Deanonymization of BTC

[Nagesh021]

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Well being careful just means that you don't make a connection between the ''bitcoin'' world and your own ''world'',  which basically comes down to not linking any sensitive information to any of your adresses..

How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Who is ''they''? What is it that you're asking here exactly? How the government agencies link wallet adress to people? Or services like https://walletexplorer.com ?

There really isn't such a thing as a wallet ID, it really doesn't exist on the blockchain level itself.

AFAIK, Walletexplorer.com does it through "adress clustering"

See;

What walletexplorer does is called address clustering. When you spend bitcoins, your wallet will take input from several txouts belonging to several addresses depending on amount to be spend. So walletexplorer works on a simple heuristic:

If two addresses appear as inputs in any given transaction, they belong to same user
More detail about this method can be seen in this paper by Reid and Harrigan. Of course, this method will fail in case of mixers and coinjoin transactions. There are advanced ways to even detect transaction that go through mixers, but I don't think wallet explorer does that

To find name of wallets it can scrap forums like bitcointalk, some addresses are tagged publicly in blockchain.info, also it can has bots trade on major exchanges to get their addresses.

I doubt this would work very well on individuals, but it's very effective to ID large exchanges this way.

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

[gentlemand]

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

You can download this page - www.bitaddress.org

Put it on a computer that's never seen the internet and generate all the addresses you want. No one will ever be able to link that to anywhere.

When you download a phone wallet through google play or a hardware wallet they never see the addresses or seeds you generate otherwise security would be compromised. Any wallet that was sending addresses back to the company would be exposed and shunned immediately.

That's different from hosted wallets like Coinbase that control the private keys. They of course see everything.

[Nagesh021]

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

You can download this page - www.bitaddress.org

Put it on a computer that's never seen the internet and generate all the addresses you want. No one will ever be able to link that to anywhere.

When you download a phone wallet through google play or a hardware wallet they never see the addresses or seeds you generate otherwise security would be compromised. Any wallet that was sending addresses back to the company would be exposed and shunned immediately.

That's different from hosted wallets like Coinbase that control the private keys. They of course see everything.

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

[gentlemand]

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

My ID is long blown with every single satoshi I have. I couldn't care less. I have nothing to hide. Nor do most people. If I make vast profits I'll cough up the tax. The only people who can access exchange information and my subsequent ID will be law enforcement just as they can with a bank account.

If people want to avoid the attention of the authorities they'll have to avoid conventional exchanges. Most people are happy enough to give up every single scrap of detail about their whole lives to places like Facebook. It's not an issue for most.

If it is an issue there are ways to address it.

What is the central thrust of your questions?

[Nagesh021]

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

My ID is long blown with every single satoshi I have. I couldn't care less. I have nothing to hide. Nor do most people. If I make vast profits I'll cough up the tax. The only people who can access exchange information and my subsequent ID will be law enforcement just as they can with a bank account.

If people want to avoid the attention of the authorities they'll have to avoid conventional exchanges. Most people are happy enough to give up every single scrap of detail about their whole lives to places like Facebook. It's not an issue for most.

If it is an issue there are ways to address it.

What is the central thrust of your questions?

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

[gentlemand]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

[Nagesh021]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

Thanks! Got a more clear picture. But i would want to get other's perspectives too.

[bob123]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

Bitcoin is not anonymous at all. If at all, it is pseudonymous.

And therefore you can't deanonymize it. All you can do is to try to stay anonymous (by using several tools (e.g. a mixer)).
This does not influence the level of anonymity of the network, just the anonymity of a person itself and his/her transactions.
In such a case (if it is done properly) it will be almost impossible to proper chase/deanonymize such a privacy-orientated (and tech-savy) user.

[Marlo Stanfield]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

As others have started to point out, the answer is a very big 'yes'. People years ago tried to pass off Bitcoin as being anonymous, but slowly that faded away as people became more honest and educated. It's a public ledger of transactions, it's not inherently private or anonymous at all.

[arumslee]

Bitcoin was never made to be truly anonymous, it was pseudonymous because of the immutable ledger. All transactions made by anybody are visible.

[milewilda]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

Thanks! Got a more clear picture. But i would want to get other's perspectives too.

Other perspective would really be just similar on what most people do say on here which is actually right. It had been said bitcoin isnt truly anonymous but pseudonymous.
Transactions can be tracked and seen out publicly which is really opposing on the thing where most people do believe into bitcoin when it regards to privacy or anonymity.
Monero would fit this one and said above it is being excluded due to that fact.

[quichiship]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

No you can't .Due to the anonymous transaction bitcoin is popular. You're hiding your identity by using bitcoins technology. You can send money world wide without telling anyone your name, documents, passport etc.

[likerseld]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

Where other platform like PayPal hold your money and ask you to show your full identity which is risky you can lose your money they can restricted your account where block chain  never. It is anonymous which is good for us plus it has some advantages feature.

[veleten]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

as it has been mentioned above,bitcoin is pseudoanonymous and there is always a way to link addresses together
once it is done,you can proceed to cooperate with the law enforcement organizations of the target country to connect that to the devices and the physical address of a person(s)
there are several agencies that are doing this at the moment:
1.founded back in 2015, Chainalysis is one of the most famous(and oldest)
focuses on assessing risks for the companies if they want to enter bitcoin markets,also helping law enforcement
partnered with many international law enforcement agencies and Europol they provide tools to track cyber criminals
2.Elliptic-providing same services as Chainalysis,tools to identify illicit activity on the Bitcoin blockchain
3.QLUE-a programme by BIG(Blockchain Investigation Group) having the same functionality as the ones above,focuses on the darknet operations
there was a publicly available tool called Numisight,currently unavailable
one could visualize transactions made from an address and connect it to another in a nice graphical presentation