Topic: Blockchain Analytics is More of an Art Than Science - page 3. (Read 1362 times)

i do get your points. but using context of available rules, policy and just common sense.. GOVERNMENT are not pro-active in monitoring. politicians dont sit at computers watching their constituents/voters..
yes PRIVATE BUSINESSES monitor their customers and report on their customers when certain suspicions are raised. but its only then that you will get investigated by "government".. this is the governments 'if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear' because their policy is if your not doing anything suspicious you wont become a file that sits on their desk, and they only care abut the files that land on their desk that have met some standard of suspicion to even arrive on their desk

even in china the government is not watching everyone. they too set policy for private business to react to their customers and then if certain thresholds are met report that to the government. i laugh at people that scream that china is more of a surveillance state than say UK/US

heres a fun fact for you about your normal real life social privacy. if you are falsely claiming social security/disability/unemployment funds whilst able to work.. you are more likely to get spotted and reported by a disgruntled neighbour, than by government staking out your house randomly.
yep if you are driving a nice car and a large screen TV is seen through your window and you are walking around your front yard doing gardening, without signs of medical aids. but tell your neighbour you dont work because you claim disability. it would be your neighbour you should fear more than the government

privacy fear is not about the government.. but about people and businesses you interact with

if you look at how many employees the UK HMRC and US IRS employ you would learn quick, due to maths they do not have the time to live monitor everyone 24/7

the US IRS have under 100k employees meaning 1 employee per 2500 working age citizens. meaning (excluding weekends and vacation time) they are if every employee was doing the same job would be processing 10 citizens a day per employee or one citizen per year in 50 minutes per employee

yet these under 100k are not doing the same job. there is actually under 3k 'criminal investigators' meaning beyond the majority automatic rubber stamping claims. they are only looking in detail to well under 1% of citizens (the reported citizens)

a majority of the 100k staff are just call centre staff and admin/management. the amount of investigators and time to actually watch citizens is super small

so all im saying is if you do not want to become one of those special suspicious files that land on the desk of a government investigator. learn the policies they use to weed out certain people. such as the FACT that mixers and AEC WILL get you flagged by private businesses receiving such funds.
thus find a different tool utility not listed as 'mixer' 'aec' to avoid getting reported

Debt is tax free, that's a good point. Overall, when I say rules are written for elites I mean, the fine is still $50 (for example) for poor guy and for a billionaire. When you are employed you can't avoid taxes while it's easier for your employee to avoid it by moving business in offshores or Ireland is a good example. Why do these offshores exist? For rich people to not pay high taxes. Definitely you can open your business in offshores but here we talk about average citizen who depends on paycheck.

I know the difference but my point is, let's say Bitcoin is my only source of income, I have a bitcoin business. The government only cares when I receive money in my bank account and sends me a letter to pay taxes but when I am left without source of money, they don't knock on my door and ask: Hey Mister, you have no income, how do you manage to feed yourself and your family, how can we help you? So, if they don't care about me and my family, then I think it's none of their business how I earn money. It's also ridiculous when self-employeed person has to pay taxes.

I get your point and I agree with you on that and from my previous post you would probably understand that if you intend to become more than average Joe, you have to worry about that. If you are an average Joe who lives on paycheck or simply, doesn't have big dreams, then definitely this Joe won't be watched but it's not like you are completely out of their radar, I am genuinely 100% sure that absolutely everyone is watched randomly. I genuinely believe that algorithms of Google, Facebook and popular platforms save your certain messages when you mention this or that word. The fact is, if you do nothing wrong, no one will catch you.
I get your point and not 100% but somewhere 80%, I agree with you. I hope you got my point too

I can't talk about blackhat (I don't know him and I rarely notice his posts) and o_e_l_e_o but one thing that I can say for sure is that o_e_l_e_o is a treasure of this forum, this man is very educated, helpful and I believe his intend is to really increase the awareness of the importance of privacy. If you check his posts, you'll understand that he doesn't promote mixers but privacy overall.

That's right! I agree with you but virtual world gives you slightly different reality, sometimes you can hide without saying that you are going to hide.

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Overall, I like your logic here and I appreciate your different opinion! Thanks!

rules are not made just for elites.. its just words on paper. words do not care what age or income someone has.. its just that elites bother to educate themselves to learn the rules to find the loopholes.. you can too just by doing the research
for instance many people should know that loans are a tax free receipt of funds. so make your pseudonymous self give your certified self a personal loan. thus the income your certified self gets is tax free(write yourself a contract as proof of loan). other things like create a trust/corporate entity.. do as the elites do. its not rocket science. it just takes learning how they do it


first of all learn the difference between tax avoidance vs tax evasion.. it will change the results of who does or does not knock at your door

there is no default ongoing relationship.. again you assume you are being watched all the time.. reality is your not. however if someone makes a report against you.. then the monitoring relationship begins..
its the same with child social services. government dont watch kids all day.. but as soon as a report is made. then hell starts

also when it comes to money. for centuries money has been the control of banks/governments so laws have always been about banks/governments able to view/report/audit money.. money for centuries has never been private. auditors, taxmen, kings and government have always had rules that govern its use and seizures and control of circulation..

bitcoin is a new paradigm.. which from 2009-2013 escaped the draconian model of money as it was deemed private property.. however in 2014 it was declared by law as currency so joined the same jurisdiction of money rules.. i personally would prefer bitcoin to be privately tradable property rather than currency.. but those "mainstreamers" want it to be currency. so now you need to know the currency rules that predate bitcoin



silly thing is.. people like blackhat not only advertise using mixers but he also shows guides of how mixers work, where it reveals the amounts the coins are split into and gives examples.. thus making it very easy for any analyst to then use his guides to then see other examples of others using it to then find the pattern.

most mixers are too obvious. and thats what oeleo and blackhat cry about.. they dont like that mixers are not just obvious. but also suspicious behavior listed and that their lax attempts of mixing get spotted so obviously. they cry that the law should not forbid suspicious activity rather then realise they should not use something so obviously lame/lazy. if something is so easily spotted as suspicious.. then your not doing your job right of being private

its like walking down a street but not wanting to be seen. but doing so by obviously and acutely jumping behind bushes and cars.. which makes people notice you more as being weird, out of place.. you know.. stupid tactics.. there are other ways to not get noticed. especially not promote that you want to hide

We cannot prove nor verify any of Chainalysis's claims because their code and methods are complete black box.

Imagine the reputation Chainalysis would get if this went in their favor here. Let experts review their code, have their code independently validated, and then have their results form a central piece of evidence in such a high profile court case. They would be the only blockchain analysis company out there who could claim these accolades, and as a result would increase their customer base as well as being able to increase their prices. It's a perfect situation for them. All they have to do is let a few experts audit their code.

So why won't they let anyone look at their code? The potential upside for them is tremendous. It's almost like they know that this won't happen and instead their code will be torn to shreds and shown up for the absolute nonsense it is. What more can you expect from a company whose head of investigations doesn't know what a segwit address is or know the difference between bits and bytes.

There isn't room for a middle ground? Seems like its pretty easy to prove that at least some of it is correct. People perform blockchain analysis on this forum all the time, mainly for the sake of connecting alt accounts or exposing cheaters/liars. And they aren't government-funded professionals... Just people capable of pointing out that Address A is linked to Address B through Transaction C.

Having said that, I don't think that analysis being used to condemn individuals and potentially take away their freedoms should be so complicated that they can't be independently replicated to produce the same conclusions.

Why do these loopholes exist? They are for rich people to don't pay taxes and earn as much as possible while your average worker joe will get fucked if doesn't pay it. Offshores, loopholes and so on were created for elites and you tell me that it's better to give these elites even more control on us?

Don't pay taxes and you'll see how they'll knock on your door soon. Or probably lose your job and when you'll be left without income, you'll see that government isn't interested in you. It's like, if you have income, you should pay me but if you don't have income, you shouldn't beg me for money, just fuck off.
So, when there is this kind of relationship between government and people, I think it's a good reason to protect your privacy as much as you can. If it's none of their business how I survive when I'm left without a job, then it's none of their business how I spend my money. And the main reason why I don't want others to know how I spend my money is simple: I don't support big chain businesses and I don't want to improve and expand their business by making them calculate what I buy, when I buy and so on.

As far as I understand, you are saying that if you want to stay anonymous, you have to hide that you are trying to be anonymous, right? That's where I agree with you but do transactions received from mixer look unnatural? If mixer does its job really well, then I think it's not a problem but I would lean on the side of manual coinjoin.

if blackhat was really that concerned. he would have learned by now(after being told many times) that mixers are in regulators list of suspicious activity that does generate investigation reports. and so to avoid being investigated, he would try to move away from such things

but instead he advertises, promotes and admits to using them..(facepalm)

with so many other transfer obfuscation methods that are possible AND not listed in relations for further investigation. i do find it strange how he does not spend as much time looking at those, as he does promoting things that will get people investigated

oh wait, its not strange. he doesnt care about privacy, he cares about profiting from his promotions, and these regulations are harming his profits due to smarter people not using the things he promotes, thus he gets less income from those services.. now it all makes sense. he is crying that regulations are impacting his income. its never been about privacy. but profit

tip: (as uber done it to evade taxi cab regulations): offer the same service as whats regulated. just dont use the word listed in regulation.
pro-tip: look for other features, tools and utility that give the same end result without being the thing listed in regulation


when there is a rule that is publicly available that a police officer will stand at mainstreet NY between 8am-11am on a tuesday
and then there is a so called "privacy guy" crying that he does not want police to see him, but then states publicly that he intends to purposefully go to that same mainstreet specifically and only on a tuesday between 8am-11am... he only has himself to blame for being spotted

Mixers are propaganda. We've heard that; this board never stops entertaining me. I'm genuinely curious how you interpreted mixing coins as exploiting anything at all. Do you mind providing a little more context?

Pardon, but what the actual fuck? What the hell is your point? Do you actually think they don't have much data to put people behind the bars? And are you using my absence from jail as a basis to argue their lack of concern for me? What kind of twisted reasoning is this...

But depending on your needs, you could avoid small block size problem by utilizing merkle tree and only store top/parent hash. Peter Todd did that on Internet Archive data[1]. Otherwise if you don't mind altcoin which have bigger block size and have sufficient skill/time, you could fork opentimestamps[2] to support certain altcoin.

[1] https://petertodd.org/2017/carbon-dating-the-internet-archive-with-opentimestamps
[2] https://github.com/opentimestamps/opentimestamps-client

a. thanks to bitcoin i retired young
b. i have run businesses, been and am successful, live a luxury life without fear/worry
c. if you actually research things like regulations and laws and rules. you learn the loopholes and exceptions to evade their crap.. its how i dont need to worry. because i actually do research. i dont just fear the unknown



im against government. but i dont just make up stories in my head. i research and look at what they are capable of and what they do.. most politicians care more about playing golf than what some pseudonymous bitcoin user is upto

politicians do have their own business dealing, where it does sway their votes. but you have to look 5 steps deeper and do your research to see what affects them and what regulations they create then affect others

research is key, not fantasy fear stories of the unknown induced by drug paranoia

Are you dead serious? You say that state should control everything it keys should be provided only to courts when it's necessary but what gives you a confidence that absolutely everyone will follow that orders? Why and how are you so sure? You only see one side of medal and completely ignore the existence of the second side, plus, you absolutely speak from the perspective of perfect world and perfect people and completely ignore the evil nature of humanity and cruelty of this world.

When state monitors everything, you know what happens? Have you heard about North Korea? That's what happens when state controls everything. When you control everything, you have the power to do things the way you want, to manage life of millions the way you want and believe me, this power changes absolutely everyone, the power brings the chemical reactions in your brain that you can't stop from happening. Absolutely everyone abuses power, if one person doesn't abuse power, there are hundreds who want to and will abuse the power and the situation then becomes like, if you want to stay in the government, you have to abuse power to benefit higher ups and yourself, otherwise you will be changed by the one who is willing to abuse the power. Just ask yourself, why doesn't anarchy work? Because humans are social, they always form groups and power changes everything. Power is like a cocaine and you can't bring me a single person who doesn't get high on that.

How do you want to live, only work and get salary? To be always employeed? Or do you wish to do more? Create business, become successful? When you try to step up in your life, then every data about you gets checked and then governments try to blackmail you and prevent you from entering into higher league.

I completely agree with o_e_l_e_o, now what about me? Am I promoting mixer?
Why do you think that when governments control everything, they also abuse everything? Do you really think that these politicians are cutest and warmest creatures on earth? Do you really believe that these politicians live on paycheck and aren't behind big businesses and corporations? Do you really think that rich people only run businesses and have zero influence on the politics of countries? Do you really think people who have control and influence are such an innocent that they want to control everything just only to get rid of criminals?
You know, in order for police to exist, crime is necessary. They want crime, they love crime and they are behind the crime (not actually employed people, I mean big guys).

stop taking drugs, no one thinks your important enough to watch you 24/7

instead of letting your drug habit control your mind. let research control it. realise one important thing. there are not enough politicians with IT skills to watch everyone. your target and fear should be pointing towards private businesses that report suspect actions. and then look into what is considered a suspect action. and then look for ways to avoid the suspect actions list so that you are not highlighted as worthy of being watched 24/7

tip: mixers are on the suspect list.
tip: you idolising and using mixer will get you flagged
tip: there are other ways to obfuscate value transfer without the use of "mixers"/AEC(anonymity enhanced currency)

tip: finance has ALWAYS(even before you were born) had regulations that made currency non private data in regards to the financial industry. the downside of bitcoin being regarded as currency(2014+) instead of private property(2009-2013) has brought crypto into the remit of those same jurisdictions, so research those regulations and realise whats included and not included

...yes? Did you miss the slogan "Big Brother is watching you"? Did you miss the Thought Police? How do you propose The Party manages to prohibit specific books, specific speech, and specific thought, if it isn't conducting mass surveillance? Your assertion that "the state should be able to monitor everything" is the first step on the road to 1984.

Because I've committed no crimes. Which is all the more reason the state has no right to surveil every aspect of my life.

People taking out their phones to film a specific event is completely different to blanket mass surveillance at all times. And no, as I've shared previously in this thread, there is zero evidence that mass surveillance prevents crimes, and even the NSA admit that.

We don't. But either you accept that blockchain analysis is bullshit and therefore all their claims should be completely dismissed and ignored, or you believe they are completely accurate in which case you must also accept that the vast majority of mixer use is perfectly legitimate, as they themselves claim.

That's a first step , but with blocksize of 1MB and such fees not much can be created on BTC in massive scale .

Is that what you got from reading the book? Seems that i got different things from it . In 1984 Orwell talks about the power of propaganda (something like what we see in bitcointalk that mixers are a tool to enhance privacy ) and the power to change history at will . He talks about the power a party gained by prohibiting books and writings and how the corruption of language takes away from society the right thinking. He talks about the destruction of the family institution . If you haven't read it, I would recommend it , so that you can escape from the fairy tale of surveillance promoted by the leftist's camp.
If you think of it he describes Stalin's state at that time perfectly .

If chainanalysis is a scam service how do we know this is true ? Maybe they got the results totally wrong .

Let's see one more example about why cameras shouldn't exist everywhere:

https://twitter.com/cosminDZS/status/1704544700710203739

Do you think the woke puppets/brainwashed fanatics (like Trudeau) won't exploit this technological infrastructure to impose fines (via CBDC + social credit score) on "homophobic" people (parents who want zero LGBT indoctrination in schools)?

You guys have zero idea of what's coming next... you're in for a RUDE awakening!

I lose faith in humanity when I see Bitcoiners (!!!) embracing state authoritarians.

The state is not your friend. NOBODY is your friend. Including pink-washed ESG corporations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/china-surveillance-technology.html

So you want the West to become like China... sounds awfully similar to Klaus Schwab's vision:

https://blog.independent.org/2022/12/01/klaus-schwab-china/

I guess you could have literally ZERO rape cases if the state installed cameras everywhere (including your own bedroom/bathroom). Would you agree with that? Cameras recording couples having consensual sex.

Just because I don't want cameras everywhere, doesn't mean I'm a potential rapist/criminal, nor do I condone rape.

I'd rather have a non-ideal society where a small percentage of rapists exist, rather than a sterilized society/dystopia where zero rapists exist, but I'm forced to accept cameras everywhere intruding my own privacy.

Wishing to have zero crimes is like wishing to have zero earthquakes. I'm sorry, but it's natural phenomenon, despite being unpleasant for anyone experiencing it.

Only fascists have these grand delusions of bringing "Paradise" to earth. I don't mind China, because they don't claim to be "democratic", but I do mind the "democratic" West becoming a China totalitarian regime copycat.

Seems awfully familiar to "Precrime": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/

Cameras everywhere + AI usage can definitely make this sci-fi dystopia a reality and you know it very well.

People should realize the repercussions before suggesting these things.

You think the state (legalized criminals) only cares about illegal criminals, but in reality they care about controlling everyone, including innocent citizens.

It seems the COVID lockdowns/vaccine mandates have taught you nothing... well, you should wait for CO2 mandates, because apparently climate change is caused by human beings eating red meat and driving their petrol cars.

I never understood why guys like you got into Bitcoin into the first place. You should embrace CBDC, because it's going to tackle "criminals" (i.e. people refusing to eat ze bugs).

Sorry, but I don't believe in good intentions from anyone. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody (not even me) should have that much power over citizens.

This whole "the state cares about its citizens, just like your father/mom does" mantra has gone way too far IMHO. Dictators always claim to care, but their actions say otherwise.

There will never be an ideal state with zero hidden agendas.

blackhat and o_e_l_e_o are on a drug induced paranoia plot.
funny thing is although there is alot of data unencrypted available from multiples sources of the internet.. the thing they dont realise is that the "government" are not watching them as much as they think

if they tried to do some sane research when sober they would realise the government are not actively surveilling everyone all the time. instead they are reactive to reports and then look into information they can find based on received reports.

from what i can easily tell from blackhat and oeleo is that they dont actually care about privacy. instead they care about scamming people into using services they are affiliated with for their own profit/gain.

there are actual ways to move value without taint. but these guys only adore advertising mixers without even understanding that regulators have already ruled that mixing is a subject of suspicion which WILL get people flagged if people use mixers.. thus defeating the point of using one

yep thats right by using a mixer, your coins trigger a suspicion flag that causes services to then monitor those coins and generates a report which would cause governments to look at available data.. thus as i just said defeats the point of mixers

if blackhat/oeleo cared about actual privacy instead of these sham services they promote, they would care more about other services, features, tools not listed as suspicious by regulators. thus avoid having flags thus avoid reports thus avoid active surveillance.. but they would have to be sober to think to be able to do that first

in short. governments are not watching everyone.. instead they get reports based on certain things being used which triggers active surveilance. and yep as i told them many many times mixers are on that list.. so advice to other people if you dont want to end up on a report that triggers active monitoring.. dont use a mixer.. find another tool

I can't disagree more. This is a crazy position. Imaging wanting to live in 1984!?

Right, because there has never once been a single case of data being leaked, hacked, or used inappropriately? The fact is if this data is gathered, it will be used against you, regardless of whether you have committed any crimes.

Videos from businesses and individuals, not from government surveillance cameras.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/after-tragedy-boston-more-government-surveillance-not-answer

They have a responsibility to monitor but they also have a responsibility to act on the data they receive to make arrests, lawsuits, and so on. We don't want NSA-types that don't take any action with info they receive about illegal stuff, except for continue to monitor. At least in the US, the agencies most actively involved in investigating crypto-crime are the FBI, IRS, and DEA.

Right now the only time you can get the feds to investigate surveillance is when millions of dollars worth of coins that are linked to illegal dark web operations are moving around.

If someone scams a bunch of people, or hacks a business and steals money, then usually, the victims are out of luck because these cases are not important enough to feds (usually because of a low budget)...

Chain analysis companies not revealing the manners which they deem coins as "tainted", being to protect their source code and techniques from market competition is a cheap excuse. The real reason is that it removes their authority on labeling coins as "tainted". If CA company were to ever announce that after 20 transactions, coins coming from an illicit activity are now deemed "clean", then everyone sending 20 transactions to themselves would be enough to completely erase taint from Bitcoin.

You do know that freedom to access standard cryptography is the definition of "the state cannot monitor everything", right? If you think the state should be able to monitor everything, then cryptography should be made illegal for public use by tomorrow morning.