Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: ThisIsIt on September 27, 2013, 04:47 pm
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While all bitcoin transactions are written to the blockchain, and therefore public, how anonymous are the orders for the transaction?
Let's say I've got some anonymous bitcoins (i.e. deposited there by a mixing service) in Address1 in my Electrum wallet. And I want to use these bitcoins in "my_Address1" to anonymously pay for a VPN service. Would it be clear/visible that the order to send coins from my_Address1 to the VPN_Address came from my computer?
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IMO people are far too paranoid (not that you can ever be "too safe") SR actually launders the money when you send it anyways, and to top it off if you're only sending yourself fractions of bitcoins especially to offline wallets, then who's going to seriously want to go through all the trouble of going through those thousands of layers and tracing it back to some noobie buyer using shit for personal measures? I think they are FAR more concerned about catching the vendors, and people buying ENORMOUS amounts off SR and even then LE and PI's have to go through an excruciating process and receive multiple warrants to do anything about anything.
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I agree that small buyers are probably at a smaller risk, but my question is more about the nature of bitcoin exchanges.
How does my "wallet" communicate with the blockchain? I assumed since the blockchain is public, it is also visible who is writing to the blockchain? Perhaps I need to do more basic nature into the mechanics of bitcoin.
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I agree that small buyers are probably at a smaller risk, but my question is more about the nature of bitcoin exchanges.
If we're taking about exchanges, they are a weak link in anonymity. Mt Gox, for example, requires a clearnet login and they record every IP address, the amount of coins purchased by that IP and where they sent the btc. So if you're going the exchange rate route, you have to spoof your IP if you want anonymity. I've never tried logging in to GOx through tor, but my understanding is that triggers a verification requirement. I know most of the exchanges have the same policy; I'm not sure if that's strictly enforced.
Why not just bypass the exchanges all together and use localbitcoins.net?Edit: localbitcoins.com. Sorry I fucked that up!
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Why not just bypass the exchanges all together and use localbitcoins.net?
That is beside the point of the question I am trying to ask.
Let's say you have anonymous coins you bought with cash (in "Address_1") and you want to transfer them to your friend ("Address_2"). Wouldn't it be visible that the order (or "command"?) to transfer the coins came from your IP address?
Of course, if you had a VPN, this would hide your true IP, but what if this effort is in order to purchase an anonymous VPN (as I'm trying to do...)
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Let's say you have anonymous coins you bought with cash (in "Address_1") and you want to transfer them to your friend ("Address_2"). Wouldn't it be visible that the order (or "command"?) to transfer the coins came from your IP address?
Yes, you would need to launder the coins thoroughly before sending them to address 2. And yes, VPN would be a different story.
The thing is, the average user here doesn't have anywhere near the level anonymity they think they have. So to the average everyday user, the coins in address 1 probably aren't all that anonymous.
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Jesus if you cant read the question dont answer
The ip addresses on blockchain are the relays and not the senders, I do recommend tumbling coins after purchace no matter how you bought them but to answer the question NO they cant tell what computer/ip sent the coin the only thing they can do is track them back to the purchase
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The ip addresses on blockchain are the relays and not the senders
While I do believe that, are you saying there's no recording of where the coins came from before they passed through the relay?
That's at odds with every article I've read about btc, but I'm not claiming to be an expert.
But Meiklejohn and her colleagues at UCSD and George Mason University have found that a little snooping in the blockchain can often uncover who owns which of those Bitcoin addresses.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/05/follow-the-bitcoins-how-we-got-busted-buying-drugs-on-silk-roads-black-market/
That's an article written by the same guy that interviewed DPR in Forbes.
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Let's say you have anonymous coins you bought with cash (in "Address_1") and you want to transfer them to your friend ("Address_2"). Wouldn't it be visible that the order (or "command"?) to transfer the coins came from your IP address?
Yes, you would need to launder the coins thoroughly before sending them to address 2. And yes, VPN would be a different story.
The thing is, the average user here doesn't have anywhere near the level anonymity they think they have. So to the average everyday user, the coins in address 1 probably aren't all that anonymous.
Although the owner of the coins can remain hidden, technically speaking, the transaction can be traced to your IP, or rather to the IP of the machine used for the transaction. Two parties still need IP addresses to communicate, therefore they both can "know" each other's IPs. The IPs can still be logged at both ends of the transactions.
I trust you can carry on now.
good luck,
Kilroy
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I think I figured out my question. Since IPs can be linked to transactions, the IP can be anonymized through TOR. Since I'm using Electrum, followed the advice in this thread
clearnet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113116.0;all
So basically, the "network" settings allow you to choose how to connect to the bitcoin network, instead of the default server I am connecting through a TOR network.