It's really hard to decide on this one. Instinctively I want more privacy (like the Monero solution) but then @toknormal has made some great arguments as well. My experience in life suggests that to have things in balance is usually the best way. Perhaps BTC is 'too transparent,' and XMR 'too private'... in which case Dash is maybe best placed between these two extremes with the option of privacy (via PrivateSend.)
Privacy first vs transparency first
- Thread starter GrandMasterDash
- Start date
qwizzie
Well-known member
I will repeat what i posted on Dash Central as not everyone comes there :
I do not agree with OP's opinion that Dash is now at a crossroad due to the recent events between Coinbase and the IRS and also the title is pretty misleading when you look at what is asked masternode owners to vote over.
Privacy is and will always be a core-element of Dash that is optional to use for its users. Our current system allows close compatability with Bitcoin, making it much more easy to integrate Dash as payment option there where Bitcoin is already accepted by merchants and exchanges and it is vital for Dash aim to become mainstream useable.
Changing our privacy system to a privacy-first and thereby sacrificing our ability to go mainstream with Dash is backward thinking. Currently Dash has and open-ledger system like Bitcoin while also offering privacy at core-level as a choice. This means that Dash already has both privacy and transparancy, so this whole budget proposal and the discussion is pointless.
I'm therefore voting No to this proposal.
I do not agree with OP's opinion that Dash is now at a crossroad due to the recent events between Coinbase and the IRS and also the title is pretty misleading when you look at what is asked masternode owners to vote over.
Privacy is and will always be a core-element of Dash that is optional to use for its users. Our current system allows close compatability with Bitcoin, making it much more easy to integrate Dash as payment option there where Bitcoin is already accepted by merchants and exchanges and it is vital for Dash aim to become mainstream useable.
Changing our privacy system to a privacy-first and thereby sacrificing our ability to go mainstream with Dash is backward thinking. Currently Dash has and open-ledger system like Bitcoin while also offering privacy at core-level as a choice. This means that Dash already has both privacy and transparancy, so this whole budget proposal and the discussion is pointless.
I'm therefore voting No to this proposal.
itscrazybro
Active member
Cross post from Dash Central:
Going to privacy-first blockchain would mean no mainstream adoption. You have to have transparency if you want to have any chance of interfacing with the real world. The partnership with Coinfirm was a great move by the core team. It allows companies that are required to follow strict AML/KYC to work with us. Spying on our network was going to happen no matter whether we announced it as a partnership or not. No company needs permission to spy on a public blockchain, it's just that we took advantage of this and spun the story as a positive for our network, in which I believe it is, as it takes us one step closer to mainstream adoption.
It's important to note that this partnership does not require any protocol changes, so everyone can still preserve their privacy using privatesend if they want to.
Going to privacy-first blockchain would mean no mainstream adoption. You have to have transparency if you want to have any chance of interfacing with the real world. The partnership with Coinfirm was a great move by the core team. It allows companies that are required to follow strict AML/KYC to work with us. Spying on our network was going to happen no matter whether we announced it as a partnership or not. No company needs permission to spy on a public blockchain, it's just that we took advantage of this and spun the story as a positive for our network, in which I believe it is, as it takes us one step closer to mainstream adoption.
It's important to note that this partnership does not require any protocol changes, so everyone can still preserve their privacy using privatesend if they want to.
Until you find out a charity had to reject some dash coins because they were tainted....
itscrazybro
Active member
You can PrivateSend the coins if you want, so that they cannot see the history.
And if you are saying that they wouldn't be able to accept coins that have been mixed then they definitely won't be able to accept coins that are privacy-first as if you are a privacy first blockchain then all their coin history is untraceable and therefore unacceptable to a charity.
mastermined
Well-known member
thanks! i just read "Do you want a transparency-first block chain" and i voted yes, lol. the wording structure is a bit confusing.
it's my fault for not paying attention and reading it fully/carfully
Apparently, MNOs do not represent the will of end users:
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...cash-technology-and-truly-be-anonymous.10936/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...cash-technology-and-truly-be-anonymous.10936/
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toknormal
Guest
What do you mean ?
The shadowcash poll asked if dash's fungibility / anonymity is a critical feature... while some might say Private Send fulfils fungibility, the context of the poll was regarding shadowcash technology fulfilling true anonymity. I'm assuming shadowcash is privacy-first.
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toknormal
Guest
The specific question asked was "Do you think Dash fungibility/anonymity is a critical feature ?"
You're unlikely to get many people disagreeing with that, regardless of their view on blockchain transparency. I don't think that voting yes to that specific question means people necessarily endorsed the subject title of the thread.
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toknormal
Guest
Just one more thing
Although cryptonote crowd may have some nice cryptography, Dash is a far superior monetary design.
Thats because it uses a commodity based monetary archetype rather than a record keeping one. The difference is that the former lies "unbacked" at the end of the value food-chain, thrives on transparency and can outlast unpredicted technological revolutions (think, metals, minerals, diamonds, oil) whereas the latter is concerned with holding records of ownership that are backed by a commodity (or even debt contracts) somewhere else. (Think bank accounts, equity certificates, bond records, bit gold).
The need for privacy in that archetype arises because there is an explicit contract of ownership that ties a legal entity to an asset and therefore has a legal bearing (as opposed to an anecdotal observation of ownership which doesn’t).
The difference between the two paradigms is huge. To illustrate, take house keys and property deeds. I may walk down the street and observe people take a set of house keys from their pocket and enter properties. I can assume they live there but it doesn’t tell me anything about the names that are on the title deeds for the property.
Thats Bitcoin.
Now imagine I see a different person every day enter the same house. Now I can’t even tell who lives there, and therefore can no longer even make an educated guess at who’s on the title deeds.
Thats Dash.
Now imagine I can no longer even see the street anymore. I just hear a bleep everytime someone enters a house and have to assume that “something significant occured there”.
Thats Cryptonote.
The problem with the last one is that the archetype comes from a trusted party system that uses a record keeping paradigm and where someone else is checking the street on your behalf. For example records of credit backed by a bank. It was even originally designed for them:
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/money/nsamint/nsamint.htm#2
(See Figure 2: There’s a bank in the loop).
So, by electing a recourse to transparency to impose privacy, you're unconsciously moving the asset one step down the foodchain from a commodity archetype to a record keeping one. "Privacy" becomes the only source of value which is like preferring the safe to the gold. Moreover, you're suddenly massively exposed to competition from other technologies since "keeping stuff hidden" is now your main value proposition and that is not in any way a unique product.
You can see this happening already in the Cryptonote market. They are now falling down the hole that Dash managed to dig itself out of just before it got stuck. That is to target a specific market (which, as I mentioned above, is ok for products but not for money). This further hammers home the nature of cryptonote as a product oriented "tech stock" rather than a monetary oriented asset because it's going to preferentially get used it at the entry and exit points of that market as a subordinate laundering service for "real money" like Bitcoin or dollars.
Although cryptonote crowd may have some nice cryptography, Dash is a far superior monetary design.
Thats because it uses a commodity based monetary archetype rather than a record keeping one. The difference is that the former lies "unbacked" at the end of the value food-chain, thrives on transparency and can outlast unpredicted technological revolutions (think, metals, minerals, diamonds, oil) whereas the latter is concerned with holding records of ownership that are backed by a commodity (or even debt contracts) somewhere else. (Think bank accounts, equity certificates, bond records, bit gold).
The need for privacy in that archetype arises because there is an explicit contract of ownership that ties a legal entity to an asset and therefore has a legal bearing (as opposed to an anecdotal observation of ownership which doesn’t).
The difference between the two paradigms is huge. To illustrate, take house keys and property deeds. I may walk down the street and observe people take a set of house keys from their pocket and enter properties. I can assume they live there but it doesn’t tell me anything about the names that are on the title deeds for the property.
Thats Bitcoin.
Now imagine I see a different person every day enter the same house. Now I can’t even tell who lives there, and therefore can no longer even make an educated guess at who’s on the title deeds.
Thats Dash.
Now imagine I can no longer even see the street anymore. I just hear a bleep everytime someone enters a house and have to assume that “something significant occured there”.
Thats Cryptonote.
The problem with the last one is that the archetype comes from a trusted party system that uses a record keeping paradigm and where someone else is checking the street on your behalf. For example records of credit backed by a bank. It was even originally designed for them:
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/money/nsamint/nsamint.htm#2
(See Figure 2: There’s a bank in the loop).
So, by electing a recourse to transparency to impose privacy, you're unconsciously moving the asset one step down the foodchain from a commodity archetype to a record keeping one. "Privacy" becomes the only source of value which is like preferring the safe to the gold. Moreover, you're suddenly massively exposed to competition from other technologies since "keeping stuff hidden" is now your main value proposition and that is not in any way a unique product.
You can see this happening already in the Cryptonote market. They are now falling down the hole that Dash managed to dig itself out of just before it got stuck. That is to target a specific market (which, as I mentioned above, is ok for products but not for money). This further hammers home the nature of cryptonote as a product oriented "tech stock" rather than a monetary oriented asset because it's going to preferentially get used it at the entry and exit points of that market as a subordinate laundering service for "real money" like Bitcoin or dollars.
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qwizzie
Well-known member
Yeah, i noticed that too. That poll totally disconnected from the thread, which was one of the reasons i didn't vote on it. People should either put more thought into these kind of polls or risk getting their polls seen as manipulative.
So through the entire length of the thread everyone was in agreement?
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toknormal
Guest
You and xdashguy were against the idea of an open, anonymous ledger but thats about it as far as I can see. Even if there were more I still wouldn't support them for the reasons I've given in this thread.
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Recently, the UK Investigatory Powers Act went live.. ISPs are forced to monitor and retain customer activity. Soon enough, encryption and VPNs will be the norm. Within 10 years the web as we know will be dead, content and applications will be encrypted and totally distributed. Financial activity will go the same way. What's the point of a cleartext blockchain when the majority of people will choose to routinely use Private Send? People here at dash like to talk about making things simple yet they insist that the extra step of mixing is better. Eliminate that extra step, give the end users what they want - privacy by default - and let them go cleartext on the few occasions it's needed.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-polic...nent-peers-clear-path-for-uk-super-snoop-law/
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-polic...nent-peers-clear-path-for-uk-super-snoop-law/
Why must privacy be an option when it should be default?
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toknormal
Guest
It is a default. All cryptocurrency is anonymous. No personal information is stored on the blockchain whatsoever and no personal information, knowledge of "ownership" or any other identify information can be gleaned from the blockchain because it does not, has never and will never live there.
I think sometimes people forget that - especially when I see them post nonsense about UK regulations covering internet service providers which bears no relation to the issues at hand since they DO hold information on people and are able to unambiguously identify an individual with a particular IP address at a given time.
You cannot acquire original identity information from the blockchain. You have to acquire it directly - from off chain sources - then you can possibly use patterns in the blockchain to augment that information on a speculative basis. The more fungible the addresses are, the less regular the pattern buildup will be and the less the blockchain will assist you in augmenting off-chain information you already have about people's identities.
As to whether active mixing should be a default or not, there is debate about that. I think it might be with Evolution but I'd be equally happy if it wasn't and continued to be optional.
demo
Well-known member
You are wrong. The blochain provides
immutable data storage
so they may force people one day to store personal information on their transactions otherwise their transactions will become suspicious or invalid.
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toknormal
Guest
Well then you're talking about a new type of blockchain which is not the one under discussion. Good luck in getting the Bitcoin mining community to adopt a hardfork that supports identity-stamped transactions.