[XMR] Monero Speculation

[owm123]

Who made the CT paper for monero? Was it smooth or someone else in relation to the core dev team? I haven't even bothered to try reading it because there's no chance I would be able to comprehend it... Is there a dumbed down version?

The TL;DR is - CT will add a "Amount Key" for viewing amounts being sent in transactions.


So you would have a view key, spend key, amount key.

Let me check if I understand. Currently, if I go to http://moneroblocks.eu/ I can see transactions amounts for in each block. So if this white paper is finished and changes implement, I wont be able to see the amounts anymore? Only with amount key it will be possible?

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[Harpua]

I really don't understand the reasoning behind the CT papers... why would you need to hide the amount of money each transaction is worth, if you're going to have to give the key to the merchant you're dealing with so he can see if he gets paid in full?  Doesn't it just add one more step to transactions for no reason?

[smoothie]

Who made the CT paper for monero? Was it smooth or someone else in relation to the core dev team? I haven't even bothered to try reading it because there's no chance I would be able to comprehend it... Is there a dumbed down version?

The TL;DR is - CT will add a "Amount Key" for viewing amounts being sent in transactions.


So you would have a view key, spend key, amount key.

Let me check if I understand. Currently, if I go to http://moneroblocks.eu/ I can see transactions amounts for in each block. So if this white paper is finished and changes implement, I wont be able to see the amounts anymore? Only with amount key it will be possible?

That's the way I understood it.

Sender can see amounts and receiver can as well. But something about the sender allowing the receiver to see the amount is in there somewhere.

[smoothie]

I really don't understand the reasoning behind the CT papers... why would you need to hide the amount of money each transaction is worth, if you're going to have to give the key to the merchant you're dealing with so he can see if he gets paid in full?  Doesn't it just add one more step to transactions for no reason?

Any 3rd party can see amounts on the block chain. This is to remove this visibility thus making the blockchain even more opaque.

Ever heard of the saying "follow the money"?

Large transactions of XMR are going to be a target at some point.

Being able to hide the amount makes it like someone walking around in the dark with no ability to feel, see, taste, hear, touch, smell without the magic key(s).

They dont know what is in the room, how much of it is there, what it feels like, what it tastes like, what it smells like, what it sounds like, or what it looks like unless you give them the:

Secret_key_goggles
View_key_sunglasses
Amount_key_magnifying_glass

[papa_lazzarou]

Who made the CT paper for monero?

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

I haven't even bothered to try reading it because there's no chance I would be able to comprehend it

You and me buddy

[papa_lazzarou]

I'm also following a little of what you guys are saying about the 'amount' key.  Would this also allow people to show individual transactions vs. the history of an entire address?

That possibility exists already. The cryptonote whitepaper already discussed that possibility but it wasn't implemented.
Until recently, someone (I'm guessing moneromoo) changed simplewallet to be able to save the tx private key (this is optional I think. You have to tell simplewallet to start saving this). An there is this tool by luigi111 (http://xmrtests.llcoins.net/checktx.html) which lets you prove you made that transaction.

[bitebits]

Any 3rd party can see amounts on the block chain. This is to remove this visibility thus making the blockchain even more opaque.

Secret_key_goggles
View_key_sunglasses
Amount_key_magnifying_glass

Love the ELI5! Plus the fact that:

"Amounts would now be hidden so your set of potential ring partners is much larger."

So really it would be killing two birds with one stone. Great to see some really clever guys working on increasing privacy.

That really makes you not bother about a GUI or what not at all. I just want to be able to spent money online without the whole world knowing to whom, when, what amount etc. Just like with anything else really. Strange that the right of financial privacy got so much intruded.

[smooth]

"Amounts would now be hidden so your set of potential ring partners is much larger."

So really it would be killing two birds with one stone. Great to see some really clever guys working on increasing privacy.

The main advantage is for unusual amounts (very high or very low). For moderate amounts like 100 there are already a huge number of potential mixing partners. But it is an incremental improvement, and perhaps a very significant improvement for high value transactions.

I really don't understand the reasoning behind the CT papers... why would you need to hide the amount of money each transaction is worth, if you're going to have to give the key to the merchant you're dealing with so he can see if he gets paid in full?  Doesn't it just add one more step to transactions for no reason?

Both parties to a transaction would always be able to see the amounts of course. The idea of CT with or without ring sigs is to hide the amounts from third parties, while retaining visibility to the third parties of the soundness of the transactions (that sum of inputs = sum of outputs).

Large transactions of XMR are going to be a target at some point.

Yup, this makes them indistinguishable from the more routine smaller transactions.

[smooth]

I'm also following a little of what you guys are saying about the 'amount' key.  Would this also allow people to show individual transactions vs. the history of an entire address?

That possibility exists already. The cryptonote whitepaper already discussed that possibility but it wasn't implemented.
Until recently, someone (I'm guessing moneromoo) changed simplewallet to be able to save the tx private key (this is optional I think. You have to tell simplewallet to start saving this). An there is this tool by luigi111 (http://xmrtests.llcoins.net/checktx.html) which lets you prove you made that transaction.

Yes moneromooo was the one who did that, as part of his work crowd funded by the forum funding system. Also, he recently added a check_tx command to simplewallet: https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/pull/429

[papa_lazzarou]

I really don't understand the reasoning behind the CT papers... why would you need to hide the amount of money each transaction is worth, if you're going to have to give the key to the merchant you're dealing with so he can see if he gets paid in full?  Doesn't it just add one more step to transactions for no reason?

I don't think that makes much sense. The receiving key will always be able to know the amounts it gets because then it would not know its balance.

What I guess will happen is the receiver will not know the total amount of the inputs used.
See this transaction for example: http://moneroblocks.eu/tx/a038a7066f404db8c4528d041d60d1107e79247da27ab6376bce50af95e45b08

If you are the receiver and only got 10XMR and the rest is change, you will know that I have at least 643XMR more. With CT I guess that won't happen because you will only know the amounts you received in your address and the total amount of the outputs used.


Can someone check if my reasoning is correct please?

[digicoin]

Merchant shouldn't know how rich I am. What she should know is if I have enough fund to transact with her.

[americanpegasus]

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

 
 
Yes, beautiful.  I actually have a shot at comprehending papers like this (vs. the 20XX math versions): https://lab.getmonero.org/pubs/MRL-0004.pdf

[GingerAle]

I really don't understand the reasoning behind the CT papers... why would you need to hide the amount of money each transaction is worth, if you're going to have to give the key to the merchant you're dealing with so he can see if he gets paid in full?  Doesn't it just add one more step to transactions for no reason?

I don't think that makes much sense. The receiving key will always be able to know the amounts it gets because then it would not know its balance.

What I guess will happen is the receiver will not know the total amount of the inputs used.
See this transaction for example: http://moneroblocks.eu/tx/a038a7066f404db8c4528d041d60d1107e79247da27ab6376bce50af95e45b08

If you are the receiver and only got 10XMR and the rest is change, you will know that I have at least 643XMR more. With CT I guess that won't happen because you will only know the amounts you received in your address and the total amount of the outputs used.


Can someone check if my reasoning is correct please?

I attempted the paper but didn't comprehend, but all that its doing (I assume) is obfuscating the transaction quantity on the public blockchain. You obviously know how much money you receive - it will be in your wallet, coupled with one of them newfangled serialized payment IDs. Amounts just won't be observable on a block explorer like they are now.

so yeah, what papa said.

[MoneroMooo]

If you are the receiver and only got 10XMR and the rest is change, you will know that I have at least 643XMR more. With CT I guess that won't happen because you will only know the amounts you received in your address and the total amount of the outputs used.


Can someone check if my reasoning is correct please?

I think you're right (though I don't know it for a fact), since the recipient will not have the view key for the change. So the change could be pretty much anything. You don't even know if it's going to different places (something you can take a good guess at now, if there is more than one output with a particular denomination that does not go to you).

[SmoothCurves]

Is the CT in Monero bullish or bearish? I thought Monero Tx's were already so obfuscated as to not need something like CT.

[dEBRUYNE]

Is the CT in Monero bullish or bearish? I thought Monero Tx's were already so obfuscated as to not need something like CT.

For me personally bullish, it just adds another layer of obfuscation and protects against third parties analyzing the blockchain.

[Harpua]

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

 

Is "Shen Noether" a member of bitcointalk that comes in these threads frequently? If so, could he maybe give us the low down of what everything means in the paper? I would love to learn more about what's going to happen in the future with XMR.

[dEBRUYNE]

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

 

Is "Shen Noether" a member of bitcointalk that comes in these threads frequently? If so, could he maybe give us the low down of what everything means in the paper? I would love to learn more about what's going to happen in the future with XMR.

Weren't the comments on his reddit thread sufficient for you? He isn't really active on bitcointalk as far as I know. I've seen him appearing in #bitcoin-wizards and he is /u/NobleSir on reddit though.

His comments:

Amounts would now be hidden so your set of potential ring partners is much larger.

&

Im not an expert in zerocash, but it will mean hidden amounts, origins, and destinations, while viewkeys will still work, and of course it will still be auditable.

It's obviously a working paper (see also the 0.1 in the title), so there is still a lot of work (also taking reviewing into account) that needs to be done before this can be implemented, but it is a good step forward.

[8XMR]

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

 

Is "Shen Noether" a member of bitcointalk that comes in these threads frequently? If so, could he maybe give us the low down of what everything means in the paper? I would love to learn more about what's going to happen in the future with XMR.

academic using pseudonym

[dEBRUYNE]

The author of the paper, Shen Noether (pseudonym) is one of the researchers of Monero Research Lab

 

Is "Shen Noether" a member of bitcointalk that comes in these threads frequently? If so, could he maybe give us the low down of what everything means in the paper? I would love to learn more about what's going to happen in the future with XMR.

academic using pseudonym

Indeed, you can read about the MRL guys here -> https://getmonero.org/knowledge-base/people (scroll down to The Monero Research Lab)