Firstly, this is not intended to be an act of trolling. I was quite heavily invested in Dark, and believed in it's cause.
However, I would like you to carefully consider your position.
The darksend option of anonymity could be smashed by the NSA quite easily.
The anonymity market share you own - on the assumption that darksend works flawlessly - is about to be overtaken by Monero, and similar clones.
Their anonymity solution is superior to yours, developed by hackers. A purely trustless solution.
Good luck to you all, but buyer beware.
https://cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdfPS. Darkwallet also should not be underestimated, simply because you don't like it...
While zeroknowledge proofs are neat just imagine the blockchain sitting there for 10 years accumulating your data, then one of a few things happen:
1.) The key used to start the system was never destroyed and was kept the entire time so a very powerful entity could see everything that goes on
2.) An exploit is found and suddenly the entire blockchain is cleartext
Darksend has no such vulnerabilities. The encryption we use could be completely broken and all of the transactions that have happened would still be anonymous.
Darksend relies on a collateral system - 1000drks per masternode, randomly selected masternodes, and these nodes sign off on the pooled transactions.
Sounds safe...how much money do you think the NSA has? How easy to simply stockpile virtually all the darks out there, and have the majority of masternodes running...
Sorry Evan but they are laughing at this solution...they will simply allow your network to grow, allow users to feel safe and protected, yet know the vast majority of transactions.
The only real solution to anonymity is encrypted packets of information, that are visible on the network by can only be decrypted by the intended recipient using their private key.
You are a smart, well intended dev. You have a loyal team, you have done well. But your solution is flawed.
I don't believe for a second that anyone at the NSA has bought a single dark, we're coming up on their blind side. They simply can't function that quickly. Those at the decision making levels haven't taken notice of us, who are we? Even if they did, they'd need over 50% of the masternode, and with several levels of mixing the transactions, there only needs to be one masternode in there that they don't control. So when finished, if each darksend transaction goes through 5 levels of mixing, I don't even think 75% control would do it. Certainly not consistently, they'd have to get lucky.
I know the idea is to hide from the NSA, but my interest is hiding from the public, and I believe this does a better job. Clean, simple, using logic rather than math that I don't understand. If I can't understand it, I don't want to deal with it. It's good we have personal choice like this. I see absolutely no flaw in Evan's take on privacy
"I don't believe for a second that anyone at the NSA has bought a single dark, we're coming up on their blind side. They simply can't function that quickly."
"Using logic rather than math that I don't understand. If I can't understand it, I don't want to deal with it."
Tante, surely you want a solution that cannot be broken? Darkcoin's market cap is only $10 million. Impressive by our standards, but simply pittances to any worthy adversary.
Darkcoin should be aiming for an unbreakable solution, an unhackable solution, anonymity that cannot be overcome simply by owning a large enough % of coins.
We don't want users to simply feel safe, but to actually be safe. Coinjoin, darksend, and any other future derivative that relies on mixing pools of transactions is inevevitably going to fail the anonymity test, as the signer of the pooled transaction has access to information.
The only true solution is an encrypted packet of information approach, where although the packet is visible on the network, the contents - and ability to open said contents - is only accessible to the recipient (ie, their encrypted wallet's private key).
Nope, i'm not here to troll. In fact, my guess is that the price and market share will continue to rise. So if you are only loyal to this coin to see an increase in your wealth you probably will. But no one with serious $ they wish to transfer with reliable anonymity will use your coin.