OK, help me feel better PLEASE

[InTheWoods]

On the Evolution side, the main purpose of the email is to prevent abuse of the account system and give users the ability to prove they own the account. If there is no confirm method, it's easy to spam the system with new accounts and we get the option of being able to send notifications to the user, being able to pay to an email, retrieve your account by proving you own the email, etc.

This can be easily done regardless with a script. One can also use emails without registration like this one https://mailinator.com/ or this one https://www.guerrillamail.com/ or many other such email services.

Blockchain.info doesn't require you to enter an email in order to create an account. How come they can do without? It's purely optional in their case.

 

[AndyDark]

This can be easily done regardless with a script. One can also use emails without registration like this one https://mailinator.com/ or this one https://www.guerrillamail.com/ or many other such email services.

Blockchain.info doesn't require you to enter an email in order to create an account. How come they can do without? It's purely optional in their case.

I agree, personally I would like to make it optional too. The reason the prototype needs an email is because it's just a prototype, all the finer points / options haven't been added yet, just working on the basics. Emails make the system easier to use for the reasons I mentioned and I think most users would rather tie an email to their account as a backup to proving they own the account. But pure anon users won't, so we need to make sure they can still access Evolution too, it's just not been built yet.

 

[InTheWoods]

AndyDark

I agree. Email makes sense for you`re a novice, average user but it should be optional. Not saying to remove it but to make it optional.

 

[raganius]

Maybe the e-mail part is to avoid spamming the network. I am sure there are some alternative solutions available (for example, by charging a small fee for alias creation).

As I said at "A vision of what Evolution could be, in real life examples", alias could be created and attributed in a decentralised mannar, directly inside the user's wallet. The user wolud also be able to have several aliases on a same wallet, improving privacy: something like the same wallet allows users to include new aliases on the go, whenever they need a "new identity" (without having to "register" an e-mail address).

But, anyway, I am in love with the Evolution. I am sure it will improve a lot, with time. And I understood it just like GrandMasterDash said:

I definitely also had similar concerns, though for me I'm more worried about metadata.

However, having listened to his conference talk more closely, I feel a lot more comfortable because the way I understand it - and it's not immediately clear - they've built an advanced distributed API and messaging system, and this new wallet is simply their own specific implementation. As was pointed out here - and again it wasn't clear at all! - this new wallet coexists with existing wallets.

In other words, third party developers can come along with their own wallets and applications, and it might function in a very different way.. for example, someone might implement two factor authentication using google authenticator or sms. I can imagine a visa gateway (optional) being built on top of this. I suspect this system is a lot more powerful than we first thought.

 

[David]

Please show me where I can read or hear that.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=421615.msg13649221#msg13649221

Other than that, I would just echo what everybody else here has said:

Protonmail (or similar)
Tor
VPN
and/or all three together.

It's like Snowden has said before, though. It's really a matter of how much the government wants to unmask you, and how many resources they will devote to the task. They most likely won't be able to break "strong encryption" for a long time, but NSA employs the best hackers in the world. BadBIOS, Evil Maid attacks, Flame or similar malware...their toolkit is virtually limitless.

If the government suspects somebody is a terrorist, they will pull out all the stops and there's probably nothing that even a Snowden-level techie could do to prevent it. If they think you are a major drug lord, they will devote fewer resources but still very substantial ones. They will probably deanonymize you no matter what you do. If they think you are a minor drug lord, pedophile, etc., they will devote significant resources but possibly not enough to deanonymize you. If they think you are a buyer of hard drugs, fewer resources, or minor drugs, still fewer. If you are just a person interested in privacy, they likely won't have any resources left to track you.

It's all a matter of degree.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

I have an idea how to handle registrations and how to get rid of the email thing completely....

Alice creates a username which has two rules:
1. She has two hours to make her first deposit
2. The deposit must be 0.01 dash or more

Outcome successful:
1. Within two hours, Bob sends Alice some dash, it's value is 0.01 dash or more.
2. Alice's username is now fully activated and a one-off registration fee of 0.01 dash is deducted from her balance.
3. Alice gets to choose how her registration fee is used. She can choose from the current list of budget proposals. This is not a vote, it is simply a small contribution to the project.

Outcome fail:
1. Bob sends Alice less than 0.01 dash or after the two hour window. The payment is rejected before it hits the blockchain
2. Alice's username expires (deleted).