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ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

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Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#51

Post by natrius »

Karunamon wrote: post #47
natrius wrote: post #36

> We believe that privacy strengthens social ties and social institutions, protects societies against their enemies, and helps societies to be more peaceful and more prosperous. It's time to have a serious conversation about whether this is actually true when it comes to financial privacy. Our society is governed by money. Money governs our production directly, and it governs our regulations indirectly since votes ca…

That's... actually a really interesting idea, but you have to consider who you're building the system for - governments, or normal everyday people? There is a principle, that I think has basically been proven at this point, if not academically: A: In any non-optional system used by n people, the bad actors using that system are B: It is impossible to prevent bad actors from misusing any system. C: Trying too hard mea…

It's strictly opt-in, but you won't be able to buy anything if everyone else requires auditable money and you don't want to opt-in. The more people who adopt it, the less tenable it is to stay out.

Governments are people. People who use this system nefariously can be sanctioned by refusing to accept money they've touched. We're so afraid of governments misusing their power because our checks and balances have failed miserably, but it's not so bad that anyone wants to use the ultimate fallback of revolution. Merit capitalism is a check that the people control directly. People don't need to revolt to reclaim power anymore.

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#52

Post by mootothemax »

ianmiers wrote: post #44
mootothemax wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two questions I've yet to receive answers on: - my laptop is stolen in a compromised state (eg logged on, nothing left encrypted); can anyone trace my transactions? - I've read suggestions that Zcash themselves can deanonymize every transaction, thanks to generating the initial "Genesis" block. Is that roughly right? (Ignoring obfuscation techniques like getting many other people to create separate signatures) I'm de…

Hi, I'm Ian, one of the scientists behind ZCash, Zerocash, and Zerocoin. -laptop being stolen: An attacker will get how much money you have, and if you have kept around the private keys for all your addresses, when and how much you were paid, but not who paid you or who you paid. The attacker can use those keys to go back and decrypt the notifications that get posted to the blockchain that allow you to access a trans…

Thanks Ian, I really appreciate your comprehensive answer :)

- laptop being stolen: cutting out potential ifs and buts, would it be drastically unfair of me to take that as: if you laptop's compromised, all bets are off?

- deanonymize every transaction: genuinely interesting, thanks for taking the time to educate me :)

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#53

Post by rrggrr »

wcummings wrote: post #39
rrggrr wrote: post #27

I hope I'm wrong, but if ZCash delivers on the technical promise the blowback from legislators and law enforcement is sure to result in a net loss of privacy for everyone. Enabling illegal profiteering from the very real pain and suffering of others almost always results in government actio (appropriately so); but also legislative over-reaching (eg. mandated sentencing legislations, zero tolerance policies, warrantle…

I think many prefer non-violent direct action, for good reason. The cost to the government to spy on you is so low, cryptographically enforcing privacy is the only way to guarantee it.

If successful ZCash cryptographically guarantees more government regulation and surveillance to counter the very real and also the very irrational fears of harm anonymous payments make possible. It will have opposite the desired impact on privacy if it takes off. I want to be wrong about this, but experience tells me otherwise.

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#54

Post by ianmiers »

mootothemax wrote: post #52
ianmiers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm Ian, one of the scientists behind ZCash, Zerocash, and Zerocoin. -laptop being stolen: An attacker will get how much money you have, and if you have kept around the private keys for all your addresses, when and how much you were paid, but not who paid you or who you paid. The attacker can use those keys to go back and decrypt the notifications that get posted to the blockchain that allow you to access a trans…

Thanks Ian, I really appreciate your comprehensive answer :) - laptop being stolen: cutting out potential ifs and buts, would it be drastically unfair of me to take that as: if you laptop's compromised, all bets are off ? - deanonymize every transaction: genuinely interesting, thanks for taking the time to educate me :)

Laptop being stolen: Certainly for normal users, yes. Don't let that happen. But you can protect yourself by moving funds to new addresses and deleting the old address keys. Poor man's forward secrecy. Since no one will probably do that, yeah .... all bets are off.

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#56

Post by skybrian »

omginternets wrote: post #43
Forbo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, two of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse rear their ugly heads: 8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?" [...] like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

I think this moral panic (for lack of a better term) is omnipresent because it's actually true to some degree. You can't seriously claim these groups wouldn't benefit from anonymous, secure payment systems. However: - They already have anonymous, secure payment systems (cash, drugs, jewels, shell companies, etc) - The cat is out of the bag, so they're going to have it anyway - These proverbial Horsement do more than…

I agree that we shouldn't be dismissive. However, I still think you are being somewhat dismissive when you say "The cat is out of the bag, so they're going to have it anyway."

This is binary thinking but crime isn't binary. There are varying levels of crime. New technologies can make criminal behavior easier or more difficult. Just giving up on money laundering isn't something most people are willing to think about, particular for an experimental payment system that they don't care about and probably won't use.

For someone who doesn't understand the benefits of a new technology and is rounding it to zero, the cost/benefit tradeoff isn't hard to decide, and making an analogy to splitting the atom is unlikely to be persuasive.

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#57

Post by swsieber »

zooko-zcash wrote: post #21

Hi folks! I'm the Founder and CEO of the Zcash company. It's really great to have this much interest in a project that we just released in alpha "Technology Preview" form two weeks ago. There are a lot of good questions in here, some of which I answered in an AMA a few days ago: https://forum.bitcoin.com/ama-ask-me-anything/i-m-zooko-wilc... I can't wait to release the next iteration of the Zcash software, in — finge…

Hi Zooko,

There have been some concerns raised about your ability to do a pump-and-dump scheme. You mention on your funding page that you are incentivized to support it for at least 4 years due to the payout scheme. My question is, how can that statement be audited, since the transactions are anonymous. Is it built into the client then?

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#58

Post by pmarreck »

Forbo wrote: post #33
vessenes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Laptop stolen, unlocked, you never encrypted anything: yep, you're hosed as far as I know. How else would your wallet be able to tell you a balance? 2) The creation of the genesis block involves a trust 'game' of sorts, in which many participants are asked to pick a number. The statement from zcash, which a better cryptographer than me could verify, is that only one of the participants need be trustworthy in order…

Ah, two of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse rear their ugly heads: 8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?" [...] like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

> drug-dealers

People profiting off the illegality of drugs who are drawn to high-risk/high-reward work.

> money-launderers

People who want to keep ANY of their income sources private. Also see: Anyone who uses cash.

> terrorists

"There is neither an academic nor an accurate legal consensus regarding the definition of terrorism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism This makes it a "weasel word" (or "appeal to anonymous authority" fallacy) pure and simple, like "treason" from back in the day.

> pedophiles

Most aren't active and suffer in silence. The rest can be managed. As the grain of truth of Louis CK's infamous "Most Offensive Joke Ever," if pedophilia wasn't as demonized as it is now, then most people would get their kids back after being abused, instead of them ending up dead in a ditch. The former being arguably not as bad as the latter.

Re: ZCash (formerly Zerocash/Zerocoin) technology preview

#60

Post by mootothemax »

ianmiers wrote: post #54
mootothemax wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks Ian, I really appreciate your comprehensive answer :) - laptop being stolen: cutting out potential ifs and buts, would it be drastically unfair of me to take that as: if you laptop's compromised, all bets are off ? - deanonymize every transaction: genuinely interesting, thanks for taking the time to educate me :)

Laptop being stolen: Certainly for normal users, yes. Don't let that happen. But you can protect yourself by moving funds to new addresses and deleting the old address keys. Poor man's forward secrecy. Since no one will probably do that, yeah .... all bets are off.

>Laptop being stolen: Certainly for normal users, yes. Don't let that happen. But you can protect yourself by moving funds to new addresses and deleting the old address keys. Poor man's forward secrecy. Since no one will probably do that, yeah .... all bets are off.

Heh, thanks, I appreciate your honesty! :)

I guess it's a bit like the problems with trying to get mass adoption of PGP; the tech's there, but trying to get Joe Public to use it without missing any of the vital steps and not messing any of them up is difficult at best.

For me, it's one of those "last, great"-levels of problem to solve: creating privacy tech that regular people who don't know or care about the specifics can use reliably and not mess up because they don't know and/or care.

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