Monero (XMR): A Reasonably Private Digital Currency

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Monero
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What is Monero?

Monero is a private-centric cryptocurrency launched in 2014 to allow direct and anonymous digital payments without being dependent on a central authority.

Installation

Info If you are a user of Debian (or Kicksecure) you should not follow the instructions on this page. Debian (based) users (non-Whonix) should use the Monero GUI Debian Package instructionsarchive.org iconarchive.today icon instead. [1]

Monero GUI (graphical user interface) and Monero CLI (command line interface) is installed by default in Kicksecure. The monero-gui packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon is installed by default. No manual installation required. This goes for Monero programs, monero-wallet-gui, monero-wallet-cli, monerod and less frequently used utilities; see footnote. [2]

Apart from these hints, installation and usage of Monero in Kicksecure does not differ from installing Monero on any Linux based distribution.

Version Numbers

The monero-gui packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon is maintained similar to Debian stable frozen packages. monero-gui package updates will only include updates which are major releases or releases that fix security or network issues. [3] This is to reduce the maintenance load of the package maintainer.

Should the user wish to use a newer version of Monero than available in the package, it is possible to uninstall the monero-gui package. (Uninstallation is optional if Monero is manually installed in home folder. [4]) Since Kicksecure is based on Debian, the user can optionally install Monero using the usual instructions from the Monero website. Recommendations from the safely installing software wiki page such as Verifying Software Signatures applies. See also Install Newer Software Versions.

Uninstallation

To avoid any issues with Kicksecure meta package removal, first install the dummy-dependency package.

Install package(s) dummy-dependency following these instructions

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the systemOnion network Logo.

Click = Copy Copied to clipboard! sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the dummy-dependency package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends optionOnion network Logo is in most cases optional.

Click = Copy Copied to clipboard! sudo apt install --no-install-recommends dummy-dependency

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template ModificationOnion network Logo.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) dummy-dependency is complete.

Remove the monero-gui package.

Click = Copy Copied to clipboard! sudo apt purge monero-gui

Done, removal of the monero-gui package is complete.

Forum Discussion

Donations

After installing Monero, please consider making a donation to Kicksecure to help keep it running for many years to come.

Monero accepted here Donate Monero (XMR) to Kicksecure.

Click = Copy Copied to clipboard! 84ozcSohQfoV6nRgGfaQ8uBvWphXAH8zDTTuotVnJWF1JMNQfvgNFdbEo4ZnJ9hxPMeYfJuUoWGH3MRaXCfbYk8sFFgm4XL

Credits

Gratitude is expressed to the donors of Monero who funded the proposal Monero Debian Package Repository for 2 yearsarchive.org iconarchive.today icon, to @rehrararchive.org iconarchive.today icon for helping the creator of the package (Kicksecure developer Patrick Schleizer) with writing the proposal, everyone else who supported the proposal, and the community of Monero developers and users at large for creating Monero. [5]

Major updates will be posted here: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/merge_requests/130archive.org iconarchive.today icon

Development blog: https://forums.whonix.org/t/monero-and-whonix-sitting-in-a-tree/5949archive.org iconarchive.today icon

Appendix

Monero Architecture

Monero works by having contributors host large files which are equivalent to a public ledger. Any time someone broadcasts a transaction, every ledger maintainer updates their copy of the ledger and ensures no cheating or fraud has occurred. As with most cryptocurrencies, transactions are sent to Public Addresses which are derived from personally created private keys.

Since transactions could otherwise be traced by watching which addresses are sending to each-other, Monero uses a Diffie-Hellman key exchange using the transaction information on the sender's side and the public address on the receiver's end of a transaction to encrypt the recipients address on the ledger. To protect the sender, spending Monero is equivalent to forwarding the output of the previous transaction, so a users address is never stored on the ledger at all - this technique is called Stealth Addressing.

Since this solution is imperfect, and allows EABE attacks and is dependent on ECC for the key exchange, Monero uses a second layer of anonymity called Ring Signatures. When signing a transaction and broadcasting it to the network, Ring Signatures take signers from previous transactions and forge a new signature with Ring Size = N, where you cannot tell which entity in the group N actually authorized a transaction. This further obfuscates the blockchain and reduces the available attack vectors on the cryptocurrency as a whole, as well as introduces several zero knowledge proofs which prevent absolute analysis of the ledger.

Ring Signatures combined with Stealth Addressing prevent many attack vectors, but since new transactions are forwarded outputs from previous ones you can still perform analysis by viewing the amounts spent on-chain. To address this potential issue, a solution called RingCT was introduced which obfuscates the amount spent in a transaction.

Further attack vectors including cross-referencing an address posted in multiple places and IP leaks when connecting to the network are further developments sought out by the Monero community. These potential issues are addressed with Subaddresses and Kovri respectively.

Footnotes

The former Manual Monero Instructions have been archived for historic reasons.

  1. ↑
  2. ↑
    • monero-blockchain-ancestry
    • monero-blockchain-usage
    • monero-blockchain-mark-spent-outputs
    • monero-blockchain-export
    • monero-blockchain-import
    • monero-wallet-gui
    • monero-blockchain-depth
    • monero-blockchain-prune
    • monero-wallet-cli
    • monerod
    • monero-blockchain-stats
    • monero-blockchain-prune-known-spent-data
    • monero-gen-ssl-cert
    • monero-wallet-rpc
    • monero-gen-trusted-multisig
    The list is also here: https://gitlab.com/Whonix/monero-gui/tree/master/usr/binarchive.org iconarchive.today icon
  3. ↑ Such as fixes required if the Monero network is under denial of service (DOS) attacks.
  4. ↑ A manually installed Monero won't interfere with the monero-gui package. That is, unless the user installs Monero to folder /usr/bin. (Files in that folder would be replaced when the monero-gui package gets updated. However, the Monero start menu entry might be confusing since the start menu entry would start Monero from the monero-gui package (from folder /usr/bin), and not the manually installed Monero.
  5. ↑
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