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Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 16:30:01 +0100
Message-ID: <CANEZrP1SfJ1oybLB7rUGERS7_MxQA4UtB1d0SOQ2mUi8-XwU=Q@mail.gmail.com>
From: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
To: Alan Reiner <etotheipi@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Chain dust mitigation: Demurrage based
 Chain Vacuuming
Precedence: list

> Perhaps it could be improved by cleaning up dust from any address by default
> (not just ones already included in the tx), with the option for the user to
> disable that behavior.  After all, anonymity was never a core feature of the
> network

It's cool that Armory already does this. I never had time to implement
good coin selection for bitcoinj :(

Just a couple of points: as this is primarily a side effect of
SatoshiDice, and a successful payment protocol will stop them doing
it, code put in place to do temporary cleanup now probably won't
seriously affect peoples privacy over the long term. Most people
aren't going to end up with lots of tiny outputs.

Second thing, it's best to carefully separate "anonymity" from
"privacy". Privacy is supposed to be a feature of the system (it says
so in Satoshis paper) because people demand it. If I loan a tenner to
my friend and he is able to find out what I earned last month, then
that trade was neither anonymous nor private. In this case I want
privacy but anonymity isn't useful. Mixing up anonymity with privacy
is not only a public relations problem, but can lead to confusion from
users when they, eg, try and buy Bitcoins from an exchange and are
asked to provide ID proofs.