Topic: About BitCoin Anonymity (Read 807 times)

And even if I tell you a public key, no one can prove that it is mine, without getting the private key behind it. (Meaning, to sign with it.) For all you know, the addresses in my sig are not mine but belong to someone else.

One way to prove that the key is mine, is to show a transaction where you have some funds sent from my key to your key, then prove it by signing a message (or show that you can spend the output.)

If I simply transfer my coins to another address first, before the coins eventually get to you, you can't prove anything.

Finally, if I have my coins mixed with the many free and for free services available, or even if I do some coin control, or play some Satoshi Dice... the coin trail gets really confusing or impossible to trace.

Haha, okay.

Not sure if you found your answer but I found mine!  Good luck.

Thank you Dabs.  I was going to try and cut all the jibber-jabber down with two words.

1. Pseudonymous.
2. Plausible Deniability

Sorry that's 3 words but you know what i mean. 

And i skipped the end of dude's long post to the question "what bitcoin forum is best"...  WTF.  What you get depends on what you give, and long winded conspiratorial wind won't get much in my book.  The world is full of conspiracy, but it's more in the systemic structures and less in the individuals.

Wait forget I said that last bit.  I really don't want to discuss the illuminati here, let's talk bitcoins!  (huzzah)

No one can prove that your day2day wallet is some how linked to your savings wallet. You can claim that it's not yours.

Use HotspotShield or Tor to hide your IP address if you want to maintain anonymity.

Bitcoins only store transactions linked to public keys.  Someone can only find you if they track the use of your public key and your IP address or any info associated with the public key.  It's why it's always good to use a new public key on a frequent basis.  A lot of transactions with small amounts get drowned in the noise.  Large transactions can raise suspicion.

Howdy yall, this is my first post to bitcointalk.org, though I have thousands of posts on "conspiracy sites" like ATS, GLP, LOP...  I guess we have to post and prove 'realness' before we can post to the other forums, so first question is this:  Do replies count toward establishing realness and gaining more privileges on the forum?  Or must I post _threads_ to gain credibility?  I tend to see threads as being wasteful, my MO is to reply more than I post new threads, so can replies get me cred on the forum?

I thought I would comment on the response above by DannyHamilton.  Both to explain further, but also to allow him and others to critique my knowledge and process...

1: I use bitinstant.com with a proxy name/addy/ph # and deposit cash to bitinstant through blockchain.info, which serves as my "savings wallet", along the lines of this thread.  ...For the newbies, its important to understand that each "wallet" whether having 1000 bitcoins or 1 bitcoin, is a private pair encrypted key.  This means that by using blockchain.info, [read more at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BlockChain.info ] it is my password on there, that's protecting the private key.  Just like when you have cash money, you will spend a moment thinking about which pocket you put it in, because pickpockets are real threats.  Similiarly, its important to know that each 'wallet' which holds bitcoins, can be pickpocketed in IP terms.

2: So blockchain > bitinstant (proxy name used) provides a certain bit of anonymity.  The overarching point here is this:  Cash is fully anonymous, and this is what the fascist money issuing power, wishes to remove.  It is not a shock, that they are now forcing gold and silver sellers to gather ID data on anyone who sells gold or silver. --If you can't see this as encroaching fascism, I can't help you.  So yes, having to use a proxy ID for my bitinstant transaction (CASH > bitcoins) might seem kinda sketchy, but the nature of tyrany is that is turns everyone into a "criminal", and thats all the more reason to fight back, and try to retain some freedom to privacy, which cash used to provide, but with cash being destroyed (by inflationary printing and debt-as-money), this is how we have to roll.

3: Okay so then what happens, after say an hour or so, is that I get bitcoins in my blockchain.info "savings" wallet.  Now of course I don't have a lot of bitcoins there, because its a web based service, my coins can be stolen anytime.  There is a measure of trust, which can be compared to the trust people USED TO HAVE, for banks.  That is to say, blockchain.info and other wallet services, are perhaps, more trustworthy than bankers.  I think that this is true, but yes, it is a risk on my part.  For example, I don't keep more than 1000 USD of bitcoin in my blockchain account/wallet.

4: Okay so then what do I do when I want to buy something, or spend a bitcoin?  Well, as mentioned, you have to do this in such a way as to make the fascists, struggle, to track your use of bitcoins.  Again, if you do not understand tyranny, I can't really help you.  Go to a conspiracy forum and look for my posts.  But the point is that we use "spending wallets", as mentioned in this thread.  Example would be instawallet.org [ https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Instawallet ] which works like this:  The URL is the private key portion --So you must never tell or reveal your instawallet.org URL, this means you can't let your IP traffic be sniffed or intercepted...  Therefore the next point is very important:

5: USE A VPN FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO.  There are a variety of IP based VPNs, again, its a trust relationship, these VPNs could steal your bitcoins if they decide to go bad.  If you are using wireless without a VPN, you are essentially wasting your time with bitcoin, you will eventually be robbed, because its just too easy.

6: So then when you get an instawallet.org spending wallet for your transaction (as mentioned, use a different spending wallet each time), you will see the hash ID for that wallet.  I then go into my wallet on blockchain.info and send X # of bitcoins to my spending wallet, in the amount I intend to spend.   ...And so yes, this sending of coins, does establish the history of those bitcoins, but there isn't really any way for the system to know that I hold wallet A (since I used a proxy name) AND wallet B (which requires no name)...  So psuedonymous is a good term.  Anonymity isn't possible when for example, each dollar bill has a serial number.  If each seller was required to record the serial # of the bills they recieve, well, then the central tyranny authority would know that SOMEBODY spent bill serial D72153081 ONE DOLLAR, at Safeway Market, at 12:15pm on Thursday March 3rd, 2012...  See?  Then all they'd have to do is call up the security cameras for that Safeway, and they'd see you at that time, and boom, your cash is not anonymous...  Fighting tyranny, relies upon you knowing how to defeat tyranny.  Since each serial # of the bills is not yet recorded (but soon will be), you THINK you have anonymous cash function, but you can see the analogy I am describing.

7: Okay so then once I have my bitcoins in an anonymous webbased 'spending wallet' (instawallet.org is just one of these, but is at this time one of the more 'trusted' meaning used), then I might perform a further transaction to get those bitcoins from my spending wallet, to let's say, an account at say Amazon.com or some website that accepts bitcoin for purchases.   ...This is where the post above from Danny Hamilton is key:


So, this is where the MERCHANT, would be trusted to use a coin tumbler, Danny, am I right?  Please clarify.

So let's say that Amazon.com claims that they want to protect your privacy (absurd of course because they are the very nexus of tyranny, and will surely not do so), then amazon.com could use a tumbler process, where coins deposited from my instawallet hash, into amazon.com, and then they would "tumble" all their hashes, and provide me a non-traceable hash that connects to my amazon.com account where, my final destination (for spending) of bitcoins, exists.  I would then 'spend' the coins, and my product would be shipped to me.

The key here at the end, is that there are several TRUST POINTS along the way.  blockchain.info, instawallet.org, and amazon.com are all potentially able to steal my coins, or worse, to LIE to me, about the security they are giving.  Amazon.com as I said, will never volunteer to tumble their coins, since they get kickbacks from the tyrants, but my point is that even if they DO say that, they will probably lie about that, to trick people.

In closing, sorry for the long winded reply, but I am trying to decide which bitcoin forum is best and this is the first one I have contributed to.  I wanted to type all this out to let the experts (not me) point out the weakness or correctness of my understanding.  Resistance to tyranny, is righteous.  Bitcoin, for that simple reason, is very useful, but it does give 'tech pickpockets' several chances to take your coins.  Others can flesh out this point, but it is key.  Perhaps its okay for the experts if n00bs adopt bitcoin and get them stolen.  I do not agree with that, hence, this post.

True.  I'm not sure where you heard that bitcoin is anonymous, but it seems whomever told you this was mistaken.  Bitcoin is not anonymous by default.  It requires a significant effort to maintain true anonymity with bitcoin.  Bitcoin does provide the ability to maintain anonymity if you make the effort to use it in an anonymous way.

Here are a few things to consider if you are looking for complete anonymity:

• You should use a separate bitcoin address for every transaction.  Do not ever re-use a bitcoin address to receive bitcoins.
• Use a wallet program that allows you coin-control so you can control which addresses become linked together in inputs and can control how much of the balance that you control can be seen by someone that you send bitcoins to.
• Find/use a reliable mixing service that severs the connection between your receiving addresses and the final storage address to your satisfaction
• Acquire your bitcoins in a completely anonymous way (example: dead-drop)

If I have transfer bitcoins from my "saving" wallet to my "day2day" wallet and I pay someone using the "day2day" wallet then he can trace it back to my "saving" wallet! 2 hops back on the blockchain and he knows how much I have, and if I have multiple "saving" wallets and multiple "day2day" wallets and I transfer money from here to there then still that guy can trace his way back to the 'big' wallet and know how much money I have. This is impossible if I spend dollars.

GotBitCoins..

True..  I was going to get into that but my post was already getting long.  Two points on that come to mind though.

1.  As the copyright industry has learned, IP numbers aren't a reliable proof of identity. Then if you make part of your wifi public, then it becomes impossible.
2.  If still worried, don't trade BTC from an IP you own (like home DSL or tethered mobile).  Go to a cafe, use proxies, borrow your neighbors wifi, do it from work, sit in the parking lot of a hotel, etc..  Whatever floats your boat.

The reason it is not anonymous is because IP addresses are traceable back to users. There have been studies on this.

Bitcoin, while private, is not anonymous by default.

Well, er...  Let's go down the rabbit hole a short distance.   

Bitcoin operates on a very (very) different principle than say email - where you have one address you share with everyone.  In the end, Bitcoin is just a trustworthy public ledger system which says how much value each private key address owns and is thus able to spend.  It must be public by it's nature so that everyone can check that the chain is trustworthy and not hacked.

The privacy comes with how you use the system.  Bitcoin is a "Pseudonomous" system which means that while anyone who knows an address can calculate its balance (remember it MUST be able to do this so that you can spend that balance) they can not easily tie that wallet address to you as a person if you take simple precautions.  Some folks don't care, and some are ultra paranoid - you pick your own sweet spot.

To do this, we are encouraged to have multiple "wallets" or addresses (private keys if you're technical).  To keep your "savings" wallet balance private for example, just don't use it for third party transactions.  For example, before spending money, first transfer some value to a "pocket" wallet that emulates what cash you'd feel safe walking down the street with.  Use this with the 3rd party you are receiving or sending to and you've made it that much harder to work back to what funds you posses.  Later delete the pocket wallet and make a new one if you're ultra paranoid.  Make as many of these as you want.  Later sweep funds into your secret savings wallet and store offline or whatever your paranoia level suggests.  (See Bitcoin Armory - good software and great tips.)  Generating these public key wallet addresses is free and the system doesn't care much how many there are.  (It is a performance factor if you get into the math.)  Just be careful you don't delete an address that someone later sends money to - the funds will be lost forever in the network with nobody able to spend them.

So in the end linking the balance back to you as a person depends on if you've done anything that can be linked.  The Bitcoin network doesn't store IP addresses, but someone monitoring your traffic could figure it out.  And of course if your computer has been captured and turned into a Bot net zombie, then kiss your funds goodbye.

And remember - all banking is only Pseudonomous.  Your savings bank will not hesitate to tell the police how much money you have if they ask, and they can even see how much cash you have withdrawn.  If you get really deep into money theory you'll find that there must be a public aspect to money to achieve any level of trust.  The public must agree that sea-shells are a good medium of exchange if they accept them as money right?

So be wise and have fun. 

Hi,

I am reading that BitCoin allows anonymity...

If I pay someone 2$ then he gets my 2$ and he doesnt' know how much I have.
If I pay someone 2 BTC then he can go into blockchain.info and trace the transaction back to my wallet from there he can see how much money I have in that wallet and if it's not my main wallet then he can trace back to my big 'saving' wallet.

Where's the anonymity exactly?

GotBitCoins.