtest-dev libboost1.55-dev libboost-system1.55-dev libboost-filesystem1.55-dev libboost-thread1.55-dev libboost-date_time1.55-dev libboost-chrono1.55-dev libboost-regex1.55-dev libboost-serialization1.55-dev libboost-program_options1.55-dev libunbound-dev build-essential libssl-dev libdb++-dev

Code:

git clone https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero.git

Code:

cd bitmonero
make

Let me know how you make out.

edit: forgot libdb++-dev

[luigi1111]

The full keys (spend + view) are 512 bits long. With a deterministic wallet the view key is a hash of the spend key so only the spend key is undetermined -- 256 bits. The short mnemonic versions use a 128 bits seed.

Any of these is sufficiently secure for practical purposes.

This was a very helpful graph in understanding bitcoin address basics.  Does anyone know of anything like this for Monero addresses? 
 

Hmm, I can create one of these easily. If only I liked creating graphics...

[luigi1111]

Isn't a private key way longer than an address?

This is probably wrong, but my though process:
No of bitcoin addresses = X^length

length = 32
x is no of characters. Since you have alphabet + capitals + numbers i would say X = 62.

It has to start with either a 1 or a 3 though, so 2 * 62^31, right?

The reason bitcoin addresses are short is they are hash of an ECC public key. In order to sign a transaction you have to provide with your signature, the full (longer) public key, which is first checked to hash to the address, before being used for verification.

But Monero address aren't directly comparable to Bitcoin addresses in another way. There is an extra step in the handling of stealth addresses that uses the address (public key) to create a new one-time key pair each time it is used. Only the one-time public key goes on the blockchain, not the address itself. That's why it is said that payments are unlinkable: no one can tell by looking at the blockchain the address that was used.

One-time keypairs essentially means there's something like 2^256 possible "addresses", irrespective of how many spend/view key combinations there are (though there'd be loads of collisions long before that).

I know this is a repeat question, but it is frustrating that I can't find an easy Google answer to it.  
  
How many Monero addresses are possible vs. bitcoin?  Bitcoin has 2^160 possible private keys, right?  How many does Monero have (I would assume more because the Monero addresses I see are much longer).  2^???

There's something like 2^256 private keys (almost all integers are valid), but only 2^160 public addresses.

Edit: well I guess 2^160 more p2sh addresses, so 2^161 total?

[binaryFate]

This was a very helpful graph in understanding bitcoin address basics.  Does anyone know of anything like this for Monero addresses? 
 

OT: Note that this is for uncompressed pub keys. Compressed ones start with 0x02 or 0x03 instead of 0x04, and are 32 bytes long instead of 64.

[luigi1111]

This was a very helpful graph in understanding bitcoin address basics.  Does anyone know of anything like this for Monero addresses? 
 

OT: Note that this is for uncompressed pub keys. Compressed ones start with 0x02 or 0x03 instead of 0x04, and are 32 bytes long instead of 64.

Well they're 33 and 65 bytes if you include the prefix.

[g4q34g4qg47ww]

Heh heh... 12th Monero Missive, point 6.

That's a good read, think i'll have work through the MRLSs

If you're interested in the cryptography (and like python) then you may be interested in some of the work the MRL have been doing:

https://github.com/ShenNoether/MiniNero
https://github.com/ShenNoether/LMDBExplorer

This is really really cool, thanks for the link. A lot of the functions in limited context i can see what they do, but will definitely spend a lot of time there trying to work out whats going on in bigger picture. This is great, will help with progressing my python and digging into monero guts

[Hueristic]

FYI

https://geti2p.net/en/blog/post/2015/07/16/I2PCon

[BoscoMurray]

I've compiled Monero successfully on two different Linux Mint 17.1 boxes. These instructions look correct. I'm on a Mac right now, so I can't delve into this deeper at the moment. Just know that it does work. I can try and help later today or tomorrow. Also, the monero IRC channel is usually very helpful.

If you could it would be appreciated. I should specify, it's Mint Mate 17.2 I have installed. I'll try and get some time in the Monero IRC channel later today too.

OK, I just installed a fresh Mint 17.2 in a VM and indeed, there are dependencies above what's needed for Ubuntu. The process should look more like this:

Code:

sudo apt-get install git gcc-4.9 cmake libunbound2 libevent-2.0-5 libgtest-dev libboost1.55-dev libboost-system1.55-dev libboost-filesystem1.55-dev libboost-thread1.55-dev libboost-date_time1.55-dev libboost-chrono1.55-dev libboost-regex1.55-dev libboost-serialization1.55-dev libboost-program_options1.55-dev libunbound-dev build-essential libssl-dev libdb++-dev

Code:

git clone https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero.git

Code:

cd bitmonero
make

Let me know how you make out.

edit: forgot libdb++-dev

Worked a treat. Thank you very much

[GingerAle]

I've compiled Monero successfully on two different Linux Mint 17.1 boxes. These instructions look correct. I'm on a Mac right now, so I can't delve into this deeper at the moment. Just know that it does work. I can try and help later today or tomorrow. Also, the monero IRC channel is usually very helpful.

If you could it would be appreciated. I should specify, it's Mint Mate 17.2 I have installed. I'll try and get some time in the Monero IRC channel later today too.

OK, I just installed a fresh Mint 17.2 in a VM and indeed, there are dependencies above what's needed for Ubuntu. The process should look more like this:

Code:

sudo apt-get install git gcc-4.9 cmake libunbound2 libevent-2.0-5 libgtest-dev libboost1.55-dev libboost-system1.55-dev libboost-filesystem1.55-dev libboost-thread1.55-dev libboost-date_time1.55-dev libboost-chrono1.55-dev libboost-regex1.55-dev libboost-serialization1.55-dev libboost-program_options1.55-dev libunbound-dev build-essential libssl-dev libdb++-dev

Code:

git clone https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero.git

Code:

cd bitmonero
make

Let me know how you make out.

edit: forgot libdb++-dev

Worked a treat. Thank you very much

thanks for posting. I've added it to my post on the monero support thread.

[Arux]

@GingerAle: you can simplify a bit and replace

Code:

libboost1.55-dev libboost-system1.55-dev libboost-filesystem1.55-dev libboost-thread1.55-dev libboost-date_time1.55-dev libboost-chrono1.55-dev libboost-regex1.55-dev libboost-serialization1.55-dev libboost-program_options1.55-dev

by

Code:

libboost1.55-all-dev

it install some additional unused lib but it's easier.

Code:

sudo apt-get install git gcc-4.9 cmake libunbound2 libevent-2.0-5 libgtest-dev libboost1.55-all-dev libunbound-dev build-essential libssl-dev libdb++-dev

[BoscoMurray]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

[kazuki49]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

ssssshhhhhhhhhh, monero is slow and bloated.

[dreamspark]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

I haven't built monero or synched from scratch with the DB personally but this is certainly encouraging news. Impressive, very impressive.

[americanpegasus]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

I haven't built monero or synched from scratch with the DB personally but this is certainly encouraging news. Impressive, very impressive.

 
 
With the reduced memory requirements is it time for me to set up my dedicated full node? 

I saw a brand new HP Intel Celeron laptop with 2GB of memory on sale at Best Buy last night for $179.  It was too good of a deal so I bought it.  I've been planning to create a Monero "pretty-secure" wallet station for a while so I'm not holding all my coins on Poloniex. 
 
The ultimate plan for the savings is to hold a third in a secure online service (currently Poloniex), a third on a full node running on a laptop only used to run that full node (with an encrypted backup), and a third in cold storage. 
 
Thoughts?  Also, this little thing came with Windows 8.  I've never used a Linux distro before, but I was thinking about trying it for this project. 
 
(also, I would obviously only play around with test amounts of coins until I am very confident in my abilities to send/receive Monero on a direct level)

[nioc]

ssssshhhhhhhhhh, monero is slow and bloated.

hello people!

I can confirm that Monero is slow and bloated

[vokain]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

I haven't built monero or synched from scratch with the DB personally but this is certainly encouraging news. Impressive, very impressive.

 
 
With the reduced memory requirements is it time for me to set up my dedicated full node? 

I saw a brand new HP Intel Celeron laptop with 2GB of memory on sale at Best Buy last night for $179.  It was too good of a deal so I bought it.  I've been planning to create a Monero "pretty-secure" wallet station for a while so I'm not holding all my coins on Poloniex. 
 
The ultimate plan for the savings is to hold a third in a secure online service (currently Poloniex), a third on a full node running on a laptop only used to run that full node (with an encrypted backup), and a third in cold storage. 
 
Thoughts?  Also, this little thing came with Windows 8.  I've never used a Linux distro before, but I was thinking about trying it for this project. 
 
(also, I would obviously only play around with test amounts of coins until I am very confident in my abilities to send/receive Monero on a direct level)

I don't know if anything is proven but given the possibility of backdoors in Windows is presumably greater than open source, running Linux would probably be a very prudent move. Besides, the earlier you start building familiarity with Linux the better.

[nioc]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

I haven't built monero or synched from scratch with the DB personally but this is certainly encouraging news. Impressive, very impressive.

 
 
With the reduced memory requirements is it time for me to set up my dedicated full node? 

I saw a brand new HP Intel Celeron laptop with 2GB of memory on sale at Best Buy last night for $179.  It was too good of a deal so I bought it.  I've been planning to create a Monero "pretty-secure" wallet station for a while so I'm not holding all my coins on Poloniex. 
 
The ultimate plan for the savings is to hold a third in a secure online service (currently Poloniex), a third on a full node running on a laptop only used to run that full node (with an encrypted backup), and a third in cold storage. 
 
Thoughts?  Also, this little thing came with Windows 8.  I've never used a Linux distro before, but I was thinking about trying it for this project. 
 
(also, I would obviously only play around with test amounts of coins until I am very confident in my abilities to send/receive Monero on a direct level)

Why not MyMonero as a secure online service instead of Poloniex?

[g4q34g4qg47ww]

LMDB sync from scratch in just over 3 hours, and daemon using only 60MB to 100MB RAM. DB is so small I can't find it. What a difference!

I haven't built monero or synched from scratch with the DB personally but this is certainly encouraging news. Impressive, very impressive.

 
  
With the reduced memory requirements is it time for me to set up my dedicated full node?  

I saw a brand new HP Intel Celeron laptop with 2GB of memory on sale at Best Buy last night for $179.  It was too good of a deal so I bought it.  I've been planning to create a Monero "pretty-secure" wallet station for a while so I'm not holding all my coins on Poloniex.  
  
The ultimate plan for the savings is to hold a third in a secure online service (currently Poloniex), a third on a full node running on a laptop only used to run that full node (with an encrypted backup), and a third in cold storage.  
  
Thoughts?  Also, this little thing came with Windows 8.  I've never used a Linux distro before, but I was thinking about trying it for this project.  
  
(also, I would obviously only play around with test amounts of coins until I am very confident in my abilities to send/receive Monero on a direct level)

Imho you should definitely generously run the full node, but not use that wallet for storing coins, nor really anywhere other than the most secure place you can manage. Using virtual machine (which is free and lets you run an instance of any os, linux it this case) in windows is really pain free once you get it set up. Pretty much any question you have about newb linux stuff has a hundred other people asking the same question in google search so learning goes fast. I think as far as micorosoft goes windows 8 seems okish, i wouldnt upgrade to 10 though. Bury that wallet behind crazy hash passwords on the virtual machine itself as well as *(a different one)* on the monero wallet then basically never touch it. I then sometimes would create a zip file out of the entire VM instance, chop it up into paswoord encoded zip files and bury those in tin cans in my grandmas back yard.

Edit: You can still send coins to your address successfully even if the only existing copy of the wallet has been sitting all chopped up in grandmas cold dirt for 7 months