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Also: why Mobilecoin, which is as far from "an alternative payments infrastructure" as most other cash-grab cryptocurrency ? It isn't known how much of it was

Also: why Mobilecoin, which is as far from "an alternative payments infrastructure" as most other cash-grab cryptocurrency ? It isn't known how much of it was premined, and from an early version of their whitepaper, the founders might have as much as 80% of the total supply of the coin. This isn't fine for a cryptocurrency which aims to be "an alternative payments infrastructure", and it isn't fine for Signal to try to promote them as such.

qqii 6y ago
To play Signal's advocate, MobileCoin is one of the only cryptocurrencies that meets their requirements. The only other cryptocurrency that I know of that might come close is Grin. The details of the distribution are lacking but as a beta it meets the experience they're going for - it's not as if they'd choose something that doesn't meet their requirements for the beta.
- godelski 6y ago
  To clarify the only coins that meet their privacy requirements are ZCash, Monero, and MOB. The only subset of that that meets their transactional speed requirements is MOB. At least AFAIK. There's a ton of alt coins so I might have missed something.
  - nullc 6y ago
    This seems extremely misleading to me. Their "privacy" is strongly based on the confidentiality of SGX. If you're willing to trust SGX for your confidentiality and security, as they have, they could use any cryptocurrency in a highly private and instant manner. E.g. via an implementation of the moneypot server in SGX: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 MOB is transparently a scheme to generate a windfall from shoving a pre-mined coin into a mass-market application. One could debate the ethics of that with a straight face, I suppose, but to argue that it is anything but is just dishonest.
    - godelski 6y ago
      My understanding is that SGX is only a layer. As in that it acts like ZCash or Monero and then has SGX as an additional layer. Even Signal uses SGX. But breaking SGX isn't going to break Signal. Also, my understanding is that these speculative attacks are still difficult to pull off in the first place. I mean everything is hackable, question is how easy it is to pull off.
      - nullc 6y ago
        The monero like part effectively runs on their servers inside SGX for performance reasons. If the SGX were completely insecure the users would have no privacy against the operators at all.
    - qqii 6y ago
      This is false, their privacy is similar to Monero (RingCT). SGX is only an added level of privacy.
      - nullc 6y ago
        No, that is smoke and mirrors. The client fully identifies itself and its keys to the server, the wallet is entirely implemented server side. Without SGX there is no privacy what-so-ever. Usage of ringct is incidental. It's like claiming that your documents are private when your operating system submits them all to the NSA because the NSA encrypts them after receiving them. :) (and, of course, we trust the NSA to behave honestly...)
        ianmiers 6y ago
        You got sources for that being how the construction works? From various telegram groups with the devs in them , my understanding is 1) rings are constructed client side 2) uploaded to the server inside SGX. This has two major weaknesses 1) it doesn't specify how payment notification happens, which can be a massive privacy hole 2) if SGX is broken you are subject to all of the long term intersection attacks on Monero's/k-anonymity because the rings are now public. This is a very limited threat model and worthy of serious scrutiny.

qqii 6y ago

To play Signal's advocate, MobileCoin is one of the only cryptocurrencies that meets their requirements. The only other cryptocurrency that I know of that might come close is Grin. The details of the distribution are lacking but as a beta it meets the experience they're going for - it's not as if they'd choose something that doesn't meet their requirements for the beta.

godelski 6y ago
To clarify the only coins that meet their privacy requirements are ZCash, Monero, and MOB. The only subset of that that meets their transactional speed requirements is MOB. At least AFAIK. There's a ton of alt coins so I might have missed something.
- nullc 6y ago
  This seems extremely misleading to me. Their "privacy" is strongly based on the confidentiality of SGX. If you're willing to trust SGX for your confidentiality and security, as they have, they could use any cryptocurrency in a highly private and instant manner. E.g. via an implementation of the moneypot server in SGX: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 MOB is transparently a scheme to generate a windfall from shoving a pre-mined coin into a mass-market application. One could debate the ethics of that with a straight face, I suppose, but to argue that it is anything but is just dishonest.
  - godelski 6y ago
    My understanding is that SGX is only a layer. As in that it acts like ZCash or Monero and then has SGX as an additional layer. Even Signal uses SGX. But breaking SGX isn't going to break Signal. Also, my understanding is that these speculative attacks are still difficult to pull off in the first place. I mean everything is hackable, question is how easy it is to pull off.
    - nullc 6y ago
      The monero like part effectively runs on their servers inside SGX for performance reasons. If the SGX were completely insecure the users would have no privacy against the operators at all.
  - qqii 6y ago
    This is false, their privacy is similar to Monero (RingCT). SGX is only an added level of privacy.
    - nullc 6y ago
      No, that is smoke and mirrors. The client fully identifies itself and its keys to the server, the wallet is entirely implemented server side. Without SGX there is no privacy what-so-ever. Usage of ringct is incidental. It's like claiming that your documents are private when your operating system submits them all to the NSA because the NSA encrypts them after receiving them. :) (and, of course, we trust the NSA to behave honestly...)
      - ianmiers 6y ago
        You got sources for that being how the construction works? From various telegram groups with the devs in them , my understanding is 1) rings are constructed client side 2) uploaded to the server inside SGX. This has two major weaknesses 1) it doesn't specify how payment notification happens, which can be a massive privacy hole 2) if SGX is broken you are subject to all of the long term intersection attacks on Monero's/k-anonymity because the rings are now public. This is a very limited threat model and worthy of serious scrutiny.