Cryptonote: More Bitcoin Than Bitcoin

[smooth]

What does cryptonote do? Can someone give a beginners explanation pls.

There is a decent high level intro on the web site. Extreme high level into is an anonymous (untraceable and unlinkable) blockchain plus some other tweaks to Bitcoin (no fixed block size, etc.)

https://cryptonote.org/inside/

[pereira4]

What does cryptonote do? Can someone give a beginners explanation pls.

There is a decent high level intro on the web site. Extreme high level into is an anonymous (untraceable and unlinkable) blockchain plus some other tweaks to Bitcoin (no fixed block size, etc.)

https://cryptonote.org/inside/

It all seems great, but for some reason they are struggling to come up with a functional gui. AFAIK Monero still didn't got the gui going right?

[smooth]

What does cryptonote do? Can someone give a beginners explanation pls.

There is a decent high level intro on the web site. Extreme high level into is an anonymous (untraceable and unlinkable) blockchain plus some other tweaks to Bitcoin (no fixed block size, etc.)

https://cryptonote.org/inside/

It all seems great, but for some reason they are struggling to come up with a functional gui. AFAIK Monero still didn't got the gui going right?

The original code came from anonymous untrusted sources on the Internet, and was clearly unfinished at that. Unfinished meaning, among other things, not having a GUI.

Monero has (at least) five GUIs, some were supported by core developers but the work done by independent developers, some are purely third party (see link below). The core project itself has been focusing on fundamentals (see above "unfinished") first, including security audits, bug fixes, and restructuring some of the code for overall maintainability, but will ultimately have a bundled "core" GUI as well.

This is somewhat off topic though, as other cryptonote coins do have a variety GUIs from their core developers (more hastily put together than Monero's approach, but is neither inherently good nor bad, just a different set of priorities). Not all of them are open source though; the Monero project itself is 100% open source.

https://moneroeconomy.com/news/choose-your-wallet

[tacotime]

It all seems great, but for some reason they are struggling to come up with a functional gui. AFAIK Monero still didn't got the gui going right?

We never messed around too much with a core GUI because there's so much as to do with the core code and core GUIs tend to become quickly antiquated (just look at Bitcoin-QT, which virtually no one uses anymore).

[Truecurrency]

What does cryptonote do? Can someone give a beginners explanation pls.

There is a decent high level intro on the web site. Extreme high level into is an anonymous (untraceable and unlinkable) blockchain plus some other tweaks to Bitcoin (no fixed block size, etc.)

https://cryptonote.org/inside/

I get the part about using one time addresses for transactions, so thats stealth addresses right. What about this (Double- spending Proof)? The blockchain anaylsis resistance also blows over me lol.

[tacotime]

I get the part about using one time addresses for transactions, so thats stealth addresses right. What about this (Double- spending Proof)? The blockchain anaylsis resistance also blows over me lol.

The issue with ring signatures is that you can't tell which input was spent, so you need a way to make sure that no one is double spending their input. Take for example outputs A,B,C, and ring signature R that spends from A OR B OR C. How can we make sure that the owner of A doesn't also get to spend B and C? The answer is by using a niZKP that demonstrates knowledge of the private key and gives a unique identifier per private key. This is called the key image.

So when A spends her funds, she produces both her signature saying it's A OR B OR C, and her unique key image. The owners of B and C then also have unique key images that allow them to spend their funds without identifying who they are to the network.

[Truecurrency]

I get the part about using one time addresses for transactions, so thats stealth addresses right. What about this (Double- spending Proof)? The blockchain anaylsis resistance also blows over me lol.

The issue with ring signatures is that you can't tell which input was spent, so you need a way to make sure that no one is double spending their input. Take for example outputs A,B,C, and ring signature R that spends from A OR B OR C. How can we make sure that the owner of A doesn't also get to spend B and C? The answer is by using a niZKP that demonstrates knowledge of the private key and gives a unique identifier per private key. This is called the key image.

So when A spends her funds, she produces both her signature saying it's A OR B OR C, and her unique key image. The owners of B and C then also have unique key images that allow them to spend their funds without identifying who they are to the network.

So cryptonote protects against the Finney attack? I googled it here: Another attack the trader or merchant is exposed to when accepting payment on 0/unconfirmed. The Finney attack is a fraudulent double-spend that requires the participation of a miner once a block has been mined[2]. The risk of a Finney attack cannot be eliminated regardless of the precautions taken by the merchant, but the participation of a miner is required and a specific sequence of events must occur.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending

[tacotime]

No, that's a separate, unrelated attack that still exists. Doublespend proof is referring to the niZKP component of the ring signatures.

See here:
https://lab.getmonero.org/pubs/MRL-0003.pdf

[smooth]

I get the part about using one time addresses for transactions, so thats stealth addresses right. What about this (Double- spending Proof)? The blockchain anaylsis resistance also blows over me lol.

The issue with ring signatures is that you can't tell which input was spent, so you need a way to make sure that no one is double spending their input. Take for example outputs A,B,C, and ring signature R that spends from A OR B OR C. How can we make sure that the owner of A doesn't also get to spend B and C? The answer is by using a niZKP that demonstrates knowledge of the private key and gives a unique identifier per private key. This is called the key image.

So when A spends her funds, she produces both her signature saying it's A OR B OR C, and her unique key image. The owners of B and C then also have unique key images that allow them to spend their funds without identifying who they are to the network.

So cryptonote protects against the Finney attack? I googled it here: Another attack the trader or merchant is exposed to when accepting payment on 0/unconfirmed. The Finney attack is a fraudulent double-spend that requires the participation of a miner once a block has been mined[2]. The risk of a Finney attack cannot be eliminated regardless of the precautions taken by the merchant, but the participation of a miner is required and a specific sequence of events must occur.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending

There's been a lot of fair amount of confusion since cryptonote uses that term, but in the cryptonote sense it applies only to the signatures, and even then only brings them back to the same degree of double-spending protection you get with regular (non-ring) signatures, such as Bitcoin.

In essentially every respect when it comes to double spending vulnerabilities, the protocol is exactly the same as Bitcoin.

[Truecurrency]

I get the part about using one time addresses for transactions, so thats stealth addresses right. What about this (Double- spending Proof)? The blockchain anaylsis resistance also blows over me lol.

The issue with ring signatures is that you can't tell which input was spent, so you need a way to make sure that no one is double spending their input. Take for example outputs A,B,C, and ring signature R that spends from A OR B OR C. How can we make sure that the owner of A doesn't also get to spend B and C? The answer is by using a niZKP that demonstrates knowledge of the private key and gives a unique identifier per private key. This is called the key image.

So when A spends her funds, she produces both her signature saying it's A OR B OR C, and her unique key image. The owners of B and C then also have unique key images that allow them to spend their funds without identifying who they are to the network.

So cryptonote protects against the Finney attack? I googled it here: Another attack the trader or merchant is exposed to when accepting payment on 0/unconfirmed. The Finney attack is a fraudulent double-spend that requires the participation of a miner once a block has been mined[2]. The risk of a Finney attack cannot be eliminated regardless of the precautions taken by the merchant, but the participation of a miner is required and a specific sequence of events must occur.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending

There's been a lot of fair amount of confusion since cryptonote uses that term, but in the cryptonote sense it applies only to the signatures, and even then only brings them back to the same degree of double-spending protection you get with regular (non-ring) signatures, such as Bitcoin.

In essentially every respect when it comes to double spending vulnerabilities, the protocol is exactly the same as Bitcoin.

I read about Adaptive Parameters, is that better than Hard (Defined) Paramteres?

[ArticMine]

One of the arguments in favour of Cryptonote over Bitcoin is of course incidents such as the following:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2653 A law enforcement raid over a relayed Bitcoin transaction
http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/ The chainanalysis 'Sybil Attack' on the Bitcoin network.

As for adaptive parameters this is a feature of Cryptonote based coins that is not commonly discussed but is very important. The most visible advantage is that Cryptonote based coins do not have the 1MB maximum blocksize issue since the network adapts to the actual demand. I must say that it is this issue that led me to find out about and invest in Monero in the first place.

[funkenstein]

One of the arguments in favour of Cryptonote over Bitcoin is of course incidents such as the following:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2653 A law enforcement raid over a relayed Bitcoin transaction

Cryptonote blocks are also relayed by nodes with IP addresses, and block explorers could report them if they like.  No difference here. 

http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/ The chainanalysis 'Sybil Attack' on the Bitcoin network.

Nothing stops me from doing the same thing to cryptonote networks. 

As for adaptive parameters this is a feature of Cryptonote based coins that is not commonly discussed but is very important. The most visible advantage is that Cryptonote based coins do not have the 1MB maximum blocksize issue since the network adapts to the actual demand. I must say that it is this issue that led me to find out about and invest in Monero in the first place.

How is that important?  Do you see cryptonote chains as being good places to store large amounts of data?  Or built for microtransactions?  How many TX can fit in a 1MB cryptonote block? 

[GingerAle]

http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/ The chainanalysis 'Sybil Attack' on the Bitcoin network.

Nothing stops me from doing the same thing to cryptonote networks. 

Perhaps eventually, yes. But that's all dependent on the hash function / network hashrate. I.e., i don't think we'll see electronics manufacturers rushing to incorporate cryptonite asics with 2 mb caches anytime soon. Meanwhile, a 10 watt bitcoin asic chip probably costs 10 cents

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

One of the arguments in favour of Cryptonote over Bitcoin is of course incidents such as the following:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2653 A law enforcement raid over a relayed Bitcoin transaction
http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/ The chainanalysis 'Sybil Attack' on the Bitcoin network.

As for adaptive parameters this is a feature of Cryptonote based coins that is not commonly discussed but is very important. The most visible advantage is that Cryptonote based coins do not have the 1MB maximum blocksize issue since the network adapts to the actual demand. I must say that it is this issue that led me to find out about and invest in Monero in the first place.

Monero will be huge no doubt, the thing is they are taking too long to come up with a functioning GUI and also what will happen with the blockchain bloat that I kept reading about back in the day?

[smooth]

One of the arguments in favour of Cryptonote over Bitcoin is of course incidents such as the following:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2653 A law enforcement raid over a relayed Bitcoin transaction

Cryptonote blocks are also relayed by nodes with IP addresses, and block explorers could report them if they like.  No difference here.  

There is a difference. You can report IP addresses but those IP addresses are much harder to link to anything useful on the blockchain. You can't for example find transactions that paid to or from a known address and then look for the IPs associated with those transactions. You likewise can't trace the flow of funds to earlier or later transactions and look for IP addresses associated with those. Nor can you go in the other direction and take a known IP and associate addresses to it (even if imperfectly).

The only useful things you can do with these p2p spying techniques is find an IP associated with a particular tranasction if you already know the transaction you are looking for, or find transactions associated with an IP, but in the latter case those transactions are largely opaque (can't be traced or tied to an address, and the amount is only visible with ambiguity). That is a window of vulnerability but a much narrower one than typically exists for Bitcoin.

[iCEBREAKER]

One of the arguments in favour of Cryptonote over Bitcoin is of course incidents such as the following:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/2653 A law enforcement raid over a relayed Bitcoin transaction
http://www.coindesk.com/chainalysis-ceo-denies-launching-sybil-attack-on-bitcoin-network/ The chainanalysis 'Sybil Attack' on the Bitcoin network.

As for adaptive parameters this is a feature of Cryptonote based coins that is not commonly discussed but is very important. The most visible advantage is that Cryptonote based coins do not have the 1MB maximum blocksize issue since the network adapts to the actual demand. I must say that it is this issue that led me to find out about and invest in Monero in the first place.

Monero will be huge no doubt, the thing is they are taking too long to come up with a functioning GUI and also what will happen with the blockchain bloat that I kept reading about back in the day?

Boolberry has a functioning GUI.

Darknote a functioning GUI.

Monero has like 5 functioning GUIs, just not an Official one:



As for bloat, the MRL is working on a solution:

^^ Yeah it's the root(n) paper, sorry. Recalled it incorrectly off the top of my head.

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~sahai/work/web/2007%20Publications/ICALP_Chandran2007.pdf

Less cool but still cool for all of the same reasons. Thanks.

I think O(root(n)) is the smallest known implementation of ring signatures. The CryptoNote developers were aware of this -- one of their citations in the original white paper was to a publication on O(root(n)) ring signatures (Fujisaki CT-RSA 2011). However, it uses pairing-based cryptography for which there was no standard library so they opted to be conservative and implemented standard ring signatures.

[runpaint]

Dashcoin has a good wallet GUI.  It's set up differently from a typical crypto wallet, and it's not as flashy, but it has some advantages.  When you open the client, it syncs with the network before it opens your wallet.  Then you can create multiple wallets within the interface, and it requires a password for each wallet you create. 

[iCEBREAKER]

Dashcoin has a good wallet GUI.  It's set up differently from a typical crypto wallet, and it's not as flashy, but it has some advantages.  When you open the client, it syncs with the network before it opens your wallet.  Then you can create multiple wallets within the interface, and it requires a password for each wallet you create. 

Too bad Dashcoin was sold to Dark.  Taking a coin with proven Cryptonote privacy and ruining it with trusted masternode obfuscation BS is so wrong.

They should have just sold all their shitty Darkcoins and bought real Dashcoins instead.  But some people worry more about branding than technology.   

[vvv8]

@OP

Nope.

Try again

[GTO911]

@OP

Nope.

Try again

Any constructive reply? or just plain shilling