Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: lucif on August 20, 2012, 05:23:53 PM



Title: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: lucif on August 20, 2012, 05:23:53 PM
From the FBI Bitcoin report (http://www.scribd.com/doc/92797476/FBI-Bitcoin-Report-April-2012) (page 5):

Quote
All Bitcoin transactions are published online and Internet Protocol (IP) address are linked to the public Bitcoin transactions.

AFAIK Bitcoin messages and transactions format, there are no entries containing sender's IP address.

AFAIK, to determine sender's IP address, your client must be connected directly to sender's Bitcoin client.

What did FBI mean with this quote?


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: Coincomm on August 20, 2012, 05:44:31 PM
It means the FBI is incompetent and is working in our favor.


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: lucif on August 20, 2012, 05:56:00 PM
Maybe they just read Satoshi's PDF paper in region where Satoshi describes how coins could be sent just to IP address?  ;D But this feature is obsolete AFAIK.


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: RodeoX on August 20, 2012, 05:58:50 PM
I think they mean "CAN be linked to IP addresses". By can I mean unless they covered their tracks.
Or perhaps the FBI is still trying to figure it all out, and not doing well.


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: Stephen Gornick on August 20, 2012, 07:43:14 PM
From the FBI Bitcoin report (http://www.scribd.com/doc/92797476/FBI-Bitcoin-Report-April-2012) (page 5):

Quote
All Bitcoin transactions are published online and Internet Protocol (IP) address are linked to the public Bitcoin transactions.

AFAIK Bitcoin messages and transactions format, there are no entries containing sender's IP address.

AFAIK, to determine sender's IP address, your client must be connected directly to sender's Bitcoin client.

What did FBI mean with this quote?

They don't really care about the IP address.  They care about identifying who the party in the transaction is.  So, they were wrong on that technical detail.  But there is information that will help towards giving a clue as to who a party in the transaction might be, even if that doesn't come from the IP address (presuming the party didn't take privacy precautions):

Here's an example:

https://i.imgur.com/Ubthk.png (https://i.imgur.com/Ubthk.png)

 - http://toolongdidntread.com/neo4j/i-really-wanted-to-release-this-weekend/


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: aph382 on August 20, 2012, 11:38:19 PM
wow, that is a very cool visualization tool.  kudos to the coder.


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: jimboboh on August 20, 2012, 11:40:50 PM
Interesting stuff- is that why bitcoin transactions will sometimes "bounce" the coin transfers around?


Title: Re: Bitcoin anonimity
Post by: Stephen Gornick on August 21, 2012, 01:03:06 AM
Interesting stuff- is that why bitcoin transactions will sometimes "bounce" the coin transfers around?

Bounce?


Are you referring to a mixing service?

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service