privacy and bitcoin protocol over TCP

smokeydog

member

Activity: 96

Merit: 11

Quote from: aleksej996 on August 27, 2017, 03:17:06 AM

I will post a simple answer, as there are many. You can use Tor with Bitcoin. Learn about Tor and you will understand. No country was able to block Tor, despite huge efforts, mostly by China. Tor has bridges, which are like proxies to a Tor network. You could also have something similar to that for Bitcoin without using Tor, but Tor is the best option, plus you stay anonymous.

I am not up on the subject of Tor, only heard of it. I will spend some time digging into the subject. Thank you for giving me the lead. As I plow through all this information, I generate many questions but, so far they all seem to have reasonable answers. My goal is to reach the point where my perceived trust in the architecture starts growing faster then my list on concerns. I hope I can reach that point in a few months with the available time I have.

aleksej996

sr. member

Activity: 490

Merit: 389

Do not trust the government

I will post a simple answer, as there are many. You can use Tor with Bitcoin. Learn about Tor and you will understand. No country was able to block Tor, despite huge efforts, mostly by China. Tor has bridges, which are like proxies to a Tor network. You could also have something similar to that for Bitcoin without using Tor, but Tor is the best option, plus you stay anonymous.

smokeydog

member

Activity: 96

Merit: 11

Quote from: achow101 on August 26, 2017, 10:21:32 PM

Nothing prevents governments, ISPs, your school or work, etc. from blocking Bitcoin network connections. However Bitcoin is decentralized, there are no servers or clients, only nodes. So in order to "kill" Bitcoin, you would have to prevent every single node from connecting to any other node in the network. This would have to be a worldwide effort since Bitcoin nodes can be found all over the world.

Furthermore, Bitcoin does not necessarily have to rely on the internet. There are projects that are working on providing non-internet means of communication for nodes, such as Blockstream Satellite.

To me a node is a TCP end point connection, server is just a generic term. If I am in the US I can only connect outbound through the network routers. If our congress passes legislation such that every router in the US must block the bitcoin port, any outbound TCP connection from me how would my TCP connection request ever get to a distant node, outside the US. No matter how you look at it my device is a client to something if it sends a connection request. I understand that US regulation would not effect distant nodes but, how would my connection request ever reach one. I don't trust what is going on with our government and I have a feeling the bitcoin movement may be underestimating this power.

As far as not having to rely on the internet, I get you point but what is possible and what is now are different issues.

zertsekel

newbie

Activity: 18

Merit: 0

I think the question asked here is the same as "why governments can ban torrent worldwide?".
The answer would be the same.

achow101

staff

Activity: 3458

Merit: 6793

Just writing some code

Nothing prevents governments, ISPs, your school or work, etc. from blocking Bitcoin network connections. However Bitcoin is decentralized, there are no servers or clients, only nodes. So in order to "kill" Bitcoin, you would have to prevent every single node from connecting to any other node in the network. This would have to be a worldwide effort since Bitcoin nodes can be found all over the world.

Furthermore, Bitcoin does not necessarily have to rely on the internet. There are projects that are working on providing non-internet means of communication for nodes, such as Blockstream Satellite.

smokeydog

member

Activity: 96

Merit: 11

If bitcoin uses TCP as it's transport and servers need to listen for connections on well know ports, what prevents code on high powered routers from blocking those ports by a government decree? If random port numbers are used how would they be discovered by clients.

Obviously this has been covered somewhere I just was not able to find anything on it. Is there a simple answer or a place I can dig into satisfy my own curiosity?

Like many I am looking for what won't work or explanations as to why it can't be shutdown. I'm trying to reach a point of feeling as convinced as so many others already are.

Topic: privacy and bitcoin protocol over TCP (Read 564 times)