Interesting criticisms of DASH. Thoughts?

[JuanSGalt]

The first thread is actually very well delivered and civil, which is enough for me to pay attention to it. Some condesending things said in the comments which are unnessesary, but well, that's the internet.

Thoughts?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/co...dcast_by_lets_talk_bitcoin_discussing/cpmvogy

 

[TroyDASH]

This is probably one of the better formed criticisms of DASH that I've seen, in that it seems like they put more than 2 seconds of thought into it. Very old though so many of these have probably been hashed and rehashed
I would be interested in hearing responses to the criticisms anyway though, without getting sidetracked into Monero bashing.

 

[oaxaca]

VERY old and mostly wrong. For instance, blanket statements like this one: " The entire basis for "anonymising" transactions is based on clients being online at a given point in time, which means that those clients are also open to leaking information via temporal association." or this one: "This means that it is trivially easy to disrupt every InstantX transaction".

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/21/Appeal_to_Authority

 

[tungfa]

ancient fud
12 month old

 

[TroyDASH]

Did you have a question about one of those things in particular?

 

[hiddendark]

ancient fud
12 month old

And written by the lead developer of Monero. Hardly impartial.

 

[NewJerry]

I think it's easy to find criticisms from the other side of the wall. That Dev in particular, didn't he start the dash collapsing monero up thread about the same time on bitcointalk? He managed to structure his arguments well but there isn't any way for him to shake his biased nature. He came to a Dash thread to do it. Seems like a push to take adopters for his own gain.

The US had many structured arguments on why they needed to invade this country or that country. Doesn't mean they were correct, nor valid arguments. They just needed to make them sound good and intelligent. (Sorry to our US friends here, was thinking of an analogy and that was the first thing to mind)

Any issues I've found, always has shown the core devs to be quick, decisive and efficient. This is a strong point for the security of a coin for me. Never have I seen the devs or foundation members here take the time to go out, and bash anyone or any other project because they're too busy doing what they love. That is working on and supporting Dash.

 

[TroyDASH]

I would be interested in hearing responses to the criticisms anyway though, without getting sidetracked into Monero bashing.

I repeat...

I am kind of tired of the dismissive mentality that is pervasive towards anything that has anything to do with Monero. Not every criticism is automatically 100% meritless just because it comes from people who are already against DASH. I don't really care about the intentions of people who praise or criticise our network.

These are old criticisms but if anyone on the outside sees it and then also sees that the DASH community doesn't want the discussion about it to see the light of day, that isn't a good impression.

 

[TanteStefana]

That may be true TroyDASH, but I really got tired of answering over and over again. They were wearing me down emotionally too, so I had to put 'em all on ignore. I figure, in the end, we'll have a product that works and works excellently well, and those fools can't stop this train.

But when there are valid questions, really, they can come here and ask in a respectful manner and I know they'll get a respectful response. For someone asking to learn or even bring up flaws, etc.... they have always been met with polite explanations rebuttals, or someone runs immediately to a developer to ensure they take a look at a potential issue. Indeed many issues were brought to the developer's attention this way.

I don't know if I'm like most people, but when I go to a thread and I want to learn about a project, such as Bitshares, I read and try to figure out how they are doing things, and along the way I see the same kind of trolls. I don't even need to read 3 words before I realize / recognize what they are, and I ignore anything they have to say. I honestly think most people do the same when investigating a project. The Troll's ultimate goal is to get under your skin, and frankly each of us have the power to keep them outside our brains, and only let relevant things take up space in our heads

 

[JuanSGalt]

From my experience in crypto and the altcoin markets. People get rather nationalistic about their currency, protective and they should. The problem and risk I see is that they become blind to legitimate criticism and this will sometimes come from competitors.

I'm not accusing anyone of being blind to legitimate criticism, to be perfectly clear. Just wanted to get people's thoughts on this in general, since its clear that there's drama between monero and dash.

A fair question is if I have any particular quotes from that link I'm curious about. I'll look into it again when the time comes and bring the questions here.

Doing a bit of research on Monero so that I don't start getting shit thrown at me as being biased. Also because they make so many claims and there's enough support for it that its worth looking into. But from the little I've seen they not really a very strong contender yet, even if ring signatures are indeed superior. There is much more in the ways of ease of use and governance etc etc that DASH has achieved.

I'll post my major questions or concerns here in the future.

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

From my experience in crypto and the altcoin markets. People get rather nationalistic about their currency, protective and they should. The problem and risk I see is that they become blind to legitimate criticism and this will sometimes come from competitors.

I'm not accusing anyone of being blind to legitimate criticism, to be perfectly clear. Just wanted to get people's thoughts on this in general, since its clear that there's drama between monero and dash.

A fair question is if I have any particular quotes from that link I'm curious about. I'll look into it again when the time comes and bring the questions here.

Doing a bit of research on Monero so that I don't start getting shit thrown at me as being biased. Also because they make so many claims and there's enough support for it that its worth looking into. But from the little I've seen they not really a very strong contender yet, even if ring signatures are indeed superior. There is much more in the ways of ease of use and governance etc etc that DASH has achieved.

I'll post my major questions or concerns here in the future.

We have found in the past that these Monero characters have bended the truth to serve their interests. Dash would love to improve, and if these criticisms have any merit, we will be that much further ahead by fixing them. However, their insight into Dash's inner workings is tenous at best, and is prone to spin.

Ring signatures are a different method of anonymity, not superior, IMHO. You are either anonymous or you're not. There are no levels of anonymity. And like you said, we have a lot more than just anonymity going on here, so it is them that would like to drag us into this comparison battle, wheras the Dash community has moved on from that narrative a long time ago.

With all that being said, bring on the questions and concerns! Let's see if they have any merit.

 

[InTheWoods]

TaoOfSatoshi

Ring Signatures have the advantage of not requiring mixing and works out of the box, so to speak. One should note, though, Monero is a Cryponote clone. There are more than 10 anon coins out there just like monero based on cryptonote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote In other words, Monero didn't innovate at all.

Even though ring signatures don't require mixing and are in theory more convenient, the lack of a user friendly interface means Monero's not yet ready to embrace the less tech savvy people out there. Monero's very much pre-alpha at this point. I believe there's also the risk of de-anonymizing the whole thing if that encryption is broken. That would be harder to do due to how the Masternode anonymization system works.

Mixing will be greatly improved in the next version, time to mix the coins will be reduced significantly.

 

[oaxaca]

Here's some weekend entertainment:

http://archive.is/YEGCM

or even:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html

 

[xdashguy]

Ring signatures are superior to mixing for anonymity. However, mixing is more practical at this stage and mixing is "good enough" at this stage. If master nodes were bad actors and someone owned enough of them (or enough communicated) it could break the anonymity of mixing.

The problem with ring signatures is that they produce a tremendous amount of bloat. There are algos that are more compact than what Monero uses, but so far they are not in the wild.

However, Dash is not ONLY anonymity. The two-tier network and instantX in addition to anonymity are huge. And, with Evolutions distributed storage for block chain it will enable the use of ring signatures without a huge burden.

So, my ultimate dream is that after evolution is launched that Dash will adopt a ring signature type implementation. It can continue with current-day mixing too. This would provide maximum anonymity. The trade-off of ring signatures being increased block chain bloat (mixing also causes this, btw) will be much smaller issue with evolutions distributed storage.

As of now I doubt it is top priority for the dash team as the privacy aspect is good enough at this time and there are other higher development priorities.

Cryptonote also has "adaptive limits" where the block size is adjusted based on recent network demand. It essentially takes the average block size in the last X blocks and then multiplies it by some factor. This ensures that someone cannot start spamming the network with 1000x transaction increase immediately, but at the same time will respond to the organic growth of the coin. I also hope that Dash will implement these.

Most of these features are things that can be quite easily implemented in dash. The adaptive block size would probably take the developer 1-2 days to do. For these coins to implement the upcoming features in Evolution though would be a massive project. For that reason I am confident in Dash future.

 

[TanteStefana]

From my experience in crypto and the altcoin markets. People get rather nationalistic about their currency, protective and they should. The problem and risk I see is that they become blind to legitimate criticism and this will sometimes come from competitors.

I'm not accusing anyone of being blind to legitimate criticism, to be perfectly clear. Just wanted to get people's thoughts on this in general, since its clear that there's drama between monero and dash.

A fair question is if I have any particular quotes from that link I'm curious about. I'll look into it again when the time comes and bring the questions here.

Doing a bit of research on Monero so that I don't start getting shit thrown at me as being biased. Also because they make so many claims and there's enough support for it that its worth looking into. But from the little I've seen they not really a very strong contender yet, even if ring signatures are indeed superior. There is much more in the ways of ease of use and governance etc etc that DASH has achieved.

I'll post my major questions or concerns here in the future.

It's true, and as you can see, I'm an admitted cheerleader for Dash. However, anyone like you, I am happy to answer to the best of my abilities any questions you find or have here I don't really mind talking about issues, I just don't like forums or threads where people are so disrespectful, nasty and rude. I think I'm just too old, and my skin is too thin So please do ask here and I'm sure I won't be the only one willing to give an answer

 

[camosoul]

The bottom line is that blonero's claims are just that. If these sounds-good-to-the-clueless claims were real, then why has it never happened?

Because its bullshit.

If it is trivially easy to disrupt all IXes, then fuckin' do it! Why talk?

Remember when hacker found a way to funnel all mn payments to himself once? How long before it was fixed?

If DASH has these weaknesses and exploits, why earen't they happening?

If the sky is falling, why is the sky not falling?

If captain blonero is so right, why doesn't he do it instead of just talking shit? No matter how you fancy it up, shit-talking is still shit-talking. For all the effort he puts into his shit-talking, he could proven it by doing it with a fraction of the effort, by his own description, and have irrefutable proof, yet hasn't done it...

This guy has had a hate fest of trying to strip away adopters by dazzling them with bullshit since day one. None of his claims have ever proved out. Because he's bullshit. If its so easy, why hasn't he, or anyone else, done it?

 

[InTheWoods]

Most of these features are things that can be quite easily implemented in dash. The adaptive block size would probably take the developer 1-2 days to do. For these coins to implement the upcoming features in Evolution though would be a massive project. For that reason I am confident in Dash future.

Bitpay created adaptive/dynamic blockchain code. Dash just needs to implement it. This is one of beauties of using Bitcoin code, a big advantage Dash has over Monero. https://dashtalk.org/threads/why-no...ck-size-fork-instead-of-the-2mb-classic.8017/

 

[studioz]

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

View attachment 2286

LOL!

 

[TroyDASH]

The bottom line is that blonero's claims are just that. If these sounds-good-to-the-clueless claims were real, then why has it never happened?

Because its bullshit.

If it is trivially easy to disrupt all IXes, then fuckin' do it! Why talk?

Remember when hacker found a way to funnel all mn payments to himself once? How long before it was fixed?

If DASH has these weaknesses and exploits, why earen't they happening?

If the sky is falling, why is the sky not falling?

If captain blonero is so right, why doesn't he do it instead of just talking shit? No matter how you fancy it up, shit-talking is still shit-talking. For all the effort he puts into his shit-talking, he could proven it by doing it with a fraction of the effort, by his own description, and have irrefutable proof, yet hasn't done it...

This guy has had a hate fest of trying to strip away adopters by dazzling them with bullshit since day one. None of his claims have ever proved out. Because he's bullshit. If its so easy, why hasn't he, or anyone else, done it?

I don't have the technical knowledge nor the means to hack into much of anything. It doesn't follow that all systems have no vulnerabilities and that I am incapable of identifying any in theory.
The fact that a system hasn't been broken yet, especially if there is an incentive to break it, does build confidence the longer it goes, but it doesn't prove anything.
For any particular theoretical criticism, it can be refuted in theory, or by actually attempting to exploit the weakness that it claims is there. If either of these have already been explored, then we can point to where that information is. Criticisms don't get refuted by attacking the motives of the person making the claims.

 

[InTheWoods]

Here is a post worthy of sharing. Monero's modus operandi didn't change at all from its early days.

 

[BolehVPN]

I would advocate against bashing Monero and just letting them do their stuff.

From my own personal research Monero's use of ring signatures arguably gives it better anonymity but as many others have mentioned, the other benefits stop there. I also believe there are other concerns on the scalability of such a blockchain.

I went into the Monero community when I was considering accepting them and there was of course a wide range of characters but I had many unpleasant encounters with some of their characters and some people who seem to have all the time in the world to bash every single Dash thread. I was told that the dev official team cannot control their users when I brought this up which is fair enough (we have our own whackos in the Dash community) but I think when the lead dev himself is leading the charge, that sets a precedent.

Development wise, Dash seems to be doing a lot more and I think we should just focus on that rather than trying to respond to constant Monero trolls or hating on them. I believe if we have a good FAQ on this and just officially state our views on the issue there is no further point to engage with them.

 

[TanteStefana]

What we really need are people who have the know-how and creativity to attack the system. The cheapest way to do it is when testnet is running full bore (which I hope will happen soon). 12.1 will not be Evolution, but there will be a ton of improvements in it (it'll be a big update) and I hope we can get some white hats in there to help test it. Hell, make 'em blackhats. We're still small enough to take a few hits, so I'm sincerely hoping people are trying to attack Dash and aren't succeeding or that they'll find weaknesses that we can patch. Of course I don't want anyone to get robbed, but inconvenience would be a small price to pay

 

[timeless]

I would advocate against bashing Monero and just letting them do their stuff.

From my own personal research Monero's use of ring signatures arguably gives it better anonymity but as many others have mentioned, the other benefits stop there. I also believe there are other concerns on the scalability of such a blockchain.

I went into the Monero community when I was considering accepting them and there was of course a wide range of characters but I had many unpleasant encounters with some of their characters and some people who seem to have all the time in the world to bash every single Dash thread. I was told that the dev official team cannot control their users when I brought this up which is fair enough (we have our own whackos in the Dash community) but I think when the lead dev himself is leading the charge, that sets a precedent.

Development wise, Dash seems to be doing a lot more and I think we should just focus on that rather than trying to respond to constant Monero trolls or hating on them. I believe if we have a good FAQ on this and just officially state our views on the issue there is no further point to engage with them.

My feelings exactly. I'm still pretty new to Dash so I've been reading a lot and the fighting between Dash and Monero is quite childish. I understand the urge to answer them but let's try to do it in a mature way. And having to repeat the same questions again and again is not easy/fun so a clear faq that answers those questions would help.

Most important thing is developing and testing and then the moon!
(I would be ok with some weakesess that get patched and the temporary price dip gives me to opportunity to buy a MN )

 

[camosoul]

If Blonero comes up with a good idea, whell, guess what? We can vote on implementing it as part of DASH.

I've said it dozens of times... There are a lot of good ideas in crypto, but one idea in a stand-alone coin doesn't do a damn thing. SpreadCoin has a neat idea. Peercoin's Proof of Stake evolved into Proof of Service which we now have.

A car isn't just a box of screws. It's a collection of parts that work together. Not just a tire. Single ideas are un-useful, even if interesting. Putting them together properly is what makes a winning machine. The Ponzi menatality of Cryptotards has gone a long way to undermining this simple notion. Woo, another coin that does X! Even if X is a new and cool, it's still just X.

This is what has Blonero all bent out of shape. It started out as a race between anon-capable coins. Blonero rests on what it did that one time a few years ago. They done nothing new, made no changes or developments. Added no new features or functionality. Nothing. Taking shots at DASH's constant progress is all they've got. I'm not bashing Blonero. Even as I call it Blonero. Just like Bitcoin, Monero was an experiment. Just like Bitcoin, Monero fanboys didn't learn from that experiment and just keep harping because baghold.

There might well be ways DASH's anon/priv can be improved. But it's just part of DASH, not the whole thing. Evolution is an enormous vision. Anon/priv is Blonero's only feature (implemented in a way that can never truly work), and they have no intention of ever doing anything else with it. Monero, like Bitcoin, was a necessary experiment. Failing to learn from it and move forward is their mistake(s). No one is stopping them from doing something more than Ponzi their bags from 2 years ago. But, that's what they do... And the only way to keep that bag from deflating is to FUD on. As is typical of all Crypto Ponzi crapola.

DASH is doing something. A whole lot of it.

Monero hasn't done squat in 2 years except talk shit and ignore the problems their experiment exposed.

Mich like Bitcoin hasn't done anything about it's extreme hash consolidation in spite of it's hash power. Created boomerang payments! Can't decide to increase blocksize. Issues which brought about, and then exposed, extreme corruption and hubris in the ranks of it's elite. So much for escaping the banksters, eh?

Sitting around hyping/hating/denial doesn't fix anything. DASH is the only Crypto in motion.

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

If Blonero comes up with a good idea, whell, guess what? We can vote on implementing it as part of DASH.

I've said it dozens of times... There are a lot of good ideas in crypto, but one idea in a stand-alone coin doesn't do a damn thing. SpreadCoin has a neat idea. Peercoin's Proof of Stake evolved into Proof of Service which we now have.

A car isn't just a box of screws. It's a collection of parts that work together. Not just a tire. Single ideas are un-useful, even if interesting. Putting them together properly is what makes a winning machine. The Ponzi menatality of Cryptotards has gone a long way to undermining this simple notion. Woo, another coin that does X! Even if X is a new and cool, it's still just X.

This is what has Blonero all bent out of shape. It started out as a race between anon-capable coins. Blonero rests on what it did that one time a few years ago. They done nothing new, made no changes or developments. Added no new features or functionality. Nothing. Taking shots at DASH's constant progress is all they've got. I'm not bashing Blonero. Even as I call it Blonero. Just like Bitcoin, Monero was an experiment. Just like Bitcoin, Monero fanboys didn't learn from that experiment and just keep harping because baghold.

There might well be ways DASH's anon/priv can be improved. But it's just part of DASH, not the whole thing. Evolution is an enormous vision. Anon/priv is Blonero's only feature (implemented in a way that can never truly work), and they have no intention of ever doing anything else with it. Monero, like Bitcoin, was a necessary experiment. Failing to learn from it and move forward is their mistake(s). No one is stopping them from doing something more than Ponzi their bags from 2 years ago. But, that's what they do... And the only way to keep that bag from deflating is to FUD on. As is typical of all Crypto Ponzi crapola.

DASH is doing something. A whole lot of it.

Monero hasn't done squat in 2 years except talk shit and ignore the problems their experiment exposed.

Mich like Bitcoin hasn't done anything about it's extreme hash consolidation in spite of it's hash power. Created boomerang payments! Can't decide to increase blocksize. Issues which brought about, and then exposed, extreme corruption and hubris in the ranks of it's elite. So much for escaping the banksters, eh?

Sitting around hyping/hating/denial doesn't fix anything. DASH is the only Crypto in motion.

Well said.

 

[TroyDASH]

I do not care about Monero. Stop talking about Monero. This is completely irrelevant to the substance of the topic. Responding to criticisms about DASH by pointing out how shitty the person's motivation is, or how much their project sucks, does not accomplish anything. Is it so hard to just stick to the point?

 

[TheDashGuy]

If Blonero comes up with a good idea, whell, guess what? We can vote on implementing it as part of DASH.

I've said it dozens of times... There are a lot of good ideas in crypto, but one idea in a stand-alone coin doesn't do a damn thing. SpreadCoin has a neat idea. Peercoin's Proof of Stake evolved into Proof of Service which we now have.

A car isn't just a box of screws. It's a collection of parts that work together. Not just a tire. Single ideas are un-useful, even if interesting. Putting them together properly is what makes a winning machine. The Ponzi menatality of Cryptotards has gone a long way to undermining this simple notion. Woo, another coin that does X! Even if X is a new and cool, it's still just X.

This is what has Blonero all bent out of shape. It started out as a race between anon-capable coins. Blonero rests on what it did that one time a few years ago. They done nothing new, made no changes or developments. Added no new features or functionality. Nothing. Taking shots at DASH's constant progress is all they've got. I'm not bashing Blonero. Even as I call it Blonero. Just like Bitcoin, Monero was an experiment. Just like Bitcoin, Monero fanboys didn't learn from that experiment and just keep harping because baghold.

There might well be ways DASH's anon/priv can be improved. But it's just part of DASH, not the whole thing. Evolution is an enormous vision. Anon/priv is Blonero's only feature (implemented in a way that can never truly work), and they have no intention of ever doing anything else with it. Monero, like Bitcoin, was a necessary experiment. Failing to learn from it and move forward is their mistake(s). No one is stopping them from doing something more than Ponzi their bags from 2 years ago. But, that's what they do... And the only way to keep that bag from deflating is to FUD on. As is typical of all Crypto Ponzi crapola.

DASH is doing something. A whole lot of it.

Monero hasn't done squat in 2 years except talk shit and ignore the problems their experiment exposed.

Mich like Bitcoin hasn't done anything about it's extreme hash consolidation in spite of it's hash power. Created boomerang payments! Can't decide to increase blocksize. Issues which brought about, and then exposed, extreme corruption and hubris in the ranks of it's elite. So much for escaping the banksters, eh?

Sitting around hyping/hating/denial doesn't fix anything. DASH is the only Crypto in motion.

Hai stranger