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

[papa_lazzarou]

Edit: It looks like I'm a little late to the party, but hey! I posted pics.

I was able to sync bytecoin full client with less than 4G of ram, but could not with the monero full client. Is the dev team still active ? How come this has not ported to monero ?

I think a more interesting question is 'How long did it take?'

I got my node synced from scratch in about 3 hours.

[papa_lazzarou]

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

 
 
That's not a bad idea.  Perhaps quarters, with 25% on Poloniex and 25% on MyMonero.   I feel pretty safe from the user end considering that Polo has 2 factor authentication and is KYC compliant, but precautions are always a good thing. 

If Polo gets hacked or disappears you say goodbye to your XMR.
If someone hacks MyMonero they will only be able to see those funds. If MyMonero is kaput you will still be able to get your Moneros.

OTOH

If you lose your Polo pass. Support will help you get back in.
If you lose your seed words bye, bye Moneros. The guys behind MyMonero won't be able to do anything about it.


You just have to ask yourself who do you trust more. Yourself or some guys running a crypto exchange.

Also, there is fluffly's historical advice for the paranoid android:

Hey everyone,

What security measures do you recommend for your cold storage keys. I was thinking more about measures to prevent hacking/theft of the keys. Should i be paranoid to the point of creating the wallet in an air gap and never look into it until I need it? (Lets not go into the "Ruiu says badBIOS leaps air gaps" territory).

Regarding backup I'm doing the _strongly encrypt your files and stored them in offline and online sources and don't forget the deterministic seed_ routine. If anyone as further thoughts on backup that would be appreciated also.


Remember, rockets are old school. We are going to the moon in a space elevator. Keep calm and get some moar.

Peace!

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Take any machine you have lying around, even your normal workstation. You may find it easier to use an older computer that has no wifi or bluetooth if you're particularly paranoid.
2. Create a Linux or Windows bootable disk, and make sure you have the Monero binaries on the same disk or on a second disk (for Linux make sure you have also downloaded copies of the dependencies you will need, libboost1.55 and miniupnpc for instance).
3. Disconnect the network and/or Internet cables from your machine, physically remove the wifi card or switch the wifi/bluetooth off on a laptop if possible.
4. Boot into your bootable OS, install the dependencies if necessary.
5. Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk (/dev/shm in Linux, Windows bootable ISOs normally have a Z: drive or something)
6. Don't run the Monero daemon. Instead, using the command line, use simplewallet to create a new wallet.
7. When prompted for a name, give it any name, it doesn't really matter.
8. When prompted for a password, type in like 50 - 100 random characters. Don't worry that you don't know the password, just make it LONG.
9. Write down (on paper) your 24 word mnemonic seed.
10. Write down (on your phone, on paper, on another computer, wherever you want) your address and view key.
11. Switch off the computer, remove the battery if there is one, and leave it physically off for a few hours.

There you go - the wallet you've created was created in RAM, and the digital files are now lost forever. If some magical hacker manages to somehow get the data, they will lack the long password to open it. If you need to receive payments, you have the address, and you have the view key if needed. If you need access to it, you have your 24 word seed, and you can now write out several copies of it so that you have an offsite copy (eg. a bank deposit box). Due to the nature of the key you can write it as part of something else - eg. write a fake love letter to your wife so that the 24 words on the left hand side are your key or whatever. Then write a bunch of extra love letters. That way, if your deposit box is ever discovered, it'll be disregarded as unimportant love letters.

[luigi1111]

Edit: It looks like I'm a little late to the party, but hey! I posted pics.

I was able to sync bytecoin full client with less than 4G of ram, but could not with the monero full client. Is the dev team still active ? How come this has not ported to monero ?

I think a more interesting question is 'How long did it take?'

I got my node synced from scratch in about 3 hours.

Assuming you have an SSD, sync time should be almost completely dominated by your internet connection and the peer(s) you happen to connect to.

On my machine actual chain processing only takes around 11 minutes IIRC.

[skunk]

hi all!
i wanted to give master branch a try to see if i can finally keep monero wallet running on my linux box without getting out of ram...
i ran blockchain_converter on my blockchain and even on the blockchain from op, but it dies in very same way:

Code:

Creating the logger system
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676217 Starting...
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676373 batch:   true  batch size: 5000
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676507 resume:  true
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676641 testnet: false
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.724167 Loading blockchain...
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429539 Blockchain initialized. last block: 639896, d28.h12.m10.s8 time ago, current difficulty: 711778266
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429896 Source blockchain: /home/skunk/.bitmonero
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430007 Dest blockchain:   /home/skunk/.bitmonero/lmdb
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430126 Opening dest blockchain (BlockchainDB lmdb)
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510671 Source blockchain height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510859 Dest blockchain height:   0
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510968 start height: 1  stop height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.511107 Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db                 
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'cryptonote::DB_ERROR'
  what():  Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db
Aborted

any workaround apart of syncing from scratch?
thank you.

[dEBRUYNE]

hi all!
i wanted to give master branch a try to see if i can finally keep monero wallet running on my linux box without getting out of ram...
i ran blockchain_converter on my blockchain and even on the blockchain from op, but it dies in very same way:

Code:

Creating the logger system
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676217 Starting...
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676373 batch:   true  batch size: 5000
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676507 resume:  true
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676641 testnet: false
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.724167 Loading blockchain...
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429539 Blockchain initialized. last block: 639896, d28.h12.m10.s8 time ago, current difficulty: 711778266
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429896 Source blockchain: /home/skunk/.bitmonero
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430007 Dest blockchain:   /home/skunk/.bitmonero/lmdb
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430126 Opening dest blockchain (BlockchainDB lmdb)
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510671 Source blockchain height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510859 Dest blockchain height:   0
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510968 start height: 1  stop height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.511107 Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db                                                       
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'cryptonote::DB_ERROR'                                                                                                       
  what():  Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db                                                                        
Aborted                                                                                                                                                                     

any workaround apart of syncing from scratch?
thank you.

I have no clue how to fix this (note that I am not really tech savy so I leave this question open to more people with more knowledge regarding this subject), however some people reported syncing from scratch times of approximately 3 hours. So if you have a decent PC, why not give it a go?

[ArticMine]

2) Do not enter any passwords or store unencrypted keys wallets etc on any computer where Microsoft Windows is the host (even in a GNU/Linux virtual machine) or on any virtual Microsoft Windows guest. This is critical. Windows malware is a very common cause for lost coins!
3) Run your own full node or nodes with an encrypted wallet.

I just want to clarify please, your are saying not to write down instructions to recreate your password or the password itself anywhere within the windows or virtual machine accessed through windows. Does this mean that virtual machine in general is considered some what severley compromised and it be more prudent to just boot to straight to linux? Thanks for your help.

Yes. The issue, for example, is that a keylogger on the compromised Windows host would have access to the keyboard and consequently to what is typed into the GNU/Linux guest. So one needs to be running GNU/Linux directly on the hardware.

[GingerAle]

hi all!
i wanted to give master branch a try to see if i can finally keep monero wallet running on my linux box without getting out of ram...
i ran blockchain_converter on my blockchain and even on the blockchain from op, but it dies in very same way:

Code:

Creating the logger system
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676217 Starting...
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676373 batch:   true  batch size: 5000
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676507 resume:  true
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.676641 testnet: false
2015-Aug-04 17:03:58.724167 Loading blockchain...
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429539 Blockchain initialized. last block: 639896, d28.h12.m10.s8 time ago, current difficulty: 711778266
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.429896 Source blockchain: /home/skunk/.bitmonero
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430007 Dest blockchain:   /home/skunk/.bitmonero/lmdb
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.430126 Opening dest blockchain (BlockchainDB lmdb)
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510671 Source blockchain height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510859 Dest blockchain height:   0
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.510968 start height: 1  stop height: 639897
2015-Aug-04 17:08:47.511107 Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db                                                       
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'cryptonote::DB_ERROR'                                                                                                       
  what():  Attempt to get block size from height 18446744073709551116 failed -- block size not in db                                                                        
Aborted                                                                                                                                                                     

any workaround apart of syncing from scratch?
thank you.

I have no clue how to fix this (note that I am not really tech savy so I leave this question open to more people with more knowledge regarding this subject), however some people reported syncing from scratch times of approximately 3 hours. So if you have a decent PC, why not give it a go?

you could also try the export / import approach, as opposed to running the converter. Dunno if it would get around the DB_error, but its another approach.

[skunk]

you could also try the export / import approach, as opposed to running the converter. Dunno if it would get around the DB_error, but its another approach.

thank you, somehow i thought master's blockchain_export would only work with lmdb...
the export went fine and took just 15 minutes and the import is running at a rate of 1k blocks every 40 seconds... 7,5 hours to go if everything goes smooth...

[dEBRUYNE]

Interesting:

Update!

Lets discuss this on Reddit (so we can start building more traffic there):
https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/comments/3fs25q/potential_cryptsy_listing/
https://twitter.com/BBRcurrency/status/628646443176325120

Received direct message on Twitter today from BigVern (cryptsy):



I responded to say we were interested and asked if they were technically able to add us quickly. I am aware they have said they wanted to add Monero for quite some time but have yet to do so for I presume to be be technical issues integrating with their system

edit: he just responded to my question. It sounds like they are ready to start integrating Monero too.

I will provide more details on r/boolberry so come join the discussion!

Additional info: https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/comments/3fs25q/potential_cryptsy_listing/ctrerrm

[pinky]

Interesting:

Not really. Many btc was donated to Cryptsy for XMR and they did nothing. Fuck Cryptsy. Frankly, I don't even wish to see XMR on their exchange.

[dEBRUYNE]

Interesting:

Not really. Many btc was donated to Cryptsy for XMR and they did nothing. Fuck Cryptsy. Frankly, I don't even wish to see XMR on their exchange.

Their XMR address. They will just stole your btc:
https://blockchain.info/address/1K1uqcxrjr7zWYwePFz2v6Y3hSxBvMrSJ2?filter=2

I agree but I think the 1 BTC was only meant for BBR and I would be suprised if they ask us for 1 BTC as well. You never know with Cryptsy though.

[wpalczynski]

Cryptsy listing imminent? https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/comments/3fs25q/potential_cryptsy_listing/ctrerrm

Soon(TM)

[medusa13]

lol craptsy how low can you go..
how long did they need to implement it? what do you think how long they will need to fix a bug ?
cheap, cheaper, cryptsy.

the same thing will happen like with nxt. withdrawls freezed for months
people like this should never run an exchange.

[skunk]

importing the blockchain went wrong:

Code:

2015-Aug-04 23:36:28.771111 loading block number 201000
2015-Aug-04 23:37:42.303059 loading block number 202000
block 202620 / 6809082015-Aug-04 23:39:19.024385 ERROR /home/skunk/bitcoin/bitmonero/src/cryptonote_core/tx_pool.cpp:189 internal error: try to insert duplicate iterator in key_image set
2015-Aug-04 23:39:19.024482 failed to add transaction to transaction pool, height=202622, tx_num=3
2015-Aug-04 23:39:19.062444 Failed to add block to blockchain, verification failed, height = 202622
2015-Aug-04 23:39:19.062556 skipping rest of file
2015-Aug-04 23:40:58.457240 Number of blocks imported: 202620
2015-Aug-04 23:40:58.457694 Finished at block: 202621  total blocks: 202622

2015-Aug-04 23:40:58.457838 Closing IO Service.

starting bitmonerod from there dosn't seem to sync as it keeps stuck on block 202621...
i resign to do a full sync during the night, let see if it completes...

[boolberry]

Interesting:

Update!

Lets discuss this on Reddit (so we can start building more traffic there):
https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/comments/3fs25q/potential_cryptsy_listing/
https://twitter.com/BBRcurrency/status/628646443176325120

Received direct message on Twitter today from BigVern (cryptsy):



I responded to say we were interested and asked if they were technically able to add us quickly. I am aware they have said they wanted to add Monero for quite some time but have yet to do so for I presume to be be technical issues integrating with their system

edit: he just responded to my question. It sounds like they are ready to start integrating Monero too.

I will provide more details on r/boolberry so come join the discussion!

Additional info: https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/comments/3fs25q/potential_cryptsy_listing/ctrerrm

UPDATE!

This was a SCAM attempt, first identified by dreamspark:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753252.msg12054858#msg12054858

Be careful everyone! @crpytsy is trying to impersonate @cryptsy and scam 1BTC for an exchange listing by private message
https://twitter.com/BBRcurrency/status/628684966067482624

Please help report the fake @crpytsy twitter

[g4q34g4qg47ww]

2) Do not enter any passwords or store unencrypted keys wallets etc on any computer where Microsoft Windows is the host (even in a GNU/Linux virtual machine) or on any virtual Microsoft Windows guest. This is critical. Windows malware is a very common cause for lost coins!
3) Run your own full node or nodes with an encrypted wallet.

I just want to clarify please, your are saying not to write down instructions to recreate your password or the password itself anywhere within the windows or virtual machine accessed through windows. Does this mean that virtual machine in general is considered some what severley compromised and it be more prudent to just boot to straight to linux? Thanks for your help.

Yes. The issue, for example, is that a keylogger on the compromised Windows host would have access to the keyboard and consequently to what is typed into the GNU/Linux guest. So one needs to be running GNU/Linux directly on the hardware.

Thanks for the response. My thinking in foiling a key logger was to write this to generate re-usable passwords... https://github.com/Lf3999f3jfa00/zHASH ... if you don't have time to take a look i appreciate the advice you provivided already. If you happen to take a look I would be very appreciateive to know what your opinion was concerning how effective it is. Long story short I guess its time to start booting to linux.

[ArticMine]

FYI: Windows 10 is basically intentional spyware logging everything you type along with much more.


http://rare.us/story/windows-10-is-stealing-and-recording-your-personal-information/

Just search for "privacy" on Google news and one gets a flood of articles on the subject of how Windows 10 does the above and much more.

[s1gs3gv]

A few short questions about the project:

1) Looking at the design and development goals for monero at https://getmonero.org/design-goals/, what is the rationale for using zeroMQ for RPC ?

2) How is ongoing development financed ?

3) What processes are used to define the design goals and prioritize them ?

4) Should a need arise to change the POW algo because, for example, someone introduces a CryptoNight FPGA or ASIC device, what process would the monero community and/or the development team use to pick a new algorithm and schedule its introduction ?

5) Are there estimated dates for the completion of these goals ?

[GingerAle]

Keep in mind I'm not a dev. I'm just a dude that follows the project and makes podcasts and is really enthusiastic.

A few short questions about the project:

1) Looking at the design and development goals for monero at https://getmonero.org/design-goals/, what is the rationale for using zeroMQ for RPC ?

ooh, thats in a missive somewhere....
https://getmonero.org/2015/03/02/monero-missive-for-the-week-of-2015-03-02.html
if I understand correctly (but im no dev), RPC is designed for remote things... hence, the name of it (remote procedure call perhaps?), whereas zeroMQ is better for stuff within the same box... because monero architecture is different than bitcoin (wallet and daemon are separate), it makes sense to have the code optimized to talk within the same box.

2) How is ongoing development financed ?

Blood, sweat and tears. Personal investments of the core team (because they're crazy). And donations. And crowdfunding.
https://forum.getmonero.org/9/work-in-progress/334/fund-a-developer-moneromoo-will-work-part-time-on-monero-for-260-hours-over-approx-6-months

3) What processes are used to define the design goals and prioritize them ?

Core team. No idea about the particulars on the process. A new missive kinda discusses this, if I ever get around to editing it instead of playing with my mining hardware.

4) Should a need arise to change the POW algo because, for example, someone introduces a CryptoNight FPGA or ASIC device, what process would the monero community and/or the development team use to pick a new algorithm and schedule its introduction ?

This would be done with a hardfork, and this is also detailed in a missive coming up if we ever get around to publishing them.
How to pick a new algorithm? Unknown. I think a self adapting 10 year algorithm would be cool, but I have no idea how to create that. I tend to believe that the current core team would implement a different POW due to the commitment to decentralization, but core teams can change. The coin lives on.

5) Are there estimated dates for the completion of these goals ?

Yes. Soon (tm). Sooner can be sooner if you donate to development or can development. This is open source. It doesn't happen unless we make it happen. And hodling != investing. Unless, of course, you know, you're going to buy ALL the monero. But don't do that. Because then you'll control too many outputs.

[GingerAle]

and also, fluffypony can probably give a better response... but he won't wake up for another many hours.