Topic: [Guide] Use Bitcointalk (more) privately - page 3. (Read 630 times)

Ok, let me get this straight, you guys are unhappy that a criminal was busted and you lost your few bucks of an income and now are trying to help future criminals on how to stay under the radar?
I mean who gives a fack about your identity if you are not Satoshi or a criminal/ financial terrorist/ scammer?
You know what got to me? Saying ""motivated by recent events" and a straight forward list of guidance to stay anonymous in order to conduct criminal activity and pay a few bucks to a few shills so that they could defend your nefarious shenanigans for years"".
And the fact that someone else posted: "well too late   "
A sad fucking emoji, really? I guess we should keep our identities safe from criminals like you guys, because your behaviour is more scary than of that of black op unit members. What is wrong with you?

You can argue that using your default web browser is more convenient, I'm not denying that. This is not a topic about the most convenient way to access Bitcointalk or a place to discuss the convenience of Tor browser..

It is good for you that all opinions you express and all actions you do online are now and forever will be legal, but that is a relatively rare and risky assumption.

Everyone has something to hide.

Your IP-address can be used for account recovery purposes. If it's no longer stored, you'll need an alternative.

Not sure; for some people and some privacy goals, it may be 'too late' to follow this advice, others are doing at least some of the steps outlined here, already.

While the second statement is true, it is important to note that data 'ages'. What I mean by that: your primary email address may change, your physical location may change, the list goes on. A record of your personal information from 2019 may be mostly worthless today. The information may all be wrong by now.

I noticed that you are advertising for Roobet; a mostly unregulated crypto casino registered in Curacao. It may be desirable for your real identity not to be linked to Roobet, due to obvious reasons.

I disagree; you should try it out. In my experience, websites did load pretty slowly a few years back. But nowadays, it has gotten a lot better, especially if the website doesn't need JavaScript and doesn't use lots of graphics (like Bitcointalk).

Everyone has something to hide. For example their affiliation with crypto casinos. Others earn money online without declaring it to the taxman. And even others post their opinions freely on here, meanwhile those opinions aren't legal to post in the country they're living in. Lots of reasons, scenarios and risk profiles. In general, you probably want to better be safe than sorry.

I'm not arguing that my recommendations fully protect you if you are a highly sought-after criminal, but it's a 'bare minimum' that can go a long way.

If you hide your IP and use the privacy measures mentioned, you cannot restore your password by e.g. sending a message from the IP you last logged in with. I think that's what the warning in the Bitcointalk account settings hints at, so I wanted to present an alternative in case that ever happens to someone.

Avoid using your real name as username because some members used to register with their own name and few of them managed to get them changed by requesting theymos but in future it should be avoided.

I used Tor for accessing bitcointalk but even though the forum UI is simple which still feels lags while clicking thread or posting so I am mostly using it on chromium but only in my personal devices and I never logged in from any other devices and also I am using always logged in feature so captcha doesn't bother me much.

Privacy is not my ultimate priority but who really needs should practice all the points mentioned by OP to achieve it.

Well, too late And that's the thing with privacy: once it's gone, you can't get it back.

When I started with Bitcoin, I was bright enough to use a random generator to create a username. But I now realize that isn't enough, and I never expected to use it this long. By now I've also used it on other sites. I can't take that back without giving up everything I've done in the past 8 years, and being a Newbie again. So having a reputation doesn't go with having privacy.

Motivated by recent events ^[1-2], I decided to compile a list of sensible advice that forum users can take to improve their privacy. More suggestions are of course welcome!

To be clear: Bitcointalk is a centralized forum, whose operator(s) may or may not ^[3] have to hand out IP addresses and other personally identifiable information in the worst case. Full IP addresses and geolocation data retained for months or even years. Your posts are ^[4-6] archived basically forever.

• Do not post privately identifiable information about yourself.
• Do not post information that ties your Bitcointalk identity to other online identities.
• Use a dedicated Email address for your Bitcointalk account.
• Opt into limited IP retention.
  
• Use Tor Browser to access Bitcointalk.
  
• Bookmark your personal Captcha Bypass URL to avoid JavaScript and connection to Google (as well as the hassle of solving those).
  
• Stake your Bitcoin address for account recovery (since IP-based won't work now).
  
• Ironically: mix, tumble, CoinJoin or submarine-swap your campaign funds to a Lightning wallet. Anything that improves your on-chain privacy.

---

I am aware that Tor is not perfect and not entirely untraceable and that better privacy measures do exist, but these should provide you with relatively good privacy at little 'extra cost'. Especially with that captcha code, and the lightweight nature of the forum without lots of fancy, big graphics, it is extremely usable through Tor.

---

Tor Browser exists for Windows, MacOS, Linux, but also Android!
https://www.torproject.org/download/#android

For iOS, 'Onion Browser' exists and is recommended by the Tor Project:
https://onionbrowser.com/

[1] https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.61920144
[2] https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.61916953
[3] https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php
[4] https://ninjastic.space/search
[5] https://loyce.club/archive/posts/
[6] https://archive.today