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

[aminorex]

If governments outlaw Monero and other anons forcing them to go underground that would affect the user base drastically. If Monero's aiming for mass-adoption it would have to cut a deal with the regulators sooner or later.

the premise is absurd, so the conclusion is unwarranted.  there is a vast distance between regulating and outlawing.  finally, monero is not much more capable of cutting deals than, e.g. AES.  how do you cut a deal with the heine-borel theorem?

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[freebud]

in the u.s. your rights of privacy and anonymity are constituionally guaranteed.  it is likely that totalitarian regimes will outlaw anonymizing technologies, albeit with very limited success.  the likelihood of criminalization of anonymizing tech in western liberal democracies generally is zero.

I'm not a US citizen, but from what I read lately it doesn't seem true. I'm not sure if the Snowden revelations regarding the NSA spying on everyone is considered constitutional or not, but I think that a government that uses such methods hardly cares for privacy or anonymity, and would find a way to paint a crackdown on anonymizing technologies in a constitutional way.

[Jshank]

I just read that Coinbase is declining transactions from Tor users. This isn't surprising, and just another example of the steady and relentless capture of the Bitcoin space by governments and regulators. It is pretty obvious to me that Monero (and other privacy enhancing coins) will become illegal in most places, and governments will try to prevent the transfer of funds between Monero and the legal economy. I guess it will be pretty easy for them to block fiat transfer, either in exchanges or in something like localmonero. It also seems plausible that pure crypro exchanges will be regulated, and prevent trade in privacy coins.
I'm not writing this as FUD or pointless rant, I'm a developer and have some free time, and would really like to hear any ideas on how can we mitigate this probable future..

Everyone will just use bitcoin with massive mixing when they buy monero. Worse case scinario is that we have to use darknet exchanges or exchanges that are censorship resistant by virtue of being sufficiently decentralized. It could push exchanges in general in a very positive direction. Remember when they government makes something illegal they dont get rid of it, they just raise the price. Sure they can spend huge amounts of money to locate the take down darknet exchange servers and operators, but just like the silkroad 2.0 another one will just spring up. And so long as there is demand this will continue to happen. If they do it enough times than it will cause the price of trading to rise. But thats really the best they will ever be able to do.

TLDR: if you are worried about monero going away because the government made it illegal, see how *insert illicit substance of choice here* went away when they made that illegal.

If governments outlaw Monero and other anons forcing them to go underground that would affect the user base drastically. If Monero's aiming for mass-adoption it would have to cut a deal with the regulators sooner or later.

We are the regulators.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

Monero (portrayed by extra-terrestrial friend) vs Regulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6atSU2iUrdI

If this is too much i'll delete at someones request  

[joebob999]

Anybody curious about board members of cryptonote?
https://cryptonotefoundation.org/
Should be announced this month, anybody care to speculate?

That used to say August, so they've already pushed it back once.

They say it's going to be announced today

[aminorex]

in the u.s. your rights of privacy and anonymity are constituionally guaranteed.  it is likely that totalitarian regimes will outlaw anonymizing technologies, albeit with very limited success.  the likelihood of criminalization of anonymizing tech in western liberal democracies generally is zero.

I'm not a US citizen, but from what I read lately it doesn't seem true. I'm not sure if the Snowden revelations regarding the NSA spying on everyone is considered constitutional or not, but I think that a government that uses such methods hardly cares for privacy or anonymity, and would find a way to paint a crackdown on anonymizing technologies in a constitutional way.

that is no more feasible in the u.s. than confiscation of all firearms.  either would involve a civil war.  every member of the armed forces has sworn an oath to defend the constitution against all domestic enemies.

factions within government commit crimes everyday.  some are sensationalized by mass media, and affect common knowledge, but that does not mean that common knowledge reflects facts on the ground more accurately.

a balanced perspective should include some facts: people are not governments, but form a large part of the mechanism of governments.  laws are not consistent, policies are not consistent, and actions are not consistent.  in the u.s. the longest arc of governance is determined by the supreme court. deviations from the rulings of the court exist only as long as the court tolerates them.

[/dev/null]

I just read that Coinbase is declining transactions from Tor users. This isn't surprising, and just another example of the steady and relentless capture of the Bitcoin space by governments and regulators. It is pretty obvious to me that Monero (and other privacy enhancing coins) will become illegal in most places, and governments will try to prevent the transfer of funds between Monero and the legal economy. I guess it will be pretty easy for them to block fiat transfer, either in exchanges or in something like localmonero. It also seems plausible that pure crypro exchanges will be regulated, and prevent trade in privacy coins.
I'm not writing this as FUD or pointless rant, I'm a developer and have some free time, and would really like to hear any ideas on how can we mitigate this probable future..

Everyone will just use bitcoin with massive mixing when they buy monero. Worse case scinario is that we have to use darknet exchanges or exchanges that are censorship resistant by virtue of being sufficiently decentralized. It could push exchanges in general in a very positive direction. Remember when they government makes something illegal they dont get rid of it, they just raise the price. Sure they can spend huge amounts of money to locate the take down darknet exchange servers and operators, but just like the silkroad 2.0 another one will just spring up. And so long as there is demand this will continue to happen. If they do it enough times than it will cause the price of trading to rise. But thats really the best they will ever be able to do.

TLDR: if you are worried about monero going away because the government made it illegal, see how *insert illicit substance of choice here* went away when they made that illegal.

If governments outlaw Monero and other anons forcing them to go underground that would affect the user base drastically. If Monero's aiming for mass-adoption it would have to cut a deal with the regulators sooner or later.

We are the regulators.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

Monero (portrayed by extra-terrestrial friend) vs Regulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6atSU2iUrdI

If this is too much i'll delete at someones request  

lol That's funny. Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

[TheKoziTwo]

If governments outlaw Monero and other anons forcing them to go underground that would affect the user base drastically. If Monero's aiming for mass-adoption it would have to cut a deal with the regulators sooner or later.

[Anon136]

I just read that Coinbase is declining transactions from Tor users. This isn't surprising, and just another example of the steady and relentless capture of the Bitcoin space by governments and regulators. It is pretty obvious to me that Monero (and other privacy enhancing coins) will become illegal in most places, and governments will try to prevent the transfer of funds between Monero and the legal economy. I guess it will be pretty easy for them to block fiat transfer, either in exchanges or in something like localmonero. It also seems plausible that pure crypro exchanges will be regulated, and prevent trade in privacy coins.
I'm not writing this as FUD or pointless rant, I'm a developer and have some free time, and would really like to hear any ideas on how can we mitigate this probable future..

Everyone will just use bitcoin with massive mixing when they buy monero. Worse case scinario is that we have to use darknet exchanges or exchanges that are censorship resistant by virtue of being sufficiently decentralized. It could push exchanges in general in a very positive direction. Remember when they government makes something illegal they dont get rid of it, they just raise the price. Sure they can spend huge amounts of money to locate the take down darknet exchange servers and operators, but just like the silkroad 2.0 another one will just spring up. And so long as there is demand this will continue to happen. If they do it enough times than it will cause the price of trading to rise. But thats really the best they will ever be able to do.

TLDR: if you are worried about monero going away because the government made it illegal, see how *insert illicit substance of choice here* went away when they made that illegal.

If governments outlaw Monero and other anons forcing them to go underground that would affect the user base drastically. If Monero's aiming for mass-adoption it would have to cut a deal with the regulators sooner or later.

We are the regulators.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

Monero (portrayed by extra-terrestrial friend) vs Regulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6atSU2iUrdI

If this is too much i'll delete at someones request  

Eh. Private bank issuance of currency was a pretty good option before crypto. That is, providing there were few restrictions to entry into the market for currency production and producers were forced to compete with each other for customers.

Other than that I don't see anything wrong with your comment

[Anon136]

Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

I fail to see it. Perhaps you can make the case for me.

*edit* also notice that there are several different questions here that are sometimes treated as one.

1) can one create a crypto where if the nsa spends 10 million dollars trying to figure out the transaction history of 1 single person they still will not be able to uncover that information.

2) can one create a crypto where it is prohibitively expensive for the nsa to uncover the transaction history of large groups of people.

3) every point on the sliding scale between these two extremes

[Hotmetal]

Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

I fail to see it. Perhaps you can make the case for me.

*edit* also notice that there are several different questions here that are sometimes treated as one.

1) can one create a crypto where if the nsa spends 10 million dollars trying to figure out the transaction history of 1 single person they still will not be able to uncover that information.

2) can one create a crypto where it is prohibitively expensive for the nsa to uncover the transaction history of large groups of people.

3) every point on the sliding scale between these two extremes

When you send XMR from your wallet to someone, is that transaction sent in plain text?
When you connect to a mining pool, or even solo mining, is that communication ALL encrypted?

*sniff sniff*

[freebud]

in the u.s. your rights of privacy and anonymity are constituionally guaranteed.  it is likely that totalitarian regimes will outlaw anonymizing technologies, albeit with very limited success.  the likelihood of criminalization of anonymizing tech in western liberal democracies generally is zero.

I'm not a US citizen, but from what I read lately it doesn't seem true. I'm not sure if the Snowden revelations regarding the NSA spying on everyone is considered constitutional or not, but I think that a government that uses such methods hardly cares for privacy or anonymity, and would find a way to paint a crackdown on anonymizing technologies in a constitutional way.

that is no more feasible in the u.s. than confiscation of all firearms.  either would involve a civil war.  every member of the armed forces has sworn an oath to defend the constitution against all domestic enemies.

factions within government commit crimes everyday.  some are sensationalized by mass media, and affect common knowledge, but that does not mean that common knowledge reflects facts on the ground more accurately.

a balanced perspective should include some facts: people are not governments, but form a large part of the mechanism of governments.  laws are not consistent, policies are not consistent, and actions are not consistent.  in the u.s. the longest arc of governance is determined by the supreme court. deviations from the rulings of the court exist only as long as the court tolerates them.

I'm not sure I fully understand your argument, either due to my limited intellect or my limited English..
Anyway, I don't believe the American nation will go to a civil war over Monero while sitting quietly and allowing the government to record every mail they send and every phone call they make.. Or are you saying that this doesn't actually happen? I can't know the facts, I'm just trying to assess the situation the best I can from the barrage of (dis)information that is available to me. Why isn't the supreme court doing anything about the spying, or the indefinite detention of citizens without trial, or the targeted killings? Are they all constitutional? How do you know it will not tolerate outlawing of technologies like Monero?    

[Hueristic]

What is happening with this coin right now? I'm never seen the price this low. I want to invest but why are people selling?

Monero, Boolberry and Bytecoin are being dumped for Stealthcoin. It doesn't have the bloat.

W0w! Thank you! I now am liquidating all my holdings and buying this stealthcoin. It sounds so Kewl!

[Anon136]

Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

I fail to see it. Perhaps you can make the case for me.

*edit* also notice that there are several different questions here that are sometimes treated as one.

1) can one create a crypto where if the nsa spends 10 million dollars trying to figure out the transaction history of 1 single person they still will not be able to uncover that information.

2) can one create a crypto where it is prohibitively expensive for the nsa to uncover the transaction history of large groups of people.

3) every point on the sliding scale between these two extremes

When you send XMR from your wallet to someone, is that transaction sent in plain text?
When you connect to a mining pool, or even solo mining, is that communication ALL encrypted?

*sniff sniff*

Its not imposable to imagine solutions to this. Onion routing for example may not be perfect for doing things like downloading large files. But imagine how many times you could bounce around something as small as a transaction. Now imagine that monero could be used to incentive the network, how many entrance and exit nodes you could have. Imagine how much scrambling you could do then with such a tiny file, monetary compensation for nodes, then to top it all off, no need for a specific destination.

Also. My understanding is the devs are working on I2P integration for this purpose specifically. I didnt use i2p as my example because i dont understand how it works really. (something i should probably figure out)

Here is another idea. When people start their node they broadcast a public key and begin listening for other keys that people broadcast. They begin to develop a little temporary database of keys. When you broadcast a transaction you actually encrypt it in several layers of keys stored in this database. When you receive a transaction you check to see if your published key decrypts it, if it does you decrypt it and rebroadcast, then the same thing happens when it arrives at the next. To a third party observer they cant actually tell that a -> b is the same transaction  b -> c.

Im sure that idea is not perfect. I just thought of it off the top of my head. But it just goes to show that a small amount of creativity can go a long way i think.

[rpietila]

You seem to assume that people will forever regard NSA as legit? Once they lose that in the eyes of enough of people, it does not matter even if we move back to eternally-logged Bitcoin, they cannot do anything.

Using sufficiently-hard to decipher communications may be a way to force them to use such draconian methods in their action that no one wants to work for them anymore, and the critical mass of people will wake up.

But also if they realize they have pushed you over the edge already, you are already a lost case, and often such people are left alone because any repression towards them will just ignite them to self-preservation mode which is contagious in the era of social media. For these people it might even be an asset to leak their stuff over to NSA so that they can readily observe that the person is interested in his financial privacy and better world, and is not fomenting an armed rebellion.

[smooth]

Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

I fail to see it. Perhaps you can make the case for me.

*edit* also notice that there are several different questions here that are sometimes treated as one.

1) can one create a crypto where if the nsa spends 10 million dollars trying to figure out the transaction history of 1 single person they still will not be able to uncover that information.

2) can one create a crypto where it is prohibitively expensive for the nsa to uncover the transaction history of large groups of people.

3) every point on the sliding scale between these two extremes

When you send XMR from your wallet to someone, is that transaction sent in plain text?
When you connect to a mining pool, or even solo mining, is that communication ALL encrypted?

*sniff sniff*

Essentially the entire function of Monero is a cryptosystem that hides (i.e. encrypts) useful information about transactions such as who they are from, who they are to, their amounts, and their linkages with other tranactions.

You are looking at this at too low a level. There is no reason to encrypt node-to-node traffic because the assumption is that anyone can run a node (or see the same data on a block explorer, which is really a web view of a node).

The traffic is useless, however, in that it does not allow extracting useful financial information. It would be pretty dumb to create a privacy-enhanced coin where anyone can run a node and node traffic allows compromising your privacy.

i2p will be used to hide the fact that you are running a monero node at all, to provide a different sort of privacy. Really, though you could probably run in tails and hide that now (I haven't tried it).

[Hueristic]

in the u.s. your rights of privacy and anonymity are constituionally guaranteed.  it is likely that totalitarian regimes will outlaw anonymizing technologies, albeit with very limited success.  the likelihood of criminalization of anonymizing tech in western liberal democracies generally is zero.

You are unequivocally 100% incorrect in this statement. You have ZERO rights to anonymity in the US. I have no clue where you got the Idea you were free. By Law you must provide Identification any time it is demanded by authorities whether they are in the right to ask for it or not.

I recommend you wake up before the system wakes you up the hard way. Also you should spell check your posts it adds weight to your statements.

[NSux]

lol That's funny. Still, there's no way anons can prevail over the government agencies such as NSA. It is so clear I don't get how people fail to see it.

No, you are funny, the NSA is not magic. They can't subvert the laws of mathematics or physics, and they can't hide an insecurity in an algorithm. Certainly not for ever with so many eyes on the code. Bitcoin is doomed for being too easy to pry, Monero is the currency of the future.

[Its About Sharing]

You seem to assume that people will forever regard NSA as legit? Once they lose that in the eyes of enough of people, it does not matter even if we move back to eternally-logged Bitcoin, they cannot do anything.

Using sufficiently-hard to decipher communications may be a way to force them to use such draconian methods in their action that no one wants to work for them anymore, and the critical mass of people will wake up.

But also if they realize they have pushed you over the edge already, you are already a lost case, and often such people are left alone because any repression towards them will just ignite them to self-preservation mode which is contagious in the era of social media. For these people it might even be an asset to leak their stuff over to NSA so that they can readily observe that the person is interested in his financial privacy and better world, and is not fomenting an armed rebellion.

My concern is that we see corporations to continue to act as/for governments. Look at Comcast threatening to cut access for those using TOR browser. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2gd875/comcast_declares_war_on_bitcoin/ My hope is that people continue to stand up to corporations and that competition solves the monopolistic problem. Corporations are in a tough spot though, as people are getting more and more pissed off at them and technology (e.g. mesh networks) may really put them on their backs. We can hope anyway.

I hope the technology starts to greatly surpass what corporations/governments are capable of "controlling". (For the sake of humanity.)
I read (if you can believe such statistics though) more young Americans support Snowden but for older Americans it is the opposite. We are going in the right direction, but time is ticking for the crazies next big war... ( That or a huge "natural" disaster, epidemic, is the only way I see them gaining control back.) Bitcoin/Crypto might help us stave off a financial meltdown if we have more time (ironic I know.)

[Jshank]

$290 million to build and $200 million to launch a satellite. I'll put up a bounty of 10xmr for a dish to relay XMR transactions. It all depends on how far they want to take this.
 Might need a couple for global coverage 

[rpietila]

My concern is that we see corporations to continue to act as/for governments.

They both are (nowadays) just tools of banks, which of course are controlled by the banker cabal. So if you are going to stand for your rights, you better first define the rights, and then reject infringement by anyone, because they come in different shapes

more young Americans support Snowden but for older Americans it is the opposite.

I heard even Obama saying that NSA must be put under scrutiny and things exposed!  So if he supports Snowden, how about arranging a (Congressional) Medal of Honor, since this guy has really done more to liberty than any one of those who fought in the bankster wars?