New Stealth Transfer Worker ($1000)

[onceuponatime]

Just out of curiosity.....   The 45K or 50K that onceuponatime was willing to put up .....was that in the form of  Bitcoin,USD or BTS ?

Bank wire transfer of US dollars.

[Buck Fankers]

Just out of curiosity.....   The 45K or 50K that onceuponatime was willing to put up .....was that in the form of  Bitcoin,USD or BTS ?

[btswildpig]

Just out of curiosity.....   The 45K or 50K that onceuponatime was willing to put up .....was that in the form of  Bitcoin,USD or BTS ?

[Stan]

Will I have to pay the new and improved stealth fee for stealth transfers made through the CLI?

I think I should not. I have this feature now, and I will see the 45K as a bribery so this feature is stolen from me (and the rest of BTS holders) and sold to the  highest bidder.

Bad precedent all around.

You make a good point here Tony.

However, from what BM said that all existing backend infrastructure will be used to support the future stealth GUI, I'm afraid you are correct in your assessment.

I will say this however, that your complaint is more likely than not hollow, because using stealth from the CLI is really rather cumbersome and has inherent risks. If you use it make SURE you write down all keys used in every transfer. Might as well forget the labels, they're transitory and even the wallet doesn't remember them. IMO it's actually a rather crude implementation, more likely than not more of a proof of concept than practical. From what I saw of BM's GUI mockups, the GUI implementation will also be a minimalistic design.

We're talking GUI here, so elegant ... sufficient ... crude operation is quite subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I have no doubt it will get the job done, but how easy / intuitive it will be for users is another matter.

Like all startups, this project will need to plow back some of the profits into getting better to remain competitive.
That's how it should be.

[carpet ride]

Will I have to pay the new and improved stealth fee for stealth transfers made through the CLI?

I think I should not. I have this feature now, and I will see the 45K as a bribery so this feature is stolen from me (and the rest of BTS holders) and sold to the  highest bidder.

Bad precedent all around.

Great point if this is changing the blockchain code.

I posit that if applications could charge *ABOVE* blockchain fees, then it would be no issue and would give the applications more freedom.

[Thom]

Will I have to pay the new and improved stealth fee for stealth transfers made through the CLI?

I think I should not. I have this feature now, and I will see the 45K as a bribery so this feature is stolen from me (and the rest of BTS holders) and sold to the  highest bidder.

Bad precedent all around.

You make a good point here Tony.

However, from what BM said that all existing backend infrastructure will be used to support the future stealth GUI, I'm afraid you are correct in your assessment.

I will say this however, that your complaint is more likely than not hollow, because using stealth from the CLI is really rather cumbersome and has inherent risks. If you use it make SURE you write down all keys used in every transfer. Might as well forget the labels, they're transitory and even the wallet doesn't remember them. IMO it's actually a rather crude implementation, more likely than not more of a proof of concept than practical. From what I saw of BM's GUI mockups, the GUI implementation will also be a minimalistic design.

We're talking GUI here, so elegant ... sufficient ... crude operation is quite subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I have no doubt it will get the job done, but how easy / intuitive it will be for users is another matter.

[tonyk]

Will I have to pay the new and improved stealth fee for stealth transfers made through the CLI?

I think I should not. I have this feature now, and I will see the 45K as a bribery so this feature is stolen from me (and the rest of BTS holders) and sold to the  highest bidder.

Bad precedent all around.

[kenCode]

there is nowhere on the planet you can go where anarchy prevails... yet. I hope you'll see it in your lifetime

Thom, I love you, man.

[Stan]

Keep in mind that the $45,000 quote was for GUI work only
...
The first step is getting the basic cryptographic operations / primitives working in the FC library.  Once that is done then I can estimate what a blockchain implementation would cost.

good lord. this is why (for the past 15+ years) i refuse to hire american devs. sorry Dan, I just think that number is ridiculous.
I bet xeroc and Anonymint could do the front and back themselves for just 20% of that amount.

Yeah, that's the same reason I refuse to buy gas when I'm in Europe.
It's cheaper just to abandon a car when the gas runs out and go buy a new one.

[abit]

As bm mentioned, current implement of STEALTH transfer is lack of unlinkability as well as untraceability. So it's just like TITAN in bts 0.x (although in 2.0 it does more than TITAN by hiding the amount of transfer), which just let people feel like that their have privacy, but their don't really have. It's dangerous to encourage people to use such non-perfect feature. Personally I don't like to use it nor recommend to other people.

Privacy/anonymity consists of:
A. unlinkability (can't tell two transactions are to the same recipient): stealth (or just not reusing addresses)
B. untraceability (can't trace paths between tranasctions): ring signatures (or coinjoin, coinswap, though with many complications and hazards, etc.)
C. content privacy (can't see amount being spent): CT (or limited ambiguity of which outputs are change)

Bitshares with CT gives you A and C, but nothing at all for B. Monero gives you A and B, and somewhat C (via ambiguity of change outputs). Monero with ringCT will give A,B, and C, for a comprehensive solution.

Under BitShares 2:
You cannot tell two transfers were to the same recipient.... until they spend them together. 

With current API we can't control how to NOT spend them together.

When they are spent together you don't know which output was to someone else and which was change.... unless one of the outputs is combined with another output for which you know the owner.
Through tracing of blinded balances back to their public source you can calculate an upper bound on the value of a blinded balance, for example we know the total value of all blinded balances is the clear upper bound on any individual blinded balance.

There are only two kinds of attackers on your privacy:

1. 3rd parties whom you have never done business
2. Those with whom you have done business.

Under BitShares 2 you are completely protected from 3rd parties, but have slightly less protection from those you do business with. If I send you a lot of payments I may be able to identify a large subset of the blinded outputs that belong to you, but I would be unable to learn your balance. If you then transfer the blind output I gave you to a 3rd party then I know the upper bound on all outputs derived from the one I sent you.   

The conclusion is that the BitShares wallet should always combine all of an individual's inputs in every transaction. This will provide a similar protection to ring signatures (preventing those who sent you funds from being able to know the upper bound on downstream transactions). 

At the end of the day the only information leaked is that "you received payments from multiple people".   With every subsequent payment the probability that an individual output belongs to the same person falls by 50%.

Privacy is therefore most compromised around the edges of the blinded/stealth transfers when users convert to/from public/private it leaks some information.

Adopting ring signatures would therefore increase your privacy by increasing the "upper bound" value for an output by merging in outputs that don't belong to you and by not grouping multiple transactions as being to/from a single party.

So for almost every conceivable use case what BitShares provides is more than sufficient even if ring signatures are technically better privacy. 

What I would like to know is what kind of size and computational penalty one takes for adopting the more comprehensive solution.

Of the things proposed by anonymint the ones I actually think are worth something are:

1. smaller proofs
2. ring signatures that allow you to combine any random set of outputs.

CN (one-time rings) mixes payer's identities which adds the untraceability.

[Empirical1.2]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I've been thinking it over and have some questions..

Why do we need stealth when you can just create and claim into an anonymous account?
Stealth funds need to go back into a visible account to be tradeable anyway.
And the people who really want to spy you have *plenty* of other ways to find out what you're doing.

This has a higher priority than say, MAKER, only because the cash is on the table, right? If we put up more bids/depth on the MAKER market than the STEALTH market, would that be enough for CNX to reconsider priorities? If MAKER had just 13M BTS in bids, that's $45k right there.

With STEALTH BitUSD you could conduct business for weeks/months privately and only need to do the rare conversion which wouldn't necessarily have to go through a payment processor or major exchange so that combo would be profitable for BTS. (This a major benefit over using volatile crypto-currency for business which needs to be traded regularly/often simultaneously for fiat in the process making privacy very hard to achieve.) 

Without more liquid BitAssets though, or other popular sell-able product first, there will be little demand for STEALTH but as Xeroc says the funding/development of some of those products via FBA's may benefit from/require privacy.

I don't think BTS will really increase in value though until BitAsset liquidity or one of those more sell-able products are developed.

[xeroc]

Why do we need stealth when you can just create and claim into an anonymous account?
Stealth funds need to go back into a visible account to be tradeable anyway.
And the people who really want to spy you have *plenty* of other ways to find out what you're doing.

But hing the amount and not showing involved parties at all is considered WAY
better privacy.

This has a higher priority than say, MAKER, only because the cash is on the
table, right? If we put up more bids/depth on the MAKER market than the STEALTH
market, would that be enough for CNX to reconsider priorities? If MAKER had just
13M BTS in bids, that's $45k right there.

Great observation.
What the MAKER speculators may not know is that the STEALTH proposal is VERY
VERY important for the Fee Backed Asset idea. even though they are independent
proposals (BSIP7 and BSIP8), creating and issuing a FBA under a STEALTH/PRIVATE
account is very important for regulatory reasons!!!
Otherwise people that want to innovate and have t funded via FBA might run into
legal trouble quickly. Read BSIP7 for more details about it.

Finally, on an ideological note: we've never seen a true global free market, and
we have no idea where it will lead society. It could be really good, it could be
really bad. I posit that stealth is only desirable because of
short-term/reactionary fear. And when people act out of fear they make
bad (I mean truly horrible) decisions.

The Stealth proposal is not only about hiding funds or transfers or privacy. It
is also about making sure not to run into regulatory issues and let more
innovations enter the system more easily.

[Thom]

I don't agree with the idea we don't need privacy. I see tracking every purchase you make as a serious threat. The BIG DATA collected by observing your buying habits reveal a HUGE amount about your lifestyle, beliefs, travel, you name it. They have a comprehensive dossier on you via this, even more revealing and invasive that Facebook, which is bad enough.

On your last point concerning there being no true free marketplace, I agree. There is always state influence b/c there is nowhere on the planet you can go where anarchy prevails... yet. I hope you'll see it in your lifetime, you're much younger than I, but it is going to take a major shift in the mind of mankind to expunge or adequately reduce (blind) believe in authority before that happens.

Not even the "black market" is free from government's influence, b/c they influence supply by making things illegal. Similar in the crypto marketplace but less so. It also has tax ramifications for many people.

IMO we need stealth, in part so people have an alternative to store their wealth outside of the mainstream banking cartel and beyond the reach of those who would target you to take it away.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Maker about creating more liquidity, i.e. market makers? I thought when I first heard of it it was abut the "maker" community of electronics hackers, i.e. hackerspace, also a very exciting arena for us geeks and frontier pushers. That's where 3D printing came from.

[roadscape]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I've been thinking it over and have some questions..

Why do we need stealth when you can just create and claim into an anonymous account?
Stealth funds need to go back into a visible account to be tradeable anyway.
And the people who really want to spy you have *plenty* of other ways to find out what you're doing.

This has a higher priority than say, MAKER, only because the cash is on the table, right? If we put up more bids/depth on the MAKER market than the STEALTH market, would that be enough for CNX to reconsider priorities? If MAKER had just 13M BTS in bids, that's $45k right there.

Finally, on an ideological note: we've never seen a true global free market, and we have no idea where it will lead society. It could be really good, it could be really bad. I posit that stealth is only desirable because of short-term/reactionary fear. And when people act out of fear they make bad (I mean truly horrible) decisions.

[xeroc]

As requested by Bytemaster; i have created a worker proposal for ~$300 for one month starting tomorrow to poll the shareholders about the STEALTH proposal.
The worker is 1.14.18 and payed $300 to me for creating and maintaining this particular BSIP. Expect some minor modifications and improvements for this BSIP
https://github.com/bitshares/bsips/blob/master/bsip-0008.md
This worker serves as a simple "poll" for the shareholders.

Happy voting!