Cryptocurrency:

[other.arkitech]

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‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Monday, June 8, 2020 5:40 AM, Karl <gmkarl at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

I Agree, but the you don't need to avoid clear transactions, the adresses are anonymous.
hold on. you can study traffic and deduce this anan address corresponds to this guy, isn't it? ok. But you don't solve this vector like monero does, you solve it addressing the root of the problem, which is not the address in clear at all. traffic shall be masked or rndmly routed, fake packets (chaff traffic), etc. This job goes in a different place in the logic of the platform.

> 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.

yes, that's tricky. Because chances of breaking anonymity go high when more information is available.
To counteract you can sybil yourself, using different addresses to break your patterns.

> 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.

we'll get to that part, the anon overlay where chaff traffic is (supposed to be) working.
In this scenario:
*traffic analysis attacking vectors are addressed in the anon overlay
*transactions of the blockchain go in clear, revealing source address, amount, dest address.

You ca have an anonymous profile (I call it personality) that is publicly traceable (so trust can be vested on it) (for useful activitys like e.g. borrowing money)

Still you can use multiple personalities to break your physical patterns, e.g. you have a coffee at starbucks, then pay parking, then ask for a loan, then go buy fish.
If you use one personality that connects these 4 events an observer can narrow you.
But if you use different personalities the problem becomes harder.

> 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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