Getting paid via bitcoins anonymously

[marnie]

Hello
Took me a while to find the forum I can post in lol.

Anyways, I've spent a lot of time researching bitcoins, and I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how it works.

Anyways, I'm doing a bit of work with someone overseas. We're kinda on an anonymous level. ANd he's going to be paying me
Western Union. He will probably pay me either weekly or biweekly.

Is there a way he can anonymously buy bitcoins, and send them to me, so the relationship still stays anonymous?

2) I was reading a post about someone getting hacked and losing their coins. Excuse my terms, but is this because everything
is open source, you can see which accounts are the most active thus containing the most currency?

Thanks for the help!

[mitty]

I haven't used it myself but this site seems mentioned a lot for buying bitcoins: https://www.bitinstant.com/

He could then send them to your bitcoin address which you could either create with an online wallet service (like blockchain.info) or with the official desktop client (bitcoin.org).  You could keep the bitcoins, or exchange them back for cash again at a site like https://fastcash4bitcoins.com/

Losing your coins has nothing to do with bitcoin being open source- the protocol/network is secure by design, not by obscurity.  You can lose your coins if someone else gets access to your wallet private keys.  With the official bitcoin client these are stored in a file called wallet.dat on your computer's hard drive.  For an online wallet, your private keys are stored on the service provider's server and you trust the service provider to keep your keys safe (and to not take your money for themselves). 

You might want to check this post for info on keeping your wallet secure: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17240.0

Basically you should at least use the encryption option in the official Bitcoin client to keep your wallet secured with a password- that way someone would need the password even if they got access to your wallet file.

Good luck!

[BTCKnowledge]

They're quite helpful in the #bitcoin-otc IRC chatroom!
server: freenode

[marnie]

Thanks both of you.

Now I've also come across LibertyReserve. Maybe that would be easier?
They both seem to have the same methods.
Can find someone who accepts WU for currency.

Seocnd, I've seen people mention VPNs a few times. Why do people use VPNs?

[Bitcoin Oz]

Thanks both of you.

Now I've also come across LibertyReserve. Maybe that would be easier?
They both seem to have the same methods.
Can find someone who accepts WU for currency.

Seocnd, I've seen people mention VPNs a few times. Why do people use VPNs?

Because for some reason they need to hide their IP or access a service they cant at home. Use a vpn to access services in the US  they block geographically.

[hashkey]

If I'm not mistaken, people use VPNs for their bitcoin transactions in order for them to not expose their true IP address. Thus their bitcoin transaction would be performed using an IP address provided by the VPN provider, hence making the bitcoin sender's identity more difficult to be traced.

Your bitcoin sender could buy bitcoins from a reputable local trader near his location, or try payment methods that are accepted by MtGox, BitInstant and other reputable bitcoin exchange provider. If your bitcoin sender will be using a bitcoin address having its private keys stored in here computer (wallet.dat), he should make sure his computer doesn't have any form of malware/virus that could capture his wallet.dat and passphrase (via keylogger capabilities).

He could make an offline wallet using a Linux live CD then encrypt it, save the wallet.dat on a thumbdrive or cd/dvd, then copy a bitcoin address from it. He shouldn't use this wallet.dat on his computer or connect his thumbdrive or cd/dvd using his regular OS, not unless he's going to send the coins immediately. After your sender buys his bitcoins but he's not going to send it yet, he should send the coins that he has to the bitcoin address of his offline wallet that he had made to make those bitcoins safe from being withdrawn if he's not sure his machine is compromised or not.

[ennio.morricone]

Seocnd, I've seen people mention VPNs a few times. Why do people use VPNs?

VPN are used to hide ip address from third parties.
The same can be achieved with TOR or I2P i guess.

[molecular]

Hello
Took me a while to find the forum I can post in lol.

Anyways, I've spent a lot of time researching bitcoins, and I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how it works.

Anyways, I'm doing a bit of work with someone overseas. We're kinda on an anonymous level. ANd he's going to be paying me
Western Union. He will probably pay me either weekly or biweekly.

Is there a way he can anonymously buy bitcoins, and send them to me, so the relationship still stays anonymous?

2) I was reading a post about someone getting hacked and losing their coins. Excuse my terms, but is this because everything
is open source, you can see which accounts are the most active thus containing the most currency?

Thanks for the help!

1.) of course it's possible to do anonymous transactions using bitcoin.

2.) people lose coins not because bitcoin is opensource (that's a good thing for security), but because their computers get hacked and someone steals their wallet. Encrypting it doesn't necessarily save you because attacker could install a keylogger and get your pw. Once you have more bitcoins, you'll need to think about securing your system and/or using offline wallets.

You can see which accounts have the most money, yes, but that doesn't tell you who owns these addresses or where these wallets reside, so you wouldn't know who to attack.

[Bitexchange]

You can buy Bitcoins anonymously through our website.
http://bitexchange.biz/

Or maybe also have a look into bitcoin washing, we offer Bitcoin Laundry without same coin contaminations, which means you will get completely different coins back.
That way you make sure there is no way to trace your transactions.