[XMR] Monero Speculation

[smooth]

Point 1 is true that DRK's privacy functions on the backbone of the masternode network, but even if the network were compromised tomorrow, all previous transactions would remain anonymous. Correct me if I am wrong, but if by some act of god (and excluding the ramifications of hash security not only on a mining level but on all systems secured by SHA256 being compromised), cryptonote was broken, all tx's (past, present, future) would be linked. It's a choice between on chain or off chain privacy.

Nothing prevents people from adding off-chain privacy to Monero. You can do this now by moving coins through exchanges, gambling sites, or other existing intermediaries,  and people can create dedicated centralized or decentralized mixing services if the want (all of these may keep records or be compromised, but so may masternodes) You can easily add off-chain privacy to a coin with on-chain but not vice versa.

Very true. I was simply making the point as it is out-of-box. You can always take more measures if you need more added privacy. The far more probable scenario in either coin's usage is the trails outside of the currency anyway leading to compromised anonymity.

Somewhat agree, but I also believe that in a mature state, masternodes (and most of the other intermediary forms I listed) will routinely collect and share data, because the data is valuable both commercially and to governments. The political and market forces dictate that. There is no mechanism to even deter it in fact.

The only person you can ever really trust with a secret is yourself.

[stopsigningbitch]

Isn't a instamine == premine when it's done before anyone else has time to ramp up?

If the implication is that releasing the mining software on GNU/Linux ahead of Microsoft Windows converts an instamine into a premine the answer is most emphatically NO.

It would be YES if there were 500 coins per block during the first few hours while the mining software was restricted to the very small pool of Linux users.

oh wait...Did I just describe something?

I have zero sympathy here. Those who choose propriety DRM and malware infected operating systems sold licensed by large multinational monopolies such as Microsoft and Apple need to learn that by their choice of operating systems they are cutting themselves off from many extremely profitable opportunities. This is especially the case when dealing with crypto - currencies that by their very nature rely on FLOSS and computing devices under their owner's sole control for their security. My own personal experience was purchasing XBT in the 2 -6 USD range in late 2011/2012. Many of those XBT were subsequently sold at an 10000% profit for XMR after Apple gave the iSheep permission to purchase XBT. I am a strong critic of DRK and believe the coin is fundamentally flawed at a structural level; however one thing the DRK developers got right is releasing the mining software on GNU/Linux ahead of Microsoft Windows. There are many valid security reasons why one would do that. Furthermore this also sends a clear message that if one wants privacy one should not be using DRM and malware infected propriety operating systems, where the vendors have, in addition to the DRM and malware risk, made data sharing arrangements with multiple national spy agencies.

What? No offence, but what are you talking about? Releasing the mining on Linux instead of Windows at the start has absolutely nothing to do with security. Why are you even bringing up "national spy agencies" anyway? When Darkcoin(rather xcoin), first came out, it was not intended to be an anonymous coin. It was simply an altcoin just like any other crappy altcoin. The mining was restricted to linux only so that the early linux miners and evan himself could gain most of the coins that happened during the 500, then 200 coins per block instamine the first few hours of the release.

Nothing else, and definitely nothing to do with "national spy agencies", rofl. If there weren't 500 coins per block at the start, then what you're saying would be slightly(emphasis on slightly) plausible. But the 500 coins per block at the start+restricted to linux only+block reward getting reduced dramatically after over 1million coins have been mined in a few hours=instamine. You can further tell that the instamine was intended, even planned for because of the high # of hash that was thrown at the mining early on when it was restricted to linux only, along with the block reward being cut several times after the instamine(to make evan's instamined coins more valuable).

[oblox]

Point 1 is true that DRK's privacy functions on the backbone of the masternode network, but even if the network were compromised tomorrow, all previous transactions would remain anonymous. Correct me if I am wrong, but if by some act of god (and excluding the ramifications of hash security not only on a mining level but on all systems secured by SHA256 being compromised), cryptonote was broken, all tx's (past, present, future) would be linked. It's a choice between on chain or off chain privacy.

Nothing prevents people from adding off-chain privacy to Monero. You can do this now by moving coins through exchanges, gambling sites, or other existing intermediaries,  and people can create dedicated centralized or decentralized mixing services if the want (all of these may keep records or be compromised, but so may masternodes) You can easily add off-chain privacy to a coin with on-chain but not vice versa.

Very true. I was simply making the point as it is out-of-box. You can always take more measures if you need more added privacy. The far more probable scenario in either coin's usage is the trails outside of the currency anyway leading to compromised anonymity.

Somewhat agree, but I also believe that in a mature state, masternodes (and most of the other intermediary forms I listed) will routinely collect and share data, because the data is valuable both commercially and to governments. The political and market forces dictate that. There is no mechanism to even deter it in fact.

The only person you can ever really trust with a secret is yourself.

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

[generalizethis]

How Darkcoin handled the insta/acidental/fast mine is exactly how they handle anonymity. Go ahead without any forethought, and when they get flak (dear god when it is your broken privacy), work around it until you get to the next bump in the road--and if anyone says anything about yesterday, respond, "They're living the whole way back in June, get with the times, dude."


We should stop helping them out by pointing out flaws. Let them see them when they see them.

[oblox]

How Darkcoin handled the insta/acidental/fast mine is exactly how they handle anonymity. Go ahead without any forethought, and when they get flak (dear god when it is your broken privacy), work around it until you get to the next bump in the road--and if anyone says anything about yesterday, respond, "They're living the whole way back in June, get with the times, dude."


We should stop helping them out by pointing out flaws. Let them see them when they see them.

Not really sure that's a fair assessment of DRK anyway considering the coin as it stands right now is substantially different than it was even during the first revision of coinjoin. If those sorts of improvements are sloppy, well, I'll take it, I guess. The development and improvements certainly aren't over either.

This thread can easily get back on topic whenever you guys want to stop "attacking" Darkcoin for being a different take on privacy. You don't have to invest in it, you don't have to like it, and you certainly don't have to blindly parrot the same shit over and over again that was hashed out nearly a year ago. If XMR is the superior coin, then market forces will dictate that in the future. End of story. Rehashing whether or not there was a instamine (there was) is so incredibly old, as is comparing Darkcoin's older take on privacy to where it is currently.

[smooth]

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

That is why the data will be shared. This if anything creates more incentive for entities such as data brokers (on the commercial side) and intelligence agencies (on the government site) to aggregate data from many masternodes, and shifts power away from individual masternodes even if they are ideologically driven (unlikely in a mature state). After all, if I'm a masternode, my thinking can be that if the data is spread out among many masternodes, there is not much harm in getting some extra money selling mine.

In fact the economics suggest that all masternodes will share data with these entities either knowingly or unknowingly.

[oblox]

How Darkcoin handled the insta/acidental/fast mine is exactly how they handle anonymity. Go ahead without any forethought, and when they get flak (dear god when it is your broken privacy), work around it until you get to the next bump in the road--and if anyone says anything about yesterday, respond, "They're living the whole way back in June, get with the times, dude."


We should stop helping them out by pointing out flaws. Let them see them when they see them.

Not really sure that's a fair assessment of DRK anyway considering the coin as it stands right now is substantially different than it was even during the first revision of coinjoin. If those sorts of improvements are sloppy, well, I'll take it, I guess. The development and improvements certainly aren't over either.

This thread can easily get back on topic whenever you guys want to stop "attacking" Darkcoin for being a different take on privacy. You don't have to invest in it, you don't have to like it, and you certainly don't have to blindly parrot the same shit over and over again that was hashed out nearly a year ago. If XMR is the superior coin, then market forces will dictate that in the future. End of story. Rehashing whether or not there was a instamine (there was) is so incredibly old, as is comparing Darkcoin's older take on privacy to where it is currently.

DRK is a scam and the anon doesnt work, what don't you get? smooth, what are you doing? I dont want to tear this asshole a new one, start deleting this guy posts or he wont stop with his BS.

If DRK's anon doesn't work, prove it. Should be easy. I applaud Smooth for handling things the way he has in this thread instead of just blindly deleting discussion (even as it is getting off topic). Ridiculing DRK is no further off topic in a price speculation thread as are my discussions contradicting the sewage you are spewing.

[oblox]

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

That is why the data will be shared. This if anything creates more incentive for entities such as data brokers (on the commercial side) and intelligence agencies (on the government site) to aggregate data from many masternodes, and shifts power away from individual masternodes even if they are ideologically driven (unlikely in a mature state). After all, if I'm a masternode, my thinking can be that if the data is spread out among many masternodes, there is not much harm in getting some extra money selling mine.

In fact the economics suggest that all masternodes will share data with these entities either knowingly or unknowingly.

Time will ultimately tell if a scenario you describe plays out. The market is still very much in its infancy to start speculating whether or not it will even reach a marketable environment where the profits generated from selling data offset the costs of potentially undermining the currency at large (thus ruining ones own investment).

[smooth]

This thread can easily get back on topic whenever you guys want to stop "attacking" Darkcoin for being a different take on privacy.

I disagree with kazuki49 about deleting your posts but I also do not see any (or at least not many) "attacks" here that you need to be responding to by being "off topic", so either stick to substance (which does include different technological approaches to privacy and how they may or may not play out in the future) or take it elsewhere.

Also, noting that "market forces" will dictate an outcome in the future, and that being a reason not to discuss is now is silly since that is essentially the very definition of speculation (i.e. this thread).

[smooth]

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

That is why the data will be shared. This if anything creates more incentive for entities such as data brokers (on the commercial side) and intelligence agencies (on the government site) to aggregate data from many masternodes, and shifts power away from individual masternodes even if they are ideologically driven (unlikely in a mature state). After all, if I'm a masternode, my thinking can be that if the data is spread out among many masternodes, there is not much harm in getting some extra money selling mine.

In fact the economics suggest that all masternodes will share data with these entities either knowingly or unknowingly.

Time will ultimately tell if a scenario you describe plays out. The market is still very much in its infancy to start speculating whether or not it will even reach a marketable environment where the profits generated from selling data offset the costs of potentially undermining the currency at large (thus ruining ones own investment).

You are missing the game theory point above. By "blinding" you are removing much of the cost to an individual masternode owner to share data. If anything you would want to make it catastrophic for any individual masternode owner to ever reveal anything, but in fact blinding is doing the opposite.

[oblox]

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

That is why the data will be shared. This if anything creates more incentive for entities such as data brokers (on the commercial side) and intelligence agencies (on the government site) to aggregate data from many masternodes, and shifts power away from individual masternodes even if they are ideologically driven (unlikely in a mature state). After all, if I'm a masternode, my thinking can be that if the data is spread out among many masternodes, there is not much harm in getting some extra money selling mine.

In fact the economics suggest that all masternodes will share data with these entities either knowingly or unknowingly.

Time will ultimately tell if a scenario you describe plays out. The market is still very much in its infancy to start speculating whether or not it will even reach a marketable environment where the profits generated from selling data offset the costs of potentially undermining the currency at large (thus ruining ones own investment).

You are missing the game theory point above. By "blinding" you are removing much of the cost to an individual masternode owner to share data. If anything you would want to make it catastrophic for any individual masternode owner to ever reveal anything, but in fact blinding is doing the opposite.

I think the cost of their investment potentially being decreased by leakage to be enough for the average masternode owner to abstain from data sharing, but I can't speak for every owner out there. Further, the usefulness of even fragments of data aren't nearly as helpful as the number of rounds is increased. Unless you have enough corroborating owners sharing what inputs they have per round, you're still at the mercy of probabilities as it relates to having a complete data set for the full beginning to end flow through. Unless you have the pieces that relate to inputs and outputs for the full set of rounds, you're still left with assumptions on whose address belongs to who. Could you draw some meaningful conclusions, perhaps, but hard to quantify without a real world scenario (not to mention blinding isn't even in effect).

[smooth]

If DRK's anon doesn't work, prove it. Should be easy.

That is and has always been a stupid argument. For example, it was recently reported that internet tracking companies are watching searches that you make for medical conditions and that data is being traded around by data brokers. Obviously that is possible and is being widely done, but I can't personally do it, because I'm not one of these companies:



Full size: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/display_advertising_ecosystem_011011-1024x741.png

[smooth]

I think the cost of their investment potentially being decreased by leakage to be enough for the average masternode owner to abstain from data sharing, but I can't speak for every owner out there. Further, the usefulness of even fragments of data aren't nearly as helpful as the number of rounds is increased. Unless you have enough corroborating owners sharing what inputs they have per round, you're still at the mercy of probabilities as it relates to having a complete data set for the full beginning to end flow through. Unless you have the pieces that relate to inputs and outputs for the full set of rounds, you're still left with assumptions on whose address belongs to who. Could you draw some meaningful conclusions, perhaps, but hard to quantify without a real world scenario (not to mention blinding isn't even in effect).

As I said earlier, I believe in a mature scenario, essentially every masternode will be sharing data. The economics dictate it, because the data has value and masternodes that don't realize that value will be uncompetitive.

Sure, today some people run masternodes because they believe in the cause, and they won't spy, but once it becomes a business, all bets are off. (Also, let's be honest about it, today the data has no value because there is almost no real usage.) Money will flow, and so will data. Nobody really expected the degree of an internet data tracking industry (ignoring the whole NSA part of it) that exists today, but its not surprising at all given the incentives.

[oblox]

If DRK's anon doesn't work, prove it. Should be easy.

That is and has always been a stupid argument. For example, it was recently reported that internet tracking companies are watching searches that you make for medical conditions and that data is being traded around by data brokers. Obviously that is possible and is being widely done, but I can't personally do it, because I'm not one of these companies:



Full size: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/display_advertising_ecosystem_011011-1024x741.png

It's not a stupid argument because the end result will always be a probability of 1 in 3^(# of rounds) pathways. You aren't going to prove anything without reasonable doubt, especially as the rounds increase (up to 16). To blindly say "DRK's anon doesn't work" should have some backing behind why... I have yet to see the logic other then bias investor mentality.

[oblox]

I think the cost of their investment potentially being decreased by leakage to be enough for the average masternode owner to abstain from data sharing, but I can't speak for every owner out there. Further, the usefulness of even fragments of data aren't nearly as helpful as the number of rounds is increased. Unless you have enough corroborating owners sharing what inputs they have per round, you're still at the mercy of probabilities as it relates to having a complete data set for the full beginning to end flow through. Unless you have the pieces that relate to inputs and outputs for the full set of rounds, you're still left with assumptions on whose address belongs to who. Could you draw some meaningful conclusions, perhaps, but hard to quantify without a real world scenario (not to mention blinding isn't even in effect).

As I said earlier, I believe in a mature scenario, essentially every masternode will be sharing data. The economics dictate it, because the data has value and masternodes that don't realize that value will be uncompetitive.

Sure, today some people run masternodes because they believe in the cause, and they won't spy, but once it becomes a business, all bets are off. (Also, let's be honest about it, today the data has no value because there is almost no real usage.) Money will flow, and so will data. Nobody really expected the degree of an internet data tracking industry (ignoring the whole NSA part of it) that exists today, but its not surprising at all given the incentives.

In your mature scenario, Darkcoin would already be broken if that's the case (with every single masternode owner sharing data for $). If every masternode owner is sharing data at a cost, then every tx is traceable. I'd assign a pretty low probability of a scenario such as that being the case, but that's more of a gut-feeling than anything I can mathematically quantify. Guess I'm also not seeing the masternodes choosing not to share data as being uncompetitive. Given that the system is random by design, no single masternode is better off at obtaining any more information than the next. The simple fact that choosing to share data could ultimately lead to the currency going to 0 is in a lot of ways incentive not to do it. At a mature enough market though, greed will come into play and there will always be those that are willing to sell data. I just don't see it being the whole network.

[rpietila]

[DRK] Enough.

[generalizethis]

Not sure how "valuable" fragments of data would be when masternode blinding rolls out and spreads inputs across numerous masternodes instead of each round flowing through one node entirely (granted, probabilities still are on the low side of being selected each round to gain meaningful analysis). And yes, the only person you can ever really trust is yourself.

That is why the data will be shared. This if anything creates more incentive for entities such as data brokers (on the commercial side) and intelligence agencies (on the government site) to aggregate data from many masternodes, and shifts power away from individual masternodes even if they are ideologically driven (unlikely in a mature state). After all, if I'm a masternode, my thinking can be that if the data is spread out among many masternodes, there is not much harm in getting some extra money selling mine.

In fact the economics suggest that all masternodes will share data with these entities either knowingly or unknowingly.

Time will ultimately tell if a scenario you describe plays out. The market is still very much in its infancy to start speculating whether or not it will even reach a marketable environment where the profits generated from selling data offset the costs of potentially undermining the currency at large (thus ruining ones own investment).

You are missing the game theory point above. By "blinding" you are removing much of the cost to an individual masternode owner to share data. If anything you would want to make it catastrophic for any individual masternode owner to ever reveal anything, but in fact blinding is doing the opposite.

I think the cost of their investment potentially being decreased by leakage to be enough for the average masternode owner to abstain from data sharing, but I can't speak for every owner out there. Further, the usefulness of even fragments of data aren't nearly as helpful as the number of rounds is increased.Unless you have enough corroborating owners sharing what inputs they have per round, you're still at the mercy of probabilities as it relates to having a complete data set for the full beginning to end flow through. Unless you have the pieces that relate to inputs and outputs for the full set of rounds, you're still left with assumptions on whose address belongs to who. Could you draw some meaningful conclusions, perhaps, but hard to quantify without a real world scenario (not to mention blinding isn't even in effect).

Not sure why anyone would think it hard to get masternode operators to participate in meta collection when governments can get the world's largest companies to cooperate in similar data collection. If a govenment can bribe a  multinational company, they can certainly bribe a node operator.

Are you blindly hoping governments won't notice what you are doing and won't figure out how to contact or compromise node operators?

[smooth]

In your mature scenario, Darkcoin would already be broken if that's the case (with every single masternode owner sharing data for $).

Yes that is my point. The design is broken. It can't work longer term. That is my opinion.

This does not mean that "DRK [the coin] is dead" after all the technology is still evolving and who knows how it might be improved. It might even evolve into something useful and valuable that has nothing to do with privacy. I have no idea. The current design is a fail IMO.

[oblox]

In your mature scenario, Darkcoin would already be broken if that's the case (with every single masternode owner sharing data for $).

Yes that is my point. The design is broken. It can't work longer term. That is my opinion.

This does not mean that "DRK [the coin] is dead" after all the technology is still evolving and who knows how it might be improved. It might even evolve into something useful and valuable that has nothing to do with privacy. I have no idea. The current design is a fail IMO.

And that's where we'll continue to disagree. You assign very high probabilities to your scenario playing out with the majority (if not all) masternode owners sharing data whereas I assign low probabilities of this being as large of an issue as you make it sound like it will be--strictly from an incentive trade off between data revenue streams vs risk of value loss to underlying holdings.

[smooth]

If DRK's anon doesn't work, prove it. Should be easy.

That is and has always been a stupid argument. For example, it was recently reported that internet tracking companies are watching searches that you make for medical conditions and that data is being traded around by data brokers. Obviously that is possible and is being widely done, but I can't personally do it, because I'm not one of these companies:



Full size: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/display_advertising_ecosystem_011011-1024x741.png

It's not a stupid argument because the end result will always be a probability of 1 in 3^(# of rounds) pathways. You aren't going to prove anything without reasonable doubt, especially as the rounds increase (up to 16). To blindly say "DRK's anon doesn't work" should have some backing behind why... I have yet to see the logic other then bias investor mentality.

That's not the argument you made above. It was "prove it. Should be easy" which I took to mean saying that we should go an "de-anonymize" transactions. If that was not your argument, I apologize for the misunderstanding, but this silly argument has been presented before many times. It is a fallacy because I am not Google or Facebook or any of the 100+ other known major players in the tracking data industry (or the NSA).

As for logic, I have presented my argument based on: 1) game theory, 2) economics, 3) the real world experience with commercial and government data sharing generally. I do not believe that argument is an instance of investor bias.