Bitcoin Forum

‘Dark Wallet’ Is About to Make Bitcoin Money Laundering Easier Than Ever

Government regulators around the world have spent the last year scrambling to prevent bitcoin from becoming the currency of choice for money launderers and black marketeers. Now their worst fears may be about to materialize in a single piece of software.

On Thursday, a collective of politically radical coders that calls itself unSystem plans to release the first version of Dark Wallet: a bitcoin application designed to protect its users’ identities far more strongly than the partial privacy protections bitcoin offers in its current form. If the program works as promised, it could neuter impending bitcoin regulations that seek to tie individuals’ identities to bitcoin ownership. By encrypting and mixing together its users’ payments, Dark Wallet seeks to enable practically untraceable flows of money online that add new fuel to the Web’s burgeoning black markets.

“This is a way of using bitcoin that mocks every attempt to sprinkle it with regulation,” says Cody Wilson, one of Dark Wallet’s two 26-year-old organizers. “It’s a way to say to the government ‘You’ve set yourself up to regulate bitcoin. Regulate this.’”...

....Wilson’s and Taaki’s money-laundering app is politically incendiary, but it’s not necessarily illegal, and they argue that the code is protected by First Amendment safeguards on free speech. But Wilson states plainly that he intends Dark Wallet to be used for anonymous online black markets like the Silk Road, the bitcoin-based drug bazaar seized by the FBI in October. “I want a private means for black market transactions,” says Wilson, “whether they’re for non-prescribed medical inhalers, MDMA for drug enthusiasts, or weapons.”

Nor does he deny that Dark Wallet might enable heinous crimes like child pornography, murder-for-hire, and terrorism. “Well, yes, bad things are going to happen on these marketplaces,” Wilson says. “Liberty is a dangerous thing.”
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/dark-wallet


“Liberty is a dangerous thing.”
Were you aware of the danger when you started to be interested in BTC?
Don't be afraid, the Gov will not hurt you.   :D

O rly?

This puts a new twist on the debate about whether BTC should be regulated and "play nice" with the Gov.

I like my money like I like my drink. Strong, and a little bit questionable.

Let the game begin!!!
 ;D

It is in several important ways a fresh start.
I don't have a huge need for that much privacy, but many others will Love it.  :)

lol wait a minute! I thought Bitcoin was already anonymous? Why did this 'dark' wallet suddenly become necessary lololololol :D

Is it such a good idea openly admitting to this?. f they ever get in any trouble for anything related to bitcoin I'm sure this can and will be used against them.

Early on many news stories called BTC "anonymous" (or untraceable) but it wasn't true.
Your IP address is recorded; I forget if that is only for sending or receiving.
I'm not an expert on the details, but I do know the default BTC software is NOT anonymous.

Is this a good thing for Bitcoin?  I would think things like this are only going to cause more problems when it comes to legislation and the legal use of Bitcoin.  :(

It's not news, just lamestream media trying to make it such. I've been following this project since it's inception and believe this is exactly what Bitcoin should be & needs. It was bound to happen sooner or later anyway, better it be done by these guys who also believe in what Bitcoin can achieve, just have a read of their website:

https://darkwallet.unsystem.net/   as well as their old page:

https://darkwallet.unsystem.net/old_index.html

To quote:

    "Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own." - Satoshi Nakamoto

Many prominent Bitcoin developers are actively in collusion with members of law enforcement and seeking approval from government legislators. We believe this is not in Bitcoin user's self interest, and instead serves wealthy business interests that make up the self-titled Bitcoin Foundation.

    Gavin will visit the CIA, a post by Gavin Andresen about presenting on Bitcoin to the CIA.
    Google+ conversation where regulation of Bitcoin (a fundamental world-changing technology) is downplayed by comparing it to something trivial.
    Mike Hearn on Silk Road shutdown - actively collusion with law enforcement against Silk Road.
    Bitcoin, Tor and Gates Foundation join task force to prevent child exploitation - key quote: "The Task Force, which launched in August, is not solely focussed on child exploitation."
    Who knows about other secret deals and arrangements designed to confer advantages on specific groups occupying powerful positions within Bitcoin.

We don't know the full extent of Bitcoin developer collusion with governments and legislators who seek to coopt this world changing technology that threatens established power hierarchies.

Here are some examples of pushing through rushed changes to Bitcoin when Bitcoin should remain pure, simple and focused as a protocol/standard.

    Bloom filters which introduced state to the Bitcoin protocol has opened up a serious security risk.
    Coercing every node to support bloom filters
    BIP 16 did not have proper discussion or the time needed. 2 years later and still multisig is not widely used. There was no need to rush this feature into Bitcoin so fast.
    Marginalising Bitcoiners due to political views and censorship of dissenting viewpoints: "bitcoin.org is owned by core developers, and the opinion of the community (everyone) is always taken into account. But someone needs to take decisions in order to have things done. And so far I have this role."
    Removing independent implementation developers from secret security mailing lists denying them security information. Other dirty political games.

This kind of careless debasement of the Bitcoin standard goes against the principles of Satoshi, and risks turning Bitcoin into a huge bloated standard that is enormously complex and difficult for any one group or person to understand. If we don't retain the power to code our own versions of Bitcoin, then we will always be dependent on a select few developers.

Want more proof that governments and states are corrupt? Read the plethora of dumps from Manning and Snowden. Nothing good will come to Bitcoin from collaborating with US government and law enforcement. If our developers are allies of those groups, then they are not working for Bitcoin users.

    During the initial stages of the Snowden leaks being made public, Obama claimed "We don't have a domestic spying program" and "There is no spying on Americans"
    "Five eyes" strategic alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA aims to achieve Total Information Awareness. Such programmes were shut down due to fears of mass surveillance, but were continued through covert operations under different names.
    Data is stored in multiple mega facilities such as the Utah Data Center, a $1.5 billion megaproject.
    In a single month (30 days), the NSA spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France. This is a record for a single month in one country, so we can only speculate on the full scale of spying we don't yet know about.
    Another document revealed the US spy agency intercepted 60.5m phone calls in Spain between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013.
    Details emerge of surveillance and wire-tapping of German officials. Obama claims he would not have allowed such a programme if he knew of its existance.
    More details emerge showing the programme was authorised by Obama personally 3 years ago, and that agents report directly to the president.
    NSA presentation slides on iPhone location services, which call iPhone users as "zombies" drawing parallels to 1984. Brazenly mocks you, the customer for mindlessly sleepwalking into their trap.

Keep Bitcoin private and uncensored. Both properties go hand in hand. You need anonymity for personal freedom. A free society does not censor any one person's voice (or monetary vote), no matter how uncomfortable that makes us feel.

Too many Bitcoin developers are focused on Bitcoin as a cheaper payments mechanism to make their lives more convenient, but I feel this is like looking at the totality of the internet as simply a tool to make shopping easier. It's worth so much more!

We must preserve the principles of Satoshi Nakamoto.

To learn more about the complex systems that underlie society, see the BBC documentary titled "The Secret Life of Chaos".
The future is bright. The future is crypto.

We haven't even begun to explore the possibilities that the blockchain brings us. The purpose of this project as we develop our technological capabilities will be to explore blockchain hyperspace creating p2p, crypto and opensource software that delivers this new world to you, the user, the king, the pioneer.

    Auto-anonymiser for your Bitcoins.
    Broadcasters to avoid triangulation of your financial transactions.
    Automatic fee discovery. Ability to set a tradeoff between confirmation time and fee size.
    Decentralised market discovery mechanisms.
    Distributed identity.
    Distributed reputation.
    Encrypted messaging.
    Private asset issuance.
    Decentralised trading.
    Semi-persistant storage mechanisms. Such things could lead to an uncensored fast encrypted web. The holy grail of cipherspace.
    Timestampped proof of ownership.
    Encrypted shop-fronts.
    Contracts, escrow, cooperatives, alternate ownership models, ...
    Decentralised market places (ala Silk Road).
    Uncensorable crowdfunding platforms, stock platforms and information blackmarkets.
    Highly scalable blockchain infrastructure.

We want to start an exploration in turning these rough concepts into usable privacy products for the people. Working tools (not prototypes) that are useful and relevant. Bring on the future!
We don't need to cooperate with control freaks

This is a new moment in our history. We search for answers. We look to the past, to old dogmas and visions which seem to cloud our judgement further, leave us feeling conflicted and cause tension between allies.

We need to take a step back to simple premises, and examine what we're setting out to achieve. I want to see less powerful and wealthy interests coercing and dominating the world. I want to see more challenges to hegemony and corruption. We need to own our management, with decision making taking place on a local level where choices on contribution, allocation of resources, … are made.

Free software tools like Bitcoin gift us the possibility to self manage our resources, and the power to decide how to expend common funds for public goods.

The United States was originally organised by the founding fathers as a federation of states. Recently freed from English tyranny, they sought to construct a fair and equal system that did not subjugate free peoples.

By constructing our societies as a federation of communities, each providing different models and alternatives within them, we can transcend collectivised straitjacketing and decentralise the system. More free choice for the people. This isn't the same as free choice for the consumers as consumerism is a passive ideology, but instead requires active participation. You are involved in the creation, maintenance and participation. Responsibility no longer comes from states but resides within you, the individual.

Technology tools are already obsoleting the old democratic systems. In Berlin, the German PirateParty is creating a platform for self determination called LiquidFeedback. Elsewhere we are seeing the development of a variety of communication (such as BitMessage), markets and self governance systems.

If we are a bit more socially aware and smarter in our personal decisions (involving economic, life, relationships, …) then we can self organise together. We can outcompete the states by providing services like food, energy, housing, healthcare, education and transport. Services that are better and more aligned with the world we want to see. And by putting our ideals into practice everyday we can make our vision a reality.

Most importantly, people come first, not fixed ideologies. Strength through diversity. We are on one planet, and have to co-exist with different viewpoints. If we can't find a consensus then we'll need to fight, and there are better things to be doing with my time. It's about your community, your proposals, your actions against other groups and their progress.

The reality today is a fragmented market with increasing centralisation. Corporations influence government policy to confer advantage and erect walled gardens against their competitors. This is not a good use of resources. The consequence of our centrally managed economic system is states that want to centralise everything. Europe is trying now to create a unified economic zone with disastrous results, including a growing obsession with surveillance and control.

Opensource offers an alternative. A free market ideal of collaboration based around the UNIX principle of building a brick that does one thing well, creating open ecosystems that emphasise integration and creating fair competitive markets.

We don't need to cooperate with control freaks. Disobedience is the only way.

Yeah, I was being sarcastic :P these guys were probably the ones saying that exact same crap.

I will read up on how this DarkWallet works. If it is a wallet with a built in mixer, then it is certainly a good idea for some. I might not need it now, but could be a useful wallet for me in the future.

It's great to see that this project continues.  Very important work!

The fact that those two guys aren't arrested plus lack of simple explanation how they intend to anonymise bitcoin indicates their software simply aren't effective and how can it be lol

Every transaction is recorded in the block chain. Yet no one knows id of wallets. So in effect u can wire yourself BTC and claim someone sent them to you, and so on :D

I want to send Bitcoin anonymously too.

It is open source, there is a great explanation in the code and elsewhere.

It does a lot of things including helps to prevent white and black listing and makes tracing coins much more difficult.  In short it helps to protect privacy.

Isn't the developer shooting his own foot by openly admitting he wants his wallet to be used for illegal activities and black market?

It's nice that he has developed anonymous wallet but his statements give Feds and government a new opportunity of opening fire on Bitcoin.

I don't understand money laundering; it necessitates money be traceable for starters, and only counts if the money changing hands was used in crime.  What if people simply want a money which isn't traceable i.e. privacy-centered; would every crime that ever occurred with this privacy-centered money be considered laundering?  Money laundering is like the poster boy for traceable money, because it's assumed that a money must be traceable or else this crime on top of a crime will occur.  It's essentially the reasoning as to why you shouldn't be allowed to have any privacy, specifically with money, just as you can't have any privacy in your email, texts and phone calls because terrorism.

They may as well have said, "Bitcoin supports terrorism."

Yes, but strong ethics, courage, and convection often lead to this.  One extreme example to make the point clear: the tank man of Tiananmen Square fame really shot himself in the foot when he decided to block a chain of advancing tanks rather than go home and watch some TV.

I lack such courage myself, but have enough to openly declare (with this pseudonym which is loosely linked to my real identity) that I support Dark Wallet and what it stands for, and that I donated 1 BTC yesterday.  It would be great to see Dark Wallet used to make the online drug marketplace safer for consumers and dealers alike.

Understand; however he could have made his point just by releasing the wallet. He didn't have to BRAG about the illegal usage. Its like bragging about the crimes you committed when the feds are arresting you.

"Anything you say can be used against you. You have the right to remain silent" :)

Releasing the wallet quietly would have made a very different point.  Everyone has the right to remain silent, but if no-one ever speaks up then why bother with freedom of speech?

Or just stupidity  :D. Stand up like a nail and you're likely to be knocked down.


I really hope it does work out. I think being decentralised is the only way to go really. At the moment these sort of markets just seem like hotbeds for scammers, whether from the operators themselves or the vendors that use them and then on top of that all the hackers trying to break in and steal everyone's funds.

Don't think that Government organizations won't be using it also, the CIA (Americas largest drug smuggling cartel) will love this  ;) :D

I don't think they'll need to use it. They seem to be able to launder money just fine.

It is important to note that there are two main people involved and that one is doing more advocacy, one more coding.  Amir Taaki doing the coding (Britain), and Cody Wilson (US) doing advocacy, iirc.  The difference between the two jurisdictions and the two roles is important since it has lots of non-illegal uses too - and the definition of illegal depends on your jurisdiction of course.  It is more difficult for the US to attack the advocacy portion due to the Constitution and 1st Amendment.

I don't know what will happen, if anything, to them, but if Amir is concentrating on the privacy aspects and Cody is doing the advocacy it seems to make it more difficult for the authorities.

It is an important project.

Well I'm glad he isn't doing all the talking then and is sticking to being more behind the code.

I don't get Dark Wallet. Few people care about anonymity, but many people fear it will empower criminality. The blowback to Dark Wallets may be outright banning of PoW coins. Maybe the developers are bullish on PoS?

Why how and who would outright ban them?

Why is marijuana banned with a death sentence in most countries? Bitcoin threatens banks the same way herbs threatens Big Pharm. Bitcoin the payment system doesn't threaten law enforcement any more than PayPal, but Bitcoin the anonymous currency does. See the difference?

I don't think weed is threatened with a death sentance in most countries. Sure in some but not most. And cash is more anonymous than bitcoin if you want it to be.

Cash isn't anonymous. Don't conflate anonymity with fungibility. Besides, cash may be banned for large purchases soon.

I am not sure if you say this thread, but it is quite interesting:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0

Nor does he deny that Dark Wallet might enable heinous crimes...
He doesn't say "he wants his wallet to be used for illegal activities":
He is acknowledging that when everyone has privacy, some people will use it for crimes.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  ~Benjamin Franklin

If I meet someone on the street and give them some money that seems pretty annoymous.

Not if I'm a cop and you are doing something bad.

Maybe I'll leave it at a location for him to pick up then. You can probably say nothing is anonymous if you want to nitpick.

That's not what I'm saying. Cash is private, not anonymous. You can increase privacy by risking control and dropping off the money, but you may lose it completely. OTOH, the person picking up the money is then at risk if you are the cop.

I personally care about the need to be anonymous if there is someone infringing on my privacy rights.  I think there will be a real need for this and support the project even though it has a negative label.

This is a great thing for Bitcoin; there's a great need for privacy in our society where everything can be monitered, and where this data can be used against an individual that does anything which the irrational governments do not deem to be acceptable. I'd be very glad if Bitcoin was able to successfully and easily fulfill this need for privacy towards a person's use of his wealth, just like TOR does for his online activities. No legislation can destroy anything that fulfills an important need.

no one will know who you are when sending via Dark Wallet?

Does any nation have a constitutional clause guaranteeing a right to anonymity? If not, then why is it more important than privacy?

Some mention a need for anonymity (not just privacy) with certain operations such as voting.  I don't think many talk much about anonymity, but then many such documents were written long before the surveillance apparatus we have today was established.

Part of the reason real anonymity is important is that these days, privacy is often breached when it should not be.  I believe that as we head further into the digital age, the distinction between "anonymous" and "private" will continue to grow, and the distinction between "private" and "public" will continue to shrink.