Bitcoin anonymity

[justusranvier]

https://github.com/justusranvier/wallet-ratings/blob/2015-2/2015-2/threat%20model.wiki

[bitcoin revo]

If i use a different bitcoin address for every transaction, it is still possible to correlate my addresses?

If i leave one address here in my signature (for tip, lets say) and this address only serves this purpose, i will never use it in any other transaction; it is possible to correlate it with other of my addresses?

I am reading that bitcoin is not so anonymous like people think it is, BUT what are the possible falws here? I know that every transaction is public, but if "they" cant correlate transactions/addresses with each other, they have nothing, right?

Explain like i am five please 

Thank you

The only good way of mixing is to trade your BTC for other cryptocoins, there is no direct tie on the blockchain this way.

[errornone]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

If people didn't feel the way I do then they would pay for everything with cash. No one would use PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, checks or just about any other modern payment method. BTW: When I first started using checks they always put your SSN under your address and drivers licenses had your SSN on them too.

Paypal, credit cards don't reveal your company profits, or your salary.

unless major istitutions like banks are forced by taxes man like IRS to reveal information about an individual which presumably he is doing money laundering or he is evading taxes with a big amount that wasn't declared previously..

they can control everything that can travel on any fiat circuit, that's why they fear bitcoin

i don't care if banks/governments reveal information of criminals! it is good, actually.

i m worried that my neighbor knows everything about me! it is dangerous! people are envious.
bitcoin don't protect me of my neighbor. banks do.

[newb4now]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

i think i will invest in monero. it solves that problem.

monero cannot be used directly(i'm not aware of shops that accept it), you need at some point to return to bitcoin, at least try to use two exchanges to perform this

until zerocoin/darkwallet or some unknown sidechain will be implemented to solve this little issue the best solution is cryptonight at the moment

Actually with xmr.to you can easily use Monero at any shop that accepts BTC. Very fast, secure and easy

[binaryFate]

Relevant to the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3ctjed/friendly_reminder_to_bitcoin_users_that_seek/

[iCEBREAKER]

Relevant to the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3ctjed/friendly_reminder_to_bitcoin_users_that_seek/

Yes, it's true.  "Bitcoin anonymity" is an oxymoron.

The closest we can get is Bitcoin obscurity, via various mixing schemes.

For everything else, there's Monero.   

[Amph]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

If people didn't feel the way I do then they would pay for everything with cash. No one would use PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, checks or just about any other modern payment method. BTW: When I first started using checks they always put your SSN under your address and drivers licenses had your SSN on them too.

Paypal, credit cards don't reveal your company profits, or your salary.

unless major istitutions like banks are forced by taxes man like IRS to reveal information about an individual which presumably he is doing money laundering or he is evading taxes with a big amount that wasn't declared previously..

they can control everything that can travel on any fiat circuit, that's why they fear bitcoin

i don't care if banks/governments reveal information of criminals! it is good, actually.

i m worried that my neighbor knows everything about me! it is dangerous! people are envious.
bitcoin don't protect me of my neighbor. banks do.

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

and anyway i don't find evading taxes always a criminal thing, at least until they can provide transparency on those taxers

[errornone]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

[Amph]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

[errornone]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

and you think that process is simple enough to population in general?? to bitcoin become success, processes MUST be simple. Nobody wants to learn how to mix, etc etc that is for geeks only! And geeks only wont make bitcoin a success!

banks, actually provide all the privacy common user wants. bitcoin dont.

[binaryFate]

With banks, only law enforcement (LE) can trace your (non-cash) fiat transactions.
With Bitcoin, everyody on the planet with just an internet connection and a copy of the blockchain is the LE.

[Amph]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

and you think that process is simple enough to population in general?? to bitcoin become success, processes MUST be simple. Nobody wants to learn how to mix, etc etc that is for geeks only! And geeks only wont make bitcoin a success!

banks, actually provide all the privacy common user wants. bitcoin dont.

how can a third party provide you pricacy, this is an oxymoron you know, in the exact time that your personal info are handled by someone else, you can't talk about privacy anymore

in the future anonimity with bitcoin will be made less troublesome for sure, for now if someone really want to stay anonimous he need to work a bit, i'm sure that if someone really have a reason to stay anonimous, he become suddenly a geek, you can be assured about this

[pereira4]

With banks, only law enforcement (LE) can trace your (non-cash) fiat transactions.
With Bitcoin, everyody on the planet with just an internet connection and a copy of the blockchain is the LE.

Kinda true, but not really. For someone to bet the LE the guy would need clear proof that the address belongs to a real, particular person which is a very hard thing to prove.
Monero is great but I don't see it ever replacing BTC, you need a certain level of pseudo anonimity for something like that to work.
Is it true tho that Monero seems to be more e-cash than BTC is. But with both currencies, as soon as you go into fiat you lose anonimity, and with both currencies, if you stay within crypto it's pretty damn anonymous.

[errornone]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

and you think that process is simple enough to population in general?? to bitcoin become success, processes MUST be simple. Nobody wants to learn how to mix, etc etc that is for geeks only! And geeks only wont make bitcoin a success!

banks, actually provide all the privacy common user wants. bitcoin dont.

how can a third party provide you pricacy, this is an oxymoron you know, in the exact time that your personal info are handled by someone else, you can't talk about privacy anymore

in the future anonimity with bitcoin will be made less troublesome for sure, for now if someone really want to stay anonimous he need to work a bit, i'm sure that if someone really have a reason to stay anonimous, he become suddenly a geek, you can be assured about this

it is not to stay anonymous like im doing anything illegal!! i just want my privacy!! do you understand this?

and no! nobody (normal people) is going to become a geek to use bitcoin. people just keep using fiat money; it is the easiest way.

i am not a geek, i am not a criminal and i STILL want my privacy from my neighbors and friends. banks provide me this. bitcoin don't.

[BoscoMurray]

With banks, only law enforcement (LE) can trace your (non-cash) fiat transactions.
With Bitcoin, everyody on the planet with just an internet connection and a copy of the blockchain is the LE.

Kinda true, but not really. For someone to bet the LE the guy would need clear proof that the address belongs to a real, particular person which is a very hard thing to prove.
Monero is great but I don't see it ever replacing BTC, you need a certain level of pseudo anonymity for something like that to work.
Is it true tho that Monero seems to be more e-cash than BTC is. But with both currencies, as soon as you go into fiat you lose anonimity, and with both currencies, if you stay within crypto it's pretty damn anonymous.

Think about where crypto-currencies are going though. The aim is eventually for users to stay in crypto, and not ever need to convert to FIAT.

In this scenario (I know it's a long way off) you surely need the crypto-currency to have the same fungibility as cash. Monero has this. Bitcoin does not.

Blockchain analysis is already performed, and some bitcoin is not accepted on particular exchanges because it has apparently been used for illicit purposes. I read of a service where you can buy freshly mined bitcoin at higher than the going rate = Bitcoin is not fungible.

Bitcoin is great, but relying on extra services, sidechains, mixing or whatever means trust will probably be required. Trust...  That's not true cash-like fungibility. For this, you need a trustless system like CryptoNote in Monero, IMO.

EDIT: corrected CryptoNight to CryptoNote

[OROBTC]

...

For me, all I care about is anonymity at the level of casual hackers (etc.), those who would try to steal "EASY BTC", unprotected.  Like burglars who choose easy targets...

I have no evidence, but my *guess* is that TPTB (IRS, perhaps other .govs) could crack mixers.  But, one would have to be a target.  Don't want to be a target?  Don't do illegal things.  Smaller, but more, transactions might help too.

The countermeasures we have right now are enough to get "Pretty Good Privacy" in that sense, anonymity vs. casual thieves.  Mixing BTC seems to be "good enough".  bitmixer.io and blockchain.info's SharedCoin service are enough for me.

*   *   *

justusranvier's link above is excellent for those ready for this level of technical understanding, as is iCEBREAKER's, thank you both for the links.

https://github.com/justusranvier/wallet-ratings/blob/2015-2/2015-2/threat%20model.wiki

http://crypsys.mmci.uni-saarland.de/projects/CoinShuffle/coinshuffle.pdf

[Amph]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

and you think that process is simple enough to population in general?? to bitcoin become success, processes MUST be simple. Nobody wants to learn how to mix, etc etc that is for geeks only! And geeks only wont make bitcoin a success!

banks, actually provide all the privacy common user wants. bitcoin dont.

how can a third party provide you pricacy, this is an oxymoron you know, in the exact time that your personal info are handled by someone else, you can't talk about privacy anymore

in the future anonimity with bitcoin will be made less troublesome for sure, for now if someone really want to stay anonimous he need to work a bit, i'm sure that if someone really have a reason to stay anonimous, he become suddenly a geek, you can be assured about this

it is not to stay anonymous like im doing anything illegal!! i just want my privacy!! do you understand this?

and no! nobody (normal people) is going to become a geek to use bitcoin. people just keep using fiat money; it is the easiest way.

i am not a geek, i am not a criminal and i STILL want my privacy from my neighbors and friends. banks provide me this. bitcoin don't.

want the anonimity, does not mean at all that you want to do illegal stuff, like satoshi said, what if i want to keep my privacy when i watch porn, because i don't want that my wife finds out?

you can't have your privacy iif you let another person in charge of your security ,no matter how you say it, it's an oxymoron....

[Mickeyb]

how so, bitcoin can actully protect singular individual much better than bank, when you are dealing with your neighbor or spose

how, if every transaction is online for everyone to see?!

you can mix it, there are various tool or ways(altcoin, using more than one exchange, mining, recieving bitcoin directly to different adresses ecc...) to help you stay more anonymous than dealing with fiat where every transaction is traceable

and you think that process is simple enough to population in general?? to bitcoin become success, processes MUST be simple. Nobody wants to learn how to mix, etc etc that is for geeks only! And geeks only wont make bitcoin a success!

banks, actually provide all the privacy common user wants. bitcoin dont.

how can a third party provide you pricacy, this is an oxymoron you know, in the exact time that your personal info are handled by someone else, you can't talk about privacy anymore

in the future anonimity with bitcoin will be made less troublesome for sure, for now if someone really want to stay anonimous he need to work a bit, i'm sure that if someone really have a reason to stay anonimous, he become suddenly a geek, you can be assured about this

it is not to stay anonymous like im doing anything illegal!! i just want my privacy!! do you understand this?

and no! nobody (normal people) is going to become a geek to use bitcoin. people just keep using fiat money; it is the easiest way.

i am not a geek, i am not a criminal and i STILL want my privacy from my neighbors and friends. banks provide me this. bitcoin don't.

I agree that anonymity is important or it's maybe better to use term financial privacy.

What if one day Bitcoin gets so big that companies will pay their workers in BTC. At current state, this would not be possible since everyone in company would know how much their colleagues make. This is not desirable. For this, we do need finacial privacy.

[bytezero]

Bitcoin is not anonymous, it reveals your IP when you make transaction and its easy to correlate your addresses :/
In future i think it will be improved by protocol or 3rd party.

Lol, use a proxy then problem solved. IPs are the least of your worries. Bitcoin is anon in that you have no idea who the person is. If I send money to you you don't know my real name or personal details.

Anonymity is important, but if you honestly think proxy/Tor can stop LE or government surveillance, you're in for a rough surprise.

[SmoothCurves]

Monero and BTC compliment each other well. I suspect a small number of cryptocurrencies will dominate the market in the future. I've read some posters here claim that Monero could overtake Bitcoin someday due to it's privacy capabilities.