Some questions if you could help me please.

[papajohnnny777]

Is bitcoin annoymous the way it is ? If i use a different address everytime i really cant be tracked ? or how does it work ? can my ip be tracked ?
What do you guys think ?
What does synchornizing with the network means ? its been that way for like 4 hours now , can i receieve bitcoins while it says that ?
thanks everybody ! apperciated.

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[CIYAM]

Is bitcoin annoymous the way it is ? If i use a different address everytime i really cant be tracked ? or how does it work ? can my ip be tracked ?
What do you guys think ?

Your IP address can only be hidden for certain by using either a proxy (consider logging though) or TOR (although it is still not likely to be revealed especially if you are not running a "listening" client).

What does synchornizing with the network means ? its been that way for like 4 hours now , can i receieve bitcoins while it says that ?
thanks everybody ! apperciated.

You can send or receive bitcoins before you are "in sync" but you may not "see the tx's" until you are (this is somewhat related to the first point).

[papajohnnny777]

I am running tor and vpn's all the time , the thing is i see the bitcoin program is an application , so does it actually use the ip address on the tor browser or the vpn that i use , how can i know it doesnt use my defualt address as its a seperate application , ?

thanks in advance.

[CIYAM]

I am running tor and vpn's all the time , the thing is i see the bitcoin program is an application , so does it actually use the ip address on the tor browser or the vpn that i use , how can i know it doesnt use my defualt address as its a seperate application , ?

If you're using a VPN then I don't think you have any problem (apart from *them* logging you which is up to your own level of paranioa) and if you are wanting to use TOR then make sure you have configured Bitcoin correctly to use it (search this forum or google it).

[DannyHamilton]

Whether or not you are doing enough to remain hidden really depends on who you are trying to hide from, and how much effort they can put into finding you.

If you want to remain COMPLETELY anonymous, then you'll have to make sure that when acquiring your bitcoins, NOBODY can identify anything about you.  You'll also have to make sure that when spending your bitcoins, NOBODY can identify anything about you.

This can be a lot harder than it seems, but fortunately that level of anonymity generally isn't necessary for most uses of bitcoin.

[Foxpup]

Tracking IP addresses generally isn't the problem, and where it is a problem it can be solved by just running Bitcoin over Tor (go into Settings -> Options -> Network and turn on "Connect through SOCKS proxy". The default settings are for a standard Tor installation; if your Tor setup is non-standard you may need to change them.) The real problem is that Bitcoin transactions can be linked to each other (though there are ways of breaking the trail), and it's difficult (but not impossible) to stay anonymous when buying and selling bitcoins.

[Largo]

1.) Configure Bitcoin to use localhost:9050 as proxy when TOR is running and everything goes through TOR.

2.) Then make multiple Bitcoin wallets (just make different shortcuts with different -datadir= commandline options to bitcoin.exe), one for your real identity, one for buying on silkroad, one for selling on silkroad, and so on, and never send coins from one wallet to another.

3.) And if you need to send bitcoins from for example your real identity wallet to your silkroad buyers wallet, use a mixing service and/or 1-2 large shared web wallets to make the transaction from one wallet to the otherone untracable. (Use TOR everywhere)

Thats really all that is needed to use bitcoins anonymously!
Most people wont even need multiple wallets on their PC, just for larger amounts, for smaller wallets use shared web wallets or your silkroad account to store bitcoins seperately to your other identitys.

The problem with having to be careful not to mix identitys exists with every anonymizing software, TOR in a careless users hands could be even worse than bitcoin anonymity wise, but noone complains about TOR making false promises. (Ok to be fair they are warning about it everywhere which maybe bitcoin should do too)

PRO TIP:
Use virtual machines (vmware workstation is very beginner friendly) to seperate your identitys.
Windows XP in a virtual machine + fully working bitcoin + TOR installed is less than 10 GB hard drive space.
To avoid leaking real IPs when browsing install TOR in a seperate virtual machine, and allow your bitcoin/firefox windows to only connect to the TOR VM, that way leaks are 100% impossible.

Most things described here arent really needed for most, but if you do the above you are pretty much 100% anonymous.

[DannyHamilton]

. . . Most things described here arent really needed for most, but if you do the above you are pretty much 100% anonymous . . .

You've got an interesting definition of 100%.  It seems to me that using your suggestions anonymity could still be lost in several ways, depending on who you are trying to hide from.

[ahdinosaur]

boot https://tails.boum.org/ to run everything through tor. you can install bitcoin if it doesn't already have it with `sudo aptitude install bitcoin-qt`.