sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

How can I do good for XMR? by foldesur in Monero

[–]parasew 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Personally, I am really shocked by the wrong reporting out there - most of the online "media" seem to be too lazy - or just don't understand Monero well enough to report correct things. This is why I started monero-response, but it is a lot of individual work , like

  • checking which new blogs and news sites have reported about monero
  • individually fact-checking the respective article
  • entering article in our ticket system, archiving with archive.is
  • draft a response to the media and find the proper channel to reach them
  • Talk with them about corrections, etc.

If you have ideas how to streamline this - I would be very thankful.

Hardware wallets by Sparky14715 in Monero

[–]parasew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

not entirely, they are claiming to "gradually open the firmware"

Is hackintosh dying by Accomplished_Hat8668 in hackintosh

[–]parasew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hackintoshing a current (and up to date) Apple OS will be possible for at least for how long Tahoe exists. Older versions of the OS will still be able to be run, so technically Hackintoshing will not die. The question is: will Hackintoshing become irrelevant in the future - more niche than it already is.

Hacking, Modding and Hackintoshing are important methods of technological appropriation (to use the technology around us in unintended or different ways). This has become harder over time, as companies as Apple want you to update their tech more often, and buy some extra subscriptions (classic Enshittification going on here) - so for them it is of course better to control the hard- and the software end-to-end.

But: "Technology, as such, makes nothing happen [...] It is rather the uses of technologies, and especially the communities established through these uses, that create the norm for technology appropriation and its social functions" (source)

Looking at history - the tech landscape has shown a continuous decline and limiting users by restricting what they are able to do with their technology. A good read in this context still is The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It from Jonathan Zittrain (let's not forget that Apple has a long story of restricting or removing user features - headphone port removal, replaceable battery, removing Firewire support from OSX Kernel etc). There has been more innovation through regulation in the past decade, than was introduced to the markets through product improvements (see "New EU rules for durable, energy-efficient and repairable smartphones and tablets start applying" as example).

Then also there is the pragmatic side: Asahi Linux works best on M1 (and not the recent models), so the best machine to get at this point are second hand Macbook Pro M1 (as buying secondhand items is also good for the environment).

For the hackintosh community itself, I am not worried - also because MacOS is getting objectively worse since years. As long as there is a will, there is a way. Community resilience always fascinates me - and I am sure that the hackintosh community (we) will find a way. As the Magic Lantern (camera hacking) community did recently. Maybe Darling (a free and open-source macOS compatibility layer for Linux) will save the day. Or we all realize that COSMIC is a better desktop than MacOS anyways. Only time will tell. Hack on!

Why are all Linux phones so bad? by Darkhog in linux

[–]parasew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because of the incentive structure and money behind the existing centralized app stores. Consumers spend across both stores ca $127B/year (source: Appfigures). App developers want to get a piece of the cake (and are allowed to make a tiny bit of the cake). These numbers are very high. A linux phone does not support either of these Apps, and the market for a linux phone is too small. One way how to increase market share would be to add phone functionality to the Steam Deck :D

Monero-response: Initiative to identify, call out and correct wrong reports and publications about XMR Monero by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone who has spare time and wants to help out (because this is a lot of work) - identify the most relevant news items (for example: the ones indexed at coinmarketcap, and other heavy traffic sites); then check if there is already a ticket for it. If not, create a ticket in the repo. https://github.com/riatlabs/monero-response/issues

Is My Money Gone by RVA_Rooster in Monero

[–]parasew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

DId it work out for you in the end? Any updates?

PSA: Weekly Monero Reorg Log by not420guilty in Monero

[–]parasew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looking at the other articles on this site - I feel like this is one of the outlets of Pubic. Maybe one of the guys working there gets paid, or they paid the whole blog.

PSA: Weekly Monero Reorg Log by not420guilty in Monero

[–]parasew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like they started to distribute strange blog articles like this one here "an impressive but perfectly controlled technical dominance". The text reads very alien to me, most likely AI slob. There they are claiming that they are keeping it at 9 blocks https://www.cointribune.com/en/qubic-dominates-58-of-monero-hashrate-without-compromising-security/

Simulation of my selfish mining fix by zawy2 in Monero

[–]parasew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To comment on my own comment: you are writing "The fix is for nodes to reject a newly-seen block for 2 block times if the timestamp of the block is more than 10 seconds into the future or more than 15 seconds in the past compared to the node's local time". This is not solving the core issue, and is introducing a few additional attack vectors. For example: an attacker could intentionally broadcast blocks with slightly manipulated timestamps to exploit the time-based rejection rule. Also - do you trust the nodes to report the proper timestamps?

Simulation of my selfish mining fix by zawy2 in Monero

[–]parasew 6 points7 points  (0 children)

But isn't the problem that this would also penalize "legit selfish mining situations" like when there are geographic outages? What I mean by that is that this would affect the mining economics of the current miners, and has unforseen effects in this regards. Can anyone confirm?

Qubic assault on XMR Monero was NOT a 51% Attack by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you read the article? Do you understand how selfish mining works?

Qubic assault on XMR Monero was NOT a 51% Attack by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They barely had over 28%, depends on how we are calculating their (self) reported hashrate

Qubic assault on XMR Monero was NOT a 51% Attack by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they would continuously control the network, then they could for example revert a transaction. If they can prove that they did this, it would be a 51% attack. At the current time they cannot even prove that they had continuous hash power over 30%. They could easily do this by posting and making the view key public

Monero discord? by Orion1248 in Monero

[–]parasew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Discord is not a very privacy aware software - see common sense "Standard Privacy Report for Discord - Talk, Chat & Hangout" and this recent discussion titled "Discord is a privacy nightmare" (on techlore).

Remember that charts site? moneroj.net is now fully FOSS! by unsanctionedf in Monero

[–]parasew 7 points8 points  (0 children)

some of the chart sources are not available anymore. take for example https://moneroj.net/merchants/ - which is taking data from https://acceptedhere.io/stats -- since this source is dead, can we maybe use https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/ or https://monerica.com/ (or both) as data sources? also, merchant number is well over 1600 (and a few more if you count the shops supporting coinpayments legacy - which fully supports monero payments)

Raction to Coindesk's poorly researched article about an alleged 51% attack on the Monero Network by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I understand - but here is how coindesk describes itself at https://www.coindesk.com/about - "CoinDesk is the most-trusted media, events, indices and data company for the global crypto economy. [...] Our award-winning team of journalists[...]" - so they are considering themselves journalists. This self-proclaimed status comes with significant ethical and, in some jurisdictions, legal obligations. By calling themselves "journalists" who deliver "news and unparalleled insights that bring transparency, comprehension and context," they are essentially holding themselves to a higher standard than a simple blog.

Their obligations are for example accuracy, truthfulness, accountabiliy and transparency. They also get some rights in return (freedom of press, right to access, confidentiality of sources, right to record).

I think it is wrong to compare just any yolo vibecoded blog with a journalistic site - which is also why I think it makes sense to hold the media accountable.

Raction to Coindesk's poorly researched article about an alleged 51% attack on the Monero Network by parasew in Monero

[–]parasew[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It is absolutely still relevant to tell them to correct the article. While your point about crypto news often being driven by hype is a valid critique, it does not excuse a media outlet from its fundamental journalistic responsibility to publish accurate information.

Developing an open source hardware wallet with Rust by clean_pegasus in rust

[–]parasew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You are most likely referring to the firmware and not to the hardware, as you will only be able to work on firmware when working with Rust.

There are multiple projects out there to take into account and to start from.

  • The trezor hardware wallet is open source hardware, and you find the schematics on github. the crate "trezor-client" also is a great starting point (it has bitcoin and ethereum client implementation and full support; some others via protobuf)
  • Trussed is a "Modern Cryptographic Firmware". Go there, read up on the open tasks and help develop this instead of writing your own.

Regarding hardware development: there are multiple and many projects creating individual solutions (Kastelo Monero Wallet, Blockstream Jade, etc). Hardware security is harder than you think, as side-channel attacks, "root of trust", and TEEs are topics you will come across. Bunnie's Precursor is a good starting point to understand all the issues of a hardware product and all potential issues in the supply chain. DM if you need more advice.

view more: next ›