How 'Anonymous' is Bitcoin?

[evilpete]

bittyweb:  Bitcoin is only truly "anonymous" so long as you don't do anything with it.

In addition to what DannyHamilton said, suppose you buy bitcoins from your localbitcoins dealer.  Now imagine the Florida scenario where those bitcoin dealers were busted.  Now their records/wallets (and timestamps) are presumably in the hands of law enforcement.  The dealer may have been under surveillance when he sold to you.  You might be on the starbucks security camera where you met the dealer.  Maybe you bought a coffee at the starbucks with a credit card or are known to the staff.  etc etc.  Once "they" find some of your addresses and put some effort into taint analysis, things get interesting.

In reality, Bitcoin only gives you a degree of anonymity.  It gets you out of the scope of the NSA casually fishing through bank records to find likely names/addresses of people, but if somebody REALLY wants to find you, sooner or later, they will.  The more you interact with or trade with people, the more traces you leave.

In short, don't depend on bitcoin to keep you out of jail if you're breaking the law.  It isn't designed for that.  It is meant to keep you out of reach of "fishing expeditions", not a concerted law enforcement effort.

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[klintay]

For instance, would running behind Tor protect me?

TOR!?!?! are you bloody mental? Tor was compromised long ago by FBI and FEDs don't touch that shit. even using it is a red flag to ISP and government services

[startselect]

I guess it's not 100% anonymous, since your address can be tracked. It's anonymous in the sense that it's hard to connect your address to you. I guess if you have your profile in an exchange that has your information, then the police can find you that way.

[Zangy]

So does that mean those w@nkers who created ransomware (e.g. cryptolocker) and were paid in BTC could be tracked and hopefully flogged to death?

[AnonyMint]

...

In reality, Bitcoin only gives you a degree of anonymity.  It gets you out of the scope of the NSA casually fishing through bank records to find likely names/addresses of people, but if somebody REALLY wants to find you, sooner or later, they will.  The more you interact with or trade with people, the more traces you leave.

In short, don't depend on bitcoin to keep you out of jail if you're breaking the law.  It isn't designed for that.  It is meant to keep you out of reach of "fishing expeditions", not a concerted law enforcement effort.

Coint taint is the biggest flaw to Bitcoin fungibility.

Now imagine the government tax and law enforcement authorities crack down in the coming years (and the G20+NSA are announcing this intent) wherein they say if you can't provide the identity of whom your purchased your coins from and sold your coins to, then all tax and criminal liability from the time of mining until the future is all yours. Because there is no way for you to otherwise prove that you didn't buy the coin from yourself and sell it to yourself.

So with that very simple ruling, the governments can at-will force all anonymous coin holders (past and present) to be revealed, because nobody is going to accept a coin without identity history any more.

You could still try to find someone to accept your anonymous coins, but since most users are not anonymous, your effort to find such vendors and market for your anonymous coins will become untenable.

This is why the only way I can see to keep fungibility (without losing anonymity entirely) is to make most of the users anonymous, and that includes all their IP addresses when they transact.

CoinJoin and Dark Wallet won't do this.

And Tor is not strong enough, as it can be foiled with timing analysis by an entity that can see all packets, such as the NSA.

So the reality is that Bitcoin will be the government coin. You see how easily the U.S.A. government effectively controlled the outcome of Mt.Gox.

[BeataTX91]

I don't think so as If it was so than many people would do this. As far as I know Tor only make unknown your IP address.

[Gilberto]

For instance, would running behind Tor protect me?

It can be very anonymous if used right. Most people won't be able to use it right for very long though.

[waldox]

NSA can easily associate bitcoin addresses to your distinct internet fingerprint (cookies, ip, isp data, etc)
dont assume your bitcoin usage is anonymous

[AnonyMint]

Come on Bitards, wake up from your stupor. There is no anonymity in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the ledger from hell that will destroy all your freedom. Everything can now be tracked. Zillions times worse than cash for mankind's freedom.

I can't even find a Bitcoin mixer, tumbler, or laundry which provides anonymity for mixing smaller amounts.

For example, Bitcoinfog does not make the deposit and withdrawal amount constant, e.g. 0.5 BTC, thus one can correlate the amounts sent in and the amounts withdrawn. It is very unlikely that there is a large pool of users who are splitting their up their withdrawals in a similar level of chunk sizes as you are, unless you are mixing 10 - 100+ BTC and can employ chunk sizes over many ranges, e.g. 0.1 BTC, 0.5BTC, 1BTC, 2BTC, 4BTC, etc..

And we don't even know if the operators of the mixing service are not already compromised by a national security gag order letter. We can probably assume they are, even if they deny it (gag order can force them to deny it). Since the service centralized, they are easy prey for the NSA to track down, hack, and serve with a order.

Also the legal liability for using a mixing service is potentially severe:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service

[Rassah]

We have your opinion on BitcoinFog, but what about CoinJoin? Especially if implemented as a standard for all transactions?

[Dabs]

1. Because of CoinJoin, there is now no conclusive proof that all the addresses in the same transaction belong to the same person or entities.

2. If you can't link a private key to a person or entity, you can not prove they own a particular bitcoin address.

3. Even if a person or entity publicly reveals their receiving bitcoin address, it is not proof that they own or control it.

4. Merely revealing a private key allows the prior single owner to disown it. He or she is no longer the "owner" because everyone who has access to, or has seen, or read that particular private key is now the "owner".

[AnonyMint]

1. Because of CoinJoin, there is now no conclusive proof that all the addresses in the same transaction belong to the same person or entities.

2. If you can't link a private key to a person or entity, you can not prove they own a particular bitcoin address.

3. Even if a person or entity publicly reveals their receiving bitcoin address, it is not proof that they own or control it.

4. Merely revealing a private key allows the prior single owner to disown it. He or she is no longer the "owner" because everyone who has access to, or has seen, or read that particular private key is now the "owner".

You have not refuted the points of my prior post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=439357.msg5355485#msg5355485

CoinJoin is not used always by everyone, thus that  prior post applies. CoinJoin is subject to timing and pattern analysis. And even if CoinJoin was used by all, there is still a problem...

Also CoinJoin does not obscure IP addresses. And Tor is cracked by the NSA (low-latency Chaum mix-nets are subject to timing analysis by entities that can see all inter-node traffic in spite of the packets being encrypted. Also the NSA has probably compromised most of the servers on Tor).

There is no reliable anonymity possible in Bitcoin against the NSA+GCHQ+G20 tax and law enforcement. Forget it.

There is anonymity in Bitcoin against other less powerful entities.

[djtriggz]

wear a veil

[Dabs]

You have not refuted the points of my prior post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=439357.msg5355485#msg5355485

CoinJoin is not used always by everyone, thus that  prior post applies. CoinJoin is subject to timing and pattern analysis. And even if CoinJoin was used by all, there is still a problem...

Also CoinJoin does not obscure IP addresses. And Tor is cracked by the NSA (low-latency Chaum mix-nets are subject to timing analysis by entities that can see all inter-node traffic in spite of the packets being encrypted. Also the NSA has probably compromised most of the servers on Tor).

There is no reliable anonymity possible in Bitcoin against the NSA+GCHQ+G20 tax and law enforcement. Forget it.

There is anonymity in Bitcoin against other less powerful entities.

CoinJoin exists. It doesn't have to be used by everyone.

It's similar to the small community where a portion of the population are armed. The whole community is a less desirable target for robbers or thieves.

Basically, no one can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you own or control a particular bitcoin address.

If the NSA is already watching you, then there is nothing you can really do, you are already on their scope. But if you've been relatively anonymous up to this point, then not even the NSA knows you are there. Oh, yes, they can probably see you. They just don't know it's you.

[AnonyMint]

You have not refuted the points of my prior post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=439357.msg5355485#msg5355485

CoinJoin is not used always by everyone, thus that  prior post applies. CoinJoin is subject to timing and pattern analysis. And even if CoinJoin was used by all, there is still a problem...

Also CoinJoin does not obscure IP addresses. And Tor is cracked by the NSA (low-latency Chaum mix-nets are subject to timing analysis by entities that can see all inter-node traffic in spite of the packets being encrypted. Also the NSA has probably compromised most of the servers on Tor).

There is no reliable anonymity possible in Bitcoin against the NSA+GCHQ+G20 tax and law enforcement. Forget it.

There is anonymity in Bitcoin against other less powerful entities.

CoinJoin exists. It doesn't have to be used by everyone.

It's similar to the small community where a portion of the population are armed. The whole community is a less desirable target for robbers or thieves.

Basically, no one can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you own or control a particular bitcoin address.

If the NSA is already watching you, then there is nothing you can really do, you are already on their scope. But if you've been relatively anonymous up to this point, then not even the NSA knows you are there. Oh, yes, they can probably see you. They just don't know it's you.

You are wrong. You have not read my upthread posts carefully.

[Dabs]

You have not refuted the points of my prior post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=439357.msg5355485#msg5355485

CoinJoin is not used always by everyone, thus that  prior post applies. CoinJoin is subject to timing and pattern analysis. And even if CoinJoin was used by all, there is still a problem...

Also CoinJoin does not obscure IP addresses. And Tor is cracked by the NSA (low-latency Chaum mix-nets are subject to timing analysis by entities that can see all inter-node traffic in spite of the packets being encrypted. Also the NSA has probably compromised most of the servers on Tor).

There is no reliable anonymity possible in Bitcoin against the NSA+GCHQ+G20 tax and law enforcement. Forget it.

There is anonymity in Bitcoin against other less powerful entities.

CoinJoin exists. It doesn't have to be used by everyone.

It's similar to the small community where a portion of the population are armed. The whole community is a less desirable target for robbers or thieves.

Basically, no one can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you own or control a particular bitcoin address.

If the NSA is already watching you, then there is nothing you can really do, you are already on their scope. But if you've been relatively anonymous up to this point, then not even the NSA knows you are there. Oh, yes, they can probably see you. They just don't know it's you.

You are wrong. You have not read my upthread posts carefully.

Help me understand. I'm sure a lot of other people don't get it too. I may be wrong about the NSA, but I don't think I'm wrong about proving ownership of a particular bitcoin address.

You may link an IP address to it, but that's not proof. The only proof is access to the private key before it gets broadcast to the entire world.

Here's an address for you: 171KdbGvgVN9hzxXiBYYTVD9RS9RokJ959
Here's the private key: L4hmg78a2zxY7J56C423yfwwAXXqwnWGSCfJh6NZDVfABBZE1Usn

Who owns that? Not me.

What I do understand, is sometimes people do not need proof in order to crucify someone, or to hand a guilty verdict. They just all need to agree they don't want you around, so they will get rid of you.

[AnonyMint]

You may link an IP address to it, but that's not proof. The only proof is access to the private key before it gets broadcast to the entire world.

IP address means also they can get access to your ISP's logs so they can see your connection sent the data.

So you if are arguing that sending your public key to a sender which then receives BTC, or originating the send of a signed spend, is not proof that you own a coin, I think you will have a difficult time convincing a judge of that.

What would be your argument to the judge?

[bleyniooo]

Its not anonymous

[Dabs]

You may link an IP address to it, but that's not proof. The only proof is access to the private key before it gets broadcast to the entire world.

IP address means also they can get access to your ISP's logs so they can see your connection sent the data.

So you if are arguing that sending your public key to a sender which then receives BTC, or originating the send of a signed spend, is not proof that you own a coin, I think you will have a difficult time convincing a judge of that.

What would be your argument to the judge?

What if the ISP does not keep logs? Or it takes awhile to get those logs? Or the logs just show encrypted data with no way to decrypt it?

I'm not here to attempt to convince a judge. I'm just saying it is not proof.

What the judge believes, or what the jury say, or what the people understand is different. If you have a good lawyer (if you even end up in court), I'm sure they can say something.

[AnonyMint]

You may link an IP address to it, but that's not proof. The only proof is access to the private key before it gets broadcast to the entire world.

IP address means also they can get access to your ISP's logs so they can see your connection sent the data.

So you if are arguing that sending your public key to a sender which then receives BTC, or originating the send of a signed spend, is not proof that you own a coin, I think you will have a difficult time convincing a judge of that.

What would be your argument to the judge?

What if the ISP does not keep logs? Or it takes awhile to get those logs? Or the logs just show encrypted data with no way to decrypt it?

I'm not here to attempt to convince a judge. I'm just saying it is not proof.

What the judge believes, or what the jury say, or what the people understand is different. If you have a good lawyer (if you even end up in court), I'm sure they can say something.

As I pointed out upthread even if you succeed to be anonymous (e.g. using an ISP that breaks the law as you propose), the majority of the Bitcoin users are not anonymous, so you can be compelled to provide identity else no one will transact with you. This is after the governments start cracking down. Read my post upthread please again more carefully.

On the issue of you trying to convince a judge, the law has now changed to "guilty until proven innocent":

http://www.nestmann.com/could-the-government-force-you-to-tell-your-deepest-darkest-secrets

I don't believe you have a prayer of winning by using "Plausible deniability" in a court-of-law, when the spend transaction was sent from your connection. Especially given the $150 trillion debt implosion and the NSA+G20 promising to hunt down all wealth. The courts are going to say, "show us your records proving that someone else sent that transaction from your connection".