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Why Monero

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Re: Why Monero

#111

Post by [deleted] »

ianmiers wrote: post #49
ahnick wrote: post #16

I'd be curious to hear from Monero fans why one might select it over Zcash? Zcash seems to have stronger security guarantees when shielded transactions are used.

I think the reddit user someone else linked to pretty clearly explained the Monero side. Zcash has a bad reputation with darknet markets and the like that use Monero. Some of it deserved. ( I say this as someone who wrote original Zerocash protocol) https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/oui6zj/zcash_vs_mon... Also, Zcash has optional privacy. On the other hand, the decoy based privacy protocols Monero uses are not…

[deleted]

Re: Why Monero

#112

Post by pibechorro »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #88
0xdeadb00f wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what else is similarly opaque, hard to trace, anonymous and still legal tender? Cash.

And it has to be transported physically so there is actually a limit to how much illegal stuff you can do. There is a reason that the scams and ransomware use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency instead of cash.

Ransomware is largely the fault of those institutions not keeping backups and having atrocious security practices.

Re: Why Monero

#113

Post by minsc__and__boo »

ahnick wrote: post #16

I'd be curious to hear from Monero fans why one might select it over Zcash? Zcash seems to have stronger security guarantees when shielded transactions are used.

ZCash is controlled by a privately-owned company in the U.S., who gave themselves founder's rewards.

It's also designed in a way to allow "poison pills" - i.e. those in control can force a single transaction on a block, thus giving a vector to deanonymize someone.

You may ask, "Who would do something like that?" and the answer would be the U.S. government who can compel privately owned organizations via secret court subpoenas. Monero is more private than ZCash, and has a record of not acting on self-interests.

Re: Why Monero

#114

Post by 0des »

gojomo wrote: post #90
0des wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comparing apples and oranges though isnt it? Monero is fungible, cash is not.

Except for the de minimus overhead of making-change/breaking-big-bills, physical cash is usually described as 'fungible' in the sense meaningful for economics: each $N is completely equivalent to any other $N – na matter its history or how the tally was subdivided/recombined over time.

That's not what fungible means though. When you start printing numbers on them, they're no longer fungible.

Re: Why Monero

#115

Post by stubish »

oliv__ wrote: post #104
scoofy wrote: post #50

When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody livi…

Human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions account for what? 0.0001% of all transactions? So you're saying 99.9% of the population shouldn't benefit from this because there will be a tiny percentage misusing it? I take it you're against privacy, encryption and gun ownership too then right?

How about saying a large chunk of the population don't want to benefit because there will be a tiny percentage misusing it against them. Lots of rights and freedoms are not wanted because we don't want our neighbors to have them too. We encode them as laws.

Re: Why Monero

#116

Post by enumjorge »

gojomo wrote: post #87
cowpig wrote: post #57

How can anyone think this is a good thing? At least other crypto projects have a degree of transparency going for them. I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system. The rule of law and democracy are far from perfect, but it is unquestionably the safest, cushiest time to be alive in human history right now for the average human being. Let's…

Rule of law & democracy began when people had far more privacy than today. The founding motivations for the USA included resisting privacy abuses like 'general warrants' – the state peeking into everyone's business, without specific suspicion, to find criminals. The modern level of financial surveillance – KYC, etc – is only a few decades old, and collects more info for the state than any 'general warrant' could. Eve…

I don't quite follow your logic. The parent comment pointed out that obfuscating financial transactions makes it hard to enforce laws. You responded by saying Monero improves privacy. That might be true, but it doesn't really address the concern about illegal/harmful activity that a current like Monero would enable.

I do agree that financial surveillance is an issue, but I'm not sure Monero is the best way to curtail it. Why not try passing strong consumer protection laws that ban companies from collecting and selling data on financial transactions as well as tighter restrictions on the access that law enforcement has on this data? If the problem is a government that is abusing its power, it wouldn't be too hard for them to crackdown on any cryptocurrency they consider a threat. Monero feels like a band-aid rather than a long term solution, and one with some pretty significant downsides.

Re: Why Monero

#117

Post by nickthemagicman »

cowpig wrote: post #57

How can anyone think this is a good thing? At least other crypto projects have a degree of transparency going for them. I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system. The rule of law and democracy are far from perfect, but it is unquestionably the safest, cushiest time to be alive in human history right now for the average human being. Let's…

Some would argue that your comfort in allowing the government to see all of your transactions is borne of a lifetime of privilege.

Almost all governments throughout history except for now would have abused that privilege.

Re: Why Monero

#118

Post by lolthishuman »

Groxx wrote: post #106
hamburgerwah wrote: post #7

For those that may not be familiar, the relatively strong anonymity on Monero is via a cryptographic mechanism known as "ring signatures". Separate from cryptocurrency they are a useful cryptographic technique for many things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature

I haven't read much on monero / this algorithm, so I'm not sure if it's particularly meaningful, but wikipeda references that being the case for most of 2017-2018 and then the algorithm was changed.

Changed to bulletproof https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066

Re: Why Monero

#119

Post by scoofy »

oliv__ wrote: post #104
scoofy wrote: post #50

When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody livi…

Human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions account for what? 0.0001% of all transactions? So you're saying 99.9% of the population shouldn't benefit from this because there will be a tiny percentage misusing it? I take it you're against privacy, encryption and gun ownership too then right?

I'm for expansive, but limited versions of these things.

I think your love letters should be private from the gov't, I don't think your income should be private from the gov't.

I think nearly everyone should be able to own a rifle, but I don't think any private citizen should be able to own a tank.

There are many aspects of life where I think the costs outweigh the benefits for citizen in society. Since there are trivial numbers of alternatives, I see a highly anonymized digital store of value as bad for the public welfare. The limit is typically where public access to the good is necessary to prevent tyranny, but universal access causing a tyranny of the minority is typically the where things should be illegal.

I think the conditions in which Monero would benefit society existed, the legality of Monero would be irrelevant.

Re: Why Monero

#120

Post by blueprint »

hamburgerwah wrote: post #7

For those that may not be familiar, the relatively strong anonymity on Monero is via a cryptographic mechanism known as "ring signatures". Separate from cryptocurrency they are a useful cryptographic technique for many things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature

that's for sender anonymity, and recipient anonymity is via one-time (stealth) addresses
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