When and if a serious attempt is made to destroy DASH it could well take the form of an irresistible honeypot app. Dashwhale, moocowmoo and node40's services are so appealing that they provide a useful hint of what could - some day - be big centralized trouble. I hope they and all future devs can go out of their way to demonstrate that there are no centralized vulnerabilities in their services (email databases being one obvious vulnerability, ahem).
I absolutely do not want to demean those devs - I use some of their apps and am grateful to have them - but that's the problem (or future problem). Trusting Internet Strangers is dangerous. Trusting long-time allies is also dangerous (see Vertoe).
Gotta stay trustless.
Crude example: imagine a perfect app that sends daily email summaries of everything a MN operator would want to know - a perfect jewel. Under the hood is a database of MN owners that could be hacked or subpoenaed. The coin protocol security is thus compromised by a third-party app, even if its dev has no bad intentions.
I absolutely do not want to demean those devs - I use some of their apps and am grateful to have them - but that's the problem (or future problem). Trusting Internet Strangers is dangerous. Trusting long-time allies is also dangerous (see Vertoe).
Gotta stay trustless.
Crude example: imagine a perfect app that sends daily email summaries of everything a MN operator would want to know - a perfect jewel. Under the hood is a database of MN owners that could be hacked or subpoenaed. The coin protocol security is thus compromised by a third-party app, even if its dev has no bad intentions.
Excellent post aigeezer!
I've been spending a lot of time in other BCT threads and on other forums altogether. I quite often have to spend an hour or two 'catching up' on this Dash thread. I'm starting to notice a worrying trend. There seems to be quite a few people on here that don't look at anything else much in crypto and just live and breath Dash alone. I can understand that as this is a great community and this project is certainly being managed and executed for the long haul. But I feel like I'm often seeing naivety being expressed where people haven't really thought through fundamental issues around how some of this stuff works and the likely nefarious actors that will eventually be attracted to Dash.
In fact, some of the notions and ideas people are holding as to how Dash will become mainstream and accepted at the point of sale in many retail outlets I think is bordering on lunacy. At the moment Dash is a tiny tiny little experiment we all love and get much enjoyment out of being a part of. We see Evan and the team working very hard and coming up with never ending creativity around solving the problems of crypto. But I'd really like everyone to take a reality check on just what's going to be involved in getting an untraceable, untrackable, anonymous digital currency anywhere even close to mainstream adoption. It's going to be a mighty undertaking that will involve battles, attacks and character assassinations we can't even begin to imagine.
There is just NO WAY IN HEAVEN OR ON EARTH in today's highly anti-terrorism-funding, anti-cash, anti-untraceable, anti-anything that has the slightest whiff of nefariousness that Dash isn't going to hit multiple extreme roadblocks and major controversy storms. When the mainstream media gets hold of its private/anonymous capabilities they will have a field day of highlighting how it's a terrorists and paedophiles dream come true. I can see it coming as clear as day. We're already seeing the banking fraternity getting very worried about Bitcoin. Down here in Australia all the banks have advised Bitcoin companies and exchanges they're closing their accounts. They're making out it's because they don't want to be involved with digital currency that has so much potential for funding crime and money laundering, but the real reason is they can see the enormous damage digital currencies can do to their businesses.
When Dash starts being covered by the mainstream media the anonymity features are going to be about as acceptable to government regulators as people being able to use a pseudonym on their driver's licence (i.e. they'll be totally against it in every way imaginable). The concepts that we all understand around Dash's anonymity providing true fungability will be lost in a sea of acrimony and FUD about the anonymity just being there for nefarious dealings and nothing else. Mr and Mrs average will pretty much go along with it too as they've already been well groomed along the pathway of the "cashless society" courtesy of the government, big banks and credit card companies planting this seed over many decades. There's almost no understanding now in the general public of why privacy is an important part of democracy and there's certainly no understanding of fungability.
I just want everyone to check their group-think and confirmation-bias levels as, while I believe Dash is going to be successful, I simply cannot see it being taken up by the mainstream in any meaningful way in the next few years. A decade or two (after the world's gone through the financial calamity like no other that's ever happened before as everything deleverages) yes I can imagine things having changed so much after the population realises governments and central bankers are much to blame for fiat's meltdown, there will be an appetite with a new generation for all that Dash is and what it offers. But in the current climate and mental framework of the day, Dash is just too radical and too easily linked to everything people are fearful of.
But that's not to say that Dash won't be wildly successful in the short term though. It's a big world out there and with the total value of everything in the world currently at around $150 trillion, there's a hell of a lot of room for niche financial networks and tools. I believe Dash will end up attracting a whole raft of new players and partakers, but they're not going to be mums and dads "wanting to start using digital currencies" they'll be people aware of the need to be able to transact securely and privately and get much of their wealth out of the corrupt debt-based fiat financial system.
