Topic: NSA KNOWS - page 8. (Read 8332 times)

Funny how keeping your transaction anonymity is basically the same process as "laundering". Semantics aside, i believe doing anonymous transactions, if not with ill obtained gains, is completely legal?


Hmm well, yes it is possible for your IP to be logged. Nothing prevent you from hiding it, however, i believe. IP browsing security is a hot trend lately so that's not particularly a new thing to keep in mind. Definitively worth a go if you .torrent

Thanks Edward Snowden, I never knew the NSA was spying on me!   

use TOR if you're paranoid.

I read somewhere that when a transaction is broadcasted to the network then the first node to process that transaction is very likely the sender himself.
Also read that peers can see your IP when the transaction is sent to the network but only from peers that you are connected to.If peers have ability to attach an IP to a transaction wouldn't for example NSA peers be able to log IP of every transactions that go through them, can peers chose which transaction they want to broadcast or is this random?
When i use my client it usually says i am connected to a certain numbers of peers, what does these peers know about me?

Sorry if my questions seems confusing, i am not very tech sawy but if you could explain how it all works i'd appreciate.

Here is the software. What, you thought money laundering was going to be legal with bitcoin?

https://www.elliptic.co/bigbang-v1.html
And it's not the NSA, it is the FBI and IRS that will use this. Along with dozens of other governments around the world.

Not sure why NSA would care...

Or anyone else...

Indeed, i don't mean depositing to an exchange or any services that log information such as IP, etc. I strictly mean manually obfuscating or obfuscation services such as mixers or instant coin exchange that doesnt log ip.

Manually i'm talking about clever way of spending your BTC but getting it back, like buying hash and running it through an untraceable route

Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Trading it back and forth via various exchanges probably wouldn't help as they require verification once you hit a certain limit or when you register. Bitcoin is never designed to be anonymous at all. It can be pseudonymous from the general public if you don't reuse address and don't reveal the addresses to anyone else. Mixers service would ensure that the transactions wouldn't link together hence it would be quite anonymous.

BTC is semi anonymous. You would need to use obfuscation services to clear your tracks.

For now we'll have to rely on trading BTC to an anonymous coin or service and then to Fiat or BTC with your tracks cleared. Its a bit of a pain right now, but maybe there will be more streamlined method when the demand raise further.

Darkwallet doesn't properly work, its very early version what's out there. Only if they keep releasing it we'll have any sort of anonimity. BTC right is just not anonymous at all. Maybe CoinJoin helps too but I have no idea how that works yet.

Lol, it doesn't matter if they know we run a BTC wallet. Depending on how you use it, there's very little way to know who own what.

Either way, so what?

Its not illegal here and its not even legal currency almost everywhere, i'm not sure why this is turning into some conspiracy theories.

Surprisingly, I would agree somehow with your point. Applications who do not take precautions are more likely to be exploited. Sybil attacks could result in someone knowing your activity and even disrupt the app itself. It is inexpensive to carry out if the client does not ensure that the IP of the nodes do not have a few blocks spaced apart. It has happened one time.

Can you elaborate?

If I make a payment to porn site XYZ, then only they know that the particular address that I made this single paying from, belongs to me. Or well, "me", that is... to the extent of the personal information I share with them, which is typically slim to none when I pay with Bitcoin. They don't know about any other addresses I may own, and anyone else knows nothing at all. Furthermore I use each address only once, as is default behaviour with most common wallets and clients nowadays.

I know, if you're careless, you may not be as anonymous or private as you think. Buying bitcoins on an exchange (where you actually do have to identify), withdrawing them to your wallet and spending them straight on weapons, might not be the smartest move.

But in general, exactly how is privacy or anonymity at risk with Bitcoin?

You're wrong,

Their nodes. If some node gets 3000 connections, then what? Regardless of the fact that the connection of thin clients to dedicated nodes might even be encrypted, go through random ports, and whatnot.

At best, they might be able to guesstimate that I'm doing "something" with Bitcoin. Well, that's fine with me. They sure as hell can't monitor or log or measure what I'm doing.

That's not the point. See also below.

Haha, sorry if I raise that impression, let me assure you I couldn't care less about my e-peen

I was just explaining it's rather easy to stay 100% off their watch, and it really involves *zero* programming capabilities. And there are even more options I didn't mention yet, such as proxies, Tor, I2P, etc. These are particularly accessible, user-friendly, non-programming-involving solutions that can be easily used by everybody who understands how to use Bitcoin. And they are more than welcome to switch more attention to me, it really won't make a difference.

But let's stick to points 1 and 2. Yes, the NSA may detect that Average Joe is doing something with Bitcoin.

So what?

Again: keep in mind that there is NO difference whatsoever between transactions from Joe, or from anyone else. Joe's node or wallet, or the nodes that Joe's wallet is connecting to, is relaying all transactions (Joe's as well as the rest of the world's) exactly the same.

So how is the NSA going to detect how much bitcoins Joe has, or what he is receiving or spending? How are they going to monitor "his" Bitcoin traffic, considering that the P2P traffic he sends and receives is effectively the whole current Bitcoin P2P state, with anyone and everyone's data mixed together.

Bitcoin is a public ledger, a ledger that forgets nothing, and cannot be tampered with.

Even without NSA-grade super-powers, you are pretty much guaranteed any kind of crypto-anonymity will be at best temporary, future techniques, analysis, tools and blockchain forensics will offer more and more insight.

And this is what differentiates bitcoin from all other fiat-based accounting systems, which are not public, prone to backup failure and tampering.

What any NSA equivalent in any country could find out about you and what anyone else could find out about you are two completely different things. Most people couldn't crack anything you encrypted, but NSA type organizations probably could. Who cares if the NSA knows you use Bitcoin unless you are a terrorist. Unless you start running your Bitcoin wallet through Tor or a VPN it's not anonymous anyway. Search Google for your Bitcoin address and it's likely you will find a blockchain.info link giving every transaction ever sent from your IP address.

If you think you are totally anonymous while using bitcoin, think again. That is harsh truth. I think people are often confusing privacy with anonymity.
We need to differentiate between anonymity and privacy in the context of financial transactions. We can call a transaction anonymous if no one knows who you are.
We can call a transaction private if what you purchased, and for what amount, are unknown. Bitcoin is more about privacy than anonymity. That is a difference.

Maybe, but they are still there, and for some years still.

Also, the link in your sign doesn't work.

The NSA fiat budget would be shrinking so bad

just like everything fiat its day is over

the NSA and most government budgeted institutions

have ro realign themselves with Crypto

1. even thin clients connect to their nodes. NSA knows it.

2. when you open a wallet, you connect to a node. This is inevitable.

3. correct. But this is you. Most people use common installed wallets from pc or smartphone. And that's the norm.

4. I don't really understand what you are talking about, probably some coding stuff. While most users at the moment are tech savvy, they are not all coders, you know. And anyway, if you don't use a webservice you are still connecting to a Bitcoin node from your home.

So, sir, better you reconsider:
YOU may be off the scope of NSA (but if needed, they will switch more attention to you), but most people are being traced, in general, and THAT's what I'm talking about.
Seems you only wanted to show your e-peen size.