Bitcoin Anonimity Proxy

[wobber]

I was thinking of making a proxy to be paid in bitcoins, primarily to help the community and to earn some btcs.
My idea is to run it inside a virtualized OS, and to give access only to Bitcoin's forum, for people that wish to keep themselves anonymous.
What do you think? I need your feedback before starting.
thanks!

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[SmokeTooMuch]

using proxies is only advantageous if the proxy owner can be trusted.

I`m sorry but I dont know anything about you, so I wont give you my traffic.

PS: if it can be considered that only the forum members use that proxy, it gives even less anonymity than a normal public one.

[Vasiliev]

using proxies is only advantageous if the proxy owner can be trusted.

Use not-your-internet and a proxy has a bit of a benefit.

[SmokeTooMuch]

does't the use of someone elses internet make the use of a proxy needless ?
(i'm thinking of unsecured wlans and stuff)

[Vasiliev]

does't the use of someone elses internet make the use of a proxy needless ?
(i'm thinking of unsecured wlans and stuff)

Using a proxy would obscure your location to the sites you connected to, as well as making it mildly more difficult to track you.

[wobber]

using proxies is only advantageous if the proxy owner can be trusted.

I`m sorry but I dont know anything about you, so I wont give you my traffic.

PS: if it can be considered that only the forum members use that proxy, it gives even less anonymity than a normal public one.

That's why we need a sort of Trust System. I proposed that Bitcoin Certification Authority but now luck. Maybe someone has a better idea, i really want to start bussiness with bitcoins.

And you're right, if only forum members use it, it will not be truly anonymous.

[lachesis]

The problem with Bitcoin Certify is that it seems a lot like what Verisign does, which is to issue certificates for a fee to anyone who submits correct contact information. The only way something like that might work is if there were already a reputation stat on the forums and you were pledging to contact all involved parties and verify the transactions. And people would have to know and trust your practices as well.

Basically, it would be a whole lot of work for a fairly measly fee.

But I don't want to pay 100BTC for a PGP-signed PNG with my username on it.

[wobber]

And how could you build a web-of-trust if nobody get's into that web?
I'm gonna do some brainstorming to see what could be done and the project will remain up for 1 year to see what's happening.

But, all you Bitcoin users keep in mind: As time goes by and BTC becomes more valuable, there will be people that will want to cheat and steal from you and me.

Asume someone starts a new thread and sais: "Hey, look at this service WE provide World-wide 100 SMS for just 500 BTC. 10 people back that up and say it's awsome, altrough they had minor issues with, I don't know, non-Unicode charsets? You pay and boo, site goes down next day and it's untraceable cause it used some poor guy rooted machine or other means.

So, it would be necessary that someone to verify that service (I don't imply Bitcoin Certify here, I'm just saing I'll be more and more reluctant to pay for services I don't know about).

[lachesis]

However, having a signed certificate has no impact on whether or not somebody's server gets hacked. Also, I think you mean non-Western character sets, since almost everything is a Unicode character.

I think a good community reputation system is essential to trust Bitcoin. Crypto isn't terribly necessary in building such a system, especially if it's forum-based. Of course, then the forums become a single point of a failure and a huge vulnerability.

[BitcoinFX]

Getting back to the original thread...

I've also looked into offering a proxy service that accepts bitcoin. However, issues relating to increased anonymity will always rely on more established proxy services or the "friend-to-friend" trust approach. "You can't be anonymous by yourself"...etc.

The best free choice is of course the Tor Project - http://www.torproject.org/ and then perhaps I2P - http://www.i2p2.de/

However, whilst searching https://sesawe.net/ for other suitable existing alternatives that might offer advantages in terms of speed, compatibility, flexibility and reliability etc. I was reminded of Your Freedom - https://www.your-freedom.net/

Whilst it offers free and paid for options ( the free option not being of much use for a Bitcoin client ) it does support Socks and its client is Java based and highly flexible. It also supports OpenVPN ! - http://openvpn.net/

They also offer an incentive scheme https://www.your-freedom.net/index.php?id=189 where you can earn 'points' for running a CGI relay to pay for the extended services. Given that most Bitcoin users have always on PC's / Servers I think that this could provide for an interesting relationship. There may also be the option to sell your voucher codes for bitcoins etc. ? There are many further possibilities for bitcoin service providers.

I tested Bitcoin through Your Freedom and the only problem is that it limits 'streams' to 10. So, a GUI option to control this in Bitcoin would be perfect !
See: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223.0

It is also possible that Your Freedom might consider accepting Bitcoin as a payment method ! They already accept PayPal, CashU, UKash, Liberty Reserve , Virtual Terminal Network ( an African provider ) and RoutePay ! See: https://www.your-freedom.net/index.php?id=114

There are many similarities between the users of such anonymity / proxy / circumvention software also requiring an anonymous payments solution. This type of paid service and relationship is also good for the expansion of Bitcoins exchange service providers.

I'm going to contact support to request if they might consider accepting bitcoin and also consider an upgrade to test the paid service. Its important that they don't recognize Bitcoin as an IRC 'botnet' ... which of course it is not.

[sirius]

I'm going to contact support to request if they might consider accepting bitcoin and also consider an upgrade to test the paid service.

We could also market to Perfect Privacy (they already accept Liberty Reserve and WebMoney among others), Ipredator and Relakks. I think they'd benefit from having a truly anonymous payment option. I'll be in contact with them when the next release is out.

[laszlo]

All that stuff is run by the CIA (like tor exit nodes).. you just need to get your own VPS - pay for it with some kind of prepaid payment card, use a bogus name obviously.. and just run your own proxy.  Don't use things like youtube, google, yahoo, wikipedia etc.. because regardless of proxies and javascript and whatever, they're in the business of tracking usage and controlling your thoughts through control of what you read.

The VPS thing isn't perfect but there are uses for a VPS besides anonymous proxying.. services that are advertised as anonymous proxies will obviously attract people who want to be anonymous so they're probably 'up to no good' and are worth spying on.

I guess I'm just reiterating the original point that you can't trust someone else's proxy unless you trust that person.  I have a few friends who use my proxies but I know them in person so they know and trust me.  I wouldn't use someone else's proxy unless I knew them well enough to trust them.. I especially wouldn't use a paid service that is specifically aimed at someone looking for anonymity.

The image I get in my head is some spook sitting around nailing up signs that lead to a bank you can rob.. and his buddies are waiting inside behind the door grinning.

[SmokeTooMuch]

All that stuff is run by the CIA

Sorry, but that's just terribly wrong.
And in addition: running an exit node doesn't make you able to reveal someone's identity. (at least not without heavy traffic analysis and further information about you)

having an own VPS for proxy/vpn only makes sense if you can buy it anonymously.
the guys who give good service always check your registration information, so faking name etc. doesn't really work.
i haven't heard of any vps providers that sell their servers to an anonymous person, but if you know one, pls let me know.

[BitcoinFX]

I've run a Tor exit node before and currently run an entry node and I'm not part of any 'three letter agency'

Its not always about anonymity and privacy either ! For some internet users its more about circumvention and simply reaching 'blocked' content with a degree of security.

Of course the 'powers that be' , malicious individuals etc. monitor proxies, but what is the alternative ?

Now, whats the quote about "Privacy, Security or Anonymity ?" Choose any 2, you can't have all 3... not to mention how 'fast' the service is.

With regards to Bitcoin it isn't just about the above issues either. Surely, It's about developing a 'pick and mix' economy with linked services and their users.

Its totally up to the end user to determine what they require and trust etc. Although, without more quality Bitcoin accepting services people will be less likely to trust Bitcoin.

As, for suggesting not to use google !? I think that Bitcoin is making us paranoid

Here's a really good free example of using google for circumvention. Ace VPN http://www.acevpn.com/free-proxy-server-to-surf-anonymous/

With this GPL Python Script and selection of the best server I've managed to stream ABC in the UK.

Whats google got to do with it ? Well, its based on

GAppProxy http://code.google.com/p/gappproxy/

Google App Engine http://appengine.google.com/

Not that its got much to do with Bitcoin, but I'd just thought I'd share that one to demonstrate that its not always about privacy, security or anonymity.

[ksd5]

The problem with Bitcoin Certify is that it seems a lot like what Verisign does, which is to issue certificates for a fee to anyone who submits correct contact information. The only way something like that might work is if there were already a reputation stat on the forums and you were pledging to contact all involved parties and verify the transactions. And people would have to know and trust your practices as well.

Basically, it would be a whole lot of work for a fairly measly fee.

But I don't want to pay 100BTC for a PGP-signed PNG with my username on it.

Plus, it would centralize trust, which is antithetical to Bitcoin's purpose.