Besides, since the implementation in Darkcoin is based on both DarkSend+economy+game theory, it's not easily duplicated by other coins. Given that in the current design the nodes know who is transacting with the other, a way had to be devised to solve the bad actor problem. The 12.000 USD per node is the dis-incentive to buy a lot of nodes. When an altcoin is launched a month from now, implementing the opensourced DarkSend, it does not have the same dis-incentives for the bad actor as he can buy the entire monetary base (and the nodes) for peanuts. Thus, from game theory perspective, the implementation won't really work as effectively as with a coin with good distribution + established value. For example DOGEcoin or Litecoin could implement it better than a new coin with zero price.
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your taking time to not just scream but explain things in a logical manner. You also seem in the know about DRK, so I have one more question about these nodes.
I get it that if you are sending money through darksend that I can't see it the same way I can track you on the bitcoin blockchain. So it keeps me from looking at you, but I am not really worried about person to person tracking. And 12,000 USD keeps most people out of the node game for sure.
12,000 USD for the NSA, it isn't even dust.
If the NSA was watching DRK and bought a dozen nodes, wouldn't they be able to see where the money in those nodes is coming and going from? I mean, they might have to do some extra computer leg work, and cracking, but wouldn't they be able to monitor just where the money coming into their node is coming from and where it is going? It is their node after all and they are privy to the data coming in and out.
Thing is, the price isn't static. The more you buy, the more the price rises. So it would be impossible to control, say, half of the darkcoins in circulation or 3/4ths, without the marketcap exploding to something like a billion usd. They'd still have the money for that though, no question.
Regarding traceability... assuming the NSA controls something like 60% of the nodes (that's a lot), if you darksend the money multiple times, and assuming a random selection of node for each round of laundering, the possibility of getting tracked is:
One Darksend: 60%
Two Darksends: 60% x 60% = 36%
Three... = 21.6%
Four = 12.96%
Five = 7.77%
Six = 4.66%
Seven = 2.79%
Eight = 1.67%
Nine = 1%
Ten = 0.6%
Eleven = 0.36%
Twelve = 0.21%
Thirteen = 0.13%
But the NSA in particular has extra ways to discover what you do (controls networks, devices, ip obfuscation nodes, has advanced AI pattern recognition software etc), so that's not even a really accurate reflection. And I think there's also a problem with linking change addresses during DarkSends that might be recombined in some joint future spending. This would probably require something like a scheduled laundering service, like the "windows defrag" for the disk, but that would perform something similar for change addresses. I'm not sure of what the next version of DarkSend will do regarding change denominations.
To make the long story short: NSA-proofing is not easy. When Evan started working on it he wasn't really trying to create an NSA-proof system, just a system that would provide good privacy through obfuscation and encryption that could only be cracked by a very serious adversary like the NSA (not even most governments).
It was after Anonymint's constructive criticism back in March and the Bytecoin & clones appearance when the pressure was built up to deliver something even better and that's where we are today, trying to make a transparent blockchain to provide an almost perfect degree of anonymity - which is of course a problem because you are going against the fundamental design of the system. So we'll see what we end up with after RC4 (anonymity enhancements)...
