• Forum has been upgraded, all links, images, etc are as they were. Please see Official Announcements for more information

Question about Evolution

(...let me just explain my thoughts on the privacy side and background here...)

I don't really know anyone working on Dash that doesn't care about privacy and it's why I joined Darkcoin instead of any other project. That and also Evan's 2-tier scalable solution which means we don't need to hide info on the chain like in ZCash or Cryptonote, because I don't think any mainstream users are ever going to trust that with everything hidden, and second it's a honeypot for anyone to come in and take over distribution without any analytics as to how things are distributed and moving around.

After 2 years I think people realized it was unrealistic to believe the mainstream is ever going to adopt a purely 'private' currency because the demand just isn't there. I would guess 95% of mainstream users don't care about anonymity. If they did, they wouldn't be using ApplePay and chipping themselves to buy stuff. So Darkcoin evolved into Dash and with the 2-tier network there is so much more we can provide that is wasted if we just stick with the privacy features.

The way things are going, the mainstream is adopting new digital payment systems (that are mostly not cryptocurrencies which are too esoteric and hard to use) so I think that is really our target market and the rebrand to Dash was a smart thing to do to position ourselves to compete as such.

Where we are now I think is the smartest way to both build a mainstream digital payments system and second make sure users can be anonymous if they want. Most Evolution users (new users not us lot) won't care about privacy at all and signup with their email without thinking twice, but for those who care about the right to privacy (most people here right now), we have the only mainstream system that lets you stay private if you want.

What i'm trying to say is, if you want a totally private system, e.g. I2P that only works on a desktop, that's fine but I would challenge anyone who would claim that that can be a mainstream system with 4000 masternodes and multi-million $ market cap and a large userbase outside of e.g. the darknet (which I think will just stick with Bitcoin anyway and not small chains that aren't used much). The mainstream market on the hole just doesn't care about anonymity when purchasing products. but for those of us who recognize that the mainstream is going towards integrated digital payment systems, i really think the best way to get anonymity there is to build it into a great product that the bulk of users (who dont care about privacy) will use because it's useful, convenient, accesible and opens new markets, with privacy built into that. Privacy is one of our core ideologies, we just have to be smart as to how we give that option to mainstream users. Making them setup darknet boxes to access it is not the way I think, building in as an option in a great mainstream product, is.

Sorry for my rant :) I think it's worth explaining some of my own feelings on it. I'm on the same page with you on privacy, I just think this is the most realistic way to achieve those goals as we have to give the market what it wants if we want to grow into a competitor to PayPal and ApplePay etc..we just make sure privacy is an option within that.

Great insight, thanks for that Andy!

re: mass adoption. I read about the currency converters in some of the evo technical papers, but there wasn't much material there. Is the plan for those converters to be plugged into a future version of evolution?

I have this vision in my head of a dashpay mobile app that allows a user to instantaneously switch between global currencies. The user might not even know that dash is being bought and sold in the background to facilitate the currency trades. Is that where we are headed?
 
(...let me just explain my thoughts on the privacy side and background here...)

I don't really know anyone working on Dash that doesn't care about privacy and it's why I joined Darkcoin instead of any other project. That and also Evan's 2-tier scalable solution which means we don't need to hide info on the chain like in ZCash or Cryptonote, because I don't think any mainstream users are ever going to trust that with everything hidden, and second it's a honeypot for anyone to come in and take over distribution without any analytics as to how things are distributed and moving around.

After 2 years I think people realized it was unrealistic to believe the mainstream is ever going to adopt a purely 'private' currency because the demand just isn't there. I would guess 95% of mainstream users don't care about anonymity. If they did, they wouldn't be using ApplePay and chipping themselves to buy stuff. So Darkcoin evolved into Dash and with the 2-tier network there is so much more we can provide that is wasted if we just stick with the privacy features.

The way things are going, the mainstream is adopting new digital payment systems (that are mostly not cryptocurrencies which are too esoteric and hard to use) so I think that is really our target market and the rebrand to Dash was a smart thing to do to position ourselves to compete as such.

Where we are now I think is the smartest way to both build a mainstream digital payments system and second make sure users can be anonymous if they want. Most Evolution users (new users not us lot) won't care about privacy at all and signup with their email without thinking twice, but for those who care about the right to privacy (most people here right now), we have the only mainstream system that lets you stay private if you want.

What i'm trying to say is, if you want a totally private system, e.g. I2P that only works on a desktop, that's fine but I would challenge anyone who would claim that that can be a mainstream system with 4000 masternodes and multi-million $ market cap and a large userbase outside of e.g. the darknet (which I think will just stick with Bitcoin anyway and not small chains that aren't used much). The mainstream market on the hole just doesn't care about anonymity when purchasing products. but for those of us who recognize that the mainstream is going towards integrated digital payment systems, i really think the best way to get anonymity there is to build it into a great product that the bulk of users (who dont care about privacy) will use because it's useful, convenient, accesible and opens new markets, with privacy built into that. Privacy is one of our core ideologies, we just have to be smart as to how we give that option to mainstream users. Making them setup darknet boxes to access it is not the way I think, building in as an option in a great mainstream product, is.

Sorry for my rant :) I think it's worth explaining some of my own feelings on it. I'm on the same page with you on privacy, I just think this is the most realistic way to achieve those goals as we have to give the market what it wants if we want to grow into a competitor to PayPal and ApplePay etc..we just make sure privacy is an option within that.


If your goal is the mainstream, there are also other thing to follow. For exampe the basic income, democracy e.t.c are also mainstrean trends nowdays, but you reject them. Why do you especially choose to attack anonymity and privacy, in favor of the mainstream?

You should motivate the majority to start protecting their privacy, you should advertise this, you should not go with the flow of the ignorants and destroy one of the best properties of dash. Because if privacy and anonymity is applied into a vast majority of people which do not care about it (or do not know how to implement it), then anonymity and privacy becomes vulnerable. By inviting in dash all privacy and anonymity ignorants, you are indirectly destroying privacy and anonymity.

I do believe that majority do cares about anonymity and privacy, but they dont know how to protect it. So your assumption that majority does not care about anonymity and privacy, and that the mainstream is against it, this seems suspected to me. If you really doubt about what the mainstream is regarding privacy and anonymity, lets go for a poll. A poll where we are not going to ask only dash enthusiasts, but everyone. The majority cares about privacy, and the fact that they do not follow privacy good practices, it is not because of their own will but because of their ignorance.

What is dash? Why people are here? Ask yourself, and dont go downhill, but uphill. And if you really like to go with the mainstream, then do not name as mainstream whatever you believe it is, but precisely define what mainstream is by using a poll. And then follow ALL mainstream trends , and do not attack especially anonymity and privacy, because this seems suspected to me.
 
Last edited:
Email is not optional, it is mandatory. Check it, in the demo.
http://dashevolution.com/#/signup
They force you to add both a username and an e-mail.

This is because the e-mail uses the SMTP protocol, which is unencrypted and can be traced easily. Those who can spy you by watching your traceroute, they need at least two roads to do it. If you manage to connect to dashevolution site in a secure way, then they will spy your location through the SMTP protocol. Nothing is designed by chance in the network, and this is the reason why almost every site asks for e-mail confirmation. They can trace you back easily with e-mail.

The dash developers not only they dont care about anonymity, but with their actions it seems to me that they tend to compromise anonymity more and more.

This post is the cherry on top of your anti-DASH tirades from the last few weeks. You are insinuating evil intentions and bad faith with zero evidence and by stating disinformation.
You are obviously here to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt through almost every post you make. You are a toxic character and have no real interest in the progress of Dash. To the contrary: you're on a mission to damage it. Others may not see you through, but I've recognized and slain dozens upon dozens of trolls in my years and you are one.
If it was up to me, you and your 2+ puppet accounts would've been banned from this forum a long time ago.
 
The difference being?

"...there is another kind of evil which we must fear most. And that is the indifference of good men."

You insinuate evil intentions still and make destructive, unhelpful criticism. Your interests are diametrically opposed to those of Dash.

I have made propositions in favor of privacy and anonymity.
What are your propositions? Do you have any?

If you have no propositions, and the only thing you are doing is to personal attack those persons who propose, then you are the one who is making destructive and unhelpful criticism.
 
I have made propositions in favor of privacy and anonymity.
What "propositions"? You mean this outlandish joke of technical impracticability? Why do you suppose no one cared about it? You have no clue about how software engineering works. You can make a wishlist of impossible things all you want, doesn't mean you will get them. You are the two women in this video:

What are your propositions?
I don't need to prove myself to you, I've been with Dash since almost the beginning and have educated hundreds of new members so kindly lay off the dick measurement contest, you will lose hands down.
 
For some reason - demo sounds a little like icebreaker but has taken a subtle approach to try and cause damage....

hmmmmmm
 
I don't need to prove myself to you, I've been with Dash since almost the beginning and have educated hundreds of new members so kindly lay off the dick measurement contest, you will lose hands down.


I didnt ask you to prove yourself to me. I asked for your propotitions, or for your arguments against my propositions. But you have neither propositions, nor (technical) arguments against my propositions. Your argument is just a funny video, like if we were actors here in dash, or politicians. You are not constructive at all. This is not a TV show, this is a forum. This is a place for arguments and not a place where we are competing eachother who will win the impression of the readers.

This is a call to everyone, to argue against what I have proposed, or to propose other things in favor of anonymity and privacy. So that the techical discussion to start. And this is also a call to all dash proponents to criticize those who want to compromise privacy and anonymity in favor of what THEY believe is the mainstream.
 
Last edited:
Regarding anonymity and privacy.

Darkcoin/Dash was never really really about anonymity. Bear with me. Evan's original intent was to create a project that solved Bitcoin's core issues. One of the biggest was lack of fungibility, one of the core conditions any means of value needs to have to legitimately be called 'money'. Bitcoin can be a currency, but cannot be real 'money' because it is not fungible.

Fungibility goes hand in hand with privacy, and why the famous phrase 'money is king' is used so often. 'Cos when dealing with hard cash, you don't need to justify anything to anyone because theoretically, money can't be traced back and transactions/money flow cannot be followed.

Anonymity is a natural side effect from privacy, that is more than welcome and an added feature. Privacy by far superseds anonymity.

Coinbase, for instance, is already closing user and merchant accounts because of tainted BTC's - that is both unfair and uncool. One day, you may get 'caught' paying for something with BTC and getting busted and taken to court because you're using 'illegal' bticoins. It's that ridiculous and happening already.

So the issue with the email signup is completely secondary to the core protocol itself. If anonymity is that important to you, invest in a VPN and use a spoof email account (you surely already have this if it's that important to you) and essentially, done deal.

What we need is a simple way to attract the masses, frictionless experience, one that everyone is familiar with and will not be deterred by 'fear of the new' - hardcore users will always have the QT or the daemon, and are considered advanced/power-users and most likely wont even touch Evo even if it were to use any other sign-up model, because it's going to be a web-based thing and they'll naturally avoid it like the plague.

.
 
Last edited:
So the issue with the email signup is completely secondary to the core protocol itself. If anonymity is that important to you, invest in a VPN and use a spoof email account (you surely already have this if it's that important to you) and essentially, done deal.

It is not that simple. VPN is not a solution for anonymity, and cannot protect for your location to be revealed, as long as VPN's IP packets are still routed from source to destination through a single routing path.
You may use TOR in order to have a tiny hope that your IP packets are not routed through controlled routing paths. But even in that case, if you use an e-mail, this is your Achilles' heel. A simple email (even a spoofed one) could easily reveal your location, because the IP packets of an ordinary e-mail are always routed through controlled routing paths. So you need a special email that is routed through TOR network in order to avoid for your location to be revealed. If we use a TOR email, we still have the tiny hope that our IP packets are not routed through controlled routing paths , right? It is that simple. But wait......
Tor Mail is a former Tor hidden service that went offline in August 2013 after an FBI raid on Freedom Hosting. The service allowed users to send and receive email anonymously, to email addresses inside and outside the Tor network.

Can you see now why an ordinary e-mail is introduced to dash? It is the Achilles' heel of anonymity, or maybe we are somehow forced to implement this Achilles' heel. An independant and truly anonymous TOR email service, it is not that simple to find, for the obvious reasons that are even mentioned in a mainstream site like wikipedia. Can you see it now? A simple and innocent implementation may hide much more important things behind. God and Devil is in the details.
 
Last edited:
@demo

You clearly did not get my post. The kind of user you describe will not use Evolution no matter what method is used. He'll use the QT or even the daemon. Evolution is for the majority, not a select few.
 
@demo

You clearly did not get my post. The kind of user you describe will not use Evolution no matter what method is used. He'll use the QT or even the daemon. Evolution is for the majority, not a select few.

it was an aswer to your specific phrase claiming that VPN and mail spoofing is enough for someone in order to protect his anonymity. Well, this is not correct, anonymity is not protected sufficiently in the transport layer. Anonymity is above all protected through appropriate routing protocols, in the network layer.
 
Last edited:
No no no no, I'm good with that, thanks

Ok then. Happy we agree eachother in this issue.

If you want an answer for the whole of your post, which is in the spirit of the bellow ...
Evolution is for the majority, not a select few.
...then a short answer is :

If the big majority is not forced by the protocol to be anonymous, anonymity is vulnerable.

..and a bigger answer is:

Deamon guys, or QT guys, or any other anonymity expert cannot hide, if the majority is not teached to protect its anonymity and privacy. Anonymity proponents appear like the fly in the soup into a big majority of eponymous, and it is very easy to spot them. So if you allow hordes of eponymous people to invade in dash, anonymity in dash is dead. You should allow hordes of people to invade dash, and transform them into anonymous. This is how you can protect your privacy. And how hordes of people will invade dash? Is the universal dividend a solution maybe?
 
Last edited:
If anonymity is so important to you, establishing a web of trust and a universal dividend is much more of a threat to anonymity than anything we are discussing here.
 
If the big majority is not forced by the protocol to be anonymous, anonymity is vulnerable.

I can see where you are coming from but i don't think that is necessarily true.

I think it is completely feasible for the two to co-exist. Similar to cash. If you solely transact in cash, you remain anonymous. If you choose to store your cash in an account that can be identified or tracked then you give up your anonymity.
 
@demo
Please stop spamming multiple places with these socialistic concepts - keep them in one place. I am sure in case anyone is interested, will join the discussion.
But I am really not pleased to see you mentioning it in every possible thread.
 
Back
Top