where is the anonimity?

[manselr]

The way to protect yourself from anonymity is not making the address public attached to your real name. Of course the problem comes when for example you want to receive donations in a legitimate way showing your real credentials. This is why we need CoinJoin in every wallet every by default and confidential transactions ASAP.

[marbu1022]

   I was looking at the blockchain.info site, and I noticed that there is a lot of information that can be found out about transactions. Including IP addresses to and from and everything else. Where does the anonimity come in if their is any?

There's no names or addresses involved, is there?

Yeah. I don't really know where you found the IP addresses and names. I had a look on blockchain and I couldn't find any of these 2 things. The only thing that I can do is find the account balance and the account transaction history. That is kind of dangerous as people can find the best hacking targets.(The accounts with high balance)

I didn´t find any names, just Ip addresses but someone explained that those IP addresses don´t belong to the individuals involoved in the transactions.

[kolloh]

Yeah, the open nature of the blockchain actually makes it less anonymous and more trackable. If you want true anonymity, you need to take steps  yourself such as mixing coins and using a proxy if running a client that connects to the main nodes, etc.

[marbu1022]

I am not  looking to buy any physical goods with my coins. Basically, if you want to remain anonymous, don´t cross your actions with your identity. I, like many others just want to have an anonymous stash.

[altcoinhosting]

I am not  looking to buy any physical goods with my coins. Basically, if you want to remain anonymous, don´t cross your actions with your identity. I, like many others just want to have an anonymous stash.

In that case, my initial post in this thread should have been sufficient:
-buy BTC and transfer it to address (A). You don't need a VPN, since your real name will probably be exposed when buying BTC
-use a liveCD with TOR or a VPN to create an electrum wallet (B)
-use a mixing service to transfer BTC from (A) to (B) while using a different VPN/TOR
-only open wallet (B) while using a VPN, only surft to the websites you want to buy digital good from using VPN, only pay with wallet (B)

This will cost you a small fee (the fee of the mixing service, a small transaction fee, probably a fee for the VPN service) and give you some reasonable anonimity... Ofcourse, if you do really bad things, people might still track you down (the VPN provider or the mixing service are the weakest links). But it'll probably cost them so much effort, they're not going to do this if you didn't do anything really illegal

[Snorek]

Most of you confuse anonymity and privacy in the context of financial transactions. We will call a transaction 'anonymous' if no one knows who you are.
We will call a transaction 'private' if what you purchased, and for what amount, are unknown.
Bitcoin can be anonymous and private but often isn't because for many users, who access it through one of the online wallets or exchange services, are linking their personal identity to their bitcoin holdings.
Bitcoin for these users is effectively no more anonymous than a bank account.

[greBit]

   I was looking at the blockchain.info site, and I noticed that there is a lot of information that can be found out about transactions. Including IP addresses to and from and everything else. Where does the anonimity come in if their is any?

There's initial anonymity. But you're right in that if someone wants to find out who's transacting what there's a lot of information available. This is part of the reason why people insist on using cold wallets (and multiple wallets), it makes it harder to track the person who originated the transaction.

It is pseudo-anonymous at the most. Even if someone knows your address and finds out your IP from blockchain.info the site will only give out the node address, and that keeps changing frequently.

[HeroCat]

I also do not see any large signs of anonimity over there in Blockchain  So may be there are possibilities for developing the Blockchain technology 

[erikalui]

I don't know why blockchain and other wallets disclose the IP address openly. Shouldn't this be hidden or atleast a user who owns the wallet should have an option to hide the visibility of his/her IP address. I too agree that it's not completely anonymous. Just it has no name associated with it which is not as harmful as the IP address visibility can be.

[Kprawn]

I don't know why blockchain and other wallets disclose the IP address openly. Shouldn't this be hidden or atleast a user who owns the wallet should have an option to hide the visibility of his/her IP address. I too agree that it's not completely anonymous. Just it has no name associated with it which is not as harmful as the IP address visibility can be.

It does not show your IP address, it shows the nearest IP address of the node you connected to when you did the transaction.  Whoever wants to identify you, has to have

access to that node and then hope that you did not connect to it via Tor or a VPN. You add to that, the use of some mixer services and you have a near perfect method to have

some degree of privacy.   

[Febo]

I think OP concern was IPs he found on blockchain info.  Here people go to much into all possible options.  What all you need to do to keep your Bitcoin valets safe and what all you need to do to have transaction not linked to you. Thing is there is no lock that can not be broken. So if someone really want to will find a way to link your identity to a transaction or steal your bitcoins. But question at what cost. No one will do that for sun or fro 1 bitcoin. They will rather spend their technology and talent doing more profitable things.

[SwagGirl]

Surpirsed not much has been said about Dash which seems to be a good way to break the trail of ownership for smaller volume sat least.  Net fees would be less than using a mixer.

[erikalui]

I don't know why blockchain and other wallets disclose the IP address openly. Shouldn't this be hidden or atleast a user who owns the wallet should have an option to hide the visibility of his/her IP address. I too agree that it's not completely anonymous. Just it has no name associated with it which is not as harmful as the IP address visibility can be.

It does not show your IP address, it shows the nearest IP address of the node you connected to when you did the transaction.  Whoever wants to identify you, has to have

access to that node and then hope that you did not connect to it via Tor or a VPN. You add to that, the use of some mixer services and you have a near perfect method to have

some degree of privacy.   

So if the user doesn't use a VPN, the IP address is almost exposed right? It's like giving out the user's address rather than his name.

[thejaytiesto]

I don't know why blockchain and other wallets disclose the IP address openly. Shouldn't this be hidden or atleast a user who owns the wallet should have an option to hide the visibility of his/her IP address. I too agree that it's not completely anonymous. Just it has no name associated with it which is not as harmful as the IP address visibility can be.

It does not show your IP address, it shows the nearest IP address of the node you connected to when you did the transaction.  Whoever wants to identify you, has to have

access to that node and then hope that you did not connect to it via Tor or a VPN. You add to that, the use of some mixer services and you have a near perfect method to have

some degree of privacy.   

So if the user doesn't use a VPN, the IP address is almost exposed right? It's like giving out the user's address rather than his name.

The IP is exposed to the node you connect to, which is extremely important that nodes can keep being ran by a single person, so the more nodes we have spread around the globle the more impossible it is to control Bitcoin. This is why XT is seen as a trojan horse by an attacker with an agenda to centralize Bitcoin (and good hearthed big blockers are missing the point)

[Amph]

Surpirsed not much has been said about Dash which seems to be a good way to break the trail of ownership for smaller volume sat least.  Net fees would be less than using a mixer.

this service is better https://xmr.to/

it mix your coins with monero, which is 100% anon, but then you have the owner knowing something...

[marbu1022]

I am not  looking to buy any physical goods with my coins. Basically, if you want to remain anonymous, don´t cross your actions with your identity. I, like many others just want to have an anonymous stash.

In that case, my initial post in this thread should have been sufficient:
-buy BTC and transfer it to address (A). You don't need a VPN, since your real name will probably be exposed when buying BTC
-use a liveCD with TOR or a VPN to create an electrum wallet (B)
-use a mixing service to transfer BTC from (A) to (B) while using a different VPN/TOR
-only open wallet (B) while using a VPN, only surft to the websites you want to buy digital good from using VPN, only pay with wallet (B)

This will cost you a small fee (the fee of the mixing service, a small transaction fee, probably a fee for the VPN service) and give you some reasonable anonimity... Ofcourse, if you do really bad things, people might still track you down (the VPN provider or the mixing service are the weakest links). But it'll probably cost them so much effort, they're not going to do this if you didn't do anything really illegal

No intentions of doing anything illegal. The main thing I am trying to accomplish is to prevent anyone from knowing how much bitcoin I have. The reason should be obvious. I may try to purchase some things with it but not physical goods.

[countryfree]

You can use blockchain.info via Tor. So if you create a wallet this way, it would be next to impossible to prove it's yours. After that, with several addresses and if you're smart, all your transactions will be very private. But everything depends on what you do. If you order a pizza, the company which delivers it to your door will know your street address.

[owm123]

You can use blockchain.info via Tor. So if you create a wallet this way, it would be next to impossible to prove it's yours. After that, with several addresses and if you're smart, all your transactions will be very private. But everything depends on what you do. If you order a pizza, the company which delivers it to your door will know your street address.

I just would like to add to this, that often the anonymity might not depend on you. You might be the most careful person with bitcoin, but what about others you interact with? Each additional step you add to make yourself anonymous with bitcoin is only one more possible point of f**king it up. If not from your side, then from services behind people you are dependent now. You need to factor this in your plans. Bitcoin was never designed to be anonymous, thus using in a very anonymous way is a challenging task.

Because of that, the procedure to use bitcoin anonymous requires number of steps, such as using tor, making new addresses, using mixurers, etc. The more complex the procedure, the more likely it is to fail. You can use bitcoin do it 100 times correctly, but one time you do something wrong, and that will be end of your privacy.

 I can recommend this recent defcon presentation Dont fuck it up  though. Its not specific to bitcoin, but makes very good points about maintaining anonymity through some complex measures for hackers. All these measures introduce new possible points of failure, and off course, as shown in the presentation, ppl do fail a lot because of that.

[Velkro]

Bitcoin is not anonymous. It is psedo-anonymous.

http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/

Ya, im not sure why many people still telling others that bitcoin is almost free transaction costs and anonymous. Its not in both cases.
For africa paying 0.000X for transaction (to be able to be verified in normal time) its big amount of $

[knowhow]

To protect the transactions you have done well you would need some accounts and well someone can easy dig till find the account and ammount,if you deposit into exchanges you can cover your traces but you wont see the transaction soo you cant confirm when the btc has arrived into the wallet,but bitcoin even showing ip doesnt has a name on it,soo can be anyone on that space.