Topic: rpietila Altcoin Observer - page 145. (Read 387493 times)

Ethereum is starting to get my attention.

This is an extremely serious threat to be #1 or #2. I don't know if they can pull it all together.

I will studying and thinking more...

It is all or nothing for me - I would if everybody else would too.

Either 100% transparency or 100% anonymity - Bitcoin is neither (and it hurts in my case that on the one hand I am stolen without being able to do nothing and on the other hand if I want to play 'fair' -for tax purposes etc- EVERYBODY knows my moves!).

EDIT: Regarding transparency a perfect book is 'Transparent Society' from David Brin, though he ignores cryptography and it's possible implications (not having to go in a 'cams everywhere / watch the watchers' idealscenario..

If you don't feel that privacy is important, I invite you to publish ALL of your UNEDITED credit card and bank statements, ever, on the Internet.

No?  Now consider someone who actually has wealth.  Suppose you have a billion dollars in spare change (after the last multinational corp you bought) and a daughter in elementary school.  Do you want every Corsican and Byelorussian ex patriate within 500km to be able to determine just how large a ransom to ask for, when they leave her left hand in your mailbox?

Suppose instead that you are a middle-level cadre running a department in a satellite city of Chongqing.  Making arrangements for entrepreneurs to build the New China has provided you with a substantial quantity of yuan that you need to move to Cambridge, for Harvard tuition, a boxster and a nice flat.  BoC is off the table.  Bitcoin leaves a trail similar to the heat trail a satellite sees when watching a nuclear submarine transit the pacific:  A big red arrow pointing directly to your location.

These are not merely "first world problems".

No one is asking you to use monero if it doesn't serve your interests.  But I do claim that it is a crucial protection from totalitarian control of your political and religious activism, and can be used to deny ANYONE who may wish to seize your wealth the information necessary to do so.  The tech to make this easy enough to use so that those who are motivated, but not technically exceptional, can do so, is not present.  But Monero puts it in reach.

We live in a world of increasing risks.  Transactional privacy enables you to manage many important risks in useful ways.  The captive coopted mass of circus-goers will not fret about this, as they butter the bread for their grilled government cheese sandwiches.  Those who have something which they consider their own, something to protect, will understand this.

Governments control the cheese consumers.  But those who control the governments have something to protect.

You're missing the point. It isn't about dildos specifically, that was just your example.

It is about tools being developed with that mountain of data that allow much of to be tracked, linked, and identified. It won't be targeted at you specifically (usually not at least), but it will be done in the aggregate and a great deal of identification will drop out. Have you ever posted a bitcoin address online? If so, and if you weren't extremely careful, that address can now be linked to your online identify, perhaps linked to other addresses of yours, and certainly linked to addresses of people who have transacted with you (who may also have posted addresses online, though not necessarily the same one you used) and indirectly (computers are good at this) linked with (many, many) other known addresses.

Here is one small example (though the graphs and tables in the paper are interesting, scary, and worth a look), and this is just the very, very beginning (think "cookies" as a privacy issue in web browsers a decade or more ago):


http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~smeiklejohn/files/imc13.pdf

LOL! That means you'll end up with a mountain of dildos.
I'd rather hire a spy than do that 
And what if you bought it from a street vendor that sells different items? 

What's stopping someone from offering to buy lunch for someone at the office? All it would take is one meal. Say the person gives a receiving address, and now they can see the other person's transactions. Then from their own personal paychecks, they can cross reference the transactions rather easily and discover their income if people aren't using multiple addresses .. and just look for two transactions that are the same. Civility goes a long way, and in this case it can be used to discover private financial information about someone that just wanted a big-mac and fries. Again, steps can be taken to avoid this - but not everyone does this. How many people use their facebook login info on tens/hundreds of websites? They're not gonna do the work to stay private - because it involves potentially lots of work, and it needs to be done on a protocol level else it opens them to abuse.


Incorrect, you're detracting from the argument. I will make the point that giving your ISP access to infinitely valuable, and potentially unencrypted, information that they don't have access to right now is a scenario for disaster. Right now, they don't stand to benefit nearly as much if they were to reveal this information, nor do they deal with the costs of keeping it private. If this information were to become incredibly valuable (which it would, because it would be financial transaction data) .. in that you're now not acting through a bank an instead directly with your transactor through an ISP .. multiple layers of obfuscation are now removed. I'm making the claim that if your ISP were to have access to your transaction records, rather than a bank, you (and them) will be in a terrible situation and as such the cost of having an ISP in the first place would scale infinitely in trying to secure that information, or worse possibly sell that information. An ISP is not a bank, and I could not imagine a scenario where I would treat them as such.

Obviously I wouldn't know if you bought dildos from a vendor who sells a variety of goods. That goes well beyond payment.

But if I wanted to know if you bought something from a store that specializes in didoes, I would go ahead and buy some dildos myself from several of these stores, and then look for linkages. But I wouldn't personally need to do this myself, because it is easy for people (and more importantly, because they will likely do it at scale, businesses) to create these sorts of databases on the Internet.

The Internet advertising industry is built around creating databases that track people and share information between millions of web sites. This was not really by design, it is just that the web was also not explicitly designed to protect privacy, and clever people figured out how to track and link. A decade later and we have an whole industry doing it, with almost everyone tracked and identified.

I really doubt we want that kind of tracking and information sharing extended to payment, at least I don't. I prefer my payments remain at least as private as they were before Bitcoin, not less.

So the idea is that it's harder to find out that one has purchased gold as opposed to bitcoin? What if, when/if a currency were to collapse, there were bitcoin markets instead of gold ones? I'm assuming the gold markets were offered for upfront exchanges, not over the internet - can't you do that as well with bitcoin (IE: offchain initial transaction where someone trades you a bitcoin wallet/physical coin with 'x' bitcoins in it that you would then move to a different wallet (or keep as is), rather than conduct the transaction entirely over the internet). Were the gold markets online? I guess what I'm trying to ask is that 'could gold be replaced with physical exchange of bitcoin in that scenario?' Either way - I guess you'd have a tough time spending that bitcoin in the future unless you were to continue trading it off-chain. Gold would be more suited for that.


If they did want to, I would take into consideration that I could just send the bitcoin to any physical location I wanted to .. or in absolute worst case scenario - they found out I had it at 'x' location, and my life were at state for having it - I could literally destroy the bitcoin. I cannot imagine depriving them of their gold by destroying it so easily - which may just be a consideration if I were to consider that my life were at stake and if I were to lose it the funds would be immediately seized and used to fund something I (add: don't) agree with. What I'm trying to say is that in such a scenario where I would lose my life regardless of the actions I take - I have the option to physically destroy bitcoin (I think - aren't there some addresses I can send to that make the outputs unspendable?). I do not have such an easy way to destroy the value with gold. 'War machine' doesn't get funded further, but I don't get to live seems to be the worst case scenario with bitcoin. 'War machine' potentially has a really tough time finding gold (if they do at all - point is that it still exists to be used as value in the future .. possibly by the aggressor), and I still don't get to live seems to be the worst case scenario with gold.


Heh, even if you're a law-abiding citizen, all roads with (holding anything of high value) seem to turn you into a fugitive from the law if the law were to consider you it's next prime source of value and pursue you for witholding it. I agree that bitcoin has helped paint the target on your back, and not only has it done so at a protocol level .. but it's done it more effectively than any transfer/storage of value to date.

I'm not worried about surveillance. Cryptos are currently in the "acceptance" stage, or in other parts of the world, it's still in the "getting to know" stage.
Isn't it a bit too early to add anon feature?Wouldn't this prevent the government from accepting cryptos since it could help criminals hide their transactions or aid in money laundering?

Bitcoin requires a paper trail to acquire, to use, to do anything with.  When Argentina had it's currency collapse, gold markets for items popped up instantly.  The government didn't really have the means to confiscate that gold, even if they wanted to.  If you had people do the same with Bitcoin during a currency crisis, all it does is create a giant billboard sign of, "hey, this is where the wealth is to fund the trillion dollar government debt, come and get it".  At that point, if Bitcoin was actually used for anything, the price would probably have ballooned to 100x what it is now.  Best case scenario, if you didn't have it confiscated, you would probably be taxed at some crazy rate of 90%.

Even if you're a law abiding citizen, all roads with Bitcoin seem almost certain to turn you into a fugitive from the law in some way eventually.  In this regard, Bitcoin has failed, and the only real solution is to try and make a currency completely impossible for a government to regulate.

PoW mining pools are an easy point of attack due to centralization, so I'm not really sure Cryptonote helps in this regard.  Some kind of PoS system where all block signer nodes operate anonymously over TOR might be the best thing for now.  PoS has other security problems though, and some say TOR is useless due to timing attacks.

Yeah, that's true. I often avoid this topic, because it's not something that I'm ready to deal with. Not that I don't understand the need for it (or that I don't want to understand it), more that it's not affecting me personally right now .. and I'd rather add by providing thoughts on things I'm familiar with. I guess that sounds pretty jaded, but usually the people that do have input on that (you, for example) explain it quite well .. so I tend to avoid the topic alltogether and try to re-enforce your points with ways I feel I can. I'm still reading up on the newest NY proposed laws, so maybe it's time to get better versed on the regulation aspect of it. It's easy to imagine total confiscation, but it's a tough topic for me to debate personally; however, I see us both as having the same goals.


Are you trying to imply that modified regulations are in order, or something other than bitcoin is in order?


That's an interesting idea. Assuming someone were to know that you have either gold/bitcoin in the first place, I would think that bitcoin may well be hidden easier. I haven't considered ways in which to hide bitcoin though, nor gold. Why do you think it's easier to hide gold? Because it's harder to tell that you've purchased it in the first place or because of it being something physical?

They know if they are a party to one of the transactions. They can look at linkages between the transaction they know about and others. For example, if you run a business, your landlord or other vendors can look at the source of the funds you use to pay them. Likewise your customers can see where the coins they are sending you are going. They can also often (if not always) find other customer payments to you, since those payments will often be aggregated to make payments to vendors, salaries, etc., again establishing linkages.

Much has been written about blockchain analysis. It is not as trivial as you suggest.


Changing addresses does not help you because transactions are linked, publicly, on the block chain. If you want to break those links you need some kind of mixing, coin exchange, zero-knowledge proofs, etc. which brings us right back to the realm of "anonymous" technologies.

The extra work required on my end to obscure this is just that - extra work. A business is already busy, by definition. I'm not making the claim that it's impossible to keep this private. I'm making the claim that there are more avenues for which this can be abused. Anyone in payroll or purchasing would likely have access to the wallet address. That's more people that I'd have to trust to not abuse the business .. more headaches, as people are largely a finite resource that need to be replaced in business every so often. I wouldn't want to have to keep trusting new people with what would become extremely sensitive information. Why would I?


We both neglected to mention that most purchases are done with having the ip address recorded. They would have a very good clue of my logical location on a network, thereby easily finding out who I am. Again, more headaches and work that needs to be done on my end to protect my business.


Sure, see above reasons as to why I'd like not to do this. A bank offers me one or two (likely less than ten) bank accounts. To me this would be telling me that I can just open more bank accounts. Again, more work. Why would I voluntarily put myself in that situation, when it can be done automatically on a protocol level?

Probably not as substantial as you'd like (remember, this is only a hobby of mine),
but otherwise I followed your suggestion at https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/cuckoo-cycle-speed-challenge-2500-in-bounties-707879

My reply was mostly to someone who said they didn't care about privacy in Bitcoin.  Even if you don't care about privacy at all, the non-anonymous networks might not survive due to overbearing government regulation, or even confiscation.  If Bitcoin was subject to crazy laws in the US and not suitable for use here, but works fine in Luxemborg, the US is still the market maker and changing to something else more functional here would probably bring everyone else along.

I would say it's arguably easier to hide gold than Bitcoin, assuming you aren't a trillionaire, and they have already made a run at gold confiscation.  Bitcoin confiscation doesn't seem that unrealistic when the government wants some extra income.

That's if they get your address.
Also, when people look at the blockchain, all they'll see is someone sent this amount to this address. They'd not know what that is for unless there's a message included.
And you could easily change address anytime you want.

I'd see this as only part of the picture, specifically a minutely small part of it right now in July 2014.

I don't see anonymous transactions as an absolute necessity for the purchasing of consumer goods. I don't really care if someone looks up on a blockchain that I bought boots and socks last year. I do care that people could look up my previous paychecks on a blockchain, by simply having my previous address. I'd also care greatly if I were to be running a business that both competitors, customers and hired labor could see every single transaction I had performed in the past simply by having my address and doing business with me. It's a venue that would only open up a lot of headaches if all those details were to be made automatically and immediately public.

I would have contractors underbidding each other with information that I don't currently share ever, I would have competition both knowing who my customers are (and the details of the interactions with me), and potentially buying them/influencing them and in turn threatening my business. I would have employees relentlessly asking me questions that they shouldn't ever need to ask. Having a public blockchain in such situations would present a series of ethical questions that most people are not ready to answer. It would present a series of multiple problems that, for a business, are already mitigated by banks obscuring payment data. If that were to be removed, I can't imagine it being less than extremely disruptive.

Should cashier A know what cashier B gets paid? Apart from that, should anyone who ever sent you money know the exact contents of your wallet (as well as any other tx's you've made)? Should I allow my contractors to potentially bankrupt themselves, or put them in a situation where they are permanently compelled to offer more for less (and in turn potentially lead to offering less for less)? Should I allow myself to open my customers to pursuit by potentially unwelcomed attention from someone they otherwise would have never had contact with?

A private blockchain acts much like a spam filter IMO. My personal opinion as a consumer, I do not mind terribly the spam. My personal opinion as someone who's been a part of industry/business for over a decade, I would not touch bitcoin knowing that it would just give me headaches. Businesses can't be convinced to 'hold it because it'll be worth more some day', because they already have something that's making them lots of money (their business). They're not gonna put that at risk, and trade one thing that can be worth something some day, for something that's valuable today. I'm not talking about one-man shops.

I agree it's a safeguard to those things you mentioned.

However I was thinking about general privacy and anonymous coins being more useful for illegal marketplaces like Silk Road etc. (Not that I use them but whatever)

With all the revelations by Edward Snowden about how there really isn't much privacy left in this world people will want to have their finances private more than anything I think.

With Bitcoin you can have privacy but you would really have to take serious measures at every step and screwing one thing up and everyone can have an insight in your finances, every transaction is recorded in the blockchain forever.