BitLaundry re-opens with exciting new security features you can't see!

[mikegogulski]

http://app.bitlaundry.com/

I've had the site down for most of a week, because I discovered a couple of *potential* holes that needed plugging. Back up and running, now, with the most important hole-plugging done, so launder away!

(BTW, if you just want a single-hop transaction bounce: http://www.bitcoinlaundry.com/ (yeah, it's similar))

[done]

best of luck with your venture

[mikegogulski]

best of luck with your venture

Thanks!

[bitlotto]

Perhaps you should rename it? Launder I don't think is the best fit. Perhaps Anonymizing Service? It's what you do is allow people to be anonymous. Launder kind of implies funneling ill gained money into businesses to hide it. I know it would be a pain but I bet your service would get better reception!

[fascistmuffin]

How much is it per load? And do you do pick ups or is it drop off only?

[¢A$HÅ]

Launder kind of implies funneling ill gained money into businesses to hide it.

"Layering" is a phase of "money laundering." I think this qualifies.

[noob777]

Mike

What kind of volume are you seeing through your bitlaundry app?

[Trader Steve]

http://app.bitlaundry.com/

I've had the site down for most of a week, because I discovered a couple of *potential* holes that needed plugging. Back up and running, now, with the most important hole-plugging done, so launder away!

(BTW, if you just want a single-hop transaction bounce: http://www.bitcoinlaundry.com/ (yeah, it's similar))

Mike, can you give us an example of where the "single hop" would be more advantageous than the other?

[lettucebee]

Mike,
I just listened to your interview on AgoristRadio, which was fun. A question for you:  something that would be useful--nay, essential--in a laundering service is the assurance that one will receive new coins and not receive back any of the same coins of the original lot.

Not any not one!  Agreed?

Is there any way a user of your system could be assured of this?

[mikegogulski]

What kind of volume are you seeing through your bitlaundry app?

It varies quite a bit. I'm not going to put out exact status, but I can say that on some days I'll see nothing come in while on others I might see 500BTC.

Mike, can you give us an example of where the "single hop" would be more advantageous than the other?

Bitlaundry.com (the single-hope service) will basically wait for 10 confirmations on the input send, and then transmit the remainder immediately after taking the fee. That's probably as close to "instant" as I'll make it. The equivalent deposit to app.bitlaundry.com would involve a delay of 10 confirmations plus up to a day.

Single-hop services could conceivably be chained together to move coins around rapidly.

Mike,
I just listened to your interview on AgoristRadio, which was fun. A question for you:  something that would be useful--nay, essential--in a laundering service is the assurance that one will receive new coins and not receive back any of the same coins of the original lot.

Not any not one!  Agreed?

Is there any way a user of your system could be assured of this?

No, not at present, and that's something I couldn't do without hacking the wallet management code itself, or by taking an "outside-the-system" approach like the Bitcoin mixer running on TOR. If the mods proposed at http://coderrr.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/patching-the-bitcoin-client-to-make-it-more-anonymous/ get included into Bitcoin, though, it should become possible, though still subject to the limitation that someone sending in more coins than the service's pool holds will inevitably get some of their own in return.

[FreeMoney]

It just occurred to me that you could ensure different coins by giving up the time promise. Essentially one would run a 1x 'pyramid'. You could let people choose a "give up" time too where they just get their own coins back.

[jimbo77]

No, not at present, and that's something I couldn't do without hacking the wallet management code itself, or by taking an "outside-the-system" approach like the Bitcoin mixer running on TOR. If the mods proposed at http://coderrr.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/patching-the-bitcoin-client-to-make-it-more-anonymous/ get included into Bitcoin, though, it should become possible, though still subject to the limitation that someone sending in more coins than the service's pool holds will inevitably get some of their own in return.

Why not create two wallets? Wallet A and Wallet B. When they visit the site it automatically picks the wallet with the smallest balance. They could also select a different one if they are repeat customers so they always deposit into the same wallet every time. They then pick a withdrawal address. As soon as the other wallet gets enough coins it's paid out. They are guaranteed to never get their own coins back. If they are impatient they can cancel it and risk getting paid from the wallet they paid into. As long as you aren't keeping logs it would be impossible to follow as long as you used random pay out times and amounts!

[lettucebee]

Maybe if a person knew how many coins the service held, he/she could deposit no more than that.

[onesalt]

Sweet this is a great idea and totally not going to get the fbi and major organised crime units interested in bitcoin at all welp cya

[lettucebee]

Of course, just creating a meetup of bitcoiners in your area (or anywhere you travel to) and swapping coins with them would scramble things a little too, you know?

[realnowhereman]

Mike,
I just listened to your interview on AgoristRadio, which was fun. A question for you:  something that would be useful--nay, essential--in a laundering service is the assurance that one will receive new coins and not receive back any of the same coins of the original lot.

Actually I think it would be unwise to put that condition on a mixer.

It reminds me of the method eventually used to break the enigma machines.  The breakers worked out that the enigma machine would never encode a letter to itself.  That gave them enough of a statistical hole that they could begin breaking.

In the same way, one could simply look at which output coins a person received that contained none of a particular input and voila, the connection is made from input to output.

The correct solution is that coins are completely randomly mixed.

[lettucebee]

Actually I think it would be unwise to put that condition on a mixer.

It reminds me of the method eventually used to break the enigma machines.  The breakers worked out that the enigma machine would never encode a letter to itself.  That gave them enough of a statistical hole that they could begin breaking.

In the same way, one could simply look at which output coins a person received that contained none of a particular input and voila, the connection is made from input to output.

The correct solution is that coins are completely randomly mixed.

You seem to describe a service where I would deposit coins, check to see that none of the original came back.  If they did, I deposit them again later after the service has recharged a little, check again.  Meanwhile I'm paying commissions each time.  This would be a nuisance.

[makomk]

Mike,
I just listened to your interview on AgoristRadio, which was fun. A question for you:  something that would be useful--nay, essential--in a laundering service is the assurance that one will receive new coins and not receive back any of the same coins of the original lot.

Not any not one!  Agreed?

Are you sure that's a good idea? Under some circumstances surely it'd be possible to match large incoming transactions with outgoing ones by the fact they have no coins in common. (Edit: In fact, this attack would probably work quite well against flows of smaller transactions too.)

[realnowhereman]

Actually I think it would be unwise to put that condition on a mixer.

It reminds me of the method eventually used to break the enigma machines.  The breakers worked out that the enigma machine would never encode a letter to itself.  That gave them enough of a statistical hole that they could begin breaking.

In the same way, one could simply look at which output coins a person received that contained none of a particular input and voila, the connection is made from input to output.

The correct solution is that coins are completely randomly mixed.

You seem to describe a service where I would deposit coins, check to see that none of the original came back.  If they did, I deposit them again later after the service has recharged a little, check again.  Meanwhile I'm paying commissions each time.  This would be a nuisance.

I don't know where you get that from.  I didn't mention commissions, or multiple cycles.

I'm merely describing a mixing service.   A mixer takes coins in and issues out coins to the same value to a new address under the control of a particular registered account.  When many people do this, then the output coins are not equal to the input coins and so you have anonymised whatever you fed in.  It works because it is a transfer done outside of the bitcoin blockchain.

It was suggested that the output coins should be strictly different from the input coins.  I was pointing out that that rule in itself is enough to link the inputs to the outputs, thus defeating the purpose of the mixer.

[Trader Steve]

Mike,

I tried testing your service and came up with error messages when it tried to generate an address for me to send a payment to. Any idea why? The amount attempted was 1 BTC.