Deanonymization of BTC

[Nagesh021]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

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[amaclin1]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

What do you want?

[nc50lc]

What do you mean "deanonymize"?
Bitcoin was designed to be (pseudo)anonymous, the services that was build around/above it (like exchanges and payment services) were the ones that're not anonymous.
If you want to stay anonymous, use a bitcoin core wallet or a alternative 3rd-party wallet (ex. Electrum) and stay away from other kinds of services that require KYC.

[aliashraf]

Yes there is a technique for "de-anonymizing" bitcoin network, not a state-of-the-art technique tho:

Remove @anonymint and his posts and the posts about his posts recursively. It has been practiced yesterday successfully in this forum and works fine.

[Nagesh021]

There was a paper published in cornell university in which scientists have proposed two methods namely analysis of the transaction chain and which helps in which the scientist claims to match the wallet address to the personal identity by exploiting the weakness in the bitcoin anonymity. so i wanted to know which part of the network contributes to this weakness?

[aliashraf]

No kidding, Seriously? What a co-accident ...

So deanonymization, and not de-anonymintization, my bad, apologies.

[slaman29]

Perhaps not much more to contribute here to the brilliant replies above, looking at you aliashraf , but there are quite a few actions I take and most people do here on this forum that somewhat "deanonymizes" Bitcoin. Hopefully these are practical examples for you. Staking a Bitcoin address to prove ownership of this account. This ties the address to me as in the username on this account. Reusing an address. Addresses were meant for single use, but I re-use several addresses to help me identify source of coins. Convenience for my bookkeeping, but again, ties me and my online identity to my addresses. People perhaps know who've paid me, which signature campaigns I've participated in.

So yes. I need/want to do the above, but I sacrifice some anonymity.

[Nagesh021]

okay that's one type of doing it but is there any way to exactly match the wallet address to the personal identity?

[amaclin1]

okay that's one type of doing it but is there any way to exactly match the wallet address to the personal identity?

Yes. There is a way to match. But it costs too high.
Take an address. Take a person. Say: "I will pay you $1 billion if this address is yours".
Repeat 7 billion times.

Are you looking for a free way? No, there is no free beer here for you. Everything has a cost.

[aliashraf]

Oh, I'm not productive, I'm bad, I should be assassinated, call 911, my posts should be removed and all the posts that have quoted me.
Plus my salary should be cut immediately, because I'm failing to do my job, I don't help noobs to understand anonymity in bitcoin, like what you do slaman29, you good boy.

But wait, reading your post, I found you are not that much helpful too:

You don't get op's question at all, he is not asking about how we can deanonymize ourselves, it would be just stupid.
Any anonymous can provide proof and bind his real identity to his anonymous one and there would be always a reason to do so, it is not what op is curious about.

Op wants to know whether NSA, IRS, CIA, FBI, ... got a technology to track bitcoin addresses down to their owners or not.

The answer is, no there is no technology to do so and there won't be such a technology. Cornell people better STFU.
They can do it just by law enforcing KYC requirements to exchanges, where crypto is to be traded by fiat, they can go further by imposing such a requirement for any trade activity (fiat related or not)  in exchanges and again further, by enforcing this for any form of trade.

I think sooner or later drug dealers should comply with KYC .... NSA guys are so excited  

They have already committed this attack against crypto and are tightening it even more. This is why crypto is tilting in last few months and as of this writing, there is no serious counter-attack in the horizon, instead our leaders are busy de-anonymintization.

[pebwindkraft]

okay that's one type of doing it but is there any way to exactly match the wallet address to the personal identity?

I'd tend to say no, if you do it correctly.

Assume you created a first bitcoin address, and use it to receive funds from a person on a bitcoin event. Assuming you didn't show him your real ID, and no cameras and so on, then nobody knows, that this address is linked to your person. If you now spend these coins to buy a book in a warehouse, they will send it to your home address - and then at least "they" know the link. And police departments can ask the bookstore... This is an indirect link to your person.

Address reuse is the first bad thing you can do, which helps others to de-anonymize. As the blockchain keeps all transactions, you could be identified, if an address is found in the blockchain as part of a transaction, and KYI/KYC or s.th. similar to the bookstore example was followed. Large companies and for sure police departments try to run through this activity.

Re-using addresses not only helps to de-anonymize your ID, it can also have effects on other user's IDs privacy.
The bitcoin core wallet is never reusing addresses, and transactions have always new addresses for the change.
If you want to stay even more anonymous, you may want to look into mixer services.

DONT'T REUSE ADDRESSES, its bad for privacy.

 

[Nagesh021]

@aliashraf The answer was on point but i don't understand how you are telling that there is no technology to de-anonymize it when there are more than 5-6 Technical papers from top notch computers in the world.

[gentlemand]

okay that's one type of doing it but is there any way to exactly match the wallet address to the personal identity?

For a mere mortal your only hope is googling an address and seeing what shows up. It might be linked to a forum account, tweet or username that reveals personal information elsewhere if the owner is slack.

If you're law enforcement then it's a piece of piss. You just demand personal details from the exchanges and services the address has brushed.

@aliashraf The answer was on point but i don't understand how you are telling that there is no technology to de-anonymize it when there are more than 5-6 Technical papers from top notch computers in the world.

You can have the world's greatest programmers working away. If someone mined it, or bought with cash, or earned it what is there to link it to them? They can't send antennas out into the universe. At some point it has to have a link to a bank account, email address or similar. If that's not present then there's nothing to work with.

[Nagesh021]

okay that's one type of doing it but is there any way to exactly match the wallet address to the personal identity?

For a mere mortal your only hope is googling an address and seeing what shows up. It might be linked to a forum account, tweet or username that reveals personal information elsewhere if the owner is slack.

If you're law enforcement then it's a piece of piss. You just demand personal details from the exchanges and services the address has brushed.

@aliashraf The answer was on point but i don't understand how you are telling that there is no technology to de-anonymize it when there are more than 5-6 Technical papers from top notch computers in the world.

You can have the world's greatest programmers working away. If someone mined it, or bought with cash, or earned it what is there to link it to them? They can't send antennas out into the universe. At some point it has to have a link to a bank account, email address or similar. If that's not present then there's nothing to work with.

Thanks, If someone's mined it he will have a wallet ID right? Given that you write an algorithm that finds out all the transactions in the blockchain we can pin the wallet id to the person right?

[gentlemand]

Thanks, If someone's mined it he will have a wallet ID right? Given that you write an algorithm that finds out all the transactions in the blockchain we can pin the wallet id to the person right?

Nope.

A wallet has nothing to do with anyone's ID. They have to explicitly link it to their real world ID which anywhere they've given up their ID such as bank accounts, buying through Bitpay and sending to their home address, having a forum account linked to it with personal information.

And a civilian still can't do much with that unless they hack into email and so on. You need subpoenas to get the info most of the time.

It's more than possible to never be identifiable if you're careful.

The people who do get busted via dark markets have always made some moronic move. The most recent one was someone using the very same dark market address on their verified Localbitcoins account.

Are you trying to find someone or not be found yourself?

[Nagesh021]

Thanks, If someone's mined it he will have a wallet ID right? Given that you write an algorithm that finds out all the transactions in the blockchain we can pin the wallet id to the person right?

Nope.

A wallet has nothing to do with anyone's ID. They have to explicitly link it to their real world ID which anywhere they've given up their ID such as bank accounts, buying through Bitpay and sending to their home address, having a forum account linked to it with personal information.

And a civilian still can't do much with that unless they hack into email and so on. You need subpoenas to get the info most of the time.

It's more than possible to never be identifiable if you're careful.

The people who do get busted via dark markets have always made some moronic move. The most recent one was someone using the very same dark market address on their verified Localbitcoins account.

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

[AdolfinWolf]

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Well being careful just means that you don't make a connection between the ''bitcoin'' world and your own ''world'',  which basically comes down to not linking any sensitive information to any of your adresses..

How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Who is ''they''? What is it that you're asking here exactly? How the government agencies link wallet adress to people? Or services like https://walletexplorer.com ?

There really isn't such a thing as a wallet ID, it really doesn't exist on the blockchain level itself.

AFAIK, Walletexplorer.com does it through "adress clustering"

See;

What walletexplorer does is called address clustering. When you spend bitcoins, your wallet will take input from several txouts belonging to several addresses depending on amount to be spend. So walletexplorer works on a simple heuristic:

If two addresses appear as inputs in any given transaction, they belong to same user
More detail about this method can be seen in this paper by Reid and Harrigan. Of course, this method will fail in case of mixers and coinjoin transactions. There are advanced ways to even detect transaction that go through mixers, but I don't think wallet explorer does that

To find name of wallets it can scrap forums like bitcointalk, some addresses are tagged publicly in blockchain.info, also it can has bots trade on major exchanges to get their addresses.

I doubt this would work very well on individuals, but it's very effective to ID large exchanges this way.

[gentlemand]

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Yes.

All a wallet ID is is a bit of code. You don't need anyone's permission. You don't sign up for anything. You just use software to generate it and away you go. That's one of the central points of the whole thing. No one can stop you. No one can control you.

When you say wallet ID, all it is is a wallet address.

If you don't want to be identifiable you do have to put in the work. It's nothing like Monero where all transactions are untraceable. It is possible though.

[Nagesh021]

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Yes.

All a wallet ID is is a bit of code. You don't need anyone's permission. You don't sign up for anything. You just use software to generate it and away you go. That's one of the central points of the whole thing. No one can stop you. No one can control you.

When you say wallet ID, all it is is a wallet address.

If you don't want to be identifiable you do have to put in the work. It's nothing like Monero where all transactions are untraceable. It is possible though.

Can you please elaborate on how monero is untraceable? which aspect of it makes it more anonymous than Bitcoin?

[gentlemand]

Can you please elaborate on how monero is untraceable? which aspect of it makes it more anonymous than Bitcoin?

That'll explain better than me - https://www.monero.how/how-does-monero-work-details-in-plain-english

Bitcoin is completely open to everyone in terms of seeing what's going on on the blockchain. Monero is completely closed to everyone. There is no way of checking anyone's balance or knowing what transactions have taken place. Privacy is baked into its protocol.

The sender, the recipient, and the amount are all unknown which covers most bases.

If you bought it on an exchange with your ID, once the Monero has left the exchange address no one can follow it. They may know you bought some. It's a dead end from then on no matter what they try.

Nothing's 100% and we don't know what tools are out there but Monero is as good as it gets in terms of privacy.

[Nagesh021]

By being careful you mean not linking your wallet id anywhere? How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Well being careful just means that you don't make a connection between the ''bitcoin'' world and your own ''world'',  which basically comes down to not linking any sensitive information to any of your adresses..

How do they generate wallet ID's in the first place?

Who is ''they''? What is it that you're asking here exactly? How the government agencies link wallet adress to people? Or services like https://walletexplorer.com ?

There really isn't such a thing as a wallet ID, it really doesn't exist on the blockchain level itself.

AFAIK, Walletexplorer.com does it through "adress clustering"

See;

What walletexplorer does is called address clustering. When you spend bitcoins, your wallet will take input from several txouts belonging to several addresses depending on amount to be spend. So walletexplorer works on a simple heuristic:

If two addresses appear as inputs in any given transaction, they belong to same user
More detail about this method can be seen in this paper by Reid and Harrigan. Of course, this method will fail in case of mixers and coinjoin transactions. There are advanced ways to even detect transaction that go through mixers, but I don't think wallet explorer does that

To find name of wallets it can scrap forums like bitcointalk, some addresses are tagged publicly in blockchain.info, also it can has bots trade on major exchanges to get their addresses.

I doubt this would work very well on individuals, but it's very effective to ID large exchanges this way.

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

[gentlemand]

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

You can download this page - www.bitaddress.org

Put it on a computer that's never seen the internet and generate all the addresses you want. No one will ever be able to link that to anywhere.

When you download a phone wallet through google play or a hardware wallet they never see the addresses or seeds you generate otherwise security would be compromised. Any wallet that was sending addresses back to the company would be exposed and shunned immediately.

That's different from hosted wallets like Coinbase that control the private keys. They of course see everything.

[Nagesh021]

By "they" i mean the people who build softwares to generate wallets. So according to you there is some amount of de-anonymization of the network?

You can download this page - www.bitaddress.org

Put it on a computer that's never seen the internet and generate all the addresses you want. No one will ever be able to link that to anywhere.

When you download a phone wallet through google play or a hardware wallet they never see the addresses or seeds you generate otherwise security would be compromised. Any wallet that was sending addresses back to the company would be exposed and shunned immediately.

That's different from hosted wallets like Coinbase that control the private keys. They of course see everything.

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

[gentlemand]

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

My ID is long blown with every single satoshi I have. I couldn't care less. I have nothing to hide. Nor do most people. If I make vast profits I'll cough up the tax. The only people who can access exchange information and my subsequent ID will be law enforcement just as they can with a bank account.

If people want to avoid the attention of the authorities they'll have to avoid conventional exchanges. Most people are happy enough to give up every single scrap of detail about their whole lives to places like Facebook. It's not an issue for most.

If it is an issue there are ways to address it.

What is the central thrust of your questions?

[Nagesh021]

So can we consider putting cryptos on the exchange as one of the channel for scientists to link ids to real world entities. If yes, How do we keep the network moving forward without people buying and selling it?

My ID is long blown with every single satoshi I have. I couldn't care less. I have nothing to hide. Nor do most people. If I make vast profits I'll cough up the tax. The only people who can access exchange information and my subsequent ID will be law enforcement just as they can with a bank account.

If people want to avoid the attention of the authorities they'll have to avoid conventional exchanges. Most people are happy enough to give up every single scrap of detail about their whole lives to places like Facebook. It's not an issue for most.

If it is an issue there are ways to address it.

What is the central thrust of your questions?

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

[gentlemand]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

[Nagesh021]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

Thanks! Got a more clear picture. But i would want to get other's perspectives too.

[bob123]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

Bitcoin is not anonymous at all. If at all, it is pseudonymous.

And therefore you can't deanonymize it. All you can do is to try to stay anonymous (by using several tools (e.g. a mixer)).
This does not influence the level of anonymity of the network, just the anonymity of a person itself and his/her transactions.
In such a case (if it is done properly) it will be almost impossible to proper chase/deanonymize such a privacy-orientated (and tech-savy) user.

[Marlo Stanfield]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

As others have started to point out, the answer is a very big 'yes'. People years ago tried to pass off Bitcoin as being anonymous, but slowly that faded away as people became more honest and educated. It's a public ledger of transactions, it's not inherently private or anonymous at all.

[arumslee]

Bitcoin was never made to be truly anonymous, it was pseudonymous because of the immutable ledger. All transactions made by anybody are visible.

[milewilda]

I want to know to what extent the btc network is anonymous? And i also want to know the different methods that are used and that are going to be used in future by the authorities to de-anonymize the network.

Ah right.

It's never been fundamentally anonymous and never will be. It has always been pseudonymous - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

Anonymity is in the hands of each individual user. If it's important to them then they need to educate themselves.

Suffice to say any time you go anywhere near an exchange or buy a product that's posted to your address or link your Bitcoin address to a forum where you registered with email your anonymity is blown for that particular chain of transactions. You could of course maintain a completely private address separately if you know what to do.

I can well believe that fully anonymous coins like Monero may be excluded from exchanges as a condition of operation by the authorities. It's already happening in Japan. Bitcoin's openness may help with its ongoing acceptance. Not so great if you feel like keeping a low profile though.

Thanks! Got a more clear picture. But i would want to get other's perspectives too.

Other perspective would really be just similar on what most people do say on here which is actually right. It had been said bitcoin isnt truly anonymous but pseudonymous.
Transactions can be tracked and seen out publicly which is really opposing on the thing where most people do believe into bitcoin when it regards to privacy or anonymity.
Monero would fit this one and said above it is being excluded due to that fact.

[quichiship]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

No you can't .Due to the anonymous transaction bitcoin is popular. You're hiding your identity by using bitcoins technology. You can send money world wide without telling anyone your name, documents, passport etc.

[likerseld]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

Where other platform like PayPal hold your money and ask you to show your full identity which is risky you can lose your money they can restricted your account where block chain  never. It is anonymous which is good for us plus it has some advantages feature.

[veleten]

Are there any techniques that are developed to deanonymize the bitcoin network?

as it has been mentioned above,bitcoin is pseudoanonymous and there is always a way to link addresses together
once it is done,you can proceed to cooperate with the law enforcement organizations of the target country to connect that to the devices and the physical address of a person(s)
there are several agencies that are doing this at the moment:
1.founded back in 2015, Chainalysis is one of the most famous(and oldest)
focuses on assessing risks for the companies if they want to enter bitcoin markets,also helping law enforcement
partnered with many international law enforcement agencies and Europol they provide tools to track cyber criminals
2.Elliptic-providing same services as Chainalysis,tools to identify illicit activity on the Bitcoin blockchain
3.QLUE-a programme by BIG(Blockchain Investigation Group) having the same functionality as the ones above,focuses on the darknet operations
there was a publicly available tool called Numisight,currently unavailable
one could visualize transactions made from an address and connect it to another in a nice graphical presentation