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͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏
It’s disappointing to read how much reliance consumers still have on Bitcoin.
The days of Bitcoin are over. Forget being lazy, be safe tomorrow.
Can’t you see the supercharged-focus the numerous tasks force have on crippling the darknet and collecting every Bitcoin of past?
But there is something even profoundly better at our disposal. It’s almost a blessing or a miracle, or something in between--Monero.
It's strange---all this security and only /d/AlphaBay adheres to it when they could have it and so much more.
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Here is the groundwork behind Monero and everything you need to know to keep your transactions private and anonymous.
1) Absolutely never send your funds from the cryptocurrency exchange to the Market. That’s the fatal flaw that sets off the bells.
2) Never send from your Primary Wallet address which begins with 4. Only send from sub-addresses which begin with 8. This is to prevent transactions from being linked back to you.
3) Do not use an online wallet to store your funds
.
4) I recommend you use the Official Open Source, Community-Driven Monero wallet and steer from third-party wallets.
5) Move all your XMR off of the exchange and onto your personal account when done.
6) Send more than the sum-total of the products. You can always refund yourself (if it meets a certain balance, high enough).
7) This protects you from fees, market fluctuations and differentiates the amounts being spent to prevent correlation.
8) If the money is going into a marketplace wallet send the funds ahead of time as 10+ confirmations takes time and your web-session may time-out during that time period.
9) Keep the “Payment Proof,” the “Transaction Key” along with “Transaction ID” along with the “Confirmed Address” for your own personal records as receipt of payment.
10) To store Monero in a way that is properly secure is much tougher than most other cryptocurrencies.
11) Never share your 25 word mnemonic key with anyone and make a backup of it, or several and don’t leave all the backups in one place.
12) After you conduct your purchase, re-send your surplus funds back to the exchange then ultimately your checking account, leaving behind no balance.
If you are truly concerned with obtaining 100% privacy your only route is running a local node as opposed to a remote node.
Facts you don’t need to know:
• Monero upgrades with a new hard fork every six months.
• Monero transactions use multiple layers of privacy tools to obfuscate every layer of the transaction.
Use Block Explorers to check on the status of the transactions:
Block explorers provide a way to view Monero’s ledger of transactions.
• Moneroblocks: A standard Monero block explorer.
• MoneroHash: Another standard explorer, with mining pool stats
• ExploreMonero: A streamlined block explorer with guided transaction look-ups; recommended for beginners.
• XMRChain: A stripped-down block explorer that may be useful to developers thanks to its support for testnet funds.
• Blockchair: A multi-coin blockchain explorer that supports Monero.
Random facts to know about Monero:
• Monero is like electronic cash: there is no transaction history associated with any Monero coins. This means they are fungible! All Monero coins are equal regardless of who they came from, where they came from.
• That’s the main goal of a Monero transaction -- indistinguishability — to make private and fungible money. To make Monero as similar to cash as possible, where one $10 bill is the same as another and the merchant doesn’t know where it came from because it doesn't matter.
• Transactions are impossible to link to a person.
• Transactions are impossible to trace.
• Stealth addresses solve a lot of the problems of traceability and anonymity, but one major challenge remains. Since the person who sent you the Monero in the first place knows about the stealth address (since they created it), they’ll be able to tell when you spend those funds on something else so we need a way to disguise the transactions you send. The solution – mixing more addresses into the transaction makes it more difficult to trace, but since more mixing requires more network computing power there will be higher fees to pay. In general, there’s no need to mix in more than 4 addresses in order to guarantee anonymity.
• The Monero team developed Kovri as a decentralized anonymous layer built around I2P (the Invisible Internet Project) architecture which resembles Tor.
• You have to visualize that Monero is cash for a connected world. It’s fast, private, and secure. With Monero, you are your own bank. You can spend safely, knowing that others cannot see your balances or track your activity.
• Monero is a decentralized cryptocurrency, meaning it is secure digital cash operated by a network of users not a central bank.
• Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to obfuscate the origins, amounts, and destinations of all transactions. Monero provides all the benefits of a decentralized cryptocurrency, without any of the typical privacy concessions.
• Sending and receiving addresses as well as transacted amounts are obfuscated by default. Transactions on the Monero blockchain cannot be linked to a particular user or real-world identity.
The fear of Remote Nodes:
It is important to note that the remote node:
• cannot spend your XMR (you hold the keys)
• does not know your IP address (we are connecting to it over Tor or a VPN)
• does not know your XMR address; and
• does not know your balance or private view key.
However, using a remote node is not without risk.
Only and only in using a local node with a masked IP will you retain full privacy.
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That's all it takes to be completely anonymous, invisible and private in your spending.
Someone asked in a different post: why run a local node?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Let's bring up the opposite first. If you run a remote node, you don't know who you're connecting to. The remote node may be run by a malicious entity, a blockchain analytics company, or an oppressive nation-state.
Remote nodes can track your IP address, track your "restore height" and associated block request data, and send you inaccurate information to learn more about transactions you make.
Now, you have taken the time to download a copy of the entire blockchain on your PC. You don't have to trust anyone else and can rely solely on the protocol. And when you're done you can contribute to the network.
Now, on the other hand, running a full node will give you the greatest privacy in Monero. You know that your own Monero node is a pristine copy of the Monero blockchain and that your IP address is well protected. As I mentioned before, when you're done, you can let other nodes synchronize from your node or even letting other users connect to your node with their wallets.
You do this only if you want the highest level of security and privacy, connecting to a full local copy node—copy of the blockchain that you control. If you're buying or selling illegal goods on the darknet, or trying to avoid government surveillance, it's a small price to pay.
You've had to download a 130GB blockchain but your local node can be accessed locally. This means that the you don't need an internet connection in order to access it. The node is rather available in your local network. A local node can also be referred to as a personal Monero node.
You are much less likely a candidate for passive or active attacks. Also, if you haven't realized it, you've conceptually become your own bank. You've become fully independent. But don't forget all this came at a cost of of (instead of relying on others), downloading the Monero blockchain yourself, however long it took you.
But, now that the blockchain is on your computer, the next time you run the wallet you would only need to download new blocks, which should takes seconds to minutes on an SSD or nVME.
You have a full local node and obtained maximum privacy and for extra security you always make sure to calculate and compare the checksum of your downloaded files.
To wrap it up, as you're running your own Monero Blockchain three core cryptographic techniques take place without the public eye:
Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) - Hides the amount being sent
Ring Signatures - Hides the your address because you're local
Stealth Addresses - Hides the receiver's address
Cryptocurrency is about decentralization - the network is there for everyone to join. Consider running your own local node and avoid centralized services like unknown remote nodes. Your own Monero node makes the network stronger and your coins safer and you'll never have to wait after the first download.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Let's bring up the opposite first. If you run a remote node, you don't know who you're connecting to. The remote node may be run by a malicious entity, a blockchain analytics company, or an oppressive nation-state.
Remote nodes can track your IP address, track your "restore height" and associated block request data, and send you inaccurate information to learn more about transactions you make.
Now, you have taken the time to download a copy of the entire blockchain on your PC. You don't have to trust anyone else and can rely solely on the protocol. And when you're done you can contribute to the network.
Now, on the other hand, running a full node will give you the greatest privacy in Monero. You know that your own Monero node is a pristine copy of the Monero blockchain and that your IP address is well protected. As I mentioned before, when you're done, you can let other nodes synchronize from your node or even letting other users connect to your node with their wallets.
You do this only if you want the highest level of security and privacy, connecting to a full local copy node—copy of the blockchain that you control. If you're buying or selling illegal goods on the darknet, or trying to avoid government surveillance, it's a small price to pay.
You've had to download a 130GB blockchain but your local node can be accessed locally. This means that the you don't need an internet connection in order to access it. The node is rather available in your local network. A local node can also be referred to as a personal Monero node.
You are much less likely a candidate for passive or active attacks. Also, if you haven't realized it, you've conceptually become your own bank. You've become fully independent. But don't forget all this came at a cost of of (instead of relying on others), downloading the Monero blockchain yourself, however long it took you.
But, now that the blockchain is on your computer, the next time you run the wallet you would only need to download new blocks, which should takes seconds to minutes on an SSD or nVME.
You have a full local node and obtained maximum privacy and for extra security you always make sure to calculate and compare the checksum of your downloaded files.
To wrap it up, as you're running your own Monero Blockchain three core cryptographic techniques take place without the public eye:
Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) - Hides the amount being sent
Ring Signatures - Hides the your address because you're local
Stealth Addresses - Hides the receiver's address
Cryptocurrency is about decentralization - the network is there for everyone to join. Consider running your own local node and avoid centralized services like unknown remote nodes. Your own Monero node makes the network stronger and your coins safer and you'll never have to wait after the first download.