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The Dash Network Constitution

GrandMasterDash

GrandMasterDash

Well-known member
Masternode Owner/Operator
The Dash Network Constitution

--- This post / pre-proposal will be modified as the discussion progresses. Your feedback is welcomed ---

Purpose

This proposal seeks to give birth to a constitution for the dash network. A set of rules and protections afforded to all dash users and stakeholders. By using the dash network, you agree to these principles.

This constitution will be overseen by Trust Protectors of the Dash DAO Irrevocable Trust. All additions, amendments and enforcements of this constitution will be ratified through further proposals.

The First Amendment: No stalking

All dash treasury contractors, sub-contractors and all persons otherwise retained by the dash network, without exception, will not engage with or fund others engaging in hostile or predatory behavior. Such behavior includes the collection, retention, aggregation, de-anonymization, sale or rent of user activity or user metadata without explicit user consent on an opt-in basis.

This amendment does not apply retrospectively to previously approved proposals / partnerships.

The dash network may seek legal council / damages against any contractor, sub-contractor or persons otherwise hired or retained by the dash network, found to be violating this rule.

Unpacked

This amendment does not forbid the collection / processing of user data. The installation and use of an application with appropriate settings is enough to confirm consent.

This amendment seeks to disassociate with bad actors at the first and second degree of contact with the dash treasury. Examples include data brokers and blockchain analytics companies that are aggregating and layering data to indiscriminately identity dash users. Such persons are free to download the dash blockchain and do as they wish, but dash contractors, sub-contractors and persons otherwise retained by the dash network, should not be actively working against the better interest of our users.

Background

On 12 July 2021, dash published a press release announcing the Dash Investment Foundation had partnered with Brazilian law firm C2Law. [^1] The details of this partnership are not public but DIF Supervisor, Darren Tapp, has said the DIF has C2Law on retainer to oversee and review DIF investments in Brazil. [^2] Based on location, history and role, it seems highly likely (but unknown) DIF Supervisor, Rodrigo Ambrissi [^3], may of played a significant role in introducing C2Law to the DIF.

C2Law assists with the drawing of business contracts with a penchant for cryptocurrencies. Notably, beyond business contracts, C2Law’s client list also includes government agencies, regulators and investigators. [^4] One such company that C2Law serves is Chainalysis. [^5]

According to Chainalysis website: [^6]

“We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Our data platform powers investigation, compliance, and risk management tools that have been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile cyber criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely.”
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Chainalysis clients include A&D Forensics [^5][^7], who in turn serve interVASP [^8], a global joint working group standardizing the sharing of customer data to meet, among other things, FATF “travel rule” compliance. Obviously, this network of clients extends well beyond the above mentioned companies / working groups.

Compliance vs Mass Surveillance

Companies such as Chainalysis and their bedfellows will tell you they are making the world a safer place for you, they’re not. The companies within the fiat world are aggregating data and then exchanging it, sharing it or selling it on. As with other companies in this space, Chainalysis provides essential services to companies and governments where data retention is required i.e. illegal to immediately delete data even when it has fulfilled it’s intended purpose. This creation of honeypots incentivizes hacking and data breaches from both internal and external sources.

Companies such as Chainalysis serve financial institutions that are also required to secretly report on anyone caught in their dragnet. It is a methodology where, instead of crime leading to data, it is the data that is being mined for crimes (or future crimes).

These companies aggregate very personal information from multiple sources (and governments) globally to then act inappropriately against millions of people for whom they have no jurisdiction. A person in country A comes under the purview of country B which ultimately feeds back to the government of country A. As an individual you have no leverage over country B and yet you fall under the regulatory eyes of both countries. This subsequently leads to both international data sharing agreements and blockades that work against individuals who just want to get on with life without burden or intrusion. The net result is no effective geo-fence or respect for jurisdiction.

Data "privacy" laws are designed to work against individuals and to empower companies such as Chainalysis. As an individual it would be illegal for me to follow you home, enter your home, copy all your financial information, including credit cards, CVVs etc. But as a wealthy investor you can legally buy a company and all it’s data.

This behavior should be recognized as hostile and predatory to our users. Under this amendment, it would not be possible to hire or retain a law firm that engages with the enemy.

The Second Amendment: Masternode Disclosure

Where a Proposal Owner, or a collective, seeks 40% or more from the Dash Treasury, they must disclose the number of masternodes they and their employees / subsidiaries control, either directly or indirectly.

Unpacked

The transparency of masternode holdings is intended to foster good behavior, such that no party can secretly gain undue influence over voting processes.

It is hoped, in the future, this will be further verified via Zero Knowledge Proofs.

The Third Amendment: Presidential Rotation

Where a Proposal Owner, or a collective, seeks 40% or more from the Dash Treasury, the CEO will be designated as President of said organization for a maximum term of two years. On expiry, the CEO / President must step down and be replaced by another member of it's organization via the dash proposal system. The retiring CEO / President can not be re-elected twice in a row.

Unpacked

This is intended to re-energize the organization and act as confirmation that the organization continues to evolve and not falling prey to stagnation.

References

[^1]: Dash newsroom press release: https://newsroom.dash.org/147258-dash-investment-foundation-partners-with-brazilian-law-firm-c2law


[^2]: C2Law on retainer: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dif-august-ask.51919/


[^3]: 2021 DIF Supervisors results: https://www.dashwatch.org/elections?tab=results&election=DIF2021


[^4]: C2Law blog: https://c2law.io/blog/


[^5]: Chainalysis global investigative partners and training: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/certified-investigative-partnership-program


[^6]: Chainalysis website: https://www.chainalysis.com/


[^7]: A&D Forensics, global blockchain forensics: https://adforensics.com.ng/


[^8]: interVASP global data sharing standards: https://intervasp.org/
 
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And then, as if by magic, the US treasury wants to gather all user info from all non-US exchanges...

Don't say you wasn't warned, this is exactly what I was saying. Dash users need protection.

A person in country A comes under the purview of country B which ultimately feeds back to the government of country A. As an individual you have no leverage over country B and yet you fall under the regulatory eyes of both countries. This subsequently leads to both international data sharing agreements and blockades that work against individuals who just want to get on with life without burden or intrusion. The net result is no effective geo-fence or respect for jurisdiction.
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STOP FUNDING all those in favor of mass surveillance when they call it "compliance".
 
To better understand the role of data brokers, please listen to this recent podcast by Lawfare:

It is important to recognize that Chainalysis doesn't just collect information, they aggregate and sell data products, they are in fact a data broker that C2Law represents and defends. Of course, Chainalysis have the right to legal representation. The issue is the potential for bias, conflict of interest and, perhaps more importantly, what this association signals to our users.
 
It seems pertinent to show what poor association can mean to dash's image.

In 2018 DCG sponsored TNABC (The North American Bitcoin Conference) and was subsequently scandalized for association with a strip club. Personally, I couldn't care less about such things, but DCG was rather embarrassed about the whole thing. So the big question is, why is it okay to have morals of association in one instance but not another? Strip clubs are legal, data brokers are "legal". There was a middleman between DCG and the strip club. There is a middleman between the DIF and Chainalysis. No difference.

"As part of a broader sponsorship agreement with The North American Bitcoin Conference", Dash Core Team sponsored a networking event held on Thursday night. We were unaware that the event we sponsored would be held at a venue featuring adult entertainment. Holding any industry event at such a venue is wrong, unprofessional, damages the reputation of the entire industry, and is inconsistent with the inclusive environment we seek to foster at Dash. To be clear, we did not organize nor attend the event, and were beyond disappointed to learn our sponsorship was directed in this way. We apologize to the community for our lack of due diligence in this instance. On Friday, we discussed our concerns with the conference, and promptly canceled a meeting to plan future events."
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Bitcoin conference rented a Miami strip club and later regretted it


Twitter response:
https://twitter.com/x/status/954786816065966081


Dash forum TNABC thread with placeholders of removed videos:

The Myth Of No Women In Blockchain: Embarrassing Miami Conference Resists Tech Inclusion
 
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https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/ppe1wj

I noticed on Dash Central an actor is pressuring people to divulge if they are a MNO or not.
  • From a security standpoint it think it is best if some MNOs are as unknown as or even more unknown than Satoshi.
  • As a community member I welcome all sincere discussion.
  • As a DIF supervisor I strive to serve Dash users. I then cross my fingers and hope the MNOs approve.
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@Darren is this a turning point in your views of transparency and does it extend to Dash Funded Organizations whom engage with surveillance companies, either directly or indirectly? I remember you once said you hope to leave this world in a better place and I very much appreciate this value. However, we can not just talk the talk.

If my friend borrows the car of a drug dealer, should I join him for a ride? I say no, I don't want the association thanks. Chainalysis is the drug dealer and the DIF got in the car of C2Law. Sure, we can say that both C2Law and Chainalysis operate legally, as we can say that the Dash Central actor is also "legal" i.e. did nothing wrong yet probes, bullies and coerces others.
 
Your analogy really makes a great case for C2Law.

Using your analogy, C2Law employees chainanalysis to make sure they never borrow a car from a drug dealer in the first place.

Chainanalysis helps C2Law and other companies verify funds are not from an illegal source, such as a drug dealer.

Employing C2Law helps the DIF not be offered a ride in a car of a drug dealer in the first place.
 
Darren said:
Your analogy really makes a great case for C2Law.

Using your analogy, C2Law employees chainanalysis to make sure they never borrow a car from a drug dealer in the first place.

Chainanalysis helps C2Law and other companies verify funds are not from an illegal source, such as a drug dealer.

Employing C2Law helps the DIF not be offered a ride in a car of a drug dealer in the first place.
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Well done for perverting what was said. C2Law is the car and Chainalysis is the drug dealer. You changed the roles and therefore changed the analogy to fit your world view. Chainalysis do not carry badges, drug dealers should never carry badges.

The objective functions of Chainalysis is not to write laws or enforce them. They are paid for services to buy, collect, aggregate, disrupt and sell personal data. They are spies, surveilling millions of people globally to help tag and risk assess for whatever function their clients choose. This, by any definition, is not law enforcement. The function of law enforcement should be to investigate crimes, not to cherry pick the "crimes" they wish to frame at any one moment in time. To catch drug dealers in this way is to accept the collateral damage to millions of innocent people. It's no different to dropping bombs on terrorists, killing innocent families in the process, then asking us to accept that the collateral damage is acceptable. It's never acceptable.

Chainalysis is no different to NSO Group, selling spyware to whoever pays them for any purpose. No morality.

I don't think you have the right to call out anyone on Dash Central's for collecting information. How do you know they are not undercover agents? Frankly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they are CIA or similar. They paint a very poor picture of how someone might be in real life, very ugly. But regardless, their actions are no different to Chainalysis, so it seems to me you have some reconciling to do.
 
Let's see how transparent governments are:


Unsurprisingly, governments demanding transparency from everyone while demanding the details of their work remain secret.

According to Darren Tapp:

Also: "security experts have rejected the security through obscurity view as far back as 1951"
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Perhaps Darren Tapp makes an exception for some people.
 
There is now a second amendment requiring masternode disclosure for any Proposal Owner, or collective, seeking 50% o more from the Dash Treasury.
 
In a recent podcast, Andreas Antonopoulos had the following to say about companies like Chainalysis. You can hear for yourself, the question to him starts @37:40


Here is a transcript with pertinent parts highlighted in bold by myself.

And again, you know, all of these regulatory compliance schemes, do they stop criminals? That’s a real question we should be asking, do they stop criminals, and at what cost? And the answer is really simple, no, they don’t stop criminals. Criminals are mostly use control of banking licenses and banks themselves do their money laundering at massive scale using the US dollar, oil proceeds and other mainstream commodities to do their money laundering, and they get caught, get a small fine and repeat.

What this does effectively is, it messes up the lives of little people who don’t really matter to these regulatory entities. So, not only do these not stop criminals, they only affect the lives of those who do not have much power, but ultimately they’re ineffective. So, I think they are going to be even less effective than they have been in the bitcoin space, but you know, this is an adversarial process. Let them try their KYT and that is a very good incentive to implement things like Point Time Locked Contracts (PTLCs in Lightening) that break the routing chain in such a way that you can’t do correlation based on hash, payment hash, so that’s one thing we can do, and to continue to improve. You know, we have to continue to improve privacy. And the trick with all of these things is, can we implement technology faster than surveillance companies like Chainalysis can implement surveillance technology and faster than regulators can write regulation.

Btw, from a moral perspective, if you work in technology, you should be thinking hard about what companies you are willing to work with. As far as I’m concerned, building technology for companies like Chainalysis is not at all different than working for a weapons manufacturer or any of the organizations that are, you know, damaging our environment, supporting war criminals etc etc etc. There is no difference morally or ethically. If you create technology that helps surveillance, that technology will be used by dictators who will use it to tell their death squads and torture chambers, who to grab for daring to opposition. Do you think they’re not either selling or leaking this technology to the dictatorship in Myanmar or even, you know, the Chinese government, or North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or any of these places where dissidents are oppressed and / or hunted down. As a technologist, you need to consider the moral implications of your actions and working for surveillance companies is morally abhorrent.

I may of lost friends at these companies by saying these things. I once had a conversation with one of the CEO of the company after saying pretty much what I just said on stage at a conference that was sponsored by one of these companies. And their CEO came up to me afterwards and said, “You know, this is risking the lives of our employees”. I was like, “you are in the business of risking the lives of millions of people in authoritarian countries, are you kidding me? And it’s not risking the lives of your employees to point out that working for you is an act of moral bankruptcy and that if I see someone who’s resume includes working for one of your companies, I will not hire that person because that is, in my opinion, a great demonstration of moral bankruptcy. In fact we should use the same rules as financial bankruptcy. If you work for one of these companies, you should be unemployable for seven years, just like you can’t get loan if you declared bankruptcy for seven years.
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Chainalysis’ “Rumker” software catalogs IP addresses the tracer has linked to bitcoin transaction clusters. The IRS inked a Rumker contract worth up to $235,458 in July.

walletexplorer.com, a popular Bitcoin block explorer run by Chainalysis since 2015. According to the documents, which CoinDesk verified were authentic, the website “scrapes” suspicious users’ IP addresses, linking their internet footprint with their wallet address. This dataset has provided “meaningful leads” for law enforcement.

In an undated slideshow for Italian police that was leaked in September, a Chainalysis sales team described how the company’s vast network of Bitcoin and Electrum wallet nodes capture valuable user data such as IP addresses from connecting wallets. This helped investigators follow meaningful criminal leads, the presentation said.
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Can we speculate how many dash nodes or Electrum Dash nodes Chainalysis run?
 
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