Cryptocurrency:

[Karl]

OA to clear one of these items up a bit, it is well known that you cannot
have anonymity if the amount of stuff exchanged is observable.  This is a
problem called traffic analysis that has been a known vulnerability in tor
for many many years now.

There are ways to deter it but last I knew anything (which was some years
ago) the problem is still unsolved.

Doesn't it seem kind of impossible, "public anonymity"?  It is like wearing
a mask but being the only person in your community who buys fishfood.
People who see you buy fishfood know you are the guy with the pet fish,
whether you are masked or not.

This is a big topic because the tor project demonstrated trust when they
first released by disclosing that it was an unsolved problem in their
software in some areas.  To this day there are no mainstream systems that
address the problem of traffic analysis, and it takes a lot of
understanding of that problem to address it.

On Sun, Jun 7, 2020, 8:01 AM other.arkitech <other.arkitech at protonmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
>
> Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Sunday, June 7, 2020 1:40 AM, Punk-Stasi 2.0 <punks at tfwno.gf> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 06 Jun 2020 22:49:10 +0000
> > "other.arkitech" other.arkitech at protonmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > > On Saturday, June 6, 2020 9:18 PM, Punk-Stasi 2.0 punks at tfwno.gf
> wrote:
> >
> > > > so, I'd say that any 'second generation' cryptocurrency has to have
> a level of privacy that is at least as good as monero's.
> > >
> > > My take on Monero is that it is an overengineered solution.
> >
> > wait, first you said it had 'some obfuscation' but now it's
> overengineered? =)
>
>
> both terms apply. I think they went beyond with the concept of privacy,
> and entered in public terrain with privacy concepts.
> In public arena privacy is not wanted.
>
>
>
> >
> > > Mu understanding of an anonymous public system includes:
> > > *I should be able to see in clear all the money in circulation, all
> the public database.
> >
> > why would you want that?
>
> public and private are opposite concepts.
>
> Public: all data is transparent, not obfuscated, easy access, traceable.
> Private: opaque, encrypted, authorized access, untraceable.
>
>
>
>
> >
> > > *I shouldn't be able to link anything to a particular person or group.
> >
> > that makes little sense. Once you 'see all money in circulation' linking
> the circulation to the users isn't hard. Or by 'all money' you mean just
> one number for the total supply?
>
> The public accounting shall be traceable if the money is public money ,
> provided there is a protection where accounts cannot be traced to people.
>
> E.g.
> you and your friend decide to create a pot. this pot is public for you
> both, but private for the rest.
> From your perspective you want the pot movements the in clear, because you
> share the ownership.
>
> The same pattern applies to a world-wide public system. If you have a
> share of ownership on any account you want this account to be traceable. So
> you can verify public money goes where it is supposed to go according to
> public rules.
>
>
>
> >
> > > Monero fails the first one, bcs they focused on making it difficult to
> analyze the money flows, the cash in circulation,
> >
> > monero doesn't fail. On the contrary it achieves something that's much
> needed.
>
> fails in the sense they sacrificed public accounting, which motivated me
> to say it was overengineered, as they brough privacy concepts to an extreme.
> Analogy:
>
> Massive surveillance is an offence to privacy, right?
> Hidding my account is an offence to me cause I cannot verify my stuff.
> Hidding public accounts is an offence to a required transparency.
>
>
> >
> > > and macro-economy parameters that are of public interest.
> >
> > not sure what's that supposed to mean? Which parameters are of 'public
> interest'?
>
> e.g.
> I want to sell my bananas, I need to find buyers.
> I want to buy bananas, I need to find sellers
>
> whatever helps me to achieve this trade that can be considered public,
> regardles which role I take (seller/buyer)
>
> Or
>
> This anon guy HIJK is asking for a loan. I see HIJK was loaned before for
> X amount, and s/he repaid it. I can take the decision of taking the risk or
> not to contribute to this loan.
>
> Provided I cannot trace HIJK with any person, HIJK could be interested is
> making his credit history public so he increases his chances to find
> lenders.
>
>
>
>
> >
> > > they instead made an opaque public system.
> >
> > your previous statement and this one beg the question, what do you mean
> by "public".
> >
>
> opposite of private.
>
>
> > monero isn't an 'opaque public system'. It's an accounting system that
> tries to achieve some of the properties of physical cash. It's 'public'
> only in the sense that anybody can use it. Which is a basic and required
> property for money.
> >
> > > The privacy problem coming from having the flow in clear is obvious.
> Behavioural patterns can be used to identify the person behind.
> >
> > that's just one way. There are other, more direct ways to 'deanonymize'
> people.
> >
> > > The solutionm in my view, is not overloading the network, but instead
> by using a flow-break mechanism (like a mixer), which forms part of the
> public services offered by the platform.
> > > The monero's trick is probably limiting its scalability as well.
> >
> > so far there's a tradeoff between privacy and scalability. But then
> again, privacy is a fundamental requirement, unless you're promoting
> systems to further enhance the power of the surveillance state.
> >
> > > but I am not an expert in monero's details. Just speak by intuition,
> somehow educated guess, as my knowledge comes from coding a comparable
> system.
>
>
>
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