Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: Parafoil129 on May 02, 2013, 05:51 am
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*I'm sure this topic has been covered somewhere, but I'm trying to get my post count up without resorting to all this Spam nonsense. Also, search isn't bringing anything current (within the last year at least geez) that looks interesting, maybe I'm wrong...links?
Is extra mixing really necessary? I understand how bitcoin works and all, but come on. Is everyone really suggesting that our good friend LEO is going to stick you in a room with a mirror and grill you about who owns 12BU976muQZCub2P4aFpGE6PjU5RS65CNw and why did you send 10 BTC from your confirmed Mt Gox account to that address? Maybe that's a little over the top...but wait!! LEO and Co will surely discover blockchain.info one day and they will know everything! Haven't you seen CSI??? Those computers will take that blockchain and trace every single transaction from your output onward and they will know it was for drugs! Probably within 30 seconds of you transacting to your SR wallet as well (CSI computer will pre-calculate the future 6 confirmations so it is totally legit on the warrant)
But seriously, you are getting drugs sent to you in the mail! IMO that small risk is far greater than anything that can be extrapolated from the eternal blockchain. Even cashing out, I honestly don't see LEO coming to get you with some flimsy arguments based on a big pile of difficult to trace transactions. More like Mr/Mrs IRS sending you a reminder to file a 1040 Schedule D to pay taxes on your capital gains they happened to notice you cashed out from Mt Gox. Maybe I am too poor to understand rich people problems and I just need to read up on money laundering laws. Do you have prove how you earned every single Satoshi, or do they just have to prove that one of your satoshis was used for drugs and/or othe illegal thing ? The first case seems more likely and whats to prevent you from saying that you mined those coins in 2010 because you were totally hipster and doing it before it was cool? Are we going with the argument that people sending drugs through USPS have moral standards preventing them from lying to LEO and/or clamming up? So Vendor McGee is utilizing military grade encryption to communicate with buyers on a darknet website but it turns out he has Pinocchio syndrome and cannot tell a lie?
I am very interested in cryptography and the Bitcoin system really is very fascinating. What am I missing here? It seems like the Bitcoin protocol is pretty solid; the weak link being the people using it, just like every other piece of technology...
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I am very interested in cryptography and the Bitcoin system really is very fascinating. What am I missing here? It seems like the Bitcoin protocol is pretty solid; the weak link being the people using it, just like every other piece of technology...
Yeah man basically. There could be some exceptions but I haven't seen any. Bitcoin is the main reason Silk Road is able to function. And if by "mixing" you just mean sending your bitcoins through anonymous accounts, then it's just an extra precaution that some people take. It's possible to get Bitcoins without a Mt Gox account. For people transferring from there I can see taking the extra time to tumble (I believe that is the correct term) their coins because the account can be tied to your identity. It's probably not likely for LE to do anything about it, but protocols are always changing and extra security is a good thing if you plan on committing felony offenses like sending drugs through US Postal.
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I went through an extra account.. and when doing so thought the same..but.. its set up now, may as well keep with it..
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Not necessary but awesome.
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I like the term "Tumbling." Makes me think of putting virtual coins into a virtual washing machine.
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Yes, it's definitly worth the effort. Even if no one has been caught by bitcoin blockchain analysis yet, expect it to start happening soon.
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Yes, it's definitly worth the effort. Even if no one has been caught by bitcoin blockchain analysis yet, expect it to start happening soon.
is this a real scenario? If so what else is a good idea? Different btc addresses or anything else?
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Yes, it's definitly worth the effort. Even if no one has been caught by bitcoin blockchain analysis yet, expect it to start happening soon.
is this a real scenario? If so what else is a good idea? Different btc addresses or anything else?
A real mixing service. Learn about taint analysis. You can do a taint analysis on blockchain.info
Once you use a real tumbling service, run a taint analysis on your final address. No one will ever figure out where those came from lol.
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interesting
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Tumbling, laundering, whatever you want to call it. As far as i'm concerned, for dealing on SR, its unnecessary. Even if you do something silly like send the coins from a wallet on your personal computer, SR splits transactions once you make a purchase. If you buy something for 1 btc, they will automatically split the payment up into multiple small transactions all equaling that amount and spread it over multiple wallet ids. At least that's my understanding according to their wiki. So basically they "tumble" the coins for you before any real illegal transaction takes place. In the situation i just described the LEOs could see you sent money to your SR account but after that the trail becomes impossible to follow provided there's a lot of btc traffic to the terminating vendor account(which is why its good to use popular high volume vendors) and last i checked, sending bitcoins to SR alone is not illegal.
Someone please correct me if i'm mistaken.
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Thanks for the responses everybody, good to see positive feedback! I guess too much obscurity is never a bad thing...but I'm too much of a penny pincher. 1%-3% for Bitcoin Fog? Humbug!
@VincentStroke: Careful with the assumptions, how does LEO even know the address you sent BTC to is in any way related to SR? That's my point...it is impossible to know where you sent coins unless you state the relationship between a certain address and SR in a public place.
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...how does LEO even know the address you sent BTC to is in any way related to SR?
I've always wondered about this, too. Is there any way to correlate a wallet with SR??
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...how does LEO even know the address you sent BTC to is in any way related to SR?
I've always wondered about this, too. Is there any way to correlate a wallet with SR??
I've seen people working on this on bitcointalk.org
I've seen a small list of SR addresses.
Since we now know from the 1DkyBE post that the largest Bitcoin address is Silk Road's cold storage, I want to better follow and record the addresses coming out as withdrawls from the "spinoff mechanism" they are using for these processes to avoid dealing with potential criminals and drawing LEO ire. To get an idea of how they are doing this, please open a new tab with the following link:
http://blockchain.info/address/1DkyBEKt5S2GDtv7aQw6rQepAvnsRyHoYM
Click the "1491KpNqoY1vGE2Rzdd76BCsuXK7QepNGU" address.
Click the "19N2NiMWcgF62mwmAzsdgEqKrVSafdyHo8" address. This is what I call a "fragment" address.
Now, from here, start clicking the largest address (the one on the top right) from each of these transactions, in order:
14D4BuxgnB1AxPoJ25oMVQ8DC6vdq1ex7i
12iScVDd2Z5c2qo3aSHBtjFmBRcsBJXQVV
1KX8Z5mmwdDnW2H27RfJKggw61qvaEiBhz
1FYVU77n3k8ZQRtsFy8oLY2wQWbJjVv4Q2
What I need is a program that will record the value, date/time, and address of the one listed immediately below it. I want it to continue to follow the most expensive addresses till there is more than one transaction output from it, and then stop recording the listed info. In this manner, I will be recording all outgoing addresses from Silk Road as well as the date/time of the transaction and the amount transferred.
Additionally, the program must be able to work "up" the chain via an argument passed to the program. Please open the following address in a new tab:
https://blockchain.info/address/1DAkupXuuucn7vZn6kg8L2GMr5yd4EBtaY
Now, from here, start clicking the larger source address (the one on the lower left) from each of these transactions, in order:
1CHPXXXFgXGD47J8AUWydBS4uDKJWJuRwB
14QK2PyrUAPqzwJ195Bfty7WH6YRH6c9Uq
1NgfWRP6JFxR6Ba9ekKnaHF4USep4wT4RV
14oSswpT6D6Z6ZopziXkxvempei1vhVTbH
Again, the program will record the value, date/time, and address of the Bitcoin address listed immediately below the first address on the right-hand side. It will do this till it encounters a transaction where there is more than one input to the highest address.
Edits for clarification: Exported format should be CSV or Tab-Delimited TXT. Can be open sourced or not, but I will need to audit code. The bounty will remain while Bitcoin is under $15/coin.
If anyone else is interested in such a program, feel free to add to the bounty.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110306.0
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each person has a different appetite for risk so really it's all about whatever layer of protection you think is necessary base on the amount of money you are moving in and out. Not a definitive answer but it's the truth.
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Yes, it's definitly worth the effort. Even if no one has been caught by bitcoin blockchain analysis yet, expect it to start happening soon.
is this a real scenario? If so what else is a good idea? Different btc addresses or anything else?
A real mixing service. Learn about taint analysis. You can do a taint analysis on blockchain.info
Once you use a real tumbling service, run a taint analysis on your final address. No one will ever figure out where those came from lol.
cant karma yet.. but wanted to say thanks.. so.. Thanks!!
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...how does LEO even know the address you sent BTC to is in any way related to SR?
I've always wondered about this, too. Is there any way to correlate a wallet with SR??
I've seen people working on this on bitcointalk.org
I've seen a small list of SR addresses.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110306.0
Hey that was almost 8 months ago, I wonder how that project is coming along? Looks interesting...I wonder if there were any good results or is it a big secret for now? I can see how a link can be made if you are sending between the same two addresses (like reusing the same paper wallet or other cold storage technique), back and forth but that is definitely not best practice.
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Which mixing services have you guys had good experience with?
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Hard to imagine law enforcement going through that trouble to comb through SR transactions in the hopes of finding a dealer. The odds to finding someone tied to a random wallet who's worth busting seems pretty low.
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I think once you've got to the 10 transactions stage, you know who the good guys are. In fairness, as a damn well oldie who should have 2.5 kids (but doesn't) has been doing this on the streets for years, and in fact is still out there doing the partying, I have not been conned or done by even one of those transactions since I started here.
Chose your product, pick the top % feedback & suppliers. Communicate with them once or twice (they are busy). You get a feel. There's a great community here. It works. Long may it last. And you know what else? ...
I love it :)
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Yes, it's definitly worth the effort. Even if no one has been caught by bitcoin blockchain analysis yet, expect it to start happening soon.
is this a real scenario? If so what else is a good idea? Different btc addresses or anything else?
A real mixing service. Learn about taint analysis. You can do a taint analysis on blockchain.info
Once you use a real tumbling service, run a taint analysis on your final address. No one will ever figure out where those came from lol.
cant karma yet.. but wanted to say thanks.. so.. Thanks!!
Indeed, now I'll be spending the rest of the night analyzing my taint.
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lmfao at that last comment about the taint!!
Ok, getting serious for a sec, mixing services will make you feel good, but won't add any measurable layer of protection against LE. Why? Because they can't prove in the first place that you transferred or received shit if you:
(a) have a long and complicated enough passphrase
(b) keep your mouth shut
(c) rotate or continually create new BTC addresses
(d) don't publicize your BTC addresses
(e) don't use an exchange or electronic resource that can be linked to you
and
(f) use a logless VPN and/or Tor for each and every transaction
That last one is overkill and really not necessary when using your own wallet stored on your own computer. Otherwise, it's vital.
Keep in mind that LE will always go for the low-hanging fruit when making a case. BTC is definitely NOT that.
It's always easier to track you offline than online if you're an extremely cautious person online. But that won't stop LE from using advanced investigative techniques in the future, such as physically compromising your machine by installing a rootkit (see Evil Maid Attack), or bugging it directly. A pinhole camera is also a possibility. Warrant or no warrant, this bullshit is coming. That means physical security is just as important as the electronic variety.