Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This is the first video I've seen of Gregory Maxwell. This adds some confirmation for me of my upthread speculation about Greg seeing himself as critic and the smartest person in the room. He specifically states in this video that his role is more as a reviewer than a doer (even his stated goal is maximum impact with the least coding...which is a desirable goal but only if it is not the only one), right after admitting that he was wrong in 2004 about decentralized consensus being impossible. The audacity. Socrates taught us that recognizing that we are not omniscient is a primary attribute of cognition.

(Edit: in the "Selection Cryptography" portion of the video, he elaborates on why his role is appropriate — "Pragmatic has its place, but beware against biasing against competence")

No doubt this is a very smart guy with powerful crypto+math domain knowledge who can add considerable analysis and even new ideas. You'd definitely want him on your team (I would) if he can contain himself to a non-leadership role. But hand him the keys and you are likely to go too far down dead-end paths—e.g. CoinJoin—because my impression of him so far (limited interaction) is he is more of a narrow space thinker who doesn't pay as much attention to what is going on in the kitchen when he is in the basement (unless if he a lead on a very narrow space, orthogonally contained project domain such as an audio codec). And this is precisely what I told him the very first time he spanked me in public in these forums; I warned him that I am more of a pragmatic generalist and that we tend to paradigm shift around people like him (which is precisely what I am hoping to do accomplish this year). The first exposure I had to Greg was when I was very impressed by his forum post containing analysis of a proposed proof-of-work hash for something bytemaster was proposing (I forget the details).

This all makes sense. Need to keep him on but not give him the keys, exactly.

P.S. I am only 10 minutes into the linked video and it is particularly poignant so far. I highly recommend it. So far it appears to be making the case for Monero.

Just noticed Greg has an XMR address for donations on his profile. He also just published the Borromean Ring Signatures paper. One other thing he said recently about Monero is that there are limited network resources, and we have to decide how much to allocate to decentralization, anonymity, TPS, etc. He is clearly thinking about Monero, probably wants to make it a sidechain or something.

[TPTB_need_war]

<snip>

i smell Monero all over him.

Ok, as you mention it, and this is not meant as an attack on Monero, what I really don't understand is how a truly anonymous coin can survive, regardless of the tech, when the lead developers are public figures (eg Smooth, who was extremely helpful when I asked about the 21inc stuff) and they have a very public 'castle' as the home of one of their lead promoters (Risto).
How does that work if/when  the SHTF ??
Honestly, I have nothing against Monero, but I can't wrap my head around how something that TPTB will obviously fight against can flourish with these criteria. $5 wrench anyone ??

Please enlighten me. I say this in a truly non-confrontational manner - I am truly confused

I have to correct you for a bit here, Monero can be transparant on-demand. I also agree that a fully anonymous coin will probably get into some legal trouble.

But doesn't that optional anonymity property of Monero violate its fungibility argument? (smooth apologies if we'd already had this debate and I forgot)

TPTB will again use regulation and monopolization techniques to subsume Monero and force all users to turn off the anonymity else their coins don't transact.

We are not getting any where.

I am grateful to Monero because for the near-term it offers the only way to get somewhat reliable anonymity. I am not seeing how it survives without radically altering its mining algorithm.

[cypherdoc]

back at it:

[cypherdoc]

Gold!  show us the way, baby!:

[cypherdoc]

here's a look back at silverbox's all time favorite, GPL.  for those of you who don't remember him, he was yet another one of tvbcof's cypherdoc "smashing buddies" who advocated vehemently for GPL along with gold with tvbcof way up when it was at $5.10.  so sad, just a fleeting shadow of what it once was:

[rocks]

It's interesting how people talk about Monero as if we know for sure the privacy achievable in Monero is greater than the privacy achievable in Bitcoin.

Has anyone measured it?

Yes, Monero's privacy has been "measured" (if by "measured" you mean 'mathematically proven') and we thus do know for sure it's better than Bitcoin's.

https://downloads.getmonero.org/whitepaper_review.pdf

Some of the privacy of Monero would be achievable using Bitcoin, but only if everyone changed their operational security methods.
JustusRanvier uses stealth addresses, which privacy would be further improved if he only transacted with others who also do this.  Ring signatures can also theoretically be accomplished albeit with some difficulty by using a client that could support this sort of key signing exchanges.

The problem for privacy remains, however, that since these are not a fundamental part of the protocol and a default for each transaction.  There are limits to the amount of privacy that can be obtained in the face of correlation analysis by a well funded reveal-er of such secrets.

The only real argument I've seen for Monero is that privacy was make "at the protocol level".

In Monero's case though, "at the protocol level" simply means that everyone is forced to transact in a certain manner (a manner that mixes) on top of a bitcoin style address protocol.

However, this is not a real innovation. The exact same mixing procedures can be done on top of Bitcoin. No Bitcoin does not force this mixing, but any group of people, entities or wallets can agree to use the same mixing procedures as Monero or better ones as they are developed. This means Bitcoin in the end will have better mixing/privacy features than Monero, since Bitcoin is flexible and any mixing procedure can be run on top of it.

Which brings us back to the Monero innovation, Monero's "innovation" is simply the decision to force all transactions to use a single fixed mixing routine. That is not an innovation though, it is a decision. Any group of entities using Bitcoin can make the same decision.

"At the protocol level" simply means that all transactions are forced into a single static mixing routine. However with Bitcoin, although people are not forced into any mixing routine, they are free to agree to use any mixing routing that may be developed.

[cypherdoc]

<snip>

i smell Monero all over him.

Ok, as you mention it, and this is not meant as an attack on Monero, what I really don't understand is how a truly anonymous coin can survive, regardless of the tech, when the lead developers are public figures (eg Smooth, who was extremely helpful when I asked about the 21inc stuff) and they have a very public 'castle' as the home of one of their lead promoters (Risto).
How does that work if/when  the SHTF ??
Honestly, I have nothing against Monero, but I can't wrap my head around how something that TPTB will obviously fight against can flourish with these criteria. $5 wrench anyone ??

Please enlighten me. I say this in a truly non-confrontational manner - I am truly confused

What do you think the developers and promoters can actually do to stop it, even when/if the $5 wrench is applied?

It's an open source project, the code is "out there."

Worst case I suppose is some sort of malicious/coerced code changes to introduce a back door, of the sort that some of the most paranoid attribute to Gavin (I don't). But those are going to be public, and the code is sufficiently well organized that nefarious changes to the "juicy" stuff would be pretty darn obvious.

What am I missing here?

That is exactly what I am asking about. IMO that is not unlikely to occur in the event of significant traction and non-co-operation with TPTB. What happens to Monero in that scenario?

Same thing that happens to anything else with back doors in it. It's back doored.

What protection do we have against this for any technology of any type, at any time?

I think open source (including the possibly of forking if the current developers go off the rails, voluntarily or otherwise) is the best chance we've got. If you know of something better, please tell.

smooth, isn't the optional anonymity button a form of backdoor for Monero?

[iCEBREAKER]

It's interesting how people talk about Monero as if we know for sure the privacy achievable in Monero is greater than the privacy achievable in Bitcoin.

Has anyone measured it?

Yes, Monero's privacy has been "measured" (if by "measured" you mean 'mathematically proven') and we thus do know for sure it's better than Bitcoin's.

https://downloads.getmonero.org/whitepaper_review.pdf

Monero's "innovation" is simply the decision to force all transactions to use a single fixed mixing routine.

Monero gives users a choice, either zero mixing for BTC style transparency or >0 mixing for privacy.

[rocks]

It's interesting how people talk about Monero as if we know for sure the privacy achievable in Monero is greater than the privacy achievable in Bitcoin.

Has anyone measured it?

Yes, Monero's privacy has been "measured" (if by "measured" you mean 'mathematically proven') and we thus do know for sure it's better than Bitcoin's.

https://downloads.getmonero.org/whitepaper_review.pdf

Monero's "innovation" is simply the decision to force all transactions to use a single fixed mixing routine.

Monero gives users a choice, either zero mixing for BTC style transparency or >0 mixing for privacy.

You missed the point. Monero's "innovation" was the decision to add a single mixing routing "at the protocol level" which is only one method to create agreement between entities on how to mix coins. Bitcoin users can make the exact same decisions among themselves, mixing does not have to be specified at the protocol level.

The value add here is weak, it will not be enough to make the global bitcoin ecosystem of users switch.

[cypherdoc]

The point is that coins aren't really done and on auto-pilot. They require ongoing upkeep from lead devs.

This is a good point, and part of why I consider all current crypto coins to be not ready for prime time. When something is truly on permanent auto-pilot then we can accept it is a working decentralized system.

MP's point about Bitcoin is, I think, that it should simply never be hard forked. If it fails, it fails, and perhaps is replaced by something better. But the idea of any developers having that kind of power is a fundamental failure of the concept. It's worth considering.

i doubt that any cryptocoin can ever be on auto pilot as the crypto evolves as computerization advances.  what is secure today won't be secure tomorrow thus requiring continual updating.

the term hard fork is a bad one, imo.  even after 6y, definitions amongst early adopters varies.  in my mind, i think of them as necessary upgrades.  they are in fact necessary over time as situations change and crypto cracking techniques mature.  or even as the economic conditions change, like i think we are seeing now with the restrictions 1MB is causing.

the increasing block limit movement is Gavin responding to continued lobbying by the economic majority of Bitcoin users who are acting out of conditions in the real business world.  the crypto-anarchists hate this.  i get their point but as i've already said, if one's fundamental unit is the full node and not the user, i think you're doing it wrong.  network work squaring effects will correlate with the user, not full nodes.  we see this in all comparable models; Uber, AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Full nodes are analogous to ACH or Swift which is simply the plumbing or transmission services for users.

small blocks are the ultimate in centralization.  all you have to do is look at the system as it is today as a result of 1MB blocks; confined mainly to the 2 most regulated geographic regions of the world, the US & Europe.  with usage still primarily by geeks.  that's a recipe for heavy intervention by regualtion.  who honestly thinks that Nasdaq will expand their trading systems while constrained to 3 tps? i think the Visa's and MC's are laughing at us while some of us fight hard to keep us constrained.   

[_mr_e]

The point is that coins aren't really done and on auto-pilot. They require ongoing upkeep from lead devs.

This is a good point, and part of why I consider all current crypto coins to be not ready for prime time. When something is truly on permanent auto-pilot then we can accept it is a working decentralized system.

MP's point about Bitcoin is, I think, that it should simply never be hard forked. If it fails, it fails, and perhaps is replaced by something better. But the idea of any developers having that kind of power is a fundamental failure of the concept. It's worth considering.

i doubt that any cryptocoin can ever be on auto pilot as the crypto evolves as computerization advances.  what is secure today won't be secure tomorrow thus requiring continual updating.

the term hard fork is a bad one, imo.  even after 6y, definitions amongst early adopters varies.  in my mind, i think of them as necessary upgrades.  they are in fact necessary over time as situations change and crypto cracking techniques mature.  or even as the economic conditions change, like i think we are seeing now with the restrictions 1MB is causing.

the increasing block limit movement is Gavin responding to continued lobbying by the economic majority of Bitcoin users who are acting out of conditions in the real business world.  the crypto-anarchists hate this.  i get their point but as i've already said, if one's fundamental unit is the full node and not the user, i think you're doing it wrong.  network work squaring effects will correlate with the user, not full nodes.  we see this in all comparable models; Uber, AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Full nodes are analogous to ACH or Swift which is simply the plumbing or transmission services for users.

small blocks are the ultimate in centralization.  all you have to do is look at the system as it is today as a result of 1MB blocks; confined mainly to the 2 most regulated geographic regions of the world, the US & Europe.  with usage still primarily by geeks.  that's a recipe for heavy intervention by regualtion.  who honestly thinks that Nasdaq will expand their trading systems while constrained to 3 tps? i think the Visa's and MC's are laughing at us while some of us fight hard to keep us constrained.   

What will happen if companies like 21 inc litter the globe with their tech built into hardware devices? How could a hard fork ever work then?

[cypherdoc]

The point is that coins aren't really done and on auto-pilot. They require ongoing upkeep from lead devs.

This is a good point, and part of why I consider all current crypto coins to be not ready for prime time. When something is truly on permanent auto-pilot then we can accept it is a working decentralized system.

MP's point about Bitcoin is, I think, that it should simply never be hard forked. If it fails, it fails, and perhaps is replaced by something better. But the idea of any developers having that kind of power is a fundamental failure of the concept. It's worth considering.

i doubt that any cryptocoin can ever be on auto pilot as the crypto evolves as computerization advances.  what is secure today won't be secure tomorrow thus requiring continual updating.

the term hard fork is a bad one, imo.  even after 6y, definitions amongst early adopters varies.  in my mind, i think of them as necessary upgrades.  they are in fact necessary over time as situations change and crypto cracking techniques mature.  or even as the economic conditions change, like i think we are seeing now with the restrictions 1MB is causing.

the increasing block limit movement is Gavin responding to continued lobbying by the economic majority of Bitcoin users who are acting out of conditions in the real business world.  the crypto-anarchists hate this.  i get their point but as i've already said, if one's fundamental unit is the full node and not the user, i think you're doing it wrong.  network work squaring effects will correlate with the user, not full nodes.  we see this in all comparable models; Uber, AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Full nodes are analogous to ACH or Swift which is simply the plumbing or transmission services for users.

small blocks are the ultimate in centralization.  all you have to do is look at the system as it is today as a result of 1MB blocks; confined mainly to the 2 most regulated geographic regions of the world, the US & Europe.  with usage still primarily by geeks.  that's a recipe for heavy intervention by regualtion.  who honestly thinks that Nasdaq will expand their trading systems while constrained to 3 tps? i think the Visa's and MC's are laughing at us while some of us fight hard to keep us constrained.  

What will happen if companies like 21 inc litter the globe with their tech built into hardware devices? How could a hard fork ever work then?

those chips will work off sha256 initially simply as hashing units but then the good news is that everybody update their phones every 2 yr, or in my case every yr, and new chips can be built in as continual upgrades if we need to change to a diff hashing algo.

[cypherdoc]

even larger, greater emerging mkt divergence.  do you really believe the EEM would be going down in the face of inflation?:

[thezerg]

The point is that coins aren't really done and on auto-pilot. They require ongoing upkeep from lead devs.

This is a good point, and part of why I consider all current crypto coins to be not ready for prime time. When something is truly on permanent auto-pilot then we can accept it is a working decentralized system.

MP's point about Bitcoin is, I think, that it should simply never be hard forked. If it fails, it fails, and perhaps is replaced by something better. But the idea of any developers having that kind of power is a fundamental failure of the concept. It's worth considering.

i doubt that any cryptocoin can ever be on auto pilot as the crypto evolves as computerization advances.  what is secure today won't be secure tomorrow thus requiring continual updating.

the term hard fork is a bad one, imo.  even after 6y, definitions amongst early adopters varies.  in my mind, i think of them as necessary upgrades.  they are in fact necessary over time as situations change and crypto cracking techniques mature.  or even as the economic conditions change, like i think we are seeing now with the restrictions 1MB is causing.

the increasing block limit movement is Gavin responding to continued lobbying by the economic majority of Bitcoin users who are acting out of conditions in the real business world.  the crypto-anarchists hate this.  i get their point but as i've already said, if one's fundamental unit is the full node and not the user, i think you're doing it wrong.  network work squaring effects will correlate with the user, not full nodes.  we see this in all comparable models; Uber, AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Full nodes are analogous to ACH or Swift which is simply the plumbing or transmission services for users.

small blocks are the ultimate in centralization.  all you have to do is look at the system as it is today as a result of 1MB blocks; confined mainly to the 2 most regulated geographic regions of the world, the US & Europe.  with usage still primarily by geeks.  that's a recipe for heavy intervention by regualtion.  who honestly thinks that Nasdaq will expand their trading systems while constrained to 3 tps? i think the Visa's and MC's are laughing at us while some of us fight hard to keep us constrained.  

What will happen if companies like 21 inc litter the globe with their tech built into hardware devices? How could a hard fork ever work then?

those chips will work off sha256 initially simply as hashing units but then the good news is that everybody update their phones every 2 yr, or in my case every yr, and new chips can be built in as continual upgrades if we need to change to a diff hashing algo.

Nobody is going to put the protocol in hardware -- its not conducive to such.  

On another subject, the anti-expansionists think that we could hard fork in an emergency in a month.  Maybe we should challenge them to prove it.  Let's hard fork to 2MB (the smallest reasonable increase) or 2MB + 10% a year if they'll agree within a month.  If that works, maybe I'll believe that we can do it quickly when it counts

[cypherdoc]

bond carnage.  who can see the pattern, let alone the divergence with the $DJI?:

[Adrian-x]

and this is fun: NSA errwhere!

> http://imgur.com/a/9CAfo <

how about that freedom^TM act? US people happy?

Sorry for the noise. I can't resist commenting that is simultaneously hilarious and sobering (or exciting depending...).

I hadn't scrolled down until you reposed, i just read the tweet on my phone and now scrolled down, this is crazy, after checking it out I cant but think with more conviction that the days of typical PR spin are so over, politicians look more like puppets with teleprompters than ever before, corner on of them as ask a few pertinent question on camera and they melt. - after this you don't even need real people you can just insert a stock photos, anyone can and there dog can play, this is crazy.  

I think the level of insight and ideas expressed here is genuine on another level.

I think you all have expressed loads of insight, and the fact you don't seem to get alone when its a full moon keeps me on my toes.

[TPTB_need_war]

I don't agree with your apathy on whether cryptographers who invent anything that truly threatens TPTB will be made into examples.

Smooth I also don't think it is viable to murder dozens of open source programmers because it would be difficult to obscure on that scale and thus the hacker community would likely rise up and retaliate (and win!). But in terms of stopping an immediate threat or making an example out of a serious threat which can be done in an obfuscated manner so as to not wake up the entire community, I think it is a realistic consideration. Perhaps avoiding outcomes below is contingent on carefully accessing the situation the potential victim has placed himself into. For example, attack the Russian oligarchs and you will be overtly assassinated. Attack the CIA or NSA and they will weigh the cost of murdering versus the risk of waking up the sheeople.

If I felt the community wasn't so damn asleep, I wouldn't feel a need to be anonymous as a lead dev (of something that truly threatened TPTB).

Note I am concurring with smooth's stance up to the point of noting how the community abandoned Ross.

What they often do instead of murder you is send the IRS after you.

Strange Deaths Surrounding Wall Street

Teaching Encryption Could Soon to Be Illegal in Australia

Former kingpin Rick Ross talks Gary Webb’s death, C.I.A. complicity

Renowned investigative journalist Michael Hastings was working on story about CIA Chief John Brennan at the time of his mysterious death



WikiLeaks: Journalist Michael Hastings Under FBI Investigation Before Death

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15929-journalist-probing-nsa-and-cia-abuses-dies-in-mysterious-crash

https://www.google.com/search?q=death+of+Gary+Webb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Shane_Todd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya#Murder.2C_investigation_and_trial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

"...Kondratieff was taken outside and then shot to death at the age of 46..."

Aaron Swartz – A Voice of Freedom Silenced

Who Killed Michael Hastings?

Mystery grows: Journalist died prepping Obama exposé

Ross Ulbricht's life sentence and the following drug syndicate execution of an investigative reporter are intentionally brutal public displays designed to discourage others who might serious threats to monopolies. Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road was a serious threat to the economic monopoly of the global elite.

"...having his hands, arms, and legs severed with a sword while still alive; and then had his body placed within tires, covered in gasoline and set on fire – a practice that traffickers have dubbed micro-ondas (allusion to the microwave oven..."

[cypherdoc]

Capitulating:

[TPTB_need_war]

mixing does not have to be specified at the protocol level.

You apparently missed the upthread discussion about the intractable scaling problems in CoinJoin.

The mixing must be supported on chain otherwise it is not viable for a few reasons.

I don't want to repeat again. Search the thread for smooth's and my comments about CoinJoin.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

On another subject, the anti-expansionists think that we could hard fork in an emergency in a month.  Maybe we should challenge them to prove it.  Let's hard fork to 2MB (the smallest reasonable increase) or 2MB + 10% a year if they'll agree within a month.  If that works, maybe I'll believe that we can do it quickly when it counts

That would have the advantage of quieting the extremists, like Mircea Popescu and his following, who refuse any change at all. Once we have made an upward change, that horse has left the stable.

Plus, if tx volume doesn't simply increase to fill the space but rather miners self-limit, it will suggest that a 20MB (or 8MB) limit isn't going to mess anything up either. It will also be progressively harder to argue for the "well-connected miners torment poorly connected miners with big blocks" attack. In many ways this will be the camel's nose under the tent, as well as serving the purpose you mentioned, that Greg and Luke claim we can hotfix on the fly (if we can, great, let's do that, but if not...).