Situations where static addresses are appropriate

Cubic Earth

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Quote from: AliceWonder on July 31, 2014, 01:53:55 AM

Using a fresh address for each donation I believe is the right thing to do.

Static addresses on things like forum posts are fine, but when you can provide a fresh address it avoids issues where third parties analyze donation rates and sizes.

But for charity donations, wouldn't transparency be a good thing? When bitcoin becomes widely used and understood, organizations will have to weigh the pros and cons of a transparent financial structure vs a private one, or what combination to employ. I was hoping people would use the case of Wikipedia as an example. Should they offer a static address, and what would be the pros and cons?

Anduck

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quack

Static addresses work well when you use it as OTP method. I for example have an address linked to my #bitcoin-otc WoT account. Whenever I need to identify, I'll request the bot to serve me a string which I will sign with my associated bitcoin address. You can use this method even if the address has never been used / seen in the network.

Cubic Earth

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Quote from: WoopDeBoop on July 31, 2014, 05:20:59 AM

No ones going to type out the btc address from a printed advertisement

You are correct. That is why we have QR codes.

WoopDeBoop

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No ones going to type out the btc address from a printed advertisement

AliceWonder

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With respect to validating the address, hopefully there is an SSL page available so you know there probably wasn't a MITM between wikipedia and your browser.

AliceWonder

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Using a fresh address for each donation I believe is the right thing to do.

Static addresses on things like forum posts are fine, but when you can provide a fresh address it avoids issues where third parties analyze donation rates and sizes.

Cubic Earth

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Merit: 1018

Wikipedia just announced the are accepting bitcoin. They are using Coinbase, and as a result their receiving address is different for each donation. Using a fresh address for each transaction enhances privacy, but it also makes it a little harder to verify that you are sending funds to the correct party. If the address is static, it can be printed in magazines and newspapers or displayed on a charity's main website without too much dynamic code.

Are there reasons why a charity wouldn't want to have a publicly know, static donation address? Maybe they should at least provide a fresh, private address if requested, but it seems like the sender should be protecting their own privacy if they care.

Topic: Situations where static addresses are appropriate (Read 826 times)