What privacy?

Different accounts, good point. The project is not created for… makes no sense. Either there is privacy or not. You can’t serve two masters. Either your project is useless (which I don’t think) or it’s great and you will have fans as well as adversaries. No problem if you are prepared for your whatever steps your adversaries might take. So be prepared.

You know, either you live under a oppressive government anyway, or you live in the so-called free world, where the media hold the real power. Incognito’s a very valuable and appealing project, or even a movement as you sometimes call yourself. Just like the media, you speak to basic human rights like the right for privacy. You should be able to win the media over for your just and due cause, so that governments can’t just as easily take you down for whatever laughable pretext they might come up with. There are e.g. central bank forces that plan to build a financial system based on the blockchain, thus perverting Satoshi Nakamoto’s idea to make it a tool of surveillance and potentially even future expropriation rather than one of democracy and liberty. Who wants to live in such a world? Nobody! Yet the threat is that all of us will in the future, if projects like yours fail or are made to fail. You know, even government representatives and their dear ones are affected by their own, short-sighted and restrictive measures, they just tend to forget about it. But when they return home after work, on weekends and after their terms of office, they are private individuals just like us and they might very well come to regret their own measures which their alter egos put into place in the past. But it will be too late for us, and it will be too late for them. Don’t allow this to happen. Your fight is not only just and due, it’s also not a fight against the government, but rather a fight against short-sightedness and silo thinking. AI has the same problem: the US Congress considered utilizing this technology to spy on their own people and they invited experts for a debate on the matter. The experts had a wonderful idea: in preparation for their presentation, they used AI to spy on US Congress members, linked their Facebook photos to other private data and so on, so that they could experience first-hand what it’s like to be wrongly suspected and spied upon, that they could and would be affected themselves if they passed according legislation – a thing they simply hadn’t thought of themselves. The Congress consequently voted against using AI as a spying tool that day. If you are a true movement, you will not just develop the technology, but you will also protect it by winning over supporters in the media and in government(s). Because your cause is due and just and if movement like yours fail or are made to fail, everybody will suffer in the end, with media representatives and government officials being no exception. And who knows which kind of government us and them will be subjected to in the future.

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You digress. I think we can agree on defining Privacy in a different way.

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Yes, I agree. When a normal person says “privacy”, he/she means actual privacy. When incognito says “privacy”, you obviously mean that everything is right there for everyone to watch on the blockchain, just like it would be without using incognito at all. Even if you use shielding with two different incognito wallets, the incoming and outgoing cryptos are always linked by a common pooling address. Your privacy claims are laughable. You don’t understand what privacy is and you don’t even understand how your own technology works. At the bottom line, incognito is nothing more than just another wallet. That’s your very own, weird definition of privacy.

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I am not representing Incognito, only explaining the system.

When you share your BTC address with anyone, you will share the whole transaction history with that person.

When you share your Incognito address with anyone, you will share no transaction history at all.

That is the privacy that is provided.

By improving the connection with the outside world, as mentioned above, it will become easier to break the link between different types of wallet.

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Most things are clear as Jamie said in the last sentence above. However, what if I got in with BTC let’s say and get out of incognito using Monero? Would anyone be able to find me?

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Well technically there are ways. Say you send 100$ of BTC and trade for XMR and than unshield 100$ in XMR. Someone with REALLY REALLY good chain analysis can essentially tie 1 and 1 by looking at the amounts. Yet this is extremely unlikely. but once again, it can happen. so maybe if you deposit 100$ in BTC and trade for 100$ in XMR and want to unshield, my suggestion would be to move the XMR in 2 50$ transactions or wait a few days between shield/unshield so other transactions go through which makes it even harder to trace using some sort of chain analysis. This way it would make it nearly impossible for someone to tie 1 and 1. Yet for top level privacy (If that is what you aim for) your best bet would be to stay within the incognito network and not have to worry about these things above :smiley:

-Hope that helps.

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Your explanation is very freedom constructive not only for me but probably for most people around the world, facing extreme pressure and insecurity in a system built on hypocrisy. So people don’t forget to split and wait as long as possible! :wink:Thank you very much Chucky!:pray:

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May I ask what is the reason for you to get out of the network instead of staying in Incognito mode?

Only to minimize the risk of being hacked a little further. I’m investing in crypto long-term using the ledger hardware wallet. Of course for smaller amounts I will be joining the network until I’m more familiar and comfortable with it.

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What would happen in theoretical, unpropable but possible event of this project being shut down? (There are many possibilities why this can happen, being targeted by government is one possibility). What holders of shielded versions of crypto currencies, that can only be exchanged inside the system could do to retrieve their funds?

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@Cryptos got it, so your main concern is security, which is totally reasonable. Regarding ledger integration, development is in progress: Incognito Ledger Integration, security audit for ethereum bridge is in progress.

Could you also help me to understand, which networks do you consider as secure and why do you think so ? )

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Sorry I basically meant the incognito app when I said network. I’m still in an experimental state as a beginner, so unfortunately I can’t really answer your last question jet. :face_with_monocle::blush:

Glad to see you mention the audit @andrey :slight_smile:

I followed the whole thread, community explanations were great - one thing @Jaques was right about tho - would be really useful to have all this info and some more in one place as a presentation kind of thing.

Incognito is great and has so many features, it’s a shame their explanations are scattered and not all in one place…

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Spot on.
Audit.
Clear and concise transparency.

I am still amazed these are not easy to find (do they exist?) Almost a year after initial issues were put forward… I’m still waiting…

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This entire thread has been great. As a newbie, I agree that information is scattered and not really intuitive to quickly access everything one needs to know.

Professionally I am a software engineer, and I love organizations and architecture and I am very interested in this project. I’ll be looking to see how I can contribute!!!

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we can fix blockchain analysis on bitcoin deposits if we integrate CoinJoin or PayNym compatibility

I too am interested in this. I assume the only way for such a shutdown to really occur would be if enough nodes were taken over or taken offline, basically the same for any blockchain (although of course taking the BTC network offline would be slightly more difficult than Incognito).

But I would be very interested to get another full-throated exploration of this topic, as was done with the other questions raised in this thread.

Could anyone with enough knowledge offer?
@Mike_Wagner @Jamie @duc?

Does this apply to XMR though, as the amounts sent in an XMR transaction are obfuscated?

Correct, that scenario does not make sense with XMR, as its RingCT conceals the transaction amount. It seems Chucky is just unfamiliar with that coin or was mistaking it for something else.

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