So, let's say that I wanted to make a Monero transfer to Alice. And let's say I specifically wanted Alice to be able to know/see my payment address (for example to be able to make a return transaction, or as a way of verifying that the specific transaction came from me). How would I accomplish that?
Would it be sufficient to simply choose no mixin for that transaction? If so, what would be the correct command for that? If not, how might I link my address to that transaction?
I know I would be breaking the anonymity, but the situation I am thinking of would be a rare and special circumstance.
I hope someone with a better understanding of the protocol than I have can take a moment and give me a clue on this.
Thanks.
You can do this using the view key. Apart from using the tx_id field, I don't know any other way to use for proof-of-payment apart from giving someone your .keys file
The usage of the view key has not yet been integrated into the wallet's functionality, but devs have implied it will be there in the future.
Using no mixin would break the anonymity of both yourself and inputs you received from other people (thereby de-anonymizing them as well), as it becomes part of the viewable block chain. You'd still have a stealth address though. To prevent this de-anonymization from needing to be done for the type of situations you have in mind, the three above methods can be used.