Suggestion: Button that check/uncheck "send this transaction anonymously"

[JeWay]

Tracing funds is incompatible with "cash", and somewhat incompatible with the definition of money (fungiblity).

Yeah it is, but it's actually compatible in Bank transaction or any other non fiat transaction.

[1713522646]

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[1713522646]

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[shorena]

How is cash anonymous?

In every store there is over 90000 cameras they can trace you by face, body if they need to.

Stop smearing your name one the bills while shopping.

Well he has a good point tho, sure cash has no public ledger and whatnot, but you need to physically move it, this is counter-productive privacy wise since as he pointed there are cameras everywhere nowadays, so you can kiss goodbye to privacy unless you meet up in the middle of a forest or somewhere bizarre like that which is not very attractive customer wise.

Of course this is not a problem if you just get inside a house, but you would still trust that the other party hasn't placed a hidden minicamera recording you or something. So the ultimate form of cash for me would be anonymous and online, because you wouldn't need physical presence.

Even though there are cameras in many shops... from you describe you are probably from the UK, so lets assume there are cameras everywhere that is not private. So, cameras everywhere, you pay cash. How exactly do they get your name? Cash is anonymous not because you cant get filmed while you use it, but because it has no record of who used it.

[domob]

Even though there are cameras in many shops... from you describe you are probably from the UK, so lets assume there are cameras everywhere that is not private. So, cameras everywhere, you pay cash. How exactly do they get your name? Cash is anonymous not because you cant get filmed while you use it, but because it has no record of who used it.

I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Even though there are cameras in many shops... from you describe you are probably from the UK, so lets assume there are cameras everywhere that is not private. So, cameras everywhere, you pay cash. How exactly do they get your name? Cash is anonymous not because you cant get filmed while you use it, but because it has no record of who used it.

I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

Yeah this was more or less my point, the actual transaction may be anonymous, but it's pointless since there is evidence of the actual persons involved, which is even more revealing than using Bitcoin as it is today to be honest. If you have all the cam footage and authorities can have it of all places and angles, they can reconstruct your path and eventually find out who was involved, so the cash transaction would need to happen in physical isolation from any cameras which is just a pain in the ass for any normal person not doing anything illegal that just wants to remain anonymous.

[jaydipmodhwadia]

How is cash anonymous?

In every store there is over 90000 cameras they can trace you by face, body if they need to.

Stop smearing your name one the bills while shopping.

Well he has a good point tho, sure cash has no public ledger and whatnot, but you need to physically move it, this is counter-productive privacy wise since as he pointed there are cameras everywhere nowadays, so you can kiss goodbye to privacy unless you meet up in the middle of a forest or somewhere bizarre like that which is not very attractive customer wise.

Of course this is not a problem if you just get inside a house, but you would still trust that the other party hasn't placed a hidden minicamera recording you or something. So the ultimate form of cash for me would be anonymous and online, because you wouldn't need physical presence.

Even though there are cameras in many shops... from you describe you are probably from the UK, so lets assume there are cameras everywhere that is not private. So, cameras everywhere, you pay cash. How exactly do they get your name? Cash is anonymous not because you cant get filmed while you use it, but because it has no record of who used it.

Yea, but cash does have serial numbers on them and if a camera can pick that up then you are most definitely going to get tracked or caught.

[shorena]

-snip-
Yea, but cash does have serial numbers on them and if a camera can pick that up then you are most definitely going to get tracked or caught.

ENHANCE![1] Sorry, but I can not take you serious with that point. Just turn the bill around and the serial is no longer seen by the camera that hardly has the resultion to make identify a person[2].

-snip-
I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

Yeah this was more or less my point, the actual transaction may be anonymous, but it's pointless since there is evidence of the actual persons involved, which is even more revealing than using Bitcoin as it is today to be honest. If you have all the cam footage and authorities can have it of all places and angles, they can reconstruct your path and eventually find out who was involved, so the cash transaction would need to happen in physical isolation from any cameras which is just a pain in the ass for any normal person not doing anything illegal that just wants to remain anonymous.

Sorry, but where the hell do you live that you have problems not getting filmed by a camera when in public? I know central london is a problem[3], but even their system was unable to do what you suggest in a murdercase[4,5].



[1] https://i.imgur.com/Zy1xXJ8.jpg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdv4FUHqP8
[3] https://thecctvmap.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shoreditch2.jpg
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bViveOxeHQ0
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34284385

[Sir_lagsalot]

P2P does not mean anonymous though...

If the transaction was totally anonymous, then we would have a real problem on our hands. More illegal transactions would be through bitcoin, as right now, bitcoin is being patrolled appropriately. If there were truly anonymous transactions, maybe even ISIS might move into the bitcoin busniess. And that's bad. Bad for the bitcoin price and community.

[virtualx]

P2P does not mean anonymous though...

Yes, P2P only describes the distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or work loads between peers. Skype is a P2P network, anonymity and privacy do not exist in that network. Anonymity is very difficult, one mistake and it's gone.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

-snip-
Yea, but cash does have serial numbers on them and if a camera can pick that up then you are most definitely going to get tracked or caught.

ENHANCE![1] Sorry, but I can not take you serious with that point. Just turn the bill around and the serial is no longer seen by the camera that hardly has the resultion to make identify a person[2].

-snip-
I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

Yeah this was more or less my point, the actual transaction may be anonymous, but it's pointless since there is evidence of the actual persons involved, which is even more revealing than using Bitcoin as it is today to be honest. If you have all the cam footage and authorities can have it of all places and angles, they can reconstruct your path and eventually find out who was involved, so the cash transaction would need to happen in physical isolation from any cameras which is just a pain in the ass for any normal person not doing anything illegal that just wants to remain anonymous.

Sorry, but where the hell do you live that you have problems not getting filmed by a camera when in public? I know central london is a problem[3], but even their system was unable to do what you suggest in a murdercase[4,5].



[1] https://i.imgur.com/Zy1xXJ8.jpg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdv4FUHqP8
[3] https://thecctvmap.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shoreditch2.jpg
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bViveOxeHQ0
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34284385

It's not really about that, the main thing here is you needing to physically move to exchange your coins, isn't it obvious that it defeat's Bitcoin's purpose? We want digital cash, if we have to meet in person, well, you might as well exchange actual physical cash..

The goal is to have the same function cash has but decentralized and online, with all the features of an internet app, without needing to meet in person. Of course, if you want fiat, there's no way around it, but crypto to crypto should be as anonymous as possible by default.

[shorena]

-snip-
Yea, but cash does have serial numbers on them and if a camera can pick that up then you are most definitely going to get tracked or caught.

ENHANCE![1] Sorry, but I can not take you serious with that point. Just turn the bill around and the serial is no longer seen by the camera that hardly has the resultion to make identify a person[2].

-snip-
I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

Yeah this was more or less my point, the actual transaction may be anonymous, but it's pointless since there is evidence of the actual persons involved, which is even more revealing than using Bitcoin as it is today to be honest. If you have all the cam footage and authorities can have it of all places and angles, they can reconstruct your path and eventually find out who was involved, so the cash transaction would need to happen in physical isolation from any cameras which is just a pain in the ass for any normal person not doing anything illegal that just wants to remain anonymous.

Sorry, but where the hell do you live that you have problems not getting filmed by a camera when in public? I know central london is a problem[3], but even their system was unable to do what you suggest in a murdercase[4,5].



[1] https://i.imgur.com/Zy1xXJ8.jpg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdv4FUHqP8
[3] https://thecctvmap.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shoreditch2.jpg
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bViveOxeHQ0
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34284385

It's not really about that, the main thing here is you needing to physically move to exchange your coins, isn't it obvious that it defeat's Bitcoin's purpose? We want digital cash, if we have to meet in person, well, you might as well exchange actual physical cash..

The goal is to have the same function cash has but decentralized and online, with all the features of an internet app, without needing to meet in person. Of course, if you want fiat, there's no way around it, but crypto to crypto should be as anonymous as possible by default.

I agree, the point about "FIAT bills & CCTV can be used to track your payments" is bullshit though. Bitcoin allows you to stay anonymous. Its just hard and complicated. CoinJoin build into core or other common local wallets would be a great way to make things easier. AFAIK it can work without the need for a central server. I have not seen a working implementation yet though. Bc.i is one central server, dark wallet most likely stuck in alpha.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

-snip-
Yea, but cash does have serial numbers on them and if a camera can pick that up then you are most definitely going to get tracked or caught.

ENHANCE![1] Sorry, but I can not take you serious with that point. Just turn the bill around and the serial is no longer seen by the camera that hardly has the resultion to make identify a person[2].

-snip-
I don't know if that was the poster's original point, but one way in which cameras can destroy supposed anonymity of cash is the following:  Suppose you are an activist and want to uncover some illegal situation happening in a big corporation.  For that, you buy a camera you are going to install to produce video evidence.  Unfortunately, the camera is detected by the owners before you are able to retrieve it afterwards.  Police is now able to trace the stores in which such a camera has been sold recently (even worse if there's any kind of serial number involved), and may use the purchase information provided by the stores to get CCTV footage of you buying it.  No matter whether you paid by cash or credit card.

This is of course not directly related to breaking anonymity of the payment, but it does not matter in the end.  I am aware that such a process actually happened to animal-right activists in Austria.  Apparently police even raided some homes of people who just happened to have bought the same camera at a similar time and paid by card but were not involved in any activism at all.

Yeah this was more or less my point, the actual transaction may be anonymous, but it's pointless since there is evidence of the actual persons involved, which is even more revealing than using Bitcoin as it is today to be honest. If you have all the cam footage and authorities can have it of all places and angles, they can reconstruct your path and eventually find out who was involved, so the cash transaction would need to happen in physical isolation from any cameras which is just a pain in the ass for any normal person not doing anything illegal that just wants to remain anonymous.

Sorry, but where the hell do you live that you have problems not getting filmed by a camera when in public? I know central london is a problem[3], but even their system was unable to do what you suggest in a murdercase[4,5].



[1] https://i.imgur.com/Zy1xXJ8.jpg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdv4FUHqP8
[3] https://thecctvmap.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shoreditch2.jpg
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bViveOxeHQ0
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34284385

It's not really about that, the main thing here is you needing to physically move to exchange your coins, isn't it obvious that it defeat's Bitcoin's purpose? We want digital cash, if we have to meet in person, well, you might as well exchange actual physical cash..

The goal is to have the same function cash has but decentralized and online, with all the features of an internet app, without needing to meet in person. Of course, if you want fiat, there's no way around it, but crypto to crypto should be as anonymous as possible by default.

I agree, the point about "FIAT bills & CCTV can be used to track your payments" is bullshit though. Bitcoin allows you to stay anonymous. Its just hard and complicated. CoinJoin build into core or other common local wallets would be a great way to make things easier. AFAIK it can work without the need for a central server. I have not seen a working implementation yet though. Bc.i is one central server, dark wallet most likely stuck in alpha.

Isn't CoinJoin already working? There's this JoinMarket thing, but it's still very archaic, not user friendly, and therefore not a lot of people use it yet, that's why we need this sort of stuff to be implemented within the actual wallets and working in a seamless "click there and send anonymous" way where the user doesn't necessarily even know what is going on in detail, he just knows his transaction is safely sent. The JoinMarket stuff is too complicated imo, everything that isn't "click to send anonymously" is a hassle for the end user, and the end user is ultimately all that matters. At the end of the day, what we want is an anonymous transaction, that mixes the coins in a decentralized way, and that doesn't display the amount sent (this part is mostly solved by the nice work of Gmaxwell with CT). We combine both features in an easy way and then we can start talking about e-cash like the Bitcoin whitepaper said.

[shorena]

-snip-
Isn't CoinJoin already working? There's this JoinMarket thing, but it's still very archaic, not user friendly, and therefore not a lot of people use it yet, that's why we need this sort of stuff to be implemented within the actual wallets and working in a seamless "click there and send anonymous" way where the user doesn't necessarily even know what is going on in detail, he just knows his transaction is safely sent.

I didnt know about JoinMarkt, but it looks indeed to complex for the majority of users. CoinJoin itself is working, e.g. via bc.i, but if it requires a wallet with blockchain.info itd rather not use it.

The JoinMarket stuff is too complicated imo, everything that isn't "click to send anonymously" is a hassle for the end user, and the end user is ultimately all that matters. At the end of the day, what we want is an anonymous transaction, that mixes the coins in a decentralized way, and that doesn't display the amount sent (this part is mostly solved by the nice work of Gmaxwell with CT). We combine both features in an easy way and then we can start talking about e-cash like the Bitcoin whitepaper said.

I will read more on JoinMarket, from the little I read about it on git I would consider it alpha as well.

[waxwing]

I will read more on JoinMarket, from the little I read about it on git I would consider it alpha as well.

It's been in use since last May. You can take a look at joinmarket.io for the current orderbook. There is a fair amount of volume. In *that* sense, it's reasonably well tested. But you're right of course that it's not user friendly yet. Read up on it in detail before using. We hope that it can be integrated into wallets for ease of use.

[Was]

If you want 'anonymity', you have to use Tor like everyone else.

[achow101]

If you want 'anonymity', you have to use Tor like everyone else.

Tor does not help with this. He is talking about anonymity regarding the addresses. Right now, it is possible to trace addresses and link them together to follow the transaction chain. What he wants is to have something that breaks this chain so that it becomes very very difficult to actually follow and know that you are following the same person's transactions.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

If you want 'anonymity', you have to use Tor like everyone else.

Yeah, that's the point, Tor alone will never solve the underlying issue. Greg Maxwell has addressed this and he is also concerned with the current model, you can watch the video where he explains the elements project and he addresses CI, and also points at the need to mask the movement of coins, because for example, your landlord could see that you got a raise in your salary, and then decide to raise your rent.. there are all kind of ways that prove we need better privacy without anything illegal involved.

[nioc]

If you want 'anonymity', you have to use Tor like everyone else.

Yeah, that's the point, Tor alone will never solve the underlying issue. Greg Maxwell has addressed this and he is also concerned with the current model, you can watch the video where he explains the elements project and he addresses CI, and also points at the need to mask the movement of coins, because for example, your landlord could see that you got a raise in your salary, and then decide to raise your rent.. there are all kind of ways that prove we need better privacy without anything illegal involved.

It seems obvious to me that the necessary changes are not going to happen to btc. 

[Gyrsur]

it's to early to implement CoinJoin in such a general way because it sticks to the scaling issue directly.

in my opinion three things are necessary in the future from the ordinary user view of Bitcoin:

• one address for one satoshi (or 10/100/1000/10000 satoshies)
• the use of an hardware wallet (smartcard or whatever) for everyone to hide the complexity of the organization of such a large amount of addresses
• the mix of many inputs and outputs from different users in all transactions --> CoinJoin

in 5 to 10 years maybe.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

If you want 'anonymity', you have to use Tor like everyone else.

Yeah, that's the point, Tor alone will never solve the underlying issue. Greg Maxwell has addressed this and he is also concerned with the current model, you can watch the video where he explains the elements project and he addresses CI, and also points at the need to mask the movement of coins, because for example, your landlord could see that you got a raise in your salary, and then decide to raise your rent.. there are all kind of ways that prove we need better privacy without anything illegal involved.

It seems obvious to me that the necessary changes are not going to happen to btc. 

Why do you say this? It's already happening. Did you read about 0.12? It will have native inbuilt Tor support where you just need to run Tor then open the wallet and that's all, anyone can do this even a newbie. And CT is coming too and BIP47.. why are you saying that isn't happening? I think it's slowly only getting better.

[Gyrsur]

why do some people delete the posts again? get an anonymous nickname and post your thoughts. just thoughts and work are valuable not the person itself.

it was a thought that a landlord could increase the rent if he will find out through your salary payment address that your boss increased your salary. and that is true. by the public ledger we don't have the private environments as banks have it. and therefore we need special mechanisms to grant usual privacy as banks have it too except in the case the government want to know it but this is then not possible by Bitcoin.