All Questions
125 questions
22
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What privacy issues did Monero have and still has?
Has there been any scientific research regarding the promised privacy and security of Monero?
Have there been attacks on the Monero network in the past? If so, what has been done to combat those?
...
- 733
19
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Why are Monero addresses so long?
A raw Monero address is 95 characters long compared to 26-34 characters for a Bitcoin address.
Monero integrated address are even longer at 106 characters.
What is the cryptographic reason that ...
- 731
17
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why/how does monero generate public ed25519 keys without using the standard public key generation provided by ed25519 libraries?
Why/how does monero generate public ed25519 keys without using the standard public key derivation provided by ed25519 libraries?
Inspecting the code for mininero (https://github.com/monero-project/...
- 1,257
16
votes
2
answers
3k
views
What happened at block 202612?
Why was this block hardcoded in the source-code?
What happened with the Monero blockchain in the block 202612?
user20
16
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Can I manually check consistency of Pedersen Commitments in RingCT?
Even though I fully trust the math behind RingCT and I know no moneroj can be created out of thin air, sometimes I'd like to see for myself the consistency of the Pedersen Commitment before/after any ...
- 2,485
15
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What is StringCT?
I saw some recent comments about RuffCT/StringCT, which is a supposed improvement to RingCT. What is RuffCT/StringCT, and how is it different than RingCT? What improvements (if any) will this bring to ...
- 8,826
14
votes
2
answers
347
views
How does ringct interact with multisig?
When the ringct branch is finished, will it make m-of-n multisig easier or harder to implement?
- 1,386
13
votes
2
answers
325
views
What will the Monero Research Lab be working on in the future, after RingCT has released?
Will they be looking more into quantum proofing the Monero protocol or Cuckoo Cycle testing etc?
- 1,155
13
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Can you trustlessly trade Monero for Bitcoin?
Some cryptocurrencies can be traded in a trustless manner, also known as atomic cross-chain traded. This means that when the trade is done, either the entire trade is done, or none of it is (otherwise,...
- 3,120
13
votes
1
answer
409
views
How did Monero Research Lab members learn about Monero?
Did the original Monero core team reach out to cryptographers in order to seek review of the original CryptoNote whitepaper? Or did the mathematicians hear about CryptoNote from some other means and ...
- 1,364
11
votes
3
answers
164
views
Hashrate correlation by time of day
Looking at historical Monero hash rate data it appears as if the hashrate is often the highest near 0:00 GMT and lowest near 12:00 GMT
What credible explanations are there for this pattern? What ...
- 385
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What are Borromean signatures?
For more background info visit GitHub or Bitcointalk
It looks like borromean signatures are going to be replacing schnorr signatures in the RingCT hardfork. What does this mean for Monero and RingCT ...
- 3,215
10
votes
4
answers
995
views
Is a Monero key backdoor possible?
Recently an article was published stating the possibility of the NSA or some other malicious organization creating backdoor undetectable Diffie-Hellman keys (source) to allow snooping.
Is Monero at ...
- 430
10
votes
3
answers
766
views
In ringct, how are the range proofs kept separate from the pedersen commitments in a transaction?
Are the range proofs and pedersen commitments part of a transaction? Or are they not kept in a transaction at all?
- 3,215
10
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Can someone walk me through a simple example to explain how RingCT works?
Original:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/5irg81/questions_regarding_the_cryptography_behind_ringct/
I just read the RingCT paper, and there are a couple things that could use some clearing ...
- 2,485
10
votes
1
answer
310
views
Is there MRL-0007? What topic is it about?
I see from a previous post that MRL-0001~0005 are complete and published while MRL-0006 and MRL-0008 are still ongoing, but I've never heard anything about MRL-0007. Is there such a thing? If so, what ...
- 2,485
9
votes
3
answers
4k
views
How does the recent patched key image exploit work in practice?
For more info https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.html This has been patched months ago and was never exploited which can be proven by running a ...
- 3,215
9
votes
1
answer
389
views
What cryptographic assumptions is Monero based on?
Most crypto systems security are based on assumptions that certain problems are difficult, or some mathematical conjecture is true. The only counterexamples I can think of are the one time pad and ...
- 3,120
9
votes
1
answer
609
views
Aeon minimum mixin
Aeon does not have a mandatory minimum mixin like Monero does. Despite the feature being relatively easy to add, there is no mention of doing so in the current development roadmap.
What advantages ...
- 551
9
votes
1
answer
628
views
Are Confidential Transactions in Monero perfectly binding or hiding?
Bitcoin contributor Pieter Wuille recently commented on Reddit:
Bulletproofs and the Pedersen commitments they operate on are
perfectly hiding, but not perfectly binding. This roughly means that
...
- 215
9
votes
2
answers
878
views
Is there information available about the Levin protocol?
Is there any information available about the Levin protocol?
It seems to be used for the peer to peer communication.
Things like:
The working of the protocol?
What are the benefits? Why was it ...
- 609
9
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How do payment ids work?
In particular, how do the encrypted ones work cryptographically.
I'm guessing they are based on the shared secret.
- 3,120
9
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How do key images really work?
I have the following questions regarding the equation I=xHp(P):
What is the hash function Hp?
How can we know that Hp(P) is a point on the Ed25519 curve? Or is it not?
Is the value I published with ...
- 193
8
votes
4
answers
841
views
How will the world learn of Monero? [closed]
I do my part in sharing the Monero technology with those I know, of whom I think may be interested.
However, when I was introduced to Monero a few months ago, I found quite a bit of misinformation ...
- 793
8
votes
2
answers
223
views
Can Monero's privacy features be integrated into (copied) by bitcoin?
Can Monero's privacy features be integrated into (copied) by bitcoin? If so, to what degree given the current political gridlock?
By the way, I'm a true believer and I'm setting up a full node as I ...
- 147
8
votes
1
answer
308
views
What was the problem with ASNL forgery?
For background there is https://nickler.ninja/blog/2016/12/17/a-problem-with-ringct/ and this problem had been fixed before this post was made by changing ASNL to borromean signature. For background ...
- 3,215
8
votes
1
answer
99
views
Has RingCT been reviewed by the other Monero Research Lab members?
Shen Noether has created RingCT and I trust that he has done so in a safe and correct manner, but it never hurts to have more eyes on the crypto. RingCT is currently in testnet and being rigorously ...
- 1,155
8
votes
1
answer
403
views
Should I worry about dust in my wallet?
MRL-0004 talks about how if I get sent a weird amount of XMR like 103.32111111, I'll have a weird output of .00111111 in my wallet, and assuming there will be no other outputs of the same amount in ...
- 195
8
votes
1
answer
131
views
MRL RingCT research in the Ledger Journal
I understand that Ledger:
is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes full-length original research articles on the subjects of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, as well as any ...
- 2,239
8
votes
1
answer
203
views
Formal Verification of Monero code
This answer mentions a plan to eventually formally verify Monero code. Which approach will be used for that verification process? The cited wikipedia page mentions model checking, deductive ...
- 607
7
votes
2
answers
458
views
When you sign a Monero transaction, are you signing a hash?
When you are signing a Monero transaction, do you sign the transaction itself, or do you hash the transaction and then sign that?
- 3,120
7
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Can a One-Time public key be used for more than one payment?
If I understand correctly, every new payment will ideally have a different one-time public key for increased privacy. However, could a one-time public key receive Monero more than once (as in ...
- 181
7
votes
1
answer
533
views
What signature prevents me from spending others' coins?
In passive mixing, the monero wallet finds n other parties and forms a ring signature that proves the signer is one of the parties in the ring, and hence entitled to spend from one of the accounts ...
- 455
7
votes
1
answer
662
views
Stealth addresses: where do they come from?
I wonder what the origin of stealth addresses is.
I learned that they were introduced for BitCoin, by Peter Todd. However, I cannot find any literature describing or analysing the specific ...
- 307
7
votes
1
answer
161
views
Issue with unforgeability proof of ASNL in RingCT paper
In the RingCT paper, proof of theorem 5.1 (The Aggregate Schnorr Non-linkable ring signature is unforgeable under the discrete logarithm assumption), it is assumed by contradiction that there exists ...
- 3,327
6
votes
3
answers
412
views
How can I verify the SHA256 hash of 0.10.3 "Wolfram Warptangent" on Ubuntu?
How can I verify the SHA256 hash published for the official 0.10.3 release matches the file that I downloaded for Linux, 64-bit?
- 438
6
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How do I manually decode outputs?
I'm currently coding a small Monero tool just to better understand how it all works. I already implemented address-generation from scratch (thanks to luigis address test page) and the next step is to ...
6
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What cryptography primitives/concepts, other than the basic ones, does Monero use?
The following are the "basic" cryptography primitives/concepts, taught in all beginner textbooks on cryptography:
symmetric encryption (stream and block ciphers. AES, etc.)
asymmetric public-key ...
- 63
6
votes
1
answer
155
views
Where to find a computation example of the monero traceable ring signature mechanism in a small finite field?
In the following coindesk article, The math behind bitcoin, you can find a beautiful example of the ECDSA keypair generation, signature and signature verification algorithms in use in bitcoin. They ...
- 61
6
votes
1
answer
364
views
Transaction structure: Question about ecdhInfo
This question by kenshi84 shows how the pseudoOuts and outPk fields can be validated by anyone (without knowing any of the private keys involved), by checking that sumIn === sumOut:
> var H = ...
6
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is it possible to trace an output in the Monero blockchain?
In MRL-0004, it's said:
Bob wishes to send 0.75 XMR to Alice, and will pay 0.01 XMR in fees. The Monero
that Alice receives, 0.75 XMR, will be delivered as two new unspent transaction
outputs ...
- 195
6
votes
1
answer
432
views
Is CryptoNight the hash function which plays the role of the "random oracle"?
Is CryptoNight the hash function which plays the role of the "random oracle" in the random oracle model under which certain properties of CryptoNote are mathematically proven in the original paper? Or ...
- 111
6
votes
2
answers
7k
views
How to know when I get paid from mining Monero
I just started to mining Monero, using Claymore v3.8. Via CPU.
With my very weak knowledge of mining, I just want to see a "payment" so can be sure that I am not mining for nothing.
I am using ...
- 161
5
votes
2
answers
407
views
How strong is Monero cryptography against brute-force attacks?
I have seen an image about brute forcing Bitcoin cryptography saying even a perfect computer which uses all the power of star system, and still wont succeed.
How strong is Monero cryptography ...
- 722
5
votes
3
answers
411
views
Monero Applications Development
I'm a software engineer (Mobile/Native) with interest in cryptocurrency.
I would be interested in taking pet projects for monero, but, i've read recently that the jaxx guys halted the monero's ...
- 153
5
votes
2
answers
736
views
Why does Monero use keccak over something like sha-256?
Keccak uses a sponge function which is cool but what benefits does keccak have over sha-256 for cryptography operations in the code? thanks
- 3,215
5
votes
1
answer
154
views
Can you make contingent payments in Monero?
Bitcoin allows one to make contingent payments, where the transaction only goes through if the receiver reveals some piece of information. The most basic example of this is P2SH, which is hard coded ...
- 3,120
5
votes
3
answers
557
views
How does RingCT work with / without coefficients?
I was trying to get more information on how RingCT works, I found the thread I linked to below here on the stack exchange. In the other thread, the most upvoted answer explains it as a coefficient, ...
5
votes
1
answer
238
views
How were Monero elliptic curve constants chosen?
In the cryptonote paper review, there was a mention about not knowing how the constants were calculated, is there anyway to verify these constants are 'safe' or change them to something 'better'? ...
- 3,215
5
votes
1
answer
189
views
Where can I learn about the cryptography used in Monero? [duplicate]
What papers should I read to understand the mathematics behind Monero?
- 8,518