World’s Bitcoin Exchanges Track and Report Customer Activity

[QuestionAuthority]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

Do you understand how the blockchain works? It never records the IP address from which the transaction was sent. How would Gift Cards or Debit cards be more anonymous? Those are linked to a name and address, whereas Bitcoin addresses are only linked to a 30-some character string of random numbers and letters?

Maybe you should read up on that first before you sound so sure.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/bitcoin-prism

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/prosecutors-trace-13-4-million-bitcoins-silk-road-ulbrichts-laptop/

http://www.theprivacyguy.com/anonymous-credit-debit-cards/

[Amph]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

something like monero, begs to differ, cash is more prone to be falsified, but it is not the best anon option available

yeah you need to buy monero at first, but you can always mine it if you have a powerful rig, and good cheap electricity

[bryant.coleman]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

How can cash be anonymous, and Bitcoin not so? If I am using a proxy server or a VPN or other anonymization services such as the I2P browser, how can someone find out my real IP address? And if I am using a one-time Bitcoin address, created just for a single Bitcoin transaction, I don't think anyone will be able to trace me using it.

[Amph]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

How can cash be anonymous, and Bitcoin not so? If I am using a proxy server or a VPN or other anonymization services such as the I2P browser, how can someone find out my real IP address? And if I am using a one-time Bitcoin address, created just for a single Bitcoin transaction, I don't think anyone will be able to trace me using it.

perfectly in agreement, everyone always say that bitcoin isn't anon, and it is easy to track you back, yet the story of all hackers that were successful at scamming big exchanges begs to differ

It is very easy to disguise yourself with bitcoin, there are plenty of different tools available

 

[Lauda]

It's quite funny, because I remember saying an article like this back in 2012, where BTC got linked to paedos, drug dealers and other criminals, which made me totally ignore it as something not good.
Thanks to that FUD article, I lost the chance of being a millionaire a year later, but thanks to that article, im here today ahead of a lot of other people, with a couple BTC under my belt, ready for the revolution to take over the world in the next decade.

OP has started sharing these articles for the sake of spreading fear. This won't benefit anyone, not Bitcoin or his beloved Goldcoin. He should stop.

What did people think was happening? Banks suddenly getting incoming transactions valued at thousands and even millions of dollars and that nobody was going to ask where it came from?
Let's get back to reality.

How can cash be anonymous, and Bitcoin not so? If I am using a proxy server or a VPN or other anonymization services such as the I2P browser, how can someone find out my real IP address? And if I am using a one-time Bitcoin address, created just for a single Bitcoin transaction, I don't think anyone will be able to trace me using it.

That's the main thing here. If you pick the wrong proxy/VPN and you do something illegal you're done for. We've had several reports of VPN's giving data to governments in the past.
Finding a VPN that is secure (strong encryption), reliable and one that keeps no logs isn't as easy as it seems.

[Habeler876]

All of this was to be expected. Bitcoin isn't really anonymous. And centralized exchanges are, well, centralized. And yeah, they will work with governments.

[QuestionAuthority]

I'll do this one more time since you all don't read posted links.

"Bitcoin transaction privacy is really complicated," Gaven Andresen, chief scientist with the Bitcoin Foundation, previously told Wired.com. "If you want to be sure that your transactions are going to be private, then you probably need to hire a cryptography PhD to analyse your system."

Source even though you won't click into it: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/bitcoin-prism

There are many Gift Cards that act like Debit cards online that do not require a SSN, address or any identification to purchase. I buy them at my local grocery store all the time. Fully anonymous cards. Cash is fully anonymous if you're dealing with someone in person. You can take cash and hand it to anyone without them knowing anything about you.

[achow101]

I'll do this one more time since you all don't read posted links.

"Bitcoin transaction privacy is really complicated," Gaven Andresen, chief scientist with the Bitcoin Foundation, previously told Wired.com. "If you want to be sure that your transactions are going to be private, then you probably need to hire a cryptography PhD to analyse your system."

Source even though you won't click into it: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/bitcoin-prism

There are many Gift Cards that act like Debit cards online that do not require a SSN, address or any identification to purchase. I buy them at my local grocery store all the time. Fully anonymous cards. Cash is fully anonymous if you're dealing with someone in person. You can take cash and hand it to anyone without them knowing anything about you.

I clicked on that link and read about it. In order to find out who is behind what addresses, a significant amount of time and effort is required to go through several months of passive analysis to find patterns to identify a person. Gift Cards on the other hand, although they can be bought anonymously, in order to use them online like Bitcoin, must have a name, address, and sometimes phone number associated with them. You must include the Billing Address in a Gift Card transaction in order to use it. It is much easier to ask a store and ask for their database of transactions and search for a name or address or gift card number than it is to sift through months of data to identify patterns that may not even exist.

[QuestionAuthority]

I'll do this one more time since you all don't read posted links.

"Bitcoin transaction privacy is really complicated," Gaven Andresen, chief scientist with the Bitcoin Foundation, previously told Wired.com. "If you want to be sure that your transactions are going to be private, then you probably need to hire a cryptography PhD to analyse your system."

Source even though you won't click into it: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/bitcoin-prism

There are many Gift Cards that act like Debit cards online that do not require a SSN, address or any identification to purchase. I buy them at my local grocery store all the time. Fully anonymous cards. Cash is fully anonymous if you're dealing with someone in person. You can take cash and hand it to anyone without them knowing anything about you.

I clicked on that link and read about it. In order to find out who is behind what addresses, a significant amount of time and effort is required to go through several months of passive analysis to find patterns to identify a person. Gift Cards on the other hand, although they can be bought anonymously, in order to use them online like Bitcoin, must have a name, address, and sometimes phone number associated with them. You must include the Billing Address in a Gift Card transaction in order to use it. It is much easier to ask a store and ask for their database of transactions and search for a name or address or gift card number than it is to sift through months of data to identify patterns that may not even exist.

I've used gift cards to buy "questionable" items completely anonymously. I give a fake name and used a university open address department mail drop. I have a friend thats working on his doctorate in Political Science and distributes the mail. I just have him set aside any packages that come for Tom Jones. That's only one way to do it. In my neighborhood, the postman sits packages that are to big for the multi-box on your doorstep. I just ship it to my neighbors house and watch the daily mail delivery. Everyone is at work and I'm retired so I just walk over and pick it up.