Silk Road

[nefanon]

This seems like a bad thread that gives legitimacy to the complaints about bitcoins being used for illicit activities.

You dont need a thread to give legitimacy to that claim, because it is true, like it or not, bitcoin is used for that. Just like cash, gold and diamonds are used for illegal trades rather than bank accounts or paypal. So what?  Only shows me criminals arent stupid and if anything, the fact criminals endorse it proves its pretty good. Why shouldnt anyone else take advantage of it for legal uses too?

As for silk road specifically, I think its a good thing really. I dont use drugs, I hope my kids wont use it, but Id rather have my kids buy their weed through silk road than by going to look for a shady dealer somewhere. I also think its high time we decriminalize drugs (which isnt the same as encouraging). Silk Road is a good step in that direction, but thats just me.

+1

[fivebells]

can you configure the miner to communicate with the pool over tor? Im not sure you can. It uses http, but I dont know if it works with a proxy.

You can send ALL network traffic over tor.  I have tested ssh through it.

Moreover, you would have to keep your bitcoins at the pool and spend them from there directly, rather than transferring them to your own wallet

You can't just move them to a different, anonymous wallet?

[CrispyTophat]

Not to go off topic but is anyone having a hard time accessing silk road... I have not been able to get on in over 4 days always times out.

[P4man]

You can send ALL network traffic over tor.  I have tested ssh through it.

The software must work with a SOCKS proxy, not all software does. Im not saying it couldnt work, but have you tried with a miner app?

You can't just move them to a different, anonymous wallet?

Hosted where? There is always an IP.

[CliffordM]

You can send ALL network traffic over tor.  I have tested ssh through it.

The software must work with a SOCKS proxy, not all software does. Im not saying it couldnt work, but have you tried with a miner app?

You can't just move them to a different, anonymous wallet?

Hosted where? There is always an IP.

No problems here -- Tor running smoothly, as is connection to SR.

[P4man]

No problems here -- Tor running smoothly, as is connection to SR.

Its not because tor is running that your miner is using it.

[joeyjoe]

No one is going to be able to track down where the payments come from. its as safe as it needs to be

Its fairly trivial to match a payment with an IP, and for authorities in most cases, also trivial to match the IP with your ID. Unless you jump through hoops doing the payement, bitcoin transfers are not anonymous to authorities with access to IP logs.
Since in the US high ranking senators are calling for closing silk road down, it doesnt take much imagination to see FBI set up shop on silk road and lure in some drug buyers at least.

Ok, say I make a payment of 10btc to address 12345abcde... How can they track that and link it to my PC?

[danman87]

They get a court order, confiscate your PC, find your wallet matches the sending address.

[JohnLaw]

You guys are so funny.

bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and yet you pretend to have the high moral ground when it comes to free trade and you condemn something like silk road.

Laughable.

[nefanon]

They get a court order, confiscate your PC, find your wallet matches the sending address.

An encrypted wallet fixes that.

You guys are so funny.

bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and yet you pretend to have the high moral ground when it comes to free trade and you condemn something like silk road.

Laughable.

The only thing laughable here is your apparant ignorance of what a ponzi scheme is.

[paraipan]

They get a court order, confiscate your PC, find your wallet matches the sending address.

An encrypted wallet fixes that.

... or deleting the address you sent to, from Address-book i mean. Having the wallet encrypted would not save your ass if police or a court wants to match all your receiving addresses in case you did break the law, only priv keys go encrypted (nice feature if you ask me)

[P4man]

Ok, say I make a payment of 10btc to address 12345abcde... How can they track that and link it to my PC?

When you make that payment, you send a broadcast message to the network. Anyone receiving that broadcast can see your IP as the origin of that payment, simply by logging his firewall traffic.

[HostFat]

When you make that payment, you send a broadcast message to the network. Anyone receiving that broadcast can see your IP as the origin of that payment, simply by logging his firewall traffic.

No!

When he makes that payment, he sends a message to few peers ( the connected peers, 8/9 ... ).
Only them can see your IP, and they can't know that you are the first client that made the transfers.

Then they will send the transaction data to their near/connected peers, and this repeats on all the network.

[r4ndomdud3]

I think Silk Road is exciting cause I want to see if the govs can shut them down or not. Guess they will try to go after the buyers/sellers and scare of new buyers/sellers if they can't get the Silk Road ppl.

[joeyjoe]

They cant confiscate your pc, without knowing it was you that made that transaction..

so the 10 people that it gets broadcasted to can see your IP? correct yes, but still, how will the police find you? check millions of computers logs for your ip across several countys? they cant do that.

There is way too much work involved. They will not be able to track your IP. Even looking at the block explorer, they cannot see where the transaction was initiated from. They dont have the skill, the knollege, or money to even bother trying. Even if something like this did go to court, they are not transactions, there is no currency as its not reconised as one. They dont know if a transaction can be fabricated by someone else. They dont understand it enough.

Seriously, they cant do shit about it. They cant even prove it was you that made the transaction. I got busted in 2008 for warez, but they couldnt prove that it was actually me that was sharing them, just that my computer was used, which could of been done remotely by hackers. They couldnt even prove that the logs on the pc that showed me logging in with my password and running the torrent programs was even real, since a text editor could create them, and the dates are not solid evidence since the system clock can be changed so easily. Case was dropped and i got my pc back - with all the stuff. All they will try and do if they suspect something is get you to confess, if you dont, then there is fuck all they can do about it!

Even if the people selling it using bitcoins got busted by the police, it wouldnt be for dealing, even if they told them they were selling the drugs for bitcoins, then converting the bitcoins to currency, bitcoins isnt a reconised currency, it would only be for posession.

I cant believe so many people are threatting about getting caught.

[P4man]

When you make that payment, you send a broadcast message to the network. Anyone receiving that broadcast can see your IP as the origin of that payment, simply by logging his firewall traffic.

No!

When he makes that payment, he sends a message to few peers ( the connected peers, 8/9 ... ).
Only them can see your IP, and they can't know that you are the first client that made the transfers.

Wouldnt the timestamps be a dead giveaway?

[joeyjoe]

When you make that payment, you send a broadcast message to the network. Anyone receiving that broadcast can see your IP as the origin of that payment, simply by logging his firewall traffic.

No!

When he makes that payment, he sends a message to few peers ( the connected peers, 8/9 ... ).
Only them can see your IP, and they can't know that you are the first client that made the transfers.

Wouldnt the timestamps be a dead giveaway?

Time stamps can be changed easily. Still the police wouldnt be able to find the person who made the "transfer", even if they wanted to.

[Paladin69]

HTTPS would be good I guess, but its not uncrackable and might give a false sense of security. People there use PGP encryption to encrypt all their communication (at least the non retarded ones do).

It always amazes me how rude the internet is.

For those that are "retarded", what is PGP and how can I hook it into the tor browser?

For the record I'm not selling.

[Foxpup]

HTTPS would be good I guess, but its not uncrackable and might give a false sense of security. People there use PGP encryption to encrypt all their communication (at least the non retarded ones do).

It always amazes me how rude the internet is.

For those that are "retarded", what is PGP and how can I hook it into the tor browser?

For the record I'm not selling.

PGP (or, more precisely, OpenPGP - "PGP" is actually a commercial product by Symantec implementing this protocol; there is a free open-source implementation called GPG) is a public-key encryption protocol, used mainly for email. It is not related to Tor in any way, and can be used with any email service. Note that PGP only encrypts messages, so that nobody other than the intended recipient can read them; it does not make you anonymous. Be sure to use an anonymous email account if you plan on using it for things that... require anonymity.

All Linux distros come with GPG already installed (though you may want to install a GUI front-end such as KGpg (for KDE) or Seahorse (for GNOME) if your distro doesn't already have one).
For Windows, I recommend Gpg4win.

[Equilux]

HTTPS would be good I guess, but its not uncrackable and might give a false sense of security. People there use PGP encryption to encrypt all their communication (at least the non retarded ones do).

It always amazes me how rude the internet is.

For those that are "retarded", what is PGP and how can I hook it into the tor browser?

For the record I'm not selling.

PGP (or, more precisely, OpenPGP - "PGP" is actually a commercial product by Symantec implementing this protocol; there is a free open-source implementation called GPG) is a public-key encryption protocol, used mainly for email. It is not related to Tor in any way, and can be used with any email service. Note that PGP only encrypts messages, so that nobody other than the intended recipient can read them; it does not make you anonymous. Be sure to use an anonymous email account if you plan on using it for things that... require anonymity.

All Linux distros come with GPG already installed (though you may want to install a GUI front-end such as KGpg (for KDE) or Seahorse (for GNOME) if your distro doesn't already have one).
For Windows, I recommend Gpg4win.

Thanks for the recommendation of Gpg4win! Just a few days ago i was looking for an easy encryption solution, and this looks to be just that.