[ANN] OnionBC - Anonymous online wallet

[onionbc]

Once again, I hope I don't do anything wrong this time 

My name is James and I want to present you a early version of our new project.

http://www0.xup.in/exec/ximg.php?fid=74071529

OnionBC is a browser based Bitcoin wallet operating as a hidden service in the TOR network only. We recently launched it and would be glad to hear some of your opinions, wishes and improvement proposals. We will always be reachable in this forum and continouosly implement new features.

Featurelist:

• Bitcoin mixing (laundry) via anonymous payments
• Detailed transaction history
• Multiple receiving addresses
• No logs about any user activity

Currently planned features:

• Escrow system

Please feel free to signup, test our service and give us some feedback! We're looking forward to hear from you guys.

Reachable only via TOR: http://6fgd4togcynxyclb.onion

regards
OnionBC team

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Do you plan to run off with people's money once you have about 25,000 Bitcoins?
Do you plan to run off with any ammount deposited?

[onionbc]

We don't intend to scam anybody! We just want to contribute a nice service to the TOR community. We will shortly launch an escrow system as a new feature to allow TOR users to do trades without getting scammed. We don't plan to run off with any money, we will charge fees for escrows and anonymous payments and that's it. Of course it would be easy to run of with the money but we intend sth bigger in the future.

It's the same like with every eWallet: You shouldn't trust any of them and you shouldn't send many coins there. We're just asking for some feedback for our service.

[mc_lovin]

Useful service, but I think the bitcoin community has been burned about 27 times now and I can't see them sending their money to an anonymous service, but I'm sure it will be handy for some purposes (laundering?).

[N.Z.]

Bitcoin mixing (laundry) via anonymous payments

How do you mix coins?

Detailed transaction history

What is this?

And most important - where is your profit?

[onionbc]

How do you mix coins?

They are routed through another wallet which already contains a large portion of coins.

What is this?

A transaction history including time/date, number of confirmations and receiving/payment address. Maybe not worth mentioning it

And most important - where is your profit?

We charge a transaction fee of 3% for anonymous payments and we currently work on an automated escrow system to give people trading outside the silk road or bmr the possibility to insure their trade. For this service we probably will charge a higher fee of 5-10%. It will be launched soon.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Didn't the other TORwallet turn out to be a scam?

Are you going to post your source code anywhere?

[onionbc]

Didn't the other TORwallet turn out to be a scam?

It unfortunately turned out as another onion scam. As already mentioned you principally
shouldn't trust any eWallet because it's easy for them to run of with the coins but I have
to repeat, we do not intend to scam anybody. We've been around the TOR network for a long time
and all the scams in there become more and more annoying. With our escrow system we finally want to
provide a service where customers can do trades in the TOR network anonymously without getting
scammed and without being restricted in their possibilities by any administration (like it's
the case on silk road).
Of course it's hard to trust anons but at least we have deserved a chance to show our intentions
are good.

Are you going to post your source code anywhere?

We could so but I don't see any reason for this that makes sense to me.

1. In the TOR network are many scammers around and revealing our source code makes it very
easy to host a copy of our page and use it for scam or phishing.
2. There are many hackers around, too, and revealing our source code gives them
the possibility to analize the structure of our service and possibly find weak points in it.
3. Even if we expose our source code we could change it for the public and host different code
so I don't know what advantage this should be for you anyway.

If you give me good arguments against my points, you maybe can persuade us to do it

[marcus_of_augustus]

We could so but I don't see any reason for this that makes sense to me.

Ok, posting your source code is some kind of an indication from you that you are competent and the service is being set-up in good faith.

Alternatively, you could post a PGP key that has been used in the OTC market and has some solid reputation to it .... at this point you are just some anonymous guy running a TOR hidden service people should "just trust" with their bitcoins ... it doesn't make any sense.

TORwallet has already crapped in this pool .... you need to build you own one, put some more thought into the business model maybe?

[onionbc]

TORwallet has already crapped in this pool .... you need to build you own one, put some more thought into the business model maybe?

I just can say again, we are NOT TORwallet. Dread Pirate Roberts could easily run off with all the money in silkroad, too. But he doesn't, because it's something big. Our escrow system will be something big, too, you will see.

[onionbc]

For people to be able to use your service confidently, they have to know that:

1) you either physically cannot take their bitcoin
Or
2) you are putting your real life reputation on the line

Or both.


Do you have access to your customer's private keys ?

If you currently do, why not redesign things so you do not ?
Say with client side encryption like blockchain.info  Or some other technique such as a small client on the user's machine (that is open source) that signs transactions and a watch only client on your servers.

If you have multisig escrow where you can only arbitrate but not spend-to-self that demonstrates you cannot take people's bitcoin.

1) We're already discussing about that. As soon as we have released the escrow system we will start to build up a system with javascript based clientside wallet encryption.
2) Imprint will be added shortly.

Thanks for your opinion.

[Ente]

The fact that so many scams happened and so little were resolved (none?) makes bitcoin users careful (yeah, I can dream at least!).
Assuming that you don't want to reveal your real identity, only one thing can help you with reputation: time. If OnionBC has been around for years, the risk is somewhat small to lose what you send there, as long as it is not a large payment which triggers the scam mode.

Hints, to at least make your service plausible:

- Why do you think a TOR based wallet is necessary? One could as well use TOR to mix manually, via the many large wallets available. For free, mind you.

- How is the mixing done technically? When? WIth which external/internal wallets?

- Such a service makes sense and becomes somewhat more plausible when the legit profit is higher than the total coins deposited. No, this is not a question, but you may answer nevertheless

I don't intent to speak for or against you. I wish you luck, and hope it all turns out for the better for everyone involved!

Ente

[onionbc]

Sorry for my delayed response, I was a bit busy the last week.

- Why do you think a TOR based wallet is necessary? One could as well use TOR to mix manually, via the many large wallets available. For free, mind you.

Some people simply feel safer in an highly anonymized environment like TOR. Of course you can use TOR for anonymization for the clearnet as well but when doing this it reveals a hand ful of weak points. Next thing (btw. it will be launched approximately in two weeks) is that with a view to the escrow system we feel much more comfortable with the thought that the server IP remains hidden due to the rendezvous point system of TOR hidden services. This makes the service almost completely immune against governmental intervention.

- How is the mixing done technically? When? WIth which external/internal wallets?

The coins are forwarded through an external wallet which already contains a large portion of "clean coins". The coins inside the external wallet are mixed manually with external services once a week.

- Such a service makes sense and becomes somewhat more plausible when the legit profit is higher than the total coins deposited. No, this is not a question, but you may answer nevertheless

For transactions made through our soonly launched escrow system we will charge a fee of 5-10%. This should be enough if you think of the high amount of transactions which will be handled by the system - a service like this is really missing in onionland.

Thanks for your opinion and I hope I could answer all your questions.

[justusranvier]

Mixing that is only secure if the operator promises not to keep logs is worthless.

The anyone has the ability to connect inputs to outputs it's not safe to use, regardless of the good intentions of the operators. Even companies that don't want to keep logs can be coerced into doing it.

Unless and until there's some kind of cryptographic procedure that makes the mixing protocol secure against even a malicious operator I wouldn't recommend that anyone rely on a mixing service.

[Ente]

Mixing that is only secure if the operator promises not to keep logs is worthless.

The anyone has the ability to connect inputs to outputs it's not safe to use, regardless of the good intentions of the operators. Even companies that don't want to keep logs can be coerced into doing it.

Unless and until there's some kind of cryptographic procedure that makes the mixing protocol secure against even a malicious operator I wouldn't recommend that anyone rely on a mixing service.

..it all depends on what you are securing against..

Ente

[picobit]

TORwallet has already crapped in this pool .... you need to build you own one, put some more thought into the business model maybe?

I just can say again, we are NOT TORwallet. Dread Pirate Roberts could easily run off with all the money in silkroad, too. But he doesn't, because it's something big. Our escrow system will be something big, too, you will see.

You say you are not TORwallet.  Perhaps you are not, perhaps you are and are just back for more.  You offer the same service, both are anonymous, both hold all the customer funds.

An exchange or a site like SR can get a large revenue from fees compared to the amount they can gain by running away with the customers money, since most people don't store money there for long.  An online wallet is in the opposite situation.  And an anonymous online wallet - quite honestly, forget it!  Only a fool will place money with you guys - even if you are legit, you have set yourself up to look like scammers, including the sign saying "SUCKER-BAIT" in five-feet tall, burning letters.

[justusranvier]

..it all depends on what you are securing against..

Since the blockchain record is permanent if you think you need anonymity then it needs to be a form secure against not only current attacks, but also all future attacks as well.

[marcus_of_augustus]

It would be good if you could figure out a way that the customer maintains some control of the funds ... use multi-sig somehow technology maybe?

I just don't think the blind trust model is going to attract any users again any time soon.

[J-Norm]

Sounds similar to TorWallet... 

[onionbc]

OnionBC is back with our before announced escrow!
We created a new topic for discussion about it on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=153967.msg1631790#msg1631790


Hope you enjoy,

OnionBC Admin