Anonymize BitCoins, dead topic?

[r4ndomdud3]

I've been googling and trying to figure out how to be anonymous dealing with BitCoins. What I've learned is that I some how have to break the chain of transactions.
Are mixers/tumblers out of date? Is there anything I'm missing? All the threads and info I find on the subject is over a month old, which is kinda old for BitCoin if you ask me. Maybe I'm wrong?

Consider the following scenario:
I have a web shop that sell services for BitCoins. When I cash out I don't want Mt.Gox or whatever exchange I use to be able to trace the money to the buyer of my service nor the shop.

How would I do that? Or is it not possible right now?

Im sorry if the question has been asked and answered somewhere else. If so, just point me in the right direction please.
All I can find is out dated answers that doesn't explain how to do it today.

Ps. To those who will go down the line with "don't do anything illegal and you don't have to be anonymous". It's not about that. I have my reasons why I want to be anonymous and that's the end of that.

[Immanuel Girth]

http://www.bitcoinlaundry.com/ is still up and working AFAIK.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

An important tip: Always put your bitcoin client behind a proxy like Tor. This is really important, as it is not so difficult to guess from which IP transactions come. Linking every transaction to an IP puts you just a step close from linking them with an entity/individual, particularly for a business which has publicly known IPs.

Besides that, to really "erase" every trace you'll have to do some work. Two things you should worry:

• The trace coins leave, obviously.
• Linking different coins in a same transaction.

To "erase" the trace you should search for mixers. There's a site, bitcoin laundry or something, that does it and theoretically does not keep logs. I don't know how competent they are, I just know I found it expensive last time I saw it. A mixer would only work well if it has many clients, and I don't know if these services have enough demand yet. Instead, you may want to make your coins hop from an e-wallet to another before reaching the final end. That'll probably do the mixing. Yes, it would leave logs on the e-wallets. To mitigate the risks of being identified by such logs, always use proxies like Tor and maybe create multiple anonymous accounts on these e-wallets. In this case, even if an attacker discovers one of your accounts by following blockchain traces, they wouldn't necessarily know about the others.

Also, if you don't want to mix coins coming from different costumers, you can't have transactions that spend them at once, since it would prove they were controlled by the same entity. Each amount you receive should be spent entirely in a transaction of its own. I remember somebody once did a patch to the standard client that allowed you to manually build your transaction, picking the inputs. If it was possible to make with GUI, then it's probably possible to make it through RPC as well. If in a certain situation you need to make a payment that's higher than the full  individual amount of all of your addresses, then you should make multiple transfers to your e-wallet/mixer and let it do the join of coins in your place. Hopefully it will pick different addresses.

Summary: it's not easy, and we unfortunately miss automated and cheap ways of doing it.

[r4ndomdud3]

http://www.bitcoinlaundry.com/ is still up and working AFAIK.

I noticed that site before, also noticed it's REALLY expensive (if you ask me). Thanks for your reply though!

An important tip: Always put your bitcoin client behind a proxy like Tor. This is really important, as it is not so difficult to guess from which IP transactions come. Linking every transaction to an IP puts you just a step close from linking them with an entity/individual, particularly for a business which has publicly known IPs.

Besides that, to really "erase" every trace you'll have to do some work. Two things you should worry:

• The trace coins leave, obviously.
• Linking different coins in a same transaction.

To "erase" the trace you should search for mixers. There's a site, bitcoin laundry or something, that does it and theoretically does not keep logs. I don't know how competent they are, I just know I found it expensive last time I saw it. A mixer would only work well if it has many clients, and I don't know if these services have enough demand yet. Instead, you may want to make your coins hop from an e-wallet to another before reaching the final end. That'll probably do the mixing. Yes, it would leave logs on the e-wallets. To mitigate the risks of being identified by such logs, always use proxies like Tor and maybe create multiple anonymous accounts on these e-wallets. In this case, even if an attacker discovers one of your accounts by following blockchain traces, they wouldn't necessarily know about the others.

Also, if you don't want to mix coins coming from different costumers, you can't have transactions that spend them at once, since it would prove they were controlled by the same entity. Each amount you receive should be spent entirely in a transaction of its own. I remember somebody once did a patch to the standard client that allowed you to manually build your transaction, picking the inputs. If it was possible to make with GUI, then it's probably possible to make it through RPC as well. If in a certain situation you need to make a payment that's higher than the full  individual amount of all of your addresses, then you should make multiple transfers to your e-wallet/mixer and let it do the join of coins in your place. Hopefully it will pick different addresses.

Summary: it's not easy, and we unfortunately miss automated and cheap ways of doing it.

Thank you for a elaborate response.
Didn't like the summary though but maybe something revolutionary is coming in the near future. Seen some speculations about how to make the perfect mixer/tumbler/laundry and other services which would make BitCoin anonymous.

I'm gonna do some research on ewallets and see if that's a usable solution for now.

Ps. It's funny that so many people talking about BitCoin just say "You can make it anonymous if you use it right/smart" but no one seems to know the right/smart solution. Or is the smart people sticking together and not sharing?

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

I forgot, maybe I should also say that there might be risks in using public mixers, depending on the legislature you're under.

Let's suppose you use a mixer, doesn't matter for what. The idea of a mixer is that your coins will be used by somebody else, and somebody else's coins will be used by you. If this somebody does something nasty and the trace is being followed somehow, it could end up on your wallet or exchange account. People could end up reaching you instead of their original target. And if you say "that's not me, I was using an anonymizer", that by itself may bring you troubles in most jurisdictions of the world.

Honestly, if you want to be truly anonymous, avoid non-anonymous exchanges like MtGox. Even OTC is might be risky if you use bank transfers. The only safe harbor is cash, unfortunately,

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Ps. It's funny that so many people talking about BitCoin just say "You can make it anonymous if you use it right/smart" but no one seems to know the right/smart solution. Or is the smart people sticking together and not sharing?

It depends on the level of anonymity you want. For most cases, just using bitcoin normally is probably anonymous enough, particularly because currently no government is crawling the blockchain, searching for victims. And when/if they start doing it, I'd expect solutions to appear. Pretty much like their "war on piracy".

[r4ndomdud3]

I forgot, maybe I should also say that there might be risks in using public mixers, depending on the legislature you're under.

Let's suppose you use a mixer, doesn't matter for what. The idea of a mixer is that your coins will be used by somebody else, and somebody else's coins will be used by you. If this somebody does something nasty and the trace is being followed somehow, it could end up on your wallet or exchange account. People could end up reaching you instead of their original target. And if you say "that's not me, I was using an anonymizer", that by itself may bring you troubles in most jurisdictions of the world.

Honestly, if you want to be truly anonymous, avoid non-anonymous exchanges like MtGox. Even OTC is might be risky if you use bank transfers. The only safe harbor is cash, unfortunately,

Obviously you can get dirty money from a mixer, but the relevant part is that you don't get money from the same dirty source more than once maximum twice. I mean, sooner or later all money will be dirty, somewhere in the chain? That doesn't mean you can convict random people that might have owned the money at some point.

If you could break the transaction chain cash wouldn't be the only safe way. Cause it doesn't really matter if people/gov can see that you've got BitCoins that you traded for USD as long as they can't trace where the BitCoins come from. I could just say "Donations from my blog" or whatever.

Ps. It's funny that so many people talking about BitCoin just say "You can make it anonymous if you use it right/smart" but no one seems to know the right/smart solution. Or is the smart people sticking together and not sharing?

It depends on the level of anonymity you want. For most cases, just using bitcoin normally is probably anonymous enough, particularly because currently no government is crawling the blockchain, searching for victims. And when/if they start doing it, I'd expect solutions to appear. Pretty much like their "war on piracy".

Sucks for those who get in trouble after the gov start to crawl but before there are options to be anonymous. Would be nice with some proactive actions.
Though I think a lot of people want to be anonymous even though they're not doing anything illegal. That's probably the same people that think 5% for mixers is way to expensive.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Obviously you can get dirty money from a mixer, but the relevant part is that you don't get money from the same dirty source more than once maximum twice. I mean, sooner or later all money will be dirty, somewhere in the chain? That doesn't mean you can convict random people that might have owned the money at some point.

In some jurisdictions, you might be forced to explain the origins and destinies of such money, to prove it was not you who made it dirty. And, very likely in these same jurisdiction, using an anonymizer is illegal by itself. That's what I meant.

If you could break the transaction chain cash wouldn't be the only safe way. Cause it doesn't really matter if people/gov can see that you've got BitCoins that you traded for USD as long as they can't trace where the BitCoins come from. I could just say "Donations from my blog" or whatever.

I mentioned cash because I think the weakest link in bitcoin anonymity is when bitcoins are traded against official currencies, using banks. In the banking system, there's no anonymity. They could find you through your bank account. With cash transactions, that's much harder - harder than tracing bitcoins.

Though I think a lot of people want to be anonymous even though they're not doing anything illegal. That's probably the same people that think 5% for mixers is way to expensive.

Agreed.

[r4ndomdud3]

I think we're pretty much on the same page. Reckon the only thing we can do is to wait and see if someone comes up with some smart plan (and back it up with software) to keep people anonymous even if they want to cash out at some point.
As you mention, you are anonymous until you cash out.

If anyone else have some input, feel free to contribute to the thread. Otherwise I guess.. Let the thread die. I've gotten my answer at least.
Thanks EhVedadoOAnonimato!