this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Privacy
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I too don't know much about monero specifically, however:
Parallel construction is still a thing, yes. But so is spreading the false idea that everything is already compromised so there's no point trying to defend yourself.
No. There is every reason to "defend yourself". The key is to actually be aware of what research and efforts are out there and minimizing your risk profile any time you are dealing with a black box.
I mean, it is known that people can pick locks. Do you plug your ears every time you hear someone talk about how doors can be compromised? Or do you give up on everything and remove every single deadbolt in your home?
Or... do you do a bit of research and figure out what you can do to make your home harder to break into. Whether it is sturdier screws, a reinforced doorjam, or other methods?
Well then, what specific research do you have suggesting that monero has been broken? After all it is not in any way a "black box". The algorithm is well known.
... not that I especially trust Monero much; not even as much as Tor. What I object to is the tendency to be too quick to go ahead with the assumption that it probably has been broken even in the total absence (such as in this thread so far) of any evidence to demonstrate that.
It's the same misguided instinct that leads people to believe that all encryption is futile, that the NSA already knows all the keys no matter what we do. It's not really true. It is true they can easily compromise the security and privacy of any one of us normal people they choose to single out, but for those of us who don't practise unreasonably strict op-sec the point of choosing secure and private modes of communication (including monero if your sense of morality allows for the use of a proof-of-work cryptocurrency) is not to protect one target against all possible threat models. And it's not only to protect against lesser threats. Much of the time the most important thing is to contribute to the effort to make it impossible for anyone to systematically spy on the whole world all at once. Nobody should have that power.