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

[smooth]

There is no need to have two BBR networks. This is very simple. Normal (standart client) use checkpoints, to speedup blockchain loading (every currency have it, including bitcoin). Under checkpoints some checks are skipped. This based on idea the users trust developers and their checkpoints.

But, if some "new user" don't want to use checkpoints(don't trust developers), and want to completely validate(mathematically) whole blockchain from genesis block, then he build hi own manual client(or provide some command line params, depends of implementation) and completely validate whole blockchain. In BBR can do simple the same just by taking this complete version of blockchain, and do this verification for every transaction.

In ~99.8% of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies you can verify the entire chain by: 1. Retrieving the entire chain from the p2p network, ensuring that you have the correct chain with the assumption that you are able to connect to at least one honest peer, 2. Verifying that no blocks have ever been changed by checking block and tx hashes, and 3. Verifying that chain of transactions from the genesis block is valid (with checkpoints disabled).

Boolberry:

1. Can't do #1 because the chain doesn't exist on the p2p. You would have to use (i.e trust) a web site.

2. Can't do #2 because the tx hashes don't include signatures.

3. Can do #3 predicated on the assumption that nothing has gone wrong with #1 and #2

Certainly you can see a degree of trust has been added here (#1) and the chain of steps that is normally used for trustless verification is broken in at least two places (#1 and #2).

As I have said before, I don't know that this is necessarily a bad trade off, but it is a different trade off. What is frustrating about it is not that Boolberry has decided to do something differently (experimentation and diversity and choices in the marketplace are great). It is that Boolberry aggressively portrays its changes unambiguously as "improvements" or "fixes" when they are actually trade-offs. This confuses people and causes them to then ask us why we are relying on an "unimproved" solution when in fact we have simply made different tradeoffs.

A very similar argument could be made about XCN, except that XCN is much more explicit that it is making a trade-off in order to achieve certain goals, and doesn't run around saying "XCN fixes Bitcoin flaws."

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[crypto_zoidberg]

There is no need to have two BBR networks. This is very simple. Normal (standart client) use checkpoints, to speedup blockchain loading (every currency have it, including bitcoin). Under checkpoints some checks are skipped. This based on idea the users trust developers and their checkpoints.

But, if some "new user" don't want to use checkpoints(don't trust developers), and want to completely validate(mathematically) whole blockchain from genesis block, then he build hi own manual client(or provide some command line params, depends of implementation) and completely validate whole blockchain. In BBR can do simple the same just by taking this complete version of blockchain, and do this verification for every transaction.

In ~99.8% of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies you can verify the entire chain by: 1. Retrieving the entire chain from the p2p network, ensuring that you have the correct chain with the assumption that you are able to connect to at least one honest peer, 2. Verifying that no blocks have ever been changed by checking block and tx hashes, and 3. Verifying that chain of transactions from the genesis block is valid (with checkpoints disabled).

Boolberry:

1. Can't do #1 because the chain doesn't exist on the p2p. You would have to use (i.e trust) a web site.

2. Can't do #2 because the tx hashes don't include signatures.

3. Can do #3 predicated on the assumption that nothing has gone wrong with #1 and #2

Certainly you can see a degree of trust has been added here (#1) and the chain of steps that is normally used for trustless verification is broken in at least two places (#1 and #2).

As I have said before, I don't know that this is necessarily a bad trade off, but it is a different trade off. What is frustrating about it is not that Boolberry has decided to do something differently (experimentation and diversity and choices in the marketplace are great). It is that Boolberry aggressively portrays its changes unambiguously as "improvements" or "fixes" when they are actually trade-offs. This confuses people and causes them to then ask us why we are relying on an "unimproved" solution when in fact we have simply made different tradeoffs.

A very similar argument could be made about XCN, except that XCN is much more explicit that it is making a trade-off in order to achieve certain goals, and doesn't run around saying "XCN fixes Bitcoin flaws."

You have very tricky language smooth.
Even when you'll decide to do the same with ring sigs, you'll find the nice way to explain this

And once again - you wrong about 1, 2, 3. Blockchain is a confirmation of transaction history, and in BBR you can't change transaction history like i any other currency. Ring signatures has no sense after hundreds of confirmations, esspecially under checkpoins.


Zoidberg

[smooth]

You have very tricky language smooth.

That's your response to the substance of my message?

Even when you'll decide to do the same with ring sigs, you'll find the nice way to explain this

It is possible this could happen! I suspect we would at least do it very slightly differently that addresses some of the issues I mentioned at negligible cost though.

And once again - you wrong about 1, 2, 3.

What!? I'm certainly not wrong about #1 at the very least. You can't download the entire chain from the p2p and you must rely on a web site. Do you disagree? And #3 was actually supporting Boolberry's approach! Did you even read my message?

[dillpicklechips]

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Even if you get the same coins back you still added a bunch of plausible deniability as the coins would have been "marked" as going into the side chain and impossible to tell if you are the same person or not taking them out even if you get the same coins back. 

[SmoothCurves]

Could a sidechain that uses ring signatures be created eliminating need for monero as there would be no exchange risk and the bitcoins are made anonymous with the sidechain?

[smooth]

Could a sidechain that uses ring signatures be created eliminating need for monero as there would be no exchange risk and the bitcoins are made anonymous with the sidechain?

A side chain could certainly be created whether it succeeds is not really any more clear than any other coin. In fact I don't think anonymity is really the best use case for side chains at all and other features are probably a better fit.

For example, if you can use a side chain for ultrafast possibly 0-conf transactions like XCN to safely pay for coffee, that could work quite well as long as you and the coffee seller have wallets supporting the side chain.

With anonymity things are a bit more complex, as you need a high level of usage (to create and replenish a large anonymity set) and you also need to not impair your anonymity at the entry/exit chokepoints, which is kind of hard to do as long as the (transparent) Bitcoin main chain remains dominant. Here are some of my earlier comments. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9298204#msg9298204

Also, eliminating exchange risk vs. Bitcoin is probably useless in the bigger picture unless Bitcoin becomes much bigger in the world at large. Exchange risk vs. fiat is what matters and Bitcoin certainly has that still.

[dillpicklechips]

Could a sidechain that uses ring signatures be created eliminating need for monero as there would be no exchange risk and the bitcoins are made anonymous with the sidechain?

Yes. If your goal is to move into monero then back to BTC a side chain may make more sense since 1 BTC would always equal 1 SideChainRingSignatureCoin and you can move back and forth whenever you want.

[BanditryAndLoot]

What type of systems can be devised, possibly similar to coin mixing, that will prevent the accumulation of a measurable history of a particular bitcoins life if it were to be used in an alt-chain? Is that how they work?

Specifically I'm referring to keeping a recorded history on the usage of a certain amount of bitcoins, that possibly are 'tough' to be tied to any particular person, in an anonymous side chain that incorporates ring signatures? Would it be possible to recognize if someone had tried to pay someone (with resources available to them) with bitcoins received, even unknowingly, from such a chain after a certain date?

[smooth]

What type of systems can be devised, possibly similar to coin mixing, that will prevent the accumulation of a measurable history of a particular bitcoins life if it were to be used in an alt-chain? Is that how they work?

There is no answer for "how they work" since they don't exist apart from some secret experiments apparently done by the sidechain developers using the trusted (federated) model.

There is nothing in the sidechain paper about mixing or other measures to inhibit tracing of coins to or from a sidechain. They do offer a method of avoiding address reuse making it harder to identify as an observer which transactions involve a side chain (what we call avoiding linking i.e. stealth). Linking alone isn't enough for real anonymity though. If you send coins to a sidechain and then those coins move, you know someone pulled coins off the sidechain and got your (former) coins. If you do that a lot, you could see a lot of these. Likewise when you pull coins off the sidechain, you will get coins somone sent there, which are also traceable.

You could personally mix your coins before sending to a sidechain, or ask that your coins from a sidechain be sent to a mixer address. But then it becomes questionable why you don't just use the mixer in the first place.

I think side chains will likely become a useful tool for building various things but I caution against making the leap from that to everything all of the sudden becomes a sidechain. I think even the developers overreach a bit in their paper, and people who haven't really looked carefully a the paper and are just responding to the buzz are overreaching even more.

[smooth]

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Even if you get the same coins back you still added a bunch of plausible deniability as the coins would have been "marked" as going into the side chain and impossible to tell if you are the same person or not taking them out even if you get the same coins back.  

They specifically try to avoid that, at least in the federated model. They are trying to make side chain transactions look like ordinary multisigs to avoid censoring or blacklisting transactions to "evil" sidechains.

There is always some plausible deniability in Bitcoin really, since every time the coins move to a new address it can't really be proven that they didn't change owner (at least not from blockchain analysis). But tracing to you can still be an issue, and tracing on the chain at large can be a bigger issue, by identifying clusters of activity associated with various "evil" things. That could cause problems even if it couldn't be used to convict you. For example, Coinbase has been banning people whose Bitcoins seem to seem to transit "evil" parts of the blockchain. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they are using either a third party scoring system for this or they built their own.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Even if you get the same coins back you still added a bunch of plausible deniability as the coins would have been "marked" as going into the side chain and impossible to tell if you are the same person or not taking them out even if you get the same coins back.  

They specifically try to avoid that, at least in the federated model. They are trying to make side chain transactions look like ordinary multisigs to avoid censoring or blacklisting transactions to "evil" sidechains.

There is always some plausible deniability in Bitcoin really, since every time the coins move to a new address it can't really be proven that they didn't change owner (at least not from blockchain analysis). But tracing to you can still be an issue, and tracing on the chain at large can be a bigger issue, by identifying clusters of activity associated with various "evil" things. That could cause problems even if it couldn't be used to convict you. For example, Coinbase has been banning people whose Bitcoins seem to seem to transit "evil" parts of the blockchain. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they are using either a third party scoring system for this or they built their own.

taint all the coins

[smooth]

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Even if you get the same coins back you still added a bunch of plausible deniability as the coins would have been "marked" as going into the side chain and impossible to tell if you are the same person or not taking them out even if you get the same coins back.  

They specifically try to avoid that, at least in the federated model. They are trying to make side chain transactions look like ordinary multisigs to avoid censoring or blacklisting transactions to "evil" sidechains.

There is always some plausible deniability in Bitcoin really, since every time the coins move to a new address it can't really be proven that they didn't change owner (at least not from blockchain analysis). But tracing to you can still be an issue, and tracing on the chain at large can be a bigger issue, by identifying clusters of activity associated with various "evil" things. That could cause problems even if it couldn't be used to convict you. For example, Coinbase has been banning people whose Bitcoins seem to seem to transit "evil" parts of the blockchain. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they are using either a third party scoring system for this or they built their own.

taint all the coins

That works with a blacklist but it doesn't work with a scoring system that looks at how recently the coin has been involved with "evil" stuff or others sorts of sophisticated blockchain analysis. Resisting blockchain analysis is why Monero (Cryptonote) was created; tacking it on to Bitcoin is neither easy nor necessarily feasible at all.

I'm not really singling out Coinbase here, I just happen to be aware of what they have been doing. I doubt that other major Bitcoin companies are much different (perhaps using the same third party services, but again I'm just speculating on that). This will all probably get worse with BitLicense, etc.

[5w00p]

Why don't ypu all quit bitchin about sidechains and worry 'bout dat price?

Because smooth has better things to worry about. Thus,

development is just that. That which hath no meaning, is destined to fail.

Monero exists to buck the trend. A bucking bull is hard to ride, but every man who dare try it, is more of a man than not.

[coinism]

Monero : Most speculative investment for me so far.
No user friendly wallet for mac yet. reddit readers 731, fb likes 226, no real homepage.. i suspect there are not many devs building on Monero as there are no services yet, no adoption, really nada, except highly speculative hope. Also the community is still very small as we speak, but that doesn't surprise me cause not enough work has been done yet to attract users (can't really use it yet, seems like in alfa phase).

So why did i invest? Mostly because of specualtion, the brand name Monero (might have a nice ring to it in SA and the hispanic world), anonymity, and a few loud voices.

Having lived and worked in SA, mainly Brazil, i know how many people have problems with paying txs (trying to avoid them), sending cash, inflation.. and cash in SA is still king for the majority. Monero could be very useful in SA indeed.

[alloffmyhate]

who admin moneropool.com ? i see this pool handle more than 51% hashrate   of monero

[dEBRUYNE]

About that cryptsy law suit that someone posted earlier, it seems utter bullshit 

http://altcoinpress.com/2014/10/california-man-has-computer-hacked-then-blames-crypto-exchange/

[ol21]

About that cryptsy law suit that someone posted earlier, it seems utter bullshit 

http://altcoinpress.com/2014/10/california-man-has-computer-hacked-then-blames-crypto-exchange/

you have to laugh though stored password locally and no 2fa

[Quicken]

About that cryptsy law suit that someone posted earlier, it seems utter bullshit 

http://altcoinpress.com/2014/10/california-man-has-computer-hacked-then-blames-crypto-exchange/

Fair enough. It was me who posted the news story, and Cryptsy hadn't responded at that point I think. Sounds like a weak case if it's true the site wasn't responsible for the breach.
Q

[benthach]

i would get into blocknet and forgetting all these shits altogether.

[silencesilence]

Alternative XMR pools
If you are using Claymore or Yam miners you can configure backup pools so you dont waste any hash if we have to restart for an update or anything. Please do not use pools with more than 30% of the network hashrate, since it is bad for the network to be too centralised

Pool   Hashrate   Last block   
minexmr.com   333.31 KH/s   
cryptonotepool.org.uk   54.64 KH/s
hashinvest.net   1.07 MH/s   
moneropool.com   12.45 MH/s   
extremepool.org   42.06 KH/s   
monero.crypto-pool.fr   3.84 MH/s
xmr.poolto.be   48.03 KH/s   



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