I don't trust this system. I can't see it and verify it. What good is it for everything to be hidden completely, to the point where you have to trust that it is working?
With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user, yet requires no trust - as was always the whole point of the decentralized crypto currency of Bitcoin - DASH is not more superior due to it's complexity, but due to it's simplicity. If you're such a technocrat that you don't understand this, I can only feel bad for you because the majority of the world will.
LOL. Here's the attack vector Evan created out of ignorance, stupidity or pure not giving a fuck.
The easiest attack is to buy masternodes and ddos attack competing nodes until you own the traffic. Evan claims it's financially implausible, but ignores that nodes are most profitable when there about a 1,000 masternodes (he has a ROI graphic on the dash BCT thread that underscores this). He also ignores that the attacker would be pulling incomes from these masternodes--given that most are held on corporate servers underlies that no one knows who owns them outside of the host and the owner. He also ignores how motivated an attacker may be, that he or another masternode operator might comply given the right circumstances (threat or lawful compliance) and how deep LE's pockets are--silly, dangerous, stupid.
If you trust that system knowing the flaws, you deserve whatever comes your way--except maybe being linked to pedophiles--can you show that link on your explorer?
DOS'ing masternodes doesn't reduce the anonymity set of the transactions or coins mixed before the DOS. If the masternode count drops 50% for example all of a sudden, mixing coins at that moment is not a good idea. It was already suggested a year ago or so that the wallet would take care of this and protect the user during the network downtime. It hasn't been implemented yet afaik, DASH must grow at least 10x at minimum before this (an appearance of such a motivated attacker) would become even a possibility.
I'd say more like 1000x (even 100x wouldn't get to Bitcoin's size, and Bitcoin isn't attacked all that hard) but the problem is that these issue are unfixable without a complete redesign.
The anonymity set attributable to the masternodes is unknowable because you don't know, can't know, and will never know to what extent the masternodes are compromised. The best you can do is run a few masternodes yourself (assuming you are rich enough to afford it; in the unlikely event that Dash were really successful the masternodes would all be owned by billionaires or major corporations or governments), but unlike running your own Bitcoin or Monero node, that doesn't really help you because you are only going to be a tiny fraction of the network. What the rest of the network and the underlying infrastructure is doing (and on which your privacy depends) is unknowable to you.
That's quite close to the definition of snake oil, being a potion of unknown composition which is alleged by its promoters to be helpful but can't be tested or verified for safety or efficacy.
Yea I edited the 10x to 100x like 5 seconds after I posted it.
It wouldn't necessarily need a complete redesign to shut that attack vector. All that's needed is to prevent the mixing masternode from knowing which outputs (of the mixing transaction) belong together with which inputs. The mixing peers could do a key exchange and encrypt their own outputs with random mixing peer's public key, and decrypt the others' outputs they can using their private key, and then pass clear text outputs to the mixing masternode.
I wouldn't rule a complete redesign out either - the "decentralized blockchain governance" funding system will allow anyone to suggest a project that needs funding, and perhaps someone will suggest a new design and if the project gets voted it gets the funding. As this thread is as much about Monero as it's about DASH - maybe some Monero devs might want to earn some money on the side and suggest they can implement CN blockchain for DASH for $20k for example and then have the funds to continue Monero development.
Obviously if DASH grows 10x, 100x, or 1000x before that becomes relevant, then add appropriate number of zeros to the $20k example number.Or perhaps something entirely different - the future is wide open.