Pre-proposal: DASH PrivateSend De-Anonymization Contest

[camosoul]

Eh... I get it. and normally I'm all for this sort of thing...

but

Haven't those assholes from XMR been all about how useless DS is, how easily they can deanonymize it, etc.

Isn't knocking DASH down and pumping their one-trick-pony shitcoin a reward in itself?

Oh, that never happened? Over two years later? Still nothing?

Oh, well, in that case, I'll vote for it. It's probably just because the incentive isn't large enough. I bet if we offer money the XMR jeniuses will find it worth doing.

I'm guessing that to some extent the current prize for another cryptocurrency to break PrivateSend is some percentage of $1,352,463,661 which is the current market cap of Dash.
If they could show it can be broken then Dash would lose users and they would gain them.

This could be a good way to market Dash & quiet any trolls...

Yeah, that.

And just in case nobody noticed. [/sarc]

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Eh... I get it. and normally I'm all for this sort of thing...

but

Haven't those assholes from XMR been all about how useless DS is, how easily they can deanonymize it, etc.

Isn't knocking DASH down and pumping their one-trick-pony shitcoin a reward in itself?

Oh, that never happened? Over two years later? Still nothing?

Oh, well, in that case, I'll vote for it. It's probably just because the incentive isn't large enough. I bet if we offer money the XMR jeniuses will find it worth doing.

Yeah, that.

And just in case nobody noticed. [/sarc]

IIRC, the argument against PrivateSend was based on dash being hosted on VPNs...

Anyway, monero lost all credibility a long time ago.

 

[MizzyMax]

This is a great idea!! But you should just send a private send payment from an address that you only know. And just give them the received funds end and see if they figure it out. This way you won't be buried by false claims and attempts to say they won.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

I'm now thinking we're getting this all wrong. I've been reflecting on what Evan and others have been saying about PoS vs PoW, and also his comments about SegWit. It seems to me, the greater prize is breaking coins using PoS / SegWit. I mean, if we could break nem's DPoS, that would be a huge blow to many other PoS coins. And if we could fuck up bitcoin's SegWit, woah, I can't even begin to imagine the prize for doing that. So it seems to me, while the odds of breaking bitcon's SegWit is low, the opportunity should not be missed given the enormous potential prize.

I realise bitcoin's market cap is already the biggest prize fund going, but if SegWit is so bad that dash dare not touch it, and if SegWit does indeed lead to more centralization, then that there is the target to bring it down.

I am strongly suggesting this proposal take this two-pronged approach, with a very aggressive prize fund for breaking or debunking other cryptos.

 

[solarguy]

I'm now thinking we're getting this all wrong. I've been reflecting on what Evan and others have been saying about PoS vs PoW, and also his comments about SegWit. It seems to me, the greater prize is breaking coins using PoS / SegWit. I mean, if we could break nem's DPoS, that would be a huge blow to many other PoS coins. And if we could fuck up bitcoin's SegWit, woah, I can't even begin to imagine the prize for doing that. So it seems to me, while the odds of breaking bitcon's SegWit is low, the opportunity should not be missed given the enormous potential prize.

I realise bitcoin's market cap is already the biggest prize fund going, but if SegWit is so bad that dash dare not touch it, and if SegWit does indeed lead to more centralization, then that there is the target to bring it down.

I am strongly suggesting this proposal take this two-pronged approach, with a very aggressive prize fund for breaking or debunking other cryptos.

I have no interest in attacking other coins. There are plenty of people out there that are going to do that from other communities. I want to be the classy community.

I don't even view Bitcoin as a competitor to Dash. Dash is going to replace money to actually buy stuff. And replace banks and paypal and help people in 3rd world countries that either have predatory banking, or no banking services at all.

Bitcoin wrote off all those use cases by failing to scale rapidly to keep transaction costs in the pennies range, not the dollars range. They're just handing that to us on a silver platter. And the potential market is so very huge, the top 20 cryptos could all go up 10x in value and still not put much of a dent in the world economy.

How many people in total have done anything meaningful in all the cryptocurrencies put together? I bet it's less than 150,000. I'm more interested in the other 7 billion. Let's market our advantages to them rather than engage in shouting matches with other coins.

Talking smack has a way of coming back to bite you. I will respectfully correct people if they spread misinformation about Dash, but otherwise we're just going to keep our head down and keep chugging to victory.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

I have no interest in attacking other coins. There are plenty of people out there that are going to do that from other communities. I want to be the classy community.

I don't even view Bitcoin as a competitor to Dash. Dash is going to replace money to actually buy stuff. And replace banks and paypal and help people in 3rd world countries that either have predatory banking, or no banking services at all.

Bitcoin wrote off all those use cases by failing to scale rapidly to keep transaction costs in the pennies range, not the dollars range. They're just handing that to us on a silver platter. And the potential market is so very huge, the top 20 cryptos could all go up 10x in value and still not put much of a dent in the world economy.

How many people in total have done anything meaningful in all the cryptocurrencies put together? I bet it's less than 150,000. I'm more interested in the other 7 billion. Let's market our advantages to them rather than engage in shouting matches with other coins.

Talking smack has a way of coming back to bite you. I will respectfully correct people if they spread misinformation about Dash, but otherwise we're just going to keep our head down and keep chugging to victory.

I understand and I'm not suggesting we engage in a shouting match. I am saying we should definitely play both sides from a technical point of view. Sure, find vulnerabilities in our own system, but also in our competitors... bitcoin / bitcoin cash / nem are our competitor... you don't have to agree with their philosophies / technical merits, you simply have to accept that they are potentially winning mind share. That 7 billion you talk about may be happy enough with a relatively centralized system using SegWit. WeChat is proof positive of the kind of compromises people are willing to accept... breaking WeChat would be a huge prize for crypto.

It's like this.. the odds on winning the lottery are very small, but the only guarantee you have is, not playing will give you zero chance of winning. And, of course, you should not waste too much playing the lottery.. but logic tells you, you MUST play because staying in the game is the most important part, the only way you could possibly win.

 

[solarguy]

If there are weaknesses in other coins, they will be found. I don't have to expend energy and resources to do that. And if we did actively find a weakness, we're going to look like Monero just trying to hurt other coins instead of fixing their own crap.

But Dash has a strategy to actively find/fix/replace any weaknesses. And the new PR team/company will undoubtedly use that fact.

Just wait till the new Radiolab ads go live, we should see a nice bump. I'm guessing that alone will bring us to #8 on Coinmarketcap.

But when properly functional Evolution comes out, and we start spending real money on coordinated social media advertising, you won't have to worry about NEM any more.

 

[camosoul]

I'm more interested in the other 7 billion. Let's market our advantages to them rather than engage in shouting matches with other coins.

DASH: Cryptocurrency for grown-ups.

It sounds like smacktalk, but it's really not... Grown-ups have seen the Bitclones, and they don't take it seriously.

 

[stan.distortion]

-1 to looking for weaknesses in other coins too, other open source projects related to Dash might make sense though:
https://blog.trezor.io/addressing-concerns-about-trezor-firmware-1-5-2-4c1f766034c7

 

[solarguy]

-1 to looking for weaknesses in other coins too, other open source projects related to Dash might make sense though:
https://blog.trezor.io/addressing-concerns-about-trezor-firmware-1-5-2-4c1f766034c7

I have no objection to looking at what other projects in the cryptosphere are up to. It would be foolish not to. I very much object to having a highly publicized contest (with a big reward) to find problems and weaknesses in other coins/projects. And if we do find issues, the way it's supposed to work with white hat people is to alert them to the problem and give them an opportunity to fix it. But not some big PR witch hunt. That just makes us look petty.

 

[stan.distortion]

I have no objection to looking at what other projects in the cryptosphere are up to. It would be foolish not to. I very much object to having a highly publicized contest (with a big reward) to find problems and weaknesses in other coins/projects. And if we do find issues, the way it's supposed to work with white hat people is to alert them to the problem and give them an opportunity to fix it. But not some big PR witch hunt. That just makes us look petty.

Oops, I was only half-awake and had the bug bounty program in mind. Yeah, offering a reward to break something like a Tezor wouldn't be right at all.

 

[Bitedge]

I am strongly suggesting this proposal take this two-pronged approach, with a very aggressive prize fund for breaking or debunking other cryptos.

This would change my vote from a yes to a no. Remember there are 2 points to this

1. Actually finding and fixing a problem with private send if there is one.
and/or
2. Using the fact no one can break private send as a marketing tool.

The idea you suggest is bad for both of those things and makes us look hostile and aggressive (there is no point debating weather it actually is hostile or aggressive, the problem is it looks hostile and aggressive).

I dont want to spend dash treasury funds running bug bounties or trying to break other coins, or giving them good marketing materials when no one can claim the prize.

Your idea would makes this so much less targeted and less focused.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

This would change my vote from a yes to a no. Remember there are 2 points to this

1. Actually finding and fixing a problem with private send if there is one.
and/or
2. Using the fact no one can break private send as a marketing tool.

The idea you suggest is bad for both of those things and makes us look hostile and aggressive (there is no point debating weather it actually is hostile or aggressive, the problem is it looks hostile and aggressive).

I dont want to spend dash treasury funds running bug bounties or trying to break other coins, or giving them good marketing materials when no one can claim the prize.

Your idea would makes this so much less targeted and less focused.

Then fine, let's also put up a proposal for dash to have SegWit because we have never voted on such a controversial move. Indeed, there are people here that are concerned about the custom hardware required in the future to deal with on-chain scaling. And there also people here that are concerned about SegWit's security i.e. largely untested, relatively speaking.

 

[Ftoole]

Why not just have this as part of the bug bounty that is already set-up.

 

[solarguy]

The Bug Bounty is for us to find and fix problems.

The widely publicized and never claimed prize serves two other purposes, great PR for the masses and a tool to silence our competitors who can't say enough bad things about our privacy function.

And the longer it goes unclaimed the better the marketing gets and the more empty our competitors claims sound.

The worst case scenario (and the most unlikely) is that somebody outside Bug Bounty finds a problem, and claiming the prize is (well, should be in my opinion. I'm not the proposer.) conditional on letting us know the problem before announcing it publicly. This encourages "white hat" behavior rather than trying to take advantage of the weakness. Then we fix it, announce it and double the bounty. Win, win, win.

 

[DashDude]

I still need 4 multisigs for this proposal. I can be one as PO. Need 3 more.

@UdjinM6 , @kot , @mastermined , can you serve as the other 3? If not, can you suggest an alternate?

Also, @kot can I use a dash.org email address for this contest? Perhaps I should just put that in the proposal and then if it passes we'll consider that approved!

 

[ampp]

I like this. I'd make the pot grow with the value of dash (fixed amount of dash). And have a days left countdown website that showing the current value of the pot.

 

[solarguy]

This could be a prominent banner or sticky or permanent sidebar on all the popular Dash outlets/forums. I would never end it. Instead of counting down, I would count up the days.

 

[kot]

@DashDude - OK, if the project is approved. However, I cannot promise, I will be monitoring every single details about it (too many duties at this time)

 

[DashDude]

Thanks, @kot !

@Dashmaximalist - would you be a multisig member? I'm having trouble getting volunteers! Any other ideas?

 

[mastermined]

I still need 4 multisigs for this proposal. I can be one as PO. Need 3 more.

@UdjinM6 , @kot , @mastermined , can you serve as the other 3? If not, can you suggest an alternate?

Also, @kot can I use a dash.org email address for this contest? Perhaps I should just put that in the proposal and then if it passes we'll consider that approved!

Count me in

 

[djcrypto]

Hi @DashDude , I like this idea!
You have a knack for this - very professional.

My comments:
-I would request 500 Dash with the proposal and put the Dash equivalent to $100,000 USD at time of proposal into a multi-sig trust account so the "carrot" is there.
-I don't think an escalating reward is going to generate much hype, unless it goes up by something substantial like $100k/mo
-Max time limit = 6 months. Need to put some urgency and incentive on this.
-Bounty ticker going up like the US Treasury Debt Clock
-Strict rules and conditions to payment reviewed by Core

 

[DashDude]

I want to get this proposal submitted this month. Missed the deadline last month due to missing multi-sig members. Only need one more signer! Suggestions/volunteers please!

 

[solarguy]

Did you get all your multi-sig members all lined up? If no, go post on the DashNation slack channel and get this thing live and ready to go.

 

[DashDude]

I recently discovered that superblocks can't pay out to multi-sig addresses. I need to go old school and find a trusted community member to act as escrow for my proposal.

 

[solarguy]

I recently discovered that superblocks can't pay out to multi-sig addresses. I need to go old school and find a trusted community member to act as escrow for my proposal.

Well, as excited as I am about doing this ASAP, may as well do it right, cross the t's, dot the I's and have it work well the first time. Take your time, next month is almost as good as this month.

 

[ampp]

I want to see this happen asap and you should be able to figure this out quickly. We really need this to fight the trolling and this would help shut down misinformation real easy.

I did use coingun for a escrow for a proposal a while back. If i was to do it over i'd say anyone doing a escrow should get some sort of fee out of it - built into the proposal. It is some work but more it's a stress to be responsible for not losing the dash. Submitting proposals is stressful enough. This is also not part of the what the core is getting paid to as far as i understand. It is basically volunteering your own time to do this as a core member.

 

[DashDude]

Thanks for the enthusiasm @ampp ! I plan to sort this out quickly so it can be put in this budget cycle. I have also recently thought about a nominal fee for escrow service. Perhaps 1% for non-insured escrow is reasonable?

 

[dashdisciple]

I like this proposal. Combination PR move/bug bounty on an issue Dash can't lose on, all the while pointing out how flush the Dash treasury is. What better than to end XMR style propaganda than putting our money where our mouth is.

As long as you get some very high profile judges with the charity incentives, and distribute the promo far and wide, this looks really good. Creative and functional. I'd suggest a standalone landing page for this promo so that press sources can easily link to a full page of details/terms.

 

[Super8]

https://www.dashforcenews.com/block...ceability-issues-potential-future-risks-dash/

Thoughts gentlemen?