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.
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.
Yeah you are astute. Anonymity is very impractical as it currently stands. Thus Bitcoin doesn't really have it.
There are more than one research paper showing it is possible to trace coin ownership. Now if you can correlate that with IP addresses (the researchers didn't have this data, but the NSA does), then you can pinpoint identity and no longer circumstantial.
