Proposal : Investigation into using Masternodes for anonymous web

@Stealth923 Well I think it would morally wrong at this point to switch this proposal to evolution development. Evolution has actually been getting funding already from the network. If more is needed to bring me on board it would be best to make a new proposal. I'm not quite sure of evolution finances.

The way I wanted things to work out was that I would do both in parallel, but maybe that's a pipe dream. I wasn't sure about evolution giving me enough steady amounts of work. I was expecting it to be sporadic, with this research filling in the holes.

As for evolutions capabilities: actually anonymity solutions such as onion routing/VPN just wouldn't be possible/effective onto of evolution from what I've come to understand so far. From my understanding of evolution it basically will be adding a social layer to payments, as well as making the systems work a lot easier for the end user.

That's pretty amazing already but it won't do everything. It won't serve you tea in bed for instance.
 
I agree with Pablo, there's certainly mileage in this, the details may need tweaking but whether it ends up in this proposal or another one, you've got my votes. :)
 
QuantumExplorer said:
@demo If you are talking in general outside of the anonymity system and just for direct communication, such a system seems to me the opposite of what we built. Masternodes are addresses (transactions actually) with 1000 DASH associated with an IP address.

What problem are you trying to solve here?
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Anonymity problem. I dont want the other masternodes to know my IP, thus having a strong hint on who I am and where I come from.

QuantumExplorer said:
The only possible solution I can see is if we allowed people to set up masternode tunnels where the entry masternode "proxy" with a known public IP would route all it's traffic to the hidden masternode. It is notable to think of a system where you could run multiple servers for one masternode and have your proxy alleviate load among them. But this is for the way way future.
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So we agree somehow.

QuantumExplorer said:
But this is for the way way future.
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No. It is urgent. We want anonymity, and we want it now.

Should we compel the core team to implement an anonymizing layer (i2p, tor etc)
  1. Yes, all MNs anonymized 21 vote(s) 41.2%
  2. Yes, but MNOs choose IP based or anonymous 15 vote(s) 29.4%
  3. No, all MNs should run on public IPs 15 vote(s) 29.4%
 
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@demo Even though I think it could be possible for a subset of MNs to hide their IP eventually through an onion like system i'm not sure it would be a great idea. It would need to be sufficiently studied and demoed. We want to build a very sturdy service to consumers, hiding MN IPs might negatively influence that goal. But I'm not sure, more work would have to be done. That is not in the scope of this proposal though. However this could be seen as a stepping stone that would allow that system to exist. The most likely possibility is that MNs in the way long future could become specialized with some hiding their IPs and some not hiding their IPs. Again I'm not sure.

@bituzer I am not yet building this, along with research, I will also be doing a study. It's hard to know in advance if this would be good or bad without studying it first. I'm really not 100% sure this should even be built. However there are cool applications that can be thought of such as hiding evolution client IPs from the evolution servers.
 
Been thinking a little more about this proposal and read through the updated proposal - you got a yes from me.

I think you are very talented and already have endorsement from Andy etc. I want to keep you engaged with Dash and helping where ever makes you happy and contributing in a way you see valuable :)

Hope you still get a chance to help on Evolution/ios and look forward to seeing your work, especially around Masternode blinding!
 
QuantumExplorer said:
@demo Even though I think it could be possible for a subset of MNs to hide their IP eventually through an onion like system i'm not sure it would be a great idea. It would need to be sufficiently studied and demoed. We want to build a very sturdy service to consumers, hiding MN IPs might negatively influence that goal. But I'm not sure, more work would have to be done. That is not in the scope of this proposal though. However this could be seen as a stepping stone that would allow that system to exist. The most likely possibility is that MNs in the way long future could become specialized with some hiding their IPs and some not hiding their IPs. Again I'm not sure.
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It is a big lie regarding anonymity when you claim that dash is anonymous, and at the same time you keep all the masternodes network visible.

If you really want anonymity as a feature, the first step is to ensure anonymity in the masternode level. So please investigate first anonymity in the masternode level, and if you manage to find a solution on that, then you may investigate also anonymity for the wallets, for the transactions, for the dash buyers and sellers e.t.c . If someone wants to know who is using dash, the first step is to control the masternodes network. If the masternodes network is visible to everyboby, then it is very easy for an authority to conquer that network in one night.

If you are not sure, if you cannot or dont want to investigate that , then your investigation is useless because it is an anonymity investigation having feet of clay. In that case and if you want to be honest, you ve better withdraw your proposal. Unless of course you want to fool the ignorants who voted "yes" for you. The world is big enough and there are a lot of ignorants around ready to be fooled, so I assume it is easy for an expert to built the (anonymous) giant with the clay feet. Unfortunately anonymity and security are like a bucket of water, it is enough to open a tiny hole in order for all the water to flee. Thats what you are doing in dash, when exposing the masternodes IPs. Thats what you ought to investigate first. And thats what the Masternode owners (the majority of which is expected to be proponents of anonymity otherwise the anonymity is destroyed by lack of design) should have voted first if they were not a bunch of ignorants.
 
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Another interesting thing you may want to investigate is how the talk here affects the graph.

"Time is money" -- Benjamin Franklin
"Talk is Vote, and Vote is Dash." -- demo:D

But there are also exceptions to the rule. Me, for example. Although I am talkative, I am and I want to remain dashless.
 
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So far I wrote the iOS app last year, and at the time I did it with no money coming back to me

Uhhh about that, isn't there anything you could do to get it in the app store? I'm sure it would help Dash tremendously...
 
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@Idw It's being rereviewed as we speak.
@Stealth923 Thanks. Most likely this specific proposal will not pass, but I'm still happy I made it. I think it's for another day once evolution is already out. I'll be working with andy and the rest of the team on evolution until then most likely. Don't worry you don't need to vote yes on my proposals to appease me. I understand that this proposal has a lot of reasons for not getting enough votes at the moment. So I don't take it badly at all.
 
fible1 said:
building a TOR clone on top of the MN network
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We need to think about protecting masternodes. There is potential for them to become too much of a liability to be worth running. Instead of MNs offering some Iris thing, they need something like this built into the protocol to protect themselves from organized coercion; whether such entities imagine themselves legitimate or not.
 
I think we should work on getting more Darknet support now that we've shed the whole Drk name and what not. We still want to be privacy centric right?
 
camosoul said:
We need to think about protecting masternodes. There is potential for them to become too much of a liability to be worth running. Instead of MNs offering some Iris thing, they need something like this built into the protocol to protect themselves from organized coercion; whether such entities imagine themselves legitimate or not.
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Until now I am the only one who proposed a solution that can be implemented in code.

In short the solution says that some (selected randomly) masternodes upon creation they should always remain anonymous and hide into a TOR-like network, and some other masternodes (again selected randomly) upon their creation, they should reveal their IP and act as reverse proxies to the hidden masternodes. The percentage of the hidden and IP based masternodes should be decided dynamically by a never ending poll that resides in the hidden part of the network. So that the percentage of hidden/IP based masternodes could be decided in the runtime, according to the estimation of the community regarding how big the attack against the network is.

I am still waiting for another solution (that can be implemented in code) to be proposed.
 
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demo said:
Until now I am the only one who proposed a solution that can be implemented in code.

In short the solution says that some (selected randomly) masternodes upon creation they should always remain anonymous and hide into a TOR-like network, and some other masternodes (again selected randomly) upon their creation, they should reveal their IP and act as reverse proxies to the hidden masternodes. The percentage of the hidden and IP based masternodes should be decided dynamically by a never ending poll that resides in the hidden part of the network. So that the percentage of hidden/IP based masternodes could be decided in the runtime, according to the estimation of the community regarding how big the attack against the network is.

I am still waiting for another solution (that can be implemented in code) to be proposed.
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IIRC, throughput on tor is significantly throttled, almost certainly not fast enough for Instant Send.

I think maybe the best solution would be to run two separate networks (anon + normal) but using the same blockchain.... I think it is possible so long as there is no crossover i.e. a MN can be on one network but not both. Normal MNs would allow InstantSend, while tor MNs would be slower but more secure. Fees on the tor network could be higher; people willing to pay for privacy.
 
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