[vocatus_gate]

He's not wrong, Monero is the only crypto (currently) enforcing fully private transactions by default. In a reddit thread about the AB bust someone pointed out that they weren't able to determine the amount of Monero he had, vs. listing exact amounts of his Eth, zcash, etc.

edit for clarification: I wasn't saying he wouldn't have been caught, only that Monero offers additional benefits beyond some of the other coins and help conceal transaction history.

[celticninja]

I have since seen it listed, so whilst it wasn't immediately known it didn't take long so I don't see how that protects anyone.

[MichaelBurge]

Is that even in the case where the server is seized, or when "Dread Pirate Roberts" leaves his laptop with passwords & encryption keys open when being arrested? Or just by default if the attacker is looking at network activity but doesn't have access to the machine?

[ringaroundthetx]

The Monero daemon does not know what addresses the deposits came from. So even if the server was seized there would not be any information to glean about this.

Withdrawals in the db may have addresses and amounts, although RingCT upgrades make this more and more useless, but even without RingCT the addresses do not correspond to any information in the blockchain. The best case law enforcement would have had, before RingCT is to have seized the database of several exchanges, where users transferred Monero directly between both exchanges and they could see addresses in both databases. In this respect, Monero is much more akin to accounts at financial institutions, where subpoenas are needed to glean any information at all. But further enhanced by retaining the individual control of private wallets that cryptocurrency allows, where financial institutions are an embellishment to temporary user experience problems.

[ryanlol]

Monero doesn't help if the FBI manages to get a copy of your DB with trade histories etc. With BTC-e being hosted on unencrypted servers in Germany, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have been able to get it.

[ringaroundthetx]

What scenario are you describing exactly? What exact problem are you trying to thwart?

A server containing a user's trade histories would show amounts deposited with Monero. But it would not contain the addresses those deposits came from, the Monero daemon doesn't know this.

Similarly, the user's withdrawals wouldn't be to an actual address that they could cross reference. RingCT gives people one time use addresses. But even if you were somehow not using RingCT addresses the Monero user experience had a best practice. Since you cannot follow transactions to that address over the blockchain, you cannot guarantee that it was the real destination at all. Any user should just have two wallets and transfer to one, which would have the address in the exchange's database, and then in wallet B, transfer to wallet C. I believe RingCT removes that marginal inconvenience, as the addresses themselves are one-time (but feel free to correct me here).

[ryanlol]

>What scenario are you describing exactly?

The scenario where an exchange gets shut down by LE, like BTC-e here.

>What exact problem are you trying to thwart?

The problem of exchanges getting shut down by LE, like BTC-e here.

Monero is great, I'm buying more every day, but it doesn't solve the issues exchanges may face.

[ringaroundthetx]

The crux of the BTC-E event seems to be from blockchain analysis, given the information we have. In which case Monero would have stopped this investigation.

In general though, the currency has nothing to do with the exchange's problems? I'm not really sure what you are imagining. Decentralized solutions like EtherDelta and upcoming cross chain solutions are going to be accelerated by this culling.

[ryanlol]

>The crux of the BTC-E event seems to be from blockchain analysis, given the information we have. In which case Monero would have stopped this investigation.

You're wrong.

  shuf btc-e.sql|head -n 100|sprunge
  Using input from a pipe or STDIN redirection...
  http://sprunge.us/JNIP

>In general though, the currency has nothing to do with the exchange's problems?

You're right, that's exactly what I'm saying.