Is Buffet right or wrong?

[AnonyMint]

Maybe AnonyMint's black-magic, omnipresent, map-every-IP-address-in-the-world-to-a-person NSA can.

I don't know what rock you've been sleeping under since Edward Snowden's revelations, but in fact the NSA is mapping every IP address to a person. And more than they, they are saving everything that is encrypted. And they filter everything that is not to search for relevant data which gets permanently stored.

[1714966814]

1714966814

[jonald_fyookball]

Not sure this pub key thing has anything to do with it.  Anyone can see what address is sending to what address and how much....
the only thing that really gives away your identity is if companies (like an exchange) keep records of who you are when you first get the coins.  
or if a company you buy from records who say you are when you order a product with coins.

Sure, your bank knows that you withdrew a $20 bill from the ATM, and may even record the serial number.   But if a drug dealer is later caught with it, does that prove you bought drugs?

Maybe AnonyMint's black-magic, omnipresent, map-every-IP-address-in-the-world-to-a-person NSA can.

Not sure this pub key thing has anything to do with it.  Anyone can see what address is sending to what address and how much....
the only thing that really gives away your identity is if companies (like an exchange) keep records of who you are when you first get the coins. 
or if a company you buy from records who say you are when you order a product with coins.

Sure, your bank knows that you withdrew a $20 bill from the ATM, and may even record the serial number.   But if a drug dealer is later caught with it, does that prove you bought drugs?

Maybe AnonyMint's black-magic, omnipresent, map-every-IP-address-in-the-world-to-a-person NSA can.

IP addresses are almost completely irrelevant.

If you bought 1 BTC from coinbase and then used the same wallet address to send directly to silkroad, the path is fairly clear,
and if the government were to investigate silkroad (and had cooperation from coinbase) they could trace it back to you.

If you, instead sent that 1 BTC from wallet A to wallet B to wallet C to wallet D, and finally from wallet D to the silk road,
and assuming none of the wallets had any other activity, then a simple blockchain analysis would trace the coins
back to you (regardless of IP address).

If you wanted to buy illegal drugs with your 1 BTC and didn't want to be caught, you use a mixing service, tumbler, whatever
you want to call it... then you send your 1 BTC to the mixing service, and it is broken up into lots of inputs
and outputs going to tons of different wallets (that also have tons of other inputs and outputs)
and by the time its done, you get your BTC back to a wallet that has very little
taint back to your original transactions (no more so than any other random input).

The only problem is if the DEA is running the mixing service hehe...

[AnonyMint]

The only problem is if the DEA is running the mixing service hehe...

Probably all mixing services are compromised but even if they are not, your little bits are still traceable to you because your ISP has your IP address when you send the spend transaction on each little bit spent.

To be anonymous you need both secure mixing on the block chain and a way to reliably mix your IP address with many others. Two kinds of mixing. You need both. And both need to be securely reliable. We don't have that with Bitcoin.

Don't even bother arguing with me, because I spent several months thinking about this and perfecting a solution.

[amspir]

If you bought 1 BTC from coinbase and then used the same wallet address to send directly to silkroad, the path is fairly clear,
and if the government were to investigate silkroad (and had cooperation from coinbase) they could trace it back to you.

If you, instead sent that 1 BTC from wallet A to wallet B to wallet C to wallet D, and finally from wallet D to the silk road,
and assuming none of the wallets had any other activity, then a simple blockchain analysis would trace the coins
back to you (regardless of IP address).

Think of the analog of with a cash transaction.   I get a marked $20 bill from the bank. (Wallet A)  I spend it at the store. (Wallet B)  Someone later gets it in change for a hundred (Wallet C), and pays a friend that he owes money to.  (Wallet D) That friend uses it to buy drugs.   Drug dealer gets busted, and find that $20 on him, are they gonna convict you on that?

Sure, if most every $20 that you ever withdrew from the bank is found with the drug dealer, then LE may have some circumstantial evidence that may make you a person of interest.

[jonald_fyookball]

If you bought 1 BTC from coinbase and then used the same wallet address to send directly to silkroad, the path is fairly clear,
and if the government were to investigate silkroad (and had cooperation from coinbase) they could trace it back to you.

If you, instead sent that 1 BTC from wallet A to wallet B to wallet C to wallet D, and finally from wallet D to the silk road,
and assuming none of the wallets had any other activity, then a simple blockchain analysis would trace the coins
back to you (regardless of IP address).

Think of the analog of with a cash transaction.   I get a marked $20 bill from the bank. (Wallet A)  I spend it at the store. (Wallet B)  Someone later gets it in change for a hundred (Wallet C), and pays a friend that he owes money to.  (Wallet D) That friend uses it to buy drugs.   Drug dealer gets busted, and find that $20 on him, are they gonna convict you on that?

Sure, if most every $20 that you ever withdrew from the bank is found with the drug dealer, then LE may have some circumstantial evidence that may make you a person of interest.

It's not the same thing, because there is no way to determine where the dollar bill has been in between A and D.
But with the blockchain, you see everything, including if an intermediate wallet (C) was used only for
the purpose of (amateurishly) obfuscating the intended transaction.

[amspir]

It's not the same thing, because there is no way to determine where the dollar bill has been in between A and D.
But with the blockchain, you see everything, including if an intermediate wallet (C) was used only for
the purpose of (amateurishly) obfuscating the intended transaction.

That's the point of using a unique private/public key for each address in the transactions.   On the block chain, there's no way to determine if the transactions belong to the same wallet or not (unless they are done from the same non-shared IP, or very close together in time - which would be circumstantial evidence at best)

[jonald_fyookball]

It's not the same thing, because there is no way to determine where the dollar bill has been in between A and D.
But with the blockchain, you see everything, including if an intermediate wallet (C) was used only for
the purpose of (amateurishly) obfuscating the intended transaction.

That's the point of using a unique private/public key for each address in the transactions.   On the block chain, there's no way to determine if the transactions belong to the same wallet or not (unless they are done from the same non-shared IP, or very close together in time - which would be circumstantial evidence at best)

Same wallet or not doesn't matter. What matters is the input and outputs to that address.
Could be wrong, but that's my understanding.

[amspir]

Same wallet or not doesn't matter. What matters is the input and outputs to that address.
Could be wrong, but that's my understanding.

I'm not following.  Are you saying that one should be held responsible for further activity of the output of a transaction, after it leaves the receiving address that is not attached to your identity?

[jonald_fyookball]

Same wallet or not doesn't matter. What matters is the input and outputs to that address.
Could be wrong, but that's my understanding.

I'm not following.  Are you saying that one should be held responsible for further activity of the output of a transaction, after it leaves the receiving address that is not attached to your identity?

I'm saying that if it leaves your address A (attached to your identity) and goes to address B, then leaves address B,
and assuming address B has no other outputs or inputs, it can be reasonable argued that address B was simply
a passthrough address, if you get my drift.

Btw, this is funny:

Don't even bother arguing with me

Indeed, why would I bother to argue with an anti-bitcoin troll who drolls on
for 3000+ posts with the same crappy arguments. lol

[jonald_fyookball]

Amspir, have you seen this (from blockchain.info)

What is taint?
The taint is the percentage of funds received by an address that can be traced back to another address. An example of a taint analysis is: https://blockchain.info/taint/1dice6GV5Rz2iaifPvX7RMjfhaNPC8SXH

[amspir]

I'm not following.  Are you saying that one should be held responsible for further activity of the output of a transaction, after it leaves the receiving address that is not attached to your identity?

I'm saying that if it leaves your address A (attached to your identity) and goes to address B, then leaves address B,
and assuming address B has no other outputs or inputs, it can be reasonable argued that address B was simply
a passthrough address, if you get my drift.

If you're doing something really illegal, and you don't want to become a person of interest -- then sure, using a mixer might be a good idea to cover your tracks, especially if the conduit is used more than once.

But if they can't prove you ever had control of address B, and that's the only thing that links you to the crime committed with address C, then I wouldn't worry about the case ever going to trial.

But the original supposition brought up by Hopper/Anonymint is that the omnipresent black magic spy agencies can somehow map all addresses holding bitcoin to individual people and demand payment of stupid tax to compensate those that got ripped off by a hacker or a fraudster is ludicrous.

[AnonyMint]

amspir proceed in your dream world. I won't wake you up.

[jonald_fyookball]

I'm not following.  Are you saying that one should be held responsible for further activity of the output of a transaction, after it leaves the receiving address that is not attached to your identity?

I'm saying that if it leaves your address A (attached to your identity) and goes to address B, then leaves address B,
and assuming address B has no other outputs or inputs, it can be reasonable argued that address B was simply
a passthrough address, if you get my drift.

If you're doing something really illegal, and you don't want to become a person of interest -- then sure, using a mixer might be a good idea to cover your tracks, especially if the conduit is used more than once.

But if they can't prove you ever had control of address B, and that's the only thing that links you to the crime committed with address C, then I wouldn't worry about the case ever going to trial.

But the original supposition brought up by Hopper/Anonymint is that the omnipresent black magic spy agencies can somehow map all addresses holding bitcoin to individual people and demand payment of stupid tax to compensate those that got ripped off by a hacker or a fraudster is ludicrous.

Well i don't agree entirely with your conclusion-- if the blockchain analysis shows 100% taint
(for example you simply passed coins from A to B to C to D), then the situation would be somewhat
clear, although still not conclusive , as you point out because wallet B COULD be another person...

But yes, obviously, Anonidiot is falling flat in his trolling efforts.  He over-estimated his
own intellect as well as the gullibility of the community.  The IRS can barely keep track
of a fraction of what's going on now, even with all their 1099s and W2s, and only
a portion of blockchain information will ever be able to associated with the parties' identities.

 

[AnonyMint]

The IRS can barely keep track
of a fraction of what's going on now, even with all their 1099s and W2s, and only
a portion of blockchain information will ever be able to associated with the parties' identities.

Their priorities will likely be proportional to your relative wealth, i.e. the Bitcoin millionaires have the most to fear.

The traceable public block chain is a big improvement over cash in their ability to associate and track.

The proportion of the block chain that can be associated with identities is likely to be a super majority. Research has supported this and that research didn't have the data about every IP address association that the NSA does. And the fact that your IP address is almost never obscured (and the governments can remove your anonymous WiFi Hotspot and unregistered, prepaid mobile device options) strongly supports this conclusion. You even admitted that most or all mixers are likely compromised. Decentralized CoinJoin can be DOS-attacked (go to the CoinJoin thread and read the debate I won over Bitcoin core developer gmaxell).

It doesn't matter how many times an idiot tries to say I am idiot or a troll, the astute readers can discern who has their facts coherent.

[btcjedi]

I didn't get what do you mean by calling bitcoin a modern moneygram?

[emeraldforce]

Buffet was right about only two things and they were cheeseburgers in paradise and being wasted away again in margaritaville.....

[amspir]

The traceable public block chain is a big improvement over cash in their ability to associate and track.

The proportion of the block chain that can be associated with identities is likely to be a super majority. Research has supported this and that research didn't have the data about every IP address association that the NSA does. And the fact that your IP address is almost never obscured (and the governments can remove your anonymous WiFi Hotspot and unregistered, prepaid mobile device options) strongly supports this conclusion.

If you are referring to the paper "An Analysis of Anonymity in the Bitcoin System " by Fergal Reid & Martin Harrigan,  please note this very key statement in that paper:

Much of this analysis is circumstantial. We cannot say for certain whether or not these flows imply a shared agency in both incidents. However, it does
illustrate the power of our tool when tracing the flow of Bitcoins and generating hypotheses.

Your magic NSA database of bitcoin-address-to-identities would be a large collection of circumstantial evidence, not definitive proof of associations to identities.  It could be used as probable cause for search warrants and subpenas, but without collaborating evidence, it is worthless by itself in an actual domestic criminal case.

Likewise, a magic NSA database of ip-address-to-identities is also circumstantial.   I may pay the bill for my residential internet service, but I allow my friends to use my wi-fi, the logs that associate their device's mac address to activity on my LAN is overwritten within 7 days.  I may be circumstantially suspect of any crimes committed through my residential IP address, but it is not definite proof.

If I were hypothetically motivated to commit some financial crime, I would most likely walk a kilometer to the large state university in my town, connect to the guest wi-fi network covering the entire campus and do my thing.   All they have is the mac address of my tablet and maybe some geo data.  If that tablet is never discovered by warrant, never registered or otherwise associated with me, it can't be used as evidence linking me to the activity.

You make the claim that "governments can remove your anonymous WiFi Hotspot."  I would like to see a reference to a paper explaining how this is done, or an understandable explanation based on facts.

Unless the standards of evidence drastically change in the USA,  I don't see how the government is going to prosecute and march off 10,000 financial criminals to ass-rape prison.  The idea is ludicrous, since there are plenty of financial crimes NOT involving bitcoin committed on Wall Street every day, and I have yet to see an assembly line of prosecutions.

[Bit_Happy]

I am very happy he said what he said because he said the same thing about the internet.  If BTC becomes only half of what the internet turned out to to be then we will see Buffet and Tony from Bitpay in 10 years talking about "if we only knew".

Buffet didn't have an issue with the internet, he had an issue with the way internet companies were being valued at the time.  Buffet was still valuing businesses based off of cash flows, whereas many were experimenting with valuations based off of page views or searchability, and Buffet was absolutely right that that the idiots doing the latter were off the mark.

When he said this, there really werent' internet companies with proven models like Google and Amazon.  You had hundreds of Pets.com sites that had no profits whatsoever, yet were being valued at insane prices.  Big difference between the current internet world and 15 years ago.

That first internet bubble was amazing.
You could turn on cable TV every morning and see Yahoo (and other stocks) up +$30, $40, even $50 several days in a row.

[aynstein]

Much of this analysis is circumstantial. We cannot say for certain whether or not these flows imply a shared agency in both incidents. However, it does
illustrate the power of our tool when tracing the flow of Bitcoins and generating hypotheses.

Your magic NSA database of bitcoin-address-to-identities would be a large collection of circumstantial evidence, not definitive proof of associations to identities.  It could be used as probable cause for search warrants and subpenas, but without collaborating evidence, it is worthless by itself in an actual domestic criminal case.

Likewise, a magic NSA database of ip-address-to-identities is also circumstantial....

All they have is the mac address of my tablet and maybe some geo data.  If that tablet is never discovered by warrant, never registered or otherwise associated with me, it can't be used as evidence linking me to the activity....

You make the claim that "governments can remove your anonymous WiFi Hotspot."  I would like to see a reference to a paper explaining how this is done, or an understandable explanation based on facts.
[/quote]

Perhaps it's just me but I didn't read the reference to be taken literally, but as a common language explanation of anon-internet access, by wifi or whatever, becoming so difficult it may be impractical. Although you are correct, its not impossible, but your university access could make it easier to correlate you with whatever you did. Even if your not directly connected to the devices mac in any way the retailer is. Even if purchased second hand the original owner is, and your purchase probably involved email or other electronic contact a limited number of times that would pop out of the original owners records.  This can be enough for a correlation. Your university puts you in a photo-hot-zone. Run the faces,weighed for proximity based on whats known and suddenly meaningless metadata on each person becomes a frighteningly powerful tool. Sure its beyond the reach of local pd at the moment, but that is changing. I am not trying to make a case for theft, but you would need to somehow access a device, and best if its not reported stolen (which would narrow your location down). Cellular access is good, but shut it off for a period of time before you rx/tx and again after and wait a while before you leave the area. Point being, its kinda impractical.

[steeev]

Buffet runs down BTC and we're on here laffing at around the same time the price starts dropping... i just looked over a report suggesting BTC in a bear phase about to bottom out, looking at graphics of support/resistance...meanwhile that Gox bloke suddenly 'finds' old wallets...

...and ol Buffers is a squillionaire, so probably not too stupid, and must know something about this money market stuff, and how to make it pay...