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ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

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Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#241

Post by badminton1 »

walrus01 wrote: post #178
Animats wrote: post #39

Another altcoin. This one has a 10% pre-mining cut for the founders: "Zcash's monetary base will be the same as Bitcoin's — 21 million Zcash currency units (ZEC, or ⓩ) will be mined over time. 10% of that reward will be distributed to the stakeholders in the Zcash Company — founders, investors, employees, and advisors. We call this the “Founders Reward”." Here's a list of the other 709 altcoins.[1] 373 of them are st…

Never fear, I liquidated my entire 401k and put it into dogecoin, 5.56 ammunition and canned lard.

I heard that lego bricks are a better investment. No joke.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/shares/lego-a-better-in...

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#242

Post by kbart »

tribby wrote: post #238
kbart wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero knowledge" is not an excuse, it's way too easy to "miss a bug" or few to leak an information. NSA is known to talk/force companies into adding backdoors to their products. Users can never be sure, so why risk it?

It is too easy to miss a bug, which is why there was an audit. I really don't understand the risk of US incorporation that you're talking about, or why it is better or worse than any other country without introducing other potentially even less desirable risks. Can you explain further? More recently the US is known for failing to force companies to add back doors (see Apple/FBI). It's probablg worth noting Jospeh Bon…

"Can you explain further?"

No other western country (to my knowledge) has secret courts, that were also proven to target tech companies. If such reason is not enough for you, I don't know what else could it be then.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#243

Post by tribby »

kbart wrote: post #242
tribby wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is too easy to miss a bug, which is why there was an audit. I really don't understand the risk of US incorporation that you're talking about, or why it is better or worse than any other country without introducing other potentially even less desirable risks. Can you explain further? More recently the US is known for failing to force companies to add back doors (see Apple/FBI). It's probablg worth noting Jospeh Bon…

"Can you explain further?" No other western country (to my knowledge) has secret courts, that were also proven to target tech companies. If such reason is not enough for you, I don't know what else could it be then.

right, but we already covered that. there is no court order in the world that can compel to you to provide what you do not have. so why is the US a bad place for ZCash to incorporate?

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#244

Post by nickik »

rspeer wrote: post #223
DINKDINK wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't stand the proliferation of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies in a world where people don't have to pay for the externalities of the energy they use. Not a fare comparison; all of visa/mc's servers have externalities, all of the money trucks driving around physically collecting cash have carbon externalities, building ATMs and printing plastic credit cards have carbon externalities, building banks and running th…

Have you compared the relative carbon impact? You're making it sound like the things you're "obviating" are on at all the same scale. Visa et al. are incredibly efficient compared to Bitcoin. I heard a Bitcoin advocate point out that all it would take to make Bitcoin have enough throughput that everyone could use it is 1% of the power in the entire world.

That is the case for Bitcoin but not for all blockchains, particularly prove of stake systems. BitShares for example has an extremely efficient system.

The tradeoff is that the 'peer' need to be relatively high performance servers (just normal commodity servers, nothing special).

Its impossible to achieve with the concept of everybody running their own nodes on a laptop.

In BitShares the Shareholders (people who own BitShares) can vote on either improving the performance and decreasing the distribution or the other way around.

So you are still gone be somewhat less efficient compared to Mastercard but you can achieve the same the scalability with a reasonable amount of extra power usage.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#245

Post by kbart »

tribby wrote: post #243
kbart wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Can you explain further?" No other western country (to my knowledge) has secret courts, that were also proven to target tech companies. If such reason is not enough for you, I don't know what else could it be then.

right, but we already covered that. there is no court order in the world that can compel to you to provide what you do not have. so why is the US a bad place for ZCash to incorporate?

Are you sure such argument would fly against (possibly and probably technically illiterate) judge? I'm not. Apple was a separate case, because it is publicly known and loved company, and there are very few companies that have luxury to say the same. How did that play out to Lavabit (that's a controversial example, but it's to illustrate that court doesn't hesitate to crush a company to achieve its goal)? Also, RSA scenario[1] is not unrealistic too imho.

That's it, I'm not going to argue in circles anymore, I don't trust and will not trust any US based, privacy related tech company unless something fundamentally changes in its legal and power structures -- there are more than enough reasons and examples for me. If you do -- that's fine by me.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_BSAFE#Dual_EC_DRBG_backdoo...

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#247

Post by wslh »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #209
wslh wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel frustrated by your lack of search/manual-crawling/link-clicking/understanding capabilities. He was the official security reviewer of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Then some extra references so you can continue your own search: - "MPF (Mental Poker Framework): A new family of practical and secure Mental Poker protocols" http://www.dc.uba.ar/inv/tesis/licenciatura/2010/lerner - MAVEPAY: a new lightweight payment…

I am not doubting Sergio's security expertise, but security expertise != theoretical cryptography expertise. Crypto requires providing clear definitions and proofs of security. All I see in the first two links are adhoc constructions, with heuristic arguments for security; no security definitions, no reductions, no proofs. The last link is more formal, and talks about models of computation, but once again does not pr…

Are you part of the Zcash team?

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#248

Post by plasticmachine »

wslh wrote: post #159
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not underestimating anyone; even within theoretical cryptography, SNARKs are understood by a handful of people.

I am a cofounder of a company in this space and three people in my company are in a position to understand it very well. For example Sergio who also blogs here: https://bitslog.wordpress.com

Sergio's a great guy, but he does NOT understand the mechanics behind SNARKS "very well". You're overestimating his grasp of the moon-math in SNARKS.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#249

Post by uncletammy »

lisper wrote: post #103

I'm a big believer in privacy, but anonymity scares me. Anonymity invites bad behavior: look at how bitcoin -- which isn't even all that anonymous -- has enabled the ransomware industry. I agree that it is very important for people to be able to conduct financial transactions without having to disclose them to third parties. It's also important for people to be able to use a mutually-agreed-upon trusted third party t…

I would argue that anonymity and privacy are equally positive things and both necessary for a functional society.

Anonymity facilitates the exposing of bad actors and systemic failures in the bureaucracies we've created to help and protect each other, i.e., whistle blowers.

I would also argue think ransomware is a good thing. Although it's annoying, it's providing just enough of a shift in incentives for people to start taking data security seriously. Ransomware makes everyones data more secure in the long run.

Re: ZCash Will Be a Truly Anonymous Blockchain-Based Currency

#250

Post by uncletammy »

hulahoof wrote: post #147
Faaak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until proven otherwise, Satoshi still didn't touch his original mined coins…

IIRC they are supposedly locked in a 'trust' until ~2020 (See: Tulip Trust)

This is one of the many claims by a person who came forth and claimed to be Satoshi. Although a few notable people in the community believe(d) him, most don't. This should be treated as a rumor at best.
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