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Privacy first vs transparency first

Do you want a transparency-first block chain or a privacy-first block chain?


  • Total voters
    20
That doesn't follow. Nothing that I said would imply that either MNOs or any Dash users for that matter would voluntarily disclose their financial transactions to the public. Again, some Dash users are more careful than others when it comes to their privacy. And some Masternode operators are more careful than others when it comes to their privacy. Some people fail to protect their privacy through apathy or ignorance. If coinfirm or other blockchain analysis companies start coming more into play, then you will see more MNOs who care about privacy, taking extra measures to protect privacy, and you will see more end users who care about privacy, using PrivateSend.

Oh, but I thought you was all for transparency-first? I mean, transparency-first means you want the transaction there for all to see. With transparency-first, you really don't care if someone finds out who you are, where you were, who you did business with, and whether they label you as a menace to society.. right? I mean, given the spectrum between transparency and privacy, you consider privacy of lesser importance, right? No? - oh, silly me, I got it wrong.. you're saying privacy is a free choice not something you should expect. Got it!

Transparency is all about shared public data and letting someone mine that data until you're uncovered... but I see your point, eventually privacy will become an issue and more MNOs will take more steps to protect themselves! Yes, finally I understand! - MNOs will eventually be more privacy focused instead of transparent. Good point.

And you're still seriously defending your logic! lol
 
It seems to me, there is a dichotomy of opinion between what Masternode Operators want for themselves and what they want for their end-users.

It is my assertion that the majority of MNOs would like to attain a level of privacy that is not granted by default to end-users. How would MNOs respond to scrutiny if companies like Coinfirm sought to uncover their identities and holdings? Or, perhaps, to map ownership of MNs and their voting behaviour? With this in mind, some MNOs are already using scripts to perform delayed voting in order to obfuscate the number of MNs associated to an Operator. Additionally, there has been some research to further anonymize the MN netowrk.

MNOs would be naive to think that this is not already occurring. If they value their privacy that much then they have to work hard and take additional steps to protect it, many of which are outlined in the paper you linked to. Part of what you are not realizing here is that the nature of the risk to privacy is significantly different for a user operating a node which must service the network, as opposed to the risk for somebody broadcasting a transaction on the network. Both of these things warrant more research. Fortunately for users who wish to broadcast transactions, the PrivateSend service already provides a huge advantage toward privacy protection.

As you may know, dash has both legal and compliance partnerships. How does that work when MNOs are complicit in coin mixing (read "coin laundering")? Ah, good job they are working to further anonymize the MN network.
It has not been established that MNOs are considered by law to be engaging in money laundering. That was part of the reason for the legal/compliance partnership in the first place, so that MNOs can have a legal leg to stand on and be more confident that operating a masternode is not illegal in their jurisdiction.

But end-users, the little guys, they are expected to be transparent first. Companies like Coinfirm come along, they build two-way partnerships with companies like Vodafone and ShapeShift, and they fill in the gaps like the pieces of a puzzle, gradually stripping away any privacy and then selling that data on to other companies and government agencies. That's fine, but let's do that to MNs too and see what happens.
MNOs use the exact same transactions as everyone else. You're conflating two different privacy issues -- one is privacy of financial transactions, and the other is privacy related to being a service provider.

Private Send is fundamentally flawed because mixing can only occur _after_ the coins are received, thereby potentially implicating the recipient. As a merchant, I can't guarantee that incoming coins are clear or tainted, I can only launder them... oops, sorry, I meant mix them.

Actually, merchants can take steps to make sure their incoming coins are not tainted *prior* to mixing, by paying a company like Coinfirm to do the risk assessment for them. If they wanted to, they can implement a procedure to reject or refund payments if the risk exceeds their desired level. Mixed coins are likely to have a higher risk than unmixed coins, but that is not the only factor, and mixing alone is unlikely to be a high enough risk to warrant a problem, assuming they are perfectly fine accepting cash.
 
Oh, but I thought you was all for transparency-first? I mean, transparency-first means you want the transaction there for all to see. With transparency-first, you really don't care if someone finds out who you are, where you were, who you did business with, and whether they label you as a menace to society.. right?
Wrong. Transparency-first means all transactions can be easily seen (public) and mixing is used to obfuscate, as per your definition. Having a public ledger where you can choose to transact in a way that hides your identity is not the same as not caring if everyone finds out who you are and what your business is. You can be private AND have a transparent blockchain. Just mix your coins and don't do business with people who won't allow you to be anonymous. And anyone who won't allow you to be anonymous in your business with them, is definitely not going to let you be anonymous regardless of whether you want to pay them with mixed coins or XMR.


Transparency is all about shared public data and letting someone mine that data until you're uncovered... but I see your point, eventually privacy will become an issue and more MNOs will take more steps to protect themselves! Yes, finally I understand! - MNOs will eventually be more privacy focused instead of transparent. Good point.
So will end users.
 
Actually, merchants can take steps to make sure their incoming coins are not tainted *prior* to mixing, by paying a company like Coinfirm to do the risk assessment for them. If they wanted to, they can implement a procedure to reject or refund payments if the risk exceeds their desired level. Mixed coins are likely to have a higher risk than unmixed coins, but that is not the only factor, and mixing alone is unlikely to be a high enough risk to warrant a problem, assuming they are perfectly fine accepting cash.

And that there is yet another admission of how Private Send is broken. You're effectively saying, the transaction has to go through only to be refunded if the merchant doesn't like it. Therefore, by definition, fungibility was lost. And not least at the merchants expense to hire a company like Coinfirm!
 
Wrong. Transparency-first means all transactions can be easily seen (public) and mixing is used to obfuscate, as per your definition. Having a public ledger where you can choose to transact in a way that hides your identity is not the same as not caring if everyone finds out who you are and what your business is. You can be private AND have a transparent blockchain. Just mix your coins and don't do business with people who won't allow you to be anonymous. And anyone who won't allow you to be anonymous in your business with them, is definitely not going to let you be anonymous regardless of whether you want to pay them with mixed coins or XMR.

Exactly, you can have privacy-first and then open it up on a per-transaction basis when required. That way the merchant won't need to hire a company like Coinfirm and they can be sure all incoming coins are equal i.e. they won't have to issue a refund.

Yet still you insist, somehow, that transparency MUST come first. Oh, and you also say that eventually everyone will realise that they need to take extra steps to make things private...
 
And that there is yet another admission of how Private Send is broken. You're effectively saying, the transaction has to go through only to be refunded if the merchant doesn't like it. Therefore, by definition, fungibility was lost. And not least at the merchants expense to hire a company like Coinfirm!

The merchants would hire people to do risk assessments regardless of which currency they are trying to accept. You keep poking holes at at the transparent blockchain but keep glossing over the fact that any merchant who might a problem accepting a mixed Dash is going to have the SAME PROBLEM accepting a private coin.

But yes, I will grant you there is some loss of fungibility, but you are exaggerating this problem. The fungibility that is lost from the differentiation of mixed vs unmixed coins is a small price to pay for not shooting ourselves in the foot and creating a low ceiling when it comes to adoption. Not to mention the many other costs associated with changing the entire protocol. If we could all have exactly what we wanted, yes I would love to have adoption and privacy and fungibility all to the max. Right now, a transparent blockchain with a private option is a workable, realistic measure.
 
Exactly, you can have privacy-first and then open it up on a per-transaction basis when required. That way the merchant won't need to hire a company like Coinfirm and they can be sure all incoming coins are equal i.e. they won't have to issue a refund.

Yet still you insist, somehow, that transparency MUST come first. Oh, and you also say that eventually everyone will realise that they need to take extra steps to make things private...

I do think companies like Coinfirm would still have a role to play regardless (especially if disclosing viewkeys on a per-txn basis is more of a common thing)
Not everyone will realize it (or value their privacy at all), but the more it becomes apparent that privacy is something you need to actively protect, the more common it would become for people to take those extra measures.

I'm not entirely un-convincable on the point that transparency *must* come first, actually. But right now I do think there are a lot of distinct advantages to having a public ledger which outweigh the advantages of having a privacy-first one, and in my opinion the costs associated with re-arranging the priorities of the project right now are not worth it. I am coming from it more from the perspective of finding ways to improve on what we already have so that we can make it easier for everyone to find places to spend dash and also easier for everyone to keep their business private if they want to. I'm not sure if there's a whole lot more I can add to the discussion at this point, but I do appreciate the dialogue, and the fact that you took the initiative to submit a real proposal for the MNOs to review
 
You guys are presuming some absolutes that aren't.

We need to back up a bit.

Government wants to track the money and tie it to identies so it can assure Income Tax is paid.

But.

It's getting way too complicated to do this.

It's also showing us that the government's insatiable need to tie an identity to a transaction is the cause of identity theft and fraud.

The solution is outside of crypto: Point of Use Tax replacing Income Tax.

We already have the model in place.

Sales Tax is collected by the vendor. We can call it coercion, making the vendor complicit, etc... All true, but beside the point.

Government wants it's taxes. The process of acquiring them can be drastically simplified by moving to the Point of Use model. It also elimiantes Identity Theft because it provides the consumer with the option to remain private, and the government still gets it's money without any identity being involved.

Yes. Government likes using the "follow the money" approach to tracking what it calls "crime." Cash already exists. Obfuscation methods already exist. Hell, leaving it in plain sight and simply bribing...

All that problem could go away with a simple shift to a Point of Use Tax model.

But, how to drive that change when the government doesn't want to give up it's invasion of privacy?

This rests on the people. And, if they're a bunch of cryptotards who don't even realize there's a fight to be fighting, it's moot.

This is why it's so important for DASH to capitalize on it's ability to service retail NOW.

There will be nobody in a position to make this argument, rally the clueless masses, and lay out a viable plan. A plan already in motion if DASH penetrates retail.

It is easy to deny the effectiveness of a pipe dream. It is impossible to deny the effectiveness of a plan already running smoothly.

Government wants to grab at more and more information. This is inherent to government. It invades everything and come up with excuses. We simply have to force government to realize the We the People have priorities, and Privacy is more important because we damn well say so. Period. That won't happen without education. That won't happen without exposure. There need to be users, and they need to understand. If you won't even try to make that move, then you may as well quit writing code right now.

Government uses the Sales Tax model for a reason. Government needs to realize that there is going to be a fight if it keeps pushing for more invasions based on the "crime" and tax excuses. We're simply going to have to force our governments to obey. We'll have to accept some compromises. Why not table a compromise that already works? Separate identity from transactions, but let them keep getting their tax money via a simpler method; the Point of Use Tax. So much easier to enforce. They are no longer to blame for identity theft.

But that argument won't work if nobody puts the government on the spot about being the reason for identity theft int he first place. There would be no identity theft if our identities weren't involved in the first place. All the security theatre could go away. Simple stop tying identity to transactions and money.

But, you won't win if you don't get out in front of it. It the users of crypto won't step up and educate themselves, they're killing their own hopes. If projects like DASH, which have the potential to penetrate commerce visibly, expose people to these things, etc...

Getting into retail is good for the market cap, sure.Good for adoption, sure. But these concepts are secondary to the real goal; take the bull by the horns and make sure the decisions aren't made before anybody that would be affected even realizes what's going on. Coins like DASH could make that move, and it's far more important than arguing the semantics of how the current world works. We need to be a formative force that determines what the world will be later, not sit around waiting for it to be dictated to us. Penetrating retail is simply the forum for which the much more important task is handled. Visibility. If Crypto doesn't get into the minds of the people and stir these debates on a larger scale, then you're right; the laws will be made to choke it off before anyone even knows what the hell it is.

All that really needs to be done is to stop the grab for more invasions. We don't have to, at this point, force a roll-back of power. Getting government to let go of something it has usurped is damned near impossible. Slapping it's hand away before it makes the grab is still not easy, but a hell of a lot less difficult that getting it to let go of what it has already taken. Do you sit idly by as the move to eliminate cash (which represents the very same concerns as banning privacy-centric crypto) happens? Do we simply relinquish the fact that government is a supposedly representative entity, that obeys the people's will? Why do we roll over and accept it as an inevitability when it hasn't even been done? Look at the last few months. Brexit. Quitaly. Trump's election. Clearly, the people make changes whent hey get abused too much.

But, secret abuse. The things done that they don't even realize. DASH needs to get visible by penetrating retail, so that the sort of regulation you're so worried about can't be slid in under the noses of the people before they even realize what it is. Visibility is more important than the details of how you're maintaining your privacy, if at all. You're whispering an argument in a closet. It doesn't matter how right you are if nobody knows it. You're quibbling of minor details while ignoring the elephant in the room. You've been doing it for almost a decade now. DASH has the feature set needed to change that, but is too afraid to sack up and do the one and only thing it should be concerned with; making crypto real and visible to more than just the cryptotards. Penetrate retail. Be seen by all. Spread this very conversation where everyone can see it so that government cannot operate quietly to shut it all down before it gets a chance, because everyone will be watching and talking about it. You're vulnerable for as long as you stay hidden.

I'll give you a personal example in a microcosm that demonstrates the very same principles. I prefer my privacy. But, when I started my business of stabbing dirty government in the eye with a pointy stick, I had to be visible. I'd be dead now if I weren't. The ATF and the entire left-leaning political establishment want me silenced and dead. But they can't very well snuff me out when I'm making such a big scene and everyone is watching. I'm also not bashful about how much I would love for a few of them to show up so I could kill them. But, if I were hiding in the shadows, afraid to be seen, it only makes their job of getting rid of me easier. No one would notice. And lo and behold; the Hearing Protection Act is a real thing! And it's actually going to be tabled the very next time congress convenes! I worked damn hard to put myself out of business! If I hid in the shadows and simply let government steamroll whatever it wants, that never would have happened. All because of "that guy" who won't get a damn thing out of it. I'm a rough character, and nobody is ever going to admit it or give credit where it's due, but I'm the guy who lit that fuse. It's happening because of me. Now, I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that if a guy who lived in a tent and ate squirrels and berries for 4 years while he ranted about the evil of criminalizing silencers while selling products designs to flaunt the law directly and publicly can make that shit happen; why can't DASH? If some idiot, loser redneck nobody like me can make waves that result in the Hearing Protection Act; why can't you?

None of this argument will matter if DASH continues to fail to make itself visible outside of the echo chamber that is the cryptosphere. Penetrating retail is how you do it.

The Cloud has been around since before there were computers; The Bank is the first Cloud. Peopel have being sticking their money out in the Bank Cloud for centuries because they don't trust themselves to handle their own most valuable thing! Show them the power of crypto to put that back in their hands, not a bunch of faux-libertarian fanboys clinging to a utopian promise from Satoshi that his creation lacks the feature set to make good on... Be visible. Penetrate Retail. You will not survive if you fail to do this. Not just DASH losing ground in the ponzi market cap game. All of crypto will be trashed before it takes it's first breath outside of the ponzi bubble.

Not everyone will choose to let go of Big Brother's hand. Plenty of people like it just the way it is. And that's fine. Let them. The point is to carve out our own path. You can't make that change in the world if you're such a sniveling coward pussy that you won't get off the couch. This thread is irrelevant if only 5 people see it.

As long as the sucknodes keep listening to the song of the pied piper, they'll keep shitting in their own faces and call it winning...
 
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You guys are presuming some absolutes that aren't.

We need to back up a bit.

Government wants to track the money and tie it to identies so it can assure Income Tax is paid.

But.

It's getting way too complicated to do this.

It's also showing us that the government's insatiable need to tie an identity to a transaction is the cause of identity theft and fraud.

The solution is outside of crypto: Point of Use Tax replacing Income Tax.

We already have the model in place.

Sales Tax is collected by the vendor. We can call it coercion, making the vendor complicit, etc... All true, but beside the point.

Government wants it's taxes. The process of acquiring them can be drastically simplified by moving to the Point of Use model. It also elimiantes Identity Theft because it provides the consumer with the option to remain private, and the government still gets it's money without any identity being involved.

Yes. Government likes using the "follow the money" approach to tracking what it calls "crime." Cash already exists. Obfuscation methods already exist. Hell, leaving it in plain sight and simply bribing...

All that problem could go away with a simple shift to a Point of Use Tax model.

But, how to drive that change when the government doesn't want to give up it's invasion of privacy?

This rests on the people. And, if they're a bunch of cryptotards who don't even realize there's a fight to be fighting, it's moot.

This is why it's so important for DASH to capitalize on it's ability to service retail NOW.

There will be nobody in a position to make this argument, rally the clueless masses, and lay out a viable plan. A plan already in motion if DASH penetrates retail.

It is easy to deny the effectiveness of a pipe dream. It is impossible to deny the effectiveness of a plan already running smoothly.

Government wants to grab at more and more information. This is inherent to government. It invades everything and come up with excuses. We simply have to force government to realize the We the People have priorities, and Privacy is more important because we damn well say so. Period. That won't happen without education. That won't happen without exposure. There need to be users, and they need to understand. If you won't even try to make that move, then you may as well quit writing code right now.

Government uses the Sales Tax model for a reason. Government needs to realize that there is going to be a fight if it keeps pushing for more invasions based on the "crime" and tax excuses. We're simply going to have to force our governments to obey. We'll have to accept some compromises. Why not table a compromise that already works? Separate identity from transactions, but let them keep getting their tax money via a simpler method; the Point of Use Tax. So much easier to enforce. They are no longer to blame for identity theft.

But that argument won't work if nobody puts the government on the spot about being the reason for identity theft int he first place. There would be no identity theft if our identities weren't involved in the first place. All the security theatre could go away. Simple stop tying identity to transactions and money.

But, you won't win if you don't get out in front of it. It the users of crypto won't step up and educate themselves, they're killing their own hopes. If projects like DASH, which have the potential to penetrate commerce visibly, expose people to these things, etc...

Getting into retail is good for the market cap, sure.Good for adoption, sure. But these concepts are secondary to the real goal; take the bull by the horns and make sure the decisions aren't made before anybody that would be affected even realizes what's going on. Coins like DASH could make that move, and it's far more important than arguing the semantics of how the current world works. We need to be a formative force that determines what the world will be later, not sit around waiting for it to be dictated to us. Penetrating retail is simply the forum for which the much more important task is handled. Visibility. If Crypto doesn't get into the minds of the people and stir these debates on a larger scale, then you're right; the laws will be made to choke it off before anyone even knows what the hell it is.

All that really needs to be done is to stop the grab for more invasions. We don't have to, at this point, force a roll-back of power. Getting government to let go of something it has usurped is damned near impossible. Slapping it's hand away before it makes the grab is still not easy, but a hell of a lot less difficult that getting it to let go of what it has already taken. Do you sit idly by as the move to eliminate cash (which represents the very same concerns as banning privacy-centric crypto) happens? Do we simply relinquish the fact that government is a supposedly representative entity, that obeys the people's will? Why do we roll over and accept it as an inevitability when it hasn't even been done? Look at the last few months. Brexit. Quitaly. Trump's election. Clearly, the people make changes whent hey get abused too much.

But, secret abuse. The things done that they don't even realize. DASH needs to get visible by penetrating retail, so that the sort of regulation you're so worried about can't be slid in under the noses of the people before they even realize what it is. Visibility is more important than the details of how you're maintaining your privacy, if at all. You're whispering an argument in a closet. It doesn't matter how right you are if nobody knows it. You're quibbling of minor details while ignoring the elephant in the room. You've been doing it for almost a decade now. DASH has the feature set needed to change that, but is too afraid to sack up and do the one and only thing it should be concerned with; making crypto real and visible to more than just the cryptotards. Penetrate retail. Be seen by all. Spread this very conversation where everyone can see it so that government cannot operate quietly to shut it all down before it gets a chance, because everyone will be watching and talking about it. You're vulnerable for as long as you stay hidden.

I'll give you a personal example in a microcosm that demonstrates the very same principles. I prefer my privacy. But, when I started my business of stabbing dirty government in the eye with a pointy stick, I had to be visible. I'd be dead now if I weren't. The ATF and the entire left-leaning political establishment want me silenced and dead. But they can't very well snuff me out when I'm making such a big scene and everyone is watching. I'm also not bashful about how much I would love for a few of them to show up so I could kill them. But, if I were hiding in the shadows, afraid to be seen, it only makes their job of getting rid of me easier. No one would notice. And lo and behold; the Hearing Protection Act is a real thing! And it's actually going to be tabled the very next time congress convenes! I worked damn hard to put myself out of business! If I hid in the shadows and simply let government steamroll whatever it wants, that never would have happened. All because of "that guy" who won't get a damn thing out of it. I'm a rough character, and nobody is ever going to admit it or give credit where it's due, but I'm the guy who lit that fuse. It's happening because of me. Now, I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that if a guy who lived in a tent and ate squirrels and berries for 4 years while he ranted about the evil of criminalizing silencers while selling products designs to flaunt the law directly and publicly can make that shit happen; why can't DASH? If some idiot, loser redneck nobody like me can make waves that result in the Hearing Protection Act; why can't you?

None of this argument will matter if DASH continues to fail to make itself visible outside of the echo chamber that is the cryptosphere. Penetrating retail is how you do it.

The Cloud has been around since before there were computers; The Bank is the first Cloud. Peopel have being sticking their money out in the Bank Cloud for centuries because they don't trust themselves to handle their own most valuable thing! Show them the power of crypto to put that back in their hands, not a bunch of faux-libertarian fanboys clinging to a utopian promise from Satoshi that his creation lacks the feature set to make good on... Be visible. Penetrate Retail. You will not survive if you fail to do this. Not just DASH losing ground in the ponzi market cap game. All of crypto will be trashed before it takes it's first breath outside of the ponzi bubble.

Not everyone will choose to let go of Big Brother's hand. Plenty of people like it just the way it is. And that's fine. Let them. The point is to carve out our own path. You can't make that change in the world if you're such a sniveling coward pussy that you won't get off the couch. This thread is irrelevant if only 5 people see it.

As long as the sucknodes keep listening to the song of the pied piper, they'll keep shitting in their own faces and call it winning...

You're right about the tax thing and ultimately that will be built into gov coins, probably on every transfer, including to self. Will dash be the one to show governments the way? - not a chance!

Considering it's been seven years, bitcoin has done almost nothing. So far, all these cryptos are little more than stamp collections.
 
And how can the dash community prevent MNOs from using scripts to delay votes (so that outsiders can't determine how many MNs an Operator owns) ?
Of course the above was a rhetorical question. The answer to this question is to force all masternodes to pass the proof of individuality test.
http://proofofindividuality.online/
How ? Through person-to-person verification. Masternodes are grouped together by random in groups of 5 or so, and every group does a video hangout at the exact same time, that lasts around 10 minutes or so. Masternodes check so that the others in their group aren't doing another hangout at the same time. Of course the masternodes owners are allowed to appear masked, thus preserve their anonymity . They then sign each other's POIs and verify them. Once the hangouts are finished and all POIs have been verified, everyone will know that each POI represents a unique human being.

further reading:
http://www.the-blockchain.com/2016/...bil-protocol-using-virtual-pseudonym-parties/
www.brynosaurus.com/log/2007/0327-PseudonymParties.pdf

All masternodes that didnt pass the proof of individuality test (they didnt appear in their group in the exact time), they should be binded to a proved individual if they want to preserve their voting rights. It this case all delay vote scripts are useless as long as, delayed or not, everybody knows who binds to who. That way we will know how many masternodes every operator has while preserving the operator's anonymity at the same time.

The above http://proofofindividuality.online/ is the sofisticated solution....

But there is also a quick and dirty solution in order to prevent MNOs to use scripts to delay votes, which is named CAPTCHA.

There is also a captcha verification for command line.

The protocol could be the following: When a Masternode votes using the command line, then another masternode should be selected randomly and should ask human readable questions, in order to identify whether the masternode who votes is a human, or a script.
 
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From Newsweek, 15 Dec 2016
http://europe.newsweek.com/virtual-currencies-bitcoin-being-monitored-us-government-532063?rm=eu

Joshua Baron (cryptographer and mathematician for Rand Corp) believes the currency’s publicly visible ledger of transactions is too transparent to attract terrorists, criminals or enemies of the state. “I do not see bitcoin as the go-to currency for terrorists,” he says. “As it stands, it does not offer enough anonymity.”​

In other words, dash provides the same lack of transparency as bitcoin with the added benefit of being an enemy of the state when Private Send is invoked. Let me break that down for you:
  1. Private Send is available to all users and baked in at the protocol level, and
  2. Private Send supposedly has no back door, users become untraceable
  3. Private Send transactions are, therefore, weakening the fugibility of this "digital cash" (possible enemy of the state)
  4. End users may not care too much if the dash they receive is tainted, yet later when they go to spend it, they may find their dash is returned or burned.
 
The above http://proofofindividuality.online/ is the sofisticated solution....

But there is also a quick and dirty solution in order to prevent MNOs to use scripts to delay votes, which is named CAPTCHA.

There is also a captcha verification for command line.

The protocol could be the following: When a Masternode votes using the command line, then another masternode should be selected randomly and should ask human readable questions, in order to identify whether the masternode who votes is a human, or a script.

It's possible to script captchas too. There are certain services available you can submit captchas and get them all answered by a human within a few seconds, and it's not expensive.

But why do you even care if MNs stagger their votes? Let people vote whenever they want, with as many of their nodes as they want. Staggered votes do not affect *you* in any way.
 
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It's possible to script captchas too. There are certain CAPTCHA services available you can submit captchas and get them all answered by a human within a few seconds, and it's not expensive.
No, you are (once again) wrong. The CAPTCHA services are centralized. You need a cryptographically defined randomness among masternodes, in order to decide who will play the role of the captcha server.

But why do you even care if MNs stagger their votes? Let people vote whenever they want, with as many of their nodes as they want. Staggered votes do not affect *you* in any way.


Of course staggered votes affect me, as an external objective observer and potential investor of Dash.

I want to know how many OPERATORS can be found in the masternode electorate.

In order to understand this just take the extreme hypothetical case, that there are only 2 operators who cast staggered votes and make everyone to believe that there are many. Do you still think that this does not affect me, as a potential investor of Dash?

So the more the operators, the more the decentralization, the more my investment is secure. And in order to discover the real number of operators, a captcha or a proof of individuality is needed. You should not of course prohibit operators to vote using a script. The captcha (or the proofofindividuality) should be used in a way to compel the operators to declare that they are using scripts.
 
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A thank you to every one that voted yes to this proposal. If you haven't already voted, please do so now.

Even though the no votes are leading, I am happy that one in six voters clearly take issue with the transparency of dash's blockchain.

I think it pertinent to remind people that dash's mixing occurs after receiving marked or tainted coins... there simply is no way to block the receiving of marked / tainted coins. By the time you receive them, it's too late, you're complicit in the transaction.
 
haha, a couple of months ago when I said monero had a higher market cap and was rising, all I saw was typical responses about bubbles and it wouldn't last. Now look at it, 2.7 times the value of dash.. hmm, I wonder why? - nothing to do with privacy-first is it?

Anticipating even more denial...
 
I'm glad to see this debate has been discussed by the community (and "settled" through a voting mechanism). Crypto is helping/forcing us (humanity) to come to terms with the transparency vs. privacy debate. This debate is permeating all of society, not just crypto.

We all have a natural inclination to want a certain degree of privacy, and yet, privacy is usually not valuable or beneficial in the larger scope of social interaction, which includes conducting business. If I pay you, I want undeniable proof that I paid you, it's that simple.

Over the years I've started to realize that privacy usually does more harm than good, and our government (whether we like them or not) as well as the general public seem to concur. If you Google "Privacy is the Enemy" you will find an interesting PDF that discusses this topic at length and comes to a rather interesting/concerning but potentially liberating conclusion.

What most of us don't realize is the reason we tend not to trust governments and other institutions is not due to lack of privacy but rather lack of transparency. As has been debated in this forum thread in depth, one of the most important features of a blockchain is transparency. The more you think about it, privacy has very limited uses and fewer still when it comes to conducting business.

If we consider the reason privacy-centric currencies flourish, it is (mostly) not because people want to hide their identity, it is because there are stupid laws that people don't want to follow (illegal marijuana being an easy example) and/or the governments themselves are corrupt. Clearly it is the laws and the gov corruption that are the problem that makes us want our own privacy to retain our freedom, but all could be solved with transparency.

Most of the biggest problems in the world happen because people with power are allowed to wield it behind closed doors - in private - and that is why everyone loves Snowden and WikiLeaks, because it ruins the privacy of the people who are wrong doers.

Long story short, I've come to accept that transparency is the only way forward if what we really want is an open society free of corruption, war, and parasitic rent seekers. If you want to hide what you are doing, go ahead, but as we've seen from the public's adoption of social media, combined with the reality that it is nearly impossible to hide anything on the Internet, privacy is dead, and that's a good thing.
 
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