Topic: How 'Anonymous' is Bitcoin? - page 2. (Read 9155 times)

Your BTC transactions are fully available for anyone to see on the blockchain. It's not completely anonymous but pseudonymous..

There are new anonymous currencies being developed such as Monero - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/xmr-monero-a-secure-private-untraceable-cryptocurrency-583449

Don't tell anyone your addresses, unless you are accepting donations or trading.

Hmm, with VPN the service provider knows yours ip, with TOR some government agency may also know, and with cell phone operator knows the IMEI of your cell phone. So no perfect anonymity there.

Actualy, it offer spretty good anonymity.

You can use mixer services, also VPN, TOR, and connect using a prepaid SIM card on you cellphone.
Where theres a will, there is a way.

How about I2P, do you think it is any better?

There seem to be at least one bitcoin client available: https://github.com/VirtualDestructor/bitcoin-qt-i2p

Thank You Dany Hamilton this clears up alot of questions most people have regarding
the Anonymity of BITCOIN!

There are a number of ways you lose your privacy with bitcoin.

You need to connect to other nodes for blocks, so your IP is revealed.

Spv wallets - the nodes these connect to have the IP, and a huge list of addresses all owned by that person.

All transaction history is public, unchangeable, so retrospective analysis is possible. If you were up to no good on the silkroad, imagine the FBI set up a node to service SPV clients? And they logged the IP of owners of addresses linked to the silk road? Are you sure you removed that key from your wallet? :-p

Into transactions now.. Services that use multisig are bad for privacy if you don't tumble coins. If you pay into a multisig address s, coins can't be mixed up (not talking about bitfog here, just the wallet preferentially spending older coins to keep fees low - this means seller might get diff coins to the one you lodged). So, if I have a list of multisig addresses a marketplace used, I can learn the address of the buyer and seller.

If someone redeems the funds from the multisig, everyone learns the public keys of the people involved. Imagine you keep that key in your wallet, expecting to never use it again... But your node gives away that you own it by bloom filters mentioned above?

There is a full stack of software to understand.. Plus, have you read all the research papers on the topic? Martin and Harrigans was in 2011, so you've plenty to read from between now and then.

There must be something simpler now, no?

Anyone see any flaws in my oh-so-simple-but-oh-so-effective security measures?  I don't.

I think I've figured out some good ways to stay anonymous, here's the short version.

A laptop with a fully zero wiped hard drive with no personal information.  Then load Windows or even better, a Linux variant.

A bicycle with which to ride to open wireless access points.

Night time works well for making security cameras useless, as does a disguise.

And, as I live in a big city with many many many free WiFi points, that makes it easy to find an internet connection that is not in my name.

Multiple BitCoin wallets on the laptop.

Tor Browser

And NEVER connect the laptop to your home network and do anything with it!

The first step to staying anonymous is to not use it at the IP address registered in your name!

I'm not saying the NSA couldn't find me if I'm doing things like this, but I'll make them work a little bit!  

Might come down to a matter of luck and timing on which system could exert enough power over the other first. It would be really helpful for bitcoin to have a backup network that didn't have an off switch, though.

The governments are doing a pretty "solid" job to bankrupt themselves without the assistance of bitcoin. I doubt bitcoin will really play any role in their bankruptcy and certainly not from lost taxes. What bitcoin can do is to reduce the faith in national currencies by people switching to it.

Most governments are not really 100% dependent in tax revenue for their operations - and that's especially true for western governments with national currency / own issuing of money (eurozone is an exception). If they have a deficit (more expenses than income) they simply print more money to cover the difference.

If the US for example was basing all of its operations on the tax income, then these operations would need to be slashed by 25% because the tax income is not enough (income ~2.7 trillion / expenses ~3.5 trillion). Instead, the US government borrows more money which is covered by the Fed, indirectly. So there is always money to go around, as long as the issuing of new currency doesn't destroy people's faith in it.

Bitcoin is an alternative to national currencies but gold and silver are also. And when you have "preppers" for the economic armaggedon stacking gold and silver coins for like a decade, that's a larger problem for a government than Bitcoin because it's about person-to-person transactions that aren't monitored from a central console like the movement of bitcoins, nor can they be regulated by software solutions.

I wonder. To track bitcoin, especially if things like Tor and CoinJoin are used, you need quite a few resources, on the level of the NSA. On the other hand, if AnonyMint's prophesized economic devastation happens, maybe by bitcoin itself starving governments of tax revenue, that would mean that economy collapsed, along with governments, and there is no money to extract from citizens to pay for such a program. So wouldn't Bitcoin's anonymity be asured by bitcoin itself as it cuts off the flow of funds to the very thing that has any chance of breaking its anonymity?

gallom, I couldn't have said it better. Thanks.

The only two ways I know of to be reliably anonymous w.r.t. to making it impossible to connect your IP address to your identity, at least until I release my new technology for anonymity of a block chain.

Note I think Zerocoin has a very important role to play combined with my design for mixing, but not by itself.

Others are starting to understand that low-latency Chaum mix-nets such as Tor aren't reliable anonymity.

Hypothesis A) Bitcoin was created with a good intention by the idealist Satoshi, and the official story is true.

Hypothesis B) NSA invented bitcoin, and to prevent free competetive alternatives to gain first mover advantage they released bitcoin as open source and crerated the cyber jesus "Satoshi".
Their strategy with internet and bitcoin: First they give you more freedom than you are used with, then they collect data about you without you knowing about it and finally they sue you,  blackmail you or put you in jail (if you are a threat).

Tor = Government spying network

Try a trustworthy VPN instead. And bitcoin mixing services, but don't send too many coins, you never know when you get "goxxed"

AnonyMint who do you think created Bitcoin? Was it the "good" guys (common people), or the "bad" guys (aka establishment masquarading as a pseudonymous creator)?

Why Tor isn't anonymous and analysis of the flaws of DarkCoin (DRK):

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.5465510

The NSA won't have any problem providing records to the tax and law authorities. They've already announced coordination with the G20 to do so.

You guys are just thinking the world is going to remain sane. You are going to be shocked when this shit spirals into chaos 2016ish.

I'm tired of arguing with you. Have it your way at Burger King. Enjoy your bliss.

As I understand the situation, DRK may achieve a status of "legally anonymous", which is anonymous for all intents and purposes minus the largest players like NSA who controls all devices, all networks, serious AI pattern recognition software, etc etc. These large players will be unable or unwilling to explain their methods in a court of law, or they will have to admit all their illegal activities - which would compromise their activities around the globe.

I mean, consider this: They go to a court and say we have these evidence, obtained by these illegal methods of spying every single device (that would be a "smash" for high tech exports  ), or the networks of several FOREIGN COUNTRIES (and that would cause no international uproar, lol), and some HINTS by this pattern recognition software which INDICATE (not conclusively prove) that the X amount was transferred from entity A to entity B because the wallet of A emptied by 1 DRK and the wallet of B got 1 DRK.

And even if this can happen in the US, it will not happen in other countries. For example, in Greece, the right of the individual to privacy (including telecommunications) cannot be breached unless there is some SERIOUS crime. That's on the constitution. You can't just eavesdrop and use these information as ...evidence. Illegal evidence = bye bye mr prosecutor, you've just admitted to committing a crime yourself. Additionally, when say traffic is routed throughout the world, how many countries can say that they have access to all the networks in order to convince a judge that yeah that transaction went from here, to there, to there, to there, and then back to this place. And the judge will be "ok, and you know this HOW?".

Parody trials where the accuser / prosecutor will not have to actually submit the evidence or methods of obtainment, is another issue altogether that is more serious than anonymizing bitcoin, darkcoin etc.

Right.. inflate it away then do another qe because we are actually in deflationary spriral dontcha know? Buy low sell high in one big trade. Thats how they are cutting debt down... as far as smart money they have no choice but to buy it there is no other option.. err was no other option.. gold cant be currency.