Here is my plan to make an anonymous purchase and stay anonymous. I ask you guys to see if this plan makes sense. I am a technical person and I know from experience almost no idea in first draft stage, as is this one, turns out to be 100% true hence my reaching out to you, more experienced reader!
Background: I wish to set up a forum with WordPress that deals with political corruption in developing countries, so I wish to be anonymous in case I get sued for defamation, as is common in this area. I found a US-based webhost that accepts bitcoin. I plan to pay them from an online wallet, and use a fake name, but first I need to buy some bitcoin. Here is what I will do (tell me if I'm right or wrong about this plan, does it preserve my anonymity?):
1) I will log into a US-based bitcoin exchange, like say Coinbase, and buy bitcoin using US dollars. I will become 'verified' so they really know who I am (I think this is a requirement now pretty much world-wide, but, if not, does anybody know if there's a "truly anonymous" exchange where you can buy bitcoin 100% anonymously, without verification? I probably will NOT do this however, because of the below steps which I *think* will protect my anonymity. However, if my plan below is not sound, I might have to do this, so if possible please answer this question too).
2) once I buy bitcoins on say Coinbase, using dollars from my US bank account, I will hopefully, be able to withdraw these bitcoins from the exchange into my digital bitcoin wallet that lives on my PC.
2(a): question and first potential problem: does Coinbase allow you to withdraw bitcoin into a digital bitcoin wallet that's on your PC? Or, do they insist you keep all bitcoins with them? What about other bitcoin exchanges? It would not surprise me if some of these exchanges, so they maintain a nice 'pool' of bitcoins, mandate that you keep all your bitcoin with them, and forbid you from withdrawing bitcoin. True?
3) If I can withdraw bitcoin from say Coinbase into my online wallet, I will then pay the US-based web host provider in bitcoin and set up my Wordpress forum using a fake name and address.
3(a) : what is a good digital wallet? Here is a list I rely on for 'recommended' bitcoin services, please pick one from this list if possible:
http://coinindex.org/4) OK, so far so good. Coinbase and/or some other bitcoin exchange knows I withdrew some bitcoin, and knows what my real name is. But they don't know where I spent this bitcoin, or am I wrong? Can the blockchain be traced from the internet web host provider, back to my MAC address of my PC (the PC that holds the online bitcoin digital wallet), and then back to Coinbase? I don't think so but I could well be wrong. Something I recall I read tells me I'm wrong actually. So a question here would be let's say I withdraw $200 in bitcoin from Coinbase, but only spend $100 at the web host provider, does that make it harder to trace back to Coinbase? I suspect not.
5) Let's say that some Papua New Guinea (PNG) official accused of corruption on the US-based WordPress forum I set up decides to sue me for defamation (this is actually a very common tactic to silence critics in political cases. Nowadays only crude and unsophisticated and/or mafia types use physical force; it's much easier to just sue somebody and force them to spend money defending themselves). Can they find out my real identity? I posit no. Here would be the hypothetical scenario: the PNG official allegedly defamed finds out who is the US-based web host provider of the WordPress forum, they write a complaining letter, threaten legal action, the provider to save themselves (as is common) caves in and says 'this user paid in bitcoin, and here is their name and address', and after investigation by the PNG official it is discovered this name and address are fake. Then is the PNG official is at a dead end in finding out my real identity? Or, do they hire a computer geek, who then traces the blockchain all the way back to Coinbase? Coinbase then gets a subpoena, and gives away my real identity, and I get sued? Very very unlikely this will result in anything bad, even if true, since they have to sue me in the USA which is much more friendly to free speech than other places, but I want to know if it's hypothetically possible.
I think I have spelled out my concerns fairly well. I appreciate any and all responses.
Thanks,
TonyT