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Pre-proposal: DASH PrivateSend De-Anonymization Contest

Would you vote for this proposal? MNOs only please!

  • Yes

    Votes: 26 83.9%
  • No

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • Abstain

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • Total voters
    31

DashDude

Active member
Problem Statement: Dash has a robust, protocol level coin mixing service called PrivateSend, but it is frequently dismissed as inadequate by those favoring other coins such as Monero, Zcash and others.

Proposal Description and Goal:
The purpose of this program is to create a Contest and Public Relations event to challenge people to determine where coins in a PrivateSend transaction originated from. The purpose of this is two fold:
  • First, this gives the Dash community ammunition to effectively respond to challenges that Dash isn't private enough. We can publicly challenge anyone who thinks PrivateSend is weak to try to claim the prize by breaking the anonymity.
  • Secondly, this is designed to be a huge PR event where we can promote Dash generally by publicly organizing, announcing and discussing the ongoing status and conclusion of the Contest.
Program Scope:

The Contest will offer a prize worth up to $100,000 USD, paid in the winner's choice of cryptocurrency, to someone who can successfully determine the originating address of a small quantity of DASH in an address given out to the public.

Example:
  • an unspecified quantity of Dash is in a wallet in one or more address(es) "A"
  • the dash is mixed using an unspecified number of PrivateSend rounds
  • 0.1 Dash is sent in a PrivateSend transaction to address "B"
  • address B is given to the public with a challenge to determine the address(es) A where it originated from before PrivateSend mixing began

Prize Schedule:

The contest will begin with a prize of $25,000 and then increase by $25,000 each quarter until a maximum prize of $100,000 is reached as follows:

Start of Contest to 3 Months: $25,000
3 to 6 months: $50,000
6 to 9 months: $75,000
9 to 12 months: $100,000

To help keep the contest impartial, I will arrange for a 3 person panel of prominent members of the crypto community to serve as contest judges. These people will not be generally connected to the Dash community. I will target members of the Bitcoin community to be judges to elevate Dash awareness among Bitcoin users.

As an incentive, at the conclusion of the contest the judges will each receive a donation of 100 Dash to be paid to the charity of their choice. The charitable donations will be made whether the contest prize is claimed or not.

How to make this a viral PR Event:
This is intended to be a big PR event and not just a simple bug bounty.
  • Preference will be given to judges with substantial social media presence
  • Involving members of the other crypto communities as judges will gain Dash exposure to a wide crypto audience.
  • Offering a contest with a significant prize we demonstrates to all how the Dash treasury system can do things that other coins can't
  • Offering a prize that increases each quarter makes the contest more newsworthy with fresh opportunities to discuss the new larger contest prize.
  • When promoting the contest we now have an excuse to go into "home forums" of other coins and gently plug the Dash contest
  • This gives Dash Force News and everyone else covering the crypto space something interesting to talk about to help increase Dash awareness
  • The contest improves confidence in the PrivateSend technology in a way that is more meaningful than simply just claiming "ours is the best."
  • Charitable donations will be paid in Dash expanding Dash awareness in the non-profit community.

Rules for claiming Contest Prize:

To claim the contest prize, the winner must do the following:
  • enter by sending an email to [email protected] including "I won!" in the subject line. Communications should include an English translation if necessary. The size of the prize will be determined by the prize in effect when the entry email is received. Entries should include their choice of cryptocurrency and the payment address to receive any prize winnings. The conversion rate between the nominal USD prize and the cryptocurrency of the winner's choice to receive payment will be locked at the time the winning entry email is received by the contest administrator and at their sole discretion. Winner's choice of cryptocurrency must be among those supported by Shapeshift.io.
  • correctly identify the originating address(es) of the PrivateSend transaction before the mixing started
  • reveal the method by which the PrivateSend transaction was de-anonymized in sufficient detail to convince at least 2 of the 3 judges that the anonymity was effectively compromised.
    • simply making a correct address guess will not be sufficient to claim the prize
    • the method used to de-anonymize the transaction must tie the origin and destination addresses together either directly or by greater than a 50% chance if using probabilistic methods
    • the DASH core team will have a least 14 days to review any de-anonymization method and provide a technical opinion to contest judges
    • any discovered PrivateSend vulnerability must be disclosed responsibly and confidentially in order to receive the contest prize.
  • contest entrants must supply an email address in case any questions regarding the de-anonymization methodology arise. Email addresses will not be used for any other purpose and will be destroyed following the conclusion of the contest.
  • If the contest prize is won it will be paid within 60 days.
  • entries not meeting the criteria above will be considered Spam and deleted
  • The contest announcement to the public will contain a cryptographic signature of a message which reveals the origination of the PrivateSend transaction funds (the solution to the contest). In the event of a dispute regarding the correct solution to the contest the signature may be used to verify to solution.
  • No member of the Dash core team or anyone involved with the contest in any way, including the judges may claim the prize.
  • If at least 2 of the 3 judges agree that the contest has been won following 14 days technical consultation with the Dash core team, judges agree that Dash will make the announcement regarding the conclusion of the program.
In the event of a dispute regarding the contest Dash will make the final determination of the outcome. Contestants agree to hold contest judges harmless. Dash reserves the right to modify or terminate the contest at any time without notice.

I will work closely with the Dash core team to coordinate efforts. I will also coordinate PR or provide content to Dash Force News or others as appropriate. @mastermined

Upon approval of this proposal the administrator of dash.org shall create a contest landing page at Dash.org for promotion and execution of the proposal. PO will provide the content for the landing page.

Duration of Contest:
The contest will run for a period of 12 months.

Why Now? This is a critical time in the crypto community with news about Bitcoin forks taking all of the headlines. A new fork for "Bitcoin Cash" with 8 MB blocks and a stance toward on chain scaling was recently created. Another Bitcoin fork may come in October/November.

These forks more closely compete with Dash for the "digital cash" market segment so this is a good time to highlight Dash's advantages over these new Bitcoin forks and other digital cash coins. This contest helps to accomplish this by creating a PR coup to take some of the headlines back for Dash.

Program Risks:
  • It would obviously be an embarrassment if someone actually won this contest by de-anonymizing Dash. Need the core team to ensure that all known PrivateSend vulnerabilities have been addressed. This risk can be mitigated by correcting a discovered vulnerability and then launching a fresh contest with a doubled prize.
  • It is possible that a contest judge or other person may leak the origination address(es) or otherwise have the address(es) exposed due to security problems. This isn't really a concern since claiming the prize requires demonstrating how the source and destination addresses are linked.

Program Funding Request:
Contest prize - will only be requested from treasury if needed to be paid to contest winner. Dash will be converted into the cryptocurrency of the winner's choice.
Charitable donations - 300 Dash (100 Dash each to be paid to the charity of the judges respective choice.)
Program promotional material development, judge recruitment, communications and program management - 80 Dash
Escrow fee - 10 Dash
Proposal fee reimbursement - 5 Dash
Total Request: 395 Dash

Treasury Payment Schedule (into escrow):
98.75 Dash per month for 4 months - 395 Dash total.

An escrow service will receive the treasury payments and hold them until they are ready to be disbursed.

Escrow holder: Green Candle Inc. (greencandle.io)
Background: Green Candle is an Canadian Incorporation formed by @coingun to act as an intermediary between proposal owners and the Dash network.

Milestone Payment Schedule

Month 1: 5 Dash - proposal fee reimbursement to PO and 10 Dash to Green Candle for escrow fee
Month 2: 80 Dash to PO following launch of contest
Month 12: From escrow to judges charities at the conclusion of the program - 300 Dash
From escrow to contest winner (only if necessary) - up to $100,000 worth of Dash depending on date claimed.​

Proposal Owner: Allow me to introduce myself. I've been into crypto about 2 years and am a reformed Bitcoin maximalist. I got bitten by the DASH bug recently because of all it's great features and all of the governance problems I see with Bitcoin. I bought my first DASH a few months ago.

I'm writing under a new handle DashDude, but for full transparency my name is Steve Dussault. I'm a professional working as a Sr. Product Manager in heavy industry with many years of blue chip company experience. I have extensive experience introducing new high-tech products worldwide and working to increase their market share and profitability.

My LinkedIn Profile

Thanks for reading and your suggestions!
Steve
 
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OK - this proposal has been "quietly" received so far. Can we get a discussion going on this? Even if you are opposed I'd like to know why - my feelings will not be hurt. :)

Is my proposal unclear? Don't see the need? Too complicated? Too expensive? Too risky? Don't think the PR will be catchy/viral? Thoughts please!
 
Problem Statement: DASH has a robust, protocol level coin mixing service called PrivateSend, but it is frequently dismissed as inadequate by those favoring other coins such as Monero, Zcash and others.

Proposal Description and Goal:
The purpose of this program is to create a Contest and Public Relations event to challenge people to determine where coins in a PrivateSend transaction originated from. The purpose of this is two fold:
  • First, this gives the DASH community ammunition to effectively respond to challenges that DASH isn't private enough. We can publicly challenge anyone who thinks PrivateSend is weak to try to claim the prize by breaking the anonymity.
  • Secondly, this is designed to be a huge PR event where we can promote DASH generally by publicly organizing, announcing and discussing the ongoing status and conclusion of the Contest.

Proposal Owner:
Allow me to introduce myself. I've been into crypto about 2 years and am a reformed Bitcoin maximalist. I got bitten by the DASH bug recently because of all it's great features and all of the governance problems I see with Bitcoin. I bought my first DASH last month.

I'm writing under a new handle DashDude, but for full transparency my name is Steve Dussault. I'm an experienced professional working as a Sr. Product Manager in heavy industry with many years of blue chip company experience. I have extensive experience introducing new high-tech products worldwide and working to increase their market share and profitability.

My LinkedIn Profile

Program Scope:

The Contest will offer a prize of 300 DASH to someone who can successfully determine the originating address of a small quantity of DASH in an address given out to the public.

Example:
  • a quantity of DASH is in address A
  • the dash is mixed using PrivateSend and 0.1 DASH is sent to address B
  • address B is given to the public with a challenge to determine the address (A) where it originated from before PrivateSend mixing

To help keep the contest impartial, I will arrange for a 3 person panel of prominent members of the crypto community to serve as contest judges. These people will not be generally connected to the DASH community. I will target members of the Bitcoin community to be judges to elevate DASH awareness among Bitcoin users.

As an incentive, at the conclusion of the contest the judges will each receive a donation of 100 DASH to be paid to the charity of their choice. The charitable donations will be made whether the 300 DASH contest prize is claimed or not.

How to make this a viral PR Event:
This is intended to be a big PR event and not just a simple bug bounty.
  • Preference will be given to judges with substantial social media presence
  • By involving members of the other crypto communities as judges we gain DASH exposure to a wide crypto audience
  • By offering a contest with a significant prize we demonstrate to all how the DASH treasury system can do things that other coins can't
  • When promoting the contest we now have an excuse to go into "home forums" of other coins and gently plug the DASH contest
  • This gives Dash Force News and everyone else covering the crypto space something interesting to talk about to help increase DASH awareness
  • Improves confidence in the PrivateSend technology in a way that is more meaningful than simply just claiming "ours is the best."
  • Charitable donations will be paid in DASH expanding DASH awareness in the non-profit community

Rules for claiming Contest Prize:

To claim the 300 DASH contest prize, the winner must do the following:
  • enter by sending an email to [email protected] including "I won!" in the subject line. Communications should include an English translation if necessary.
  • correctly identify the originating address of the PrivateSend transaction before the mixing started
  • reveal the method by which the PrivateSend transaction was de-anonymized in sufficient detail to convince at least 2 of the 3 judges that the anonymity was effectively compromised.
    • simply making a correct address guess will not be sufficient to claim the prize
    • the method used to de-anonymize the transaction must tie the origin and destination addresses together either directly or by greater than a 50% chance if using probabilistic methods
    • the DASH core team will have a least 7 days to review any de-anonymization method and provide technical feedback to contest judges
  • contest entrants must supply a DASH address to receive their prize and an email address in case any questions regarding the de-anonymization methodology arise. Email addresses will not be used for any other purpose and will be destroyed following the conclusion of the contest.
  • entries not meeting the criteria above will be considered Spam and deleted
  • judges will receive the correct origination address at the beginning of the contest.
  • No member of the DASH core team or anyone involved with the contest in any way, including the judges may claim the prize.
  • If at least 2 of the 3 judges agree that the contest has been won following 7 days technical consultation with the DASH core team, judges agree that DASH will make the announcement regarding the conclusion of the program.
In the event of a dispute regarding the contest DASH will make the final determination of the outcome.

I will work closely with the DASH core team to coordinate efforts. I will also coordinate PR or provide content to Dash Force News or others as appropriate. @mastermined

Duration of Contest:
The contest will run for a period of 6 months.

Why Now? This is a critical time in the crypto community with news about Bitcoin forks taking all of the headlines. It appears that a new fork for "Bitcoin Cash" will be created with 8 MB blocks and a stance toward on chain scaling. .

This creates another version of Bitcoin for DASH to compete with. We should take advantage of this time to promote the advantages of DASH over existing Bitcoin and any new variants as well. This contest helps to accomplish this by creating a PR coup to take some of the headlines back for DASH.

Program Risks:
  • It would obviously be an embarrassment if someone actually won this contest by de-anonymizing DASH. Need the core team to ensure that all known PrivateSend vulnerabilities have been addressed. @eduffield
  • It is possible that a contest judge or other person may leak the origination address or otherwise have the address exposed due to security problems. This isn't really an issue since claiming the prize requires demonstrating how the source and destination addresses are linked.

Program Funding Request:
Contest prize - 300 DASH (to be paid to contest winner, if any)
Charitable donations - 300 DASH (100 DASH each to be paid to the charity of the judges respective choice.
Program promotional material development, judge recruitment, communications and program management - 90 DASH
Proposal fee reimbursement - 5 DASH
Total Request: 695 DASH

Treasury Payment Schedule (into escrow):
Month 1: 395 DASH
Month 2: 300 DASH
Total Request: 695 DASH

Due to the large payments involved I propose holding these funds in an escrow suitable to the community until they are ready to be disbursed. I propose using a 2 of 4 multisignature address to serve as escrow.

Proposed signers for 2 of 4 multisig:
1. Myself as proposal owner & 3 others acceptable to the DASH community - TBD

Milestone Payment Schedule

From escrow to PO
Month 1: 5 DASH - proposal fee reimbursement
Month 2: 90 DASH - following launch of contest​
From escrow to contest winner (only if necessary) - 300 DASH
Month 6: From escrow to judges charities at the conclusion of the program - 300 DASH

Unclaimed Contest Prize:
If the de-anonymization contest prize is unclaimed at the conclusion of the program it can be rolled into an extension/modification or another program as desired by the community.

Thanks for reading and your suggestions!
Steve

awesome stuff really , wonder why people dont see the value of this..
 
I'm guessing that to some extent the current prize for another cryptocurrency to break PrivateSend is some percentage of $1,352,463,661 which is the current market cap of Dash.
If they could show it can be broken then Dash would lose users and they would gain them.

This could be a good way to market Dash & quiet any trolls...
 
I though, I remember hearing about some new wallet integration announcements regarding private send and instant send in last months Core meeting... If so, this type of contest should be tied to the announcements, as an overall marketing promotional plan... Check w/ the Core Team on upcoming wallet support before launching... I would love to see private / instant send in something like Jaxx w/ this bounty highlighting the private send feature... But then again, maybe it was an integration dream I had.... :rolleyes:
 
@joezippy The new iOS DASH wallet was just approved by Apple last month and it does have an InstantSend option. I don't think any of the light wallets perform PrivateSend. Jaxx does not yet support InstantSend. It's a good idea to try to tie this to other developments in the wallet space, but I also think it's a core feature of our protocol that is worth promoting regardless.

@Minotaur , do you know if any of the light wallets plan to support PrivateSend in the near future?
 
Abstain now.
i don't know whether it's the right time to promote the anonymity of DASH.
BTC-e just went down because of money laundering, and the largest mixing service Bitmixer.io has decided to shut down.
This action may attract more strict supervision .
promoting the InstantSend advantage or something else maybe a better idea recently.
 
@pwjjrn - I understand what you mean about the timing. I also think that if you wait for a "good" time to convince the State that they are on the wrong path when it comes to privacy issues that you will be waiting a very long time.
 
I think rather than funding a contest, we should fund a blockchain forensic analysis. There are companies out there whose job it is to de-anonymize bitcoin transactions. We should hire one to use their techniques to analyze Dash.

Arguably, we could leverage the Dash Bug Bounty program for something like this, since the ability to break the privacy feature would be considered a bug. We could ask researchers to focus on PrivateSend and award a bounty if they are able to break it.
 
Hi @jimbursch . Your suggestion to fund a forensic analysis was already done. See this. The idea I'm proposing isn't a bug bounty - it's a PR coup masquerading as a bug bounty!

I'm just tired of "misinformed" people like this guy spewing BS about PrivateSend that just isn't true. Let's shut them down hard with a good PR move!
 
I think this is a great idea -- both for the peace of mind it'd give to current/potential users, as well as possible headlines.

My only suggestion would be to ask for the 300 Dash reward only in the case that someone actually breaks PrivateSend. If they don't -- and we're obviously betting they won't -- you'll have 300 Dash on your hands, with no agreed-upon place to put it. That's awkward for you and for all MNOs.

So granted that you hold off on asking for the reward portion of the Dash if/until there's actually cause to pay it out, I'd vote for this.
 
I think this is a great idea -- both for the peace of mind it'd give to current/potential users, as well as possible headlines.

My only suggestion would be to ask for the 300 Dash reward only in the case that someone actually breaks PrivateSend. If they don't -- and we're obviously betting they won't -- you'll have 300 Dash on your hands, with no agreed-upon place to put it. That's awkward for you and for all MNOs.

So granted that you hold off on asking for the reward portion of the Dash if/until there's actually cause to pay it out, I'd vote for this.
I thought about this when writing up the proposal. Originally I considered it safer to have the money allocated up front to guarantee a payout in the event de-anonymization occurs. The odds of that happening are very low, however, so maybe that would be OK. Will consider additional feedback on this.
 
Hi @mastermined . Here's an update on the status so far. The last several days I've been reviewing comments to judge community support. I'd say it's generally more positive than negative. Not sure yet if it would have enough votes to pass. What's your read on this?

Also, to move to a formal proposal I'd need clarity on the following:

  1. Need confirmation from the core team that any known PrivateSend vulnerability has been addressed and that we are as certain as we can be that the PrivateSend contest transaction will NOT be de-anonymized. @AndyDark or @UdjinM6 can you weigh in? If this proposal is funded can you serve on the DASH core technical opinion team (if it ever becomes necessary)?
  2. Need permission for me to use the email [email protected] for the contest. @kot who needs to approve? We can use an unofficial email if necessary, but this seems more professional.
  3. Need multi-sig escrow signers. @kot had volunteered on a previous proposal. Need two more. Suggestions?
  4. Also need to clear up a few things on the contest prize. If the odds of this being claimed are extremely low can we leave it out of the funding request? This would mean that the Masternodes would have to approve a prize payout separately in the future if PrivateSend were somehow de-anonymized.
  5. Lastly, if we really are confident in PrivateSend, should we increase the prize to 500 DASH? Would be nice PR to be able to show a prize worth around $100,000.
Thanks again for everyone's thoughts and suggestions!
 
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Sounds like a good idea. Increase it to 500 Dash and wait for PrivateSend to be broken first before asking the network for the prize money. However, it would have to be widely publicised and the core team (maybe even Ryan and Evan) should come out and publicly support it in order to inspire confidence that the money is actually going to be paid out.

It is a nice publicity stunt but I thought we have Bug Bounty program looking into the security of Private Send. Can't we use that argument when trolls come attacking Private Send?
 
It is a nice publicity stunt but I thought we have Bug Bounty program looking into the security of Private Send. Can't we use that argument when trolls come attacking Private Send?
Regarding the bug bounty, @jimbursch was wondering the same thing above. This program should be viewed as a PR move, not a bug bounty.
 
I believe it is important that the money is already allocated if not why would anyone bother ?

Here's an idea. Why not setting an ending date to the contest (1 year for example) ?

We could have a proposal that asks the network for 50 dash for 12 months (whatever the amount) which are put every month in escrow. The prize will grow every month, the competitors will know the money is available. They will still be incentivize to claim it as soon as they would crack it (good luck to them) as they might fear somebody would claim it before them (so, i they'd crack it in 6 months, none of them would wait 12 months to claim there prize).

If the money is not won, what to do with it ? Charity ?

And then, that all process can start again the following year, even with increased amount for good PR.

The risk I see is the network is not that keen on approving 12 month proposal (although this proposal is very different as the money is put in escrow). My guess would also be that the network would better like the leftover money used in something with ROI and not charity (although some people fail to understand that charity = PR).
 
@Leonidas I like the idea of a prize that increases with time. I think it makes it more newsworthy as time goes on to talk about the increase in the prize. We could start at 125 DASH and then increase by 125 per quarter to end up with 500 DASH prize for the 4th quarter.

Also, to clarify it is not the unclaimed prize that goes to charity. The charitable donation is the incentive to get the judges and this donation gets made regardless of whether the prize is claimed or not.
 
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