Anonymous Network Decentralisation
One of the next major steps for Navajocoin is to decentralise the anonymous nodes so that anyone running a webserver can install it and process Anonymous transactions. Make no mistake, the current system runs off the Navajo Subchain which is built using decentralised blockchain technology. However there are obvious concerns in publishing the node technology due to the risk of someone altering the code maliciously. We are currently investigating options on how to approach this so we can truly decentralise the node system.
Thank you Pakage for making this crystal clear.
Yep, we've had a few discussions on how to do this already. Probably the best idea so far is to port the processing scripts to a language which can be compiled. Something like Node.JS or Java would do nicely. Then before a wallet sends a transaction to a particular node, it would run a checksum against the compiled file and compare the result against a masternode's checksum. Then if they both match, it means that the files have been unaltered and it is safe to send the transaction to that node for processing.
Until we can guarantee a method which is unbreakable and unalterable, we can't distribute the processing code. It is high on our agenda though.
For now, we have a setup multiple nodes across multiple web hosts of which one is chosen at random. So it is somewhat decentralised already, even if not publicly.
Awesome! Thank you!
And, as I said in my post on the project roadmap and i would like to reiterate it here again; We can't currently distribute the node scripts until we can integrity check every node that a user sets up (for obvious security reasons). However, the current system is running as per the whitepaper and it uses the decentralised navajo subchain to pass value from the incoming nodes to outgoing nodes and instruct the outgoing node who to send the coins to and how many to send.
The Navajo Anonymous Network does NOT rely on a centralised database to store transaction values and addresses.
It is NOT simply a coin mixer with master nodes.
So even if the system were to get wiped out, we could set it back up by simply restoring the subchain wallet and the script, then the wallet would re-sync and start processing any pending transactions again since the data is decentralised on the block chain and not stored in a database.
I hope everyone has taken the time to read the whitepaper, even if it is reasonably technical and boring.