Meeting summary: Monero Research Lab, 18 May 2022

This is a comprehensive summary, with added reference links, of the MRL meeting¹ from May 18th 2022, 1700 UTC.

Logs

The raw, unedited, full log file for this meeting:

220518-mrl.log (121 lines)

Summary

Note: it is possible that some relevant information may be missing from this summary; read the full log file for the complete, unedited discussion.

• Participants: 10 (UkoeHB², jberman³, mj-xmr⁴, Rucknium⁵, kayabaNerve⁶, merope⁷, hyc⁸, dangerousfreedom⁹, moneromooo¹⁰, jeffro256¹¹)

• (1) Updates

  • (1.1) on the decoy algorithm:

  • mj-xmr has delivered the first working Python implementation of the Gamma Picker algo¹² and plans on forwarding the finalized work to Rucknium by Sunday

  • (1.2) on Seraphis and Jamtis:

  • UkoeHB has implemented a robust input selection solver for Seraphis, pushed multisig PRs forward a bit, updated Jamtis to support self-spends better (e.g. churn) and plans to finally implement the full enote scanning workflow

  • (1.3) on statistical analysis (re: Minexmr fee increase¹³):

  • Rucknium decided to go with Vector Autoregression, essentially treating the fee increase as an exogenous shock and fiat/XMR exchange rate and hashing difficulty as endogenous

  • (1.4) on ring signatures:

  • dangerousfreedom has been learning about and implemented (in Python) Bulletproofs and CLSAG as it is in the C++ code; they are also continuing to scan the blockchain with the LibSodium library

  • (1.5) on optimizations and fixes:

  • jberman has finished up patching relatively trivial tor/i2p daemon connectivity bugs, reviewed/provided guide to rbrunner on completing 8076¹⁴, and is moving back over to reviewing 7760¹⁵

  • rbrunner announced that they will start to work on 8076 shortly

• (2) Reducing the 10 block lock discussion¹⁶

  • UkoeHB and moneromooo agreed that it will be difficult to evaluate whether changing the block limit is a good idea

  • Rucknium mentioned the active attacker scenario in UkoeHB’s MRL issue #95, triggering a discussion about different potential attack vectors

  • moneromooo mentioned Townforge¹⁷ and how players can freely move money between output based and balance based and there is no lock period for balance based transactions

  • no clear consensus was reached regarding this proposal, due to complexity of the issue and the timing of such a change in the context of the current pool situation

Let me know if you find this kind of report helpful.

Feedback, edits always welcome @/about.

-3RA