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Topic: How 'Anonymous' is Bitcoin? - page 4. (Read 9156 times)

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
February 25, 2014, 02:27:22 AM
#25
...

In reality, Bitcoin only gives you a degree of anonymity.  It gets you out of the scope of the NSA casually fishing through bank records to find likely names/addresses of people, but if somebody REALLY wants to find you, sooner or later, they will.  The more you interact with or trade with people, the more traces you leave.

In short, don't depend on bitcoin to keep you out of jail if you're breaking the law.  It isn't designed for that.  It is meant to keep you out of reach of "fishing expeditions", not a concerted law enforcement effort.

Coint taint is the biggest flaw to Bitcoin fungibility.

Now imagine the government tax and law enforcement authorities crack down in the coming years (and the G20+NSA are announcing this intent) wherein they say if you can't provide the identity of whom your purchased your coins from and sold your coins to, then all tax and criminal liability from the time of mining until the future is all yours. Because there is no way for you to otherwise prove that you didn't buy the coin from yourself and sell it to yourself.

So with that very simple ruling, the governments can at-will force all anonymous coin holders (past and present) to be revealed, because nobody is going to accept a coin without identity history any more.

You could still try to find someone to accept your anonymous coins, but since most users are not anonymous, your effort to find such vendors and market for your anonymous coins will become untenable.

This is why the only way I can see to keep fungibility (without losing anonymity entirely) is to make most of the users anonymous, and that includes all their IP addresses when they transact.

CoinJoin and Dark Wallet won't do this.

And Tor is not strong enough, as it can be foiled with timing analysis by an entity that can see all packets, such as the NSA.

So the reality is that Bitcoin will be the government coin. You see how easily the U.S.A. government effectively controlled the outcome of Mt.Gox.
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
February 25, 2014, 01:27:34 AM
#24
So does that mean those w@nkers who created ransomware (e.g. cryptolocker) and were paid in BTC could be tracked and hopefully flogged to death?
sr. member
Activity: 313
Merit: 250
February 24, 2014, 11:53:15 PM
#23
I guess it's not 100% anonymous, since your address can be tracked. It's anonymous in the sense that it's hard to connect your address to you. I guess if you have your profile in an exchange that has your information, then the police can find you that way.
legendary
Activity: 1775
Merit: 1032
Value will be measured in sats
February 24, 2014, 08:03:04 PM
#22



For instance, would running behind Tor protect me?

TOR!?!?! are you bloody mental? Tor was compromised long ago by FBI and FEDs don't touch that shit. even using it is a red flag to ISP and government services
member
Activity: 77
Merit: 10
February 24, 2014, 03:49:02 PM
#21
bittyweb:  Bitcoin is only truly "anonymous" so long as you don't do anything with it.

In addition to what DannyHamilton said, suppose you buy bitcoins from your localbitcoins dealer.  Now imagine the Florida scenario where those bitcoin dealers were busted.  Now their records/wallets (and timestamps) are presumably in the hands of law enforcement.  The dealer may have been under surveillance when he sold to you.  You might be on the starbucks security camera where you met the dealer.  Maybe you bought a coffee at the starbucks with a credit card or are known to the staff.  etc etc.  Once "they" find some of your addresses and put some effort into taint analysis, things get interesting.

In reality, Bitcoin only gives you a degree of anonymity.  It gets you out of the scope of the NSA casually fishing through bank records to find likely names/addresses of people, but if somebody REALLY wants to find you, sooner or later, they will.  The more you interact with or trade with people, the more traces you leave.

In short, don't depend on bitcoin to keep you out of jail if you're breaking the law.  It isn't designed for that.  It is meant to keep you out of reach of "fishing expeditions", not a concerted law enforcement effort.
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
February 24, 2014, 02:12:34 AM
#20
Dany Hamilton answered perfectly for this question.

But the answer is, Bitcoin is anonymous since you dont need to give any personal info.
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
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February 23, 2014, 10:34:46 PM
#19
Thank you DannyHamilton. You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
February 15, 2014, 10:55:49 AM
#18
It is my understanding that any bitcoin address inside of one wallet can eventually be associated with any other addresses when coins are sent.
I don´t think this is true. How do you think you would be able to link one address of a wallet to another address of the wallet  Huh

It depends on the wallet you are using.  Here's an example with the Bitcoin-Qt wallet:

Imagine you create a brand new wallet.  Then you create 2 addresses in the wallet (address A and address B).  Next you receive 1 BTC at address A, and then receive another 1 BTC at address B.

Now, if you want to send 1.2 BTC from this wallet to somewhere, the wallet will create a transaction that spends both the output that was sent to address A and the address that was sent to address B.  Both of these outputs will appear as inputs in the same transaction.  Then the wallet will create an output sending 1.2 BTC to your intended recipient as well as a second output sending 0.8 BTC (less any transaction fee you might be paying) back to a brand new address that your wallet creates for you and keeps hidden (the new bitcoin address is kept hidden, not the 0.8 bitcoins) from you.  Finally the wallet will provide 2 signature using the private keys from both you address A and your address B.

Since a single transaction has signatures from both address A and address B, it can be inferred that a single entity very likely has control of both addresses.  The addresses are therefore "linked together".




very good explanation. Do I also have the same "problem" when I use e.g. Electrum or some other client?
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
I got Satoshi's avatar!
February 14, 2014, 04:40:41 PM
#17
It’s anonymous because no one controls it. It is not regulated by the bank or government, so it is anonymously circulating in the market.
No, it is pseudonymous, the blockchain and ALL transactions are public, any address ever used is public, there's no way to hide that, it's about whether you can be connected to the address or transactions that counts...
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 4801
February 14, 2014, 10:58:36 AM
#16
It is my understanding that any bitcoin address inside of one wallet can eventually be associated with any other addresses when coins are sent.
I don´t think this is true. How do you think you would be able to link one address of a wallet to another address of the wallet  Huh

It depends on the wallet you are using.  Here's an example with the Bitcoin-Qt wallet:

Imagine you create a brand new wallet.  Then you create 2 addresses in the wallet (address A and address B).  Next you receive 1 BTC at address A, and then receive another 1 BTC at address B.

Now, if you want to send 1.2 BTC from this wallet to somewhere, the wallet will create a transaction that spends both the output that was sent to address A and the address that was sent to address B.  Both of these outputs will appear as inputs in the same transaction.  Then the wallet will create an output sending 1.2 BTC to your intended recipient as well as a second output sending 0.8 BTC (less any transaction fee you might be paying) back to a brand new address that your wallet creates for you and keeps hidden (the new bitcoin address is kept hidden, not the 0.8 bitcoins) from you.  Finally the wallet will provide 2 signature using the private keys from both you address A and your address B.

Since a single transaction has signatures from both address A and address B, it can be inferred that a single entity very likely has control of both addresses.  The addresses are therefore "linked together".


full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
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February 14, 2014, 12:01:20 AM
#15
Gold? is that a private tor like software?
legendary
Activity: 1162
Merit: 1004
February 13, 2014, 02:45:00 AM
#14
If you know how to use Gold 1.0/Gold 2.0 anonymously, it is anonymous. If you don't know, it is not.
sr. member
Activity: 266
Merit: 250
February 13, 2014, 02:05:08 AM
#13
 Grin It's anoymous because you dont have to give your NAME or email on transactions...
member
Activity: 200
Merit: 10
https://rangersprotocol.com/
February 13, 2014, 02:01:23 AM
#12
It’s anonymous because no one controls it. It is not regulated by the bank or government, so it is anonymously circulating in the market.
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
February 11, 2014, 05:27:19 AM
#11
It is my understanding that any bitcoin address inside of one wallet can eventually be associated with any other addresses when coins are sent.

I don´t think this is true. How do you think you would be able to link one address of a wallet to another address of the wallet  Huh
newbie
Activity: 43
Merit: 0
February 11, 2014, 02:10:13 AM
#10
It is my understanding that any bitcoin address inside of one wallet can eventually be associated with any other addresses when coins are sent.

That said. If you take coins from wallet A and send them to almost any service that sents out payments in bulk for withdraw requests, this effectively anonymizes your coins in most cases. At this point all you need to do is withdraw to a wallet (Wallet B if you will) seperate from your original one and the coins should have few ties to the original.

Unless you tell someone or advertise or are found in possession of the private keys controlling a wallet there is no way to conclusively prove any particular individual owns any particular said address. Sending someone coins is effectively telling them you own that address.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
February 11, 2014, 12:13:23 AM
#9
With stealth and CoinJoin, Bitcoin is basically anonymous. These concepts are workable and will soon be delivered.

https://wiki.unsystem.net/index.php/DarkWallet/Stealth

CoinJoin is already working since ages in all different ways and through tor too. You can use stealth using SX (command line tools): https://wiki.unsystem.net/index.php/Sx/Stealth

These tools are not yet readily available for the common user but they will be.

Together with other new emerging innovations, we will have decentralised uncensored crypto markets within this year.
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
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February 10, 2014, 11:02:00 PM
#8
Some very interesting thoughts here. Opened my mind up a little.
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 250
January 30, 2014, 04:28:48 AM
#7
Bitcoin is not anonymous, was never designed to be. Just the owners of Silk Road had to persuade it was so they could sell their "wares" to people, and those people thought they were safe. Very funny DPR. The joke is on you now.

^THIS
I feel self regulation is the only way a currency can work properly.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
January 30, 2014, 12:48:59 AM
#6
Bitcoin is not anonymous, was never designed to be. Just the owners of Silk Road had to persuade it was so they could sell their "wares" to people, and those people thought they were safe. Very funny DPR. The joke is on you now.
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