Privacy and anonymity A–B–C: guide for bitcoiners.

[satscraper]

Privacy and anonymity are hot topics for those who deal with crypto. They matter for many reasons and, in fact, serve as  the safeguard for the lives of bitcoiners.

Recently, I came across video by Moriarty, who appears to be one of the most wanted “dark” figures in Russia. In this video he explains the methods used by state agencies to hunt for your personal data and the techniques you can use to avoid this. I think it’s worth listening to.

The language can be set to English: YouTube Settings ⇒ Audio Track ⇒ English.

"Why I Haven't Been Caught Yet - The FSB Method. Moriarty's Anonymity."

[hero_the_bossman]

Some parts of the video are too - on the nose - with how privacy and anonymity may be treated by some.

Especially the part about new neighbors - I mean, what chances are that some entities would take interest in a common folk that much so that they send people to look around him with another pair of eyes?

Other than that.. Some parts of the video reinforce some beliefs that others may have, and they may not be the best ones to hold dear to yourself.

[Catenaccio]

To have and protect your privacy, you must do many things: learning for knowledge about security, privacy and anonymity; changing your attitude to be more careful about your activities and these things; then are very disciplined to have good practice for privacy and anonymity.

Bitcoin privacy and resources.
Protect your privacy.
Bitcoin privacy guide.

With Bitcoin users, the most important practices are: using open-source, non custodial wallets; running Bitcoin full node; using Tor when broadcasting transactions; using change addresses.

[PrivacyG]

They will only become hot topics when people actually start caring for real Privacy and Anonymity.  And it seems so often that caring to have Privacy is incompatible with a lot of the ways people want to use Bitcoin.  When you start wanting Privacy, you will start understanding why Third Parties are a risk of losing your Coins to somebody who wants to know every thing about you.  And it would not be such an issue if people acknowledged the risk when they work with them, but they always seem surprised and shocked when such things happen.

Privacy is not difficult to obtain.  The most difficult part is maintaining it at the same level or higher.  For example you can get a Dumb phone, a pre paid SIM card to break all the links from your card or phone to your name.  But it does not help you at all if cell towers ping your phone around your house 90 percent of the time and it will particularly not help you at all if a relative sends you an SMS that contains your name.

You could spend a lot of Bitcoin doing Coin Joins, Mixing et cetera and it would all be in vain if afterward you spend your Bitcoin on a Know Your Customer Binance account.

It is still arguably better than doing every single thing through public and identifiable ways but caring for your Privacy means actually caring.  Not pretending to care by doing Coin Joins on your Binance withdrawals to deposit it on Binance again.  People used to actually care before, they were skeptical about any thing.  Nowadays they would give even finger prints or their retina to a Bank just to have the newest cool feature on their Card or App.  They do not care any more.

[fikrett]

To have and protect your privacy, you must do many things: learning for knowledge about security, privacy and anonymity; changing your attitude to be more careful about your activities and these things; then are very disciplined to have good practice for privacy and anonymity.

Bitcoin privacy and resources.
Protect your privacy.
Bitcoin privacy guide.

With Bitcoin users, the most important practices are: using open-source, non custodial wallets; running Bitcoin full node; using Tor when broadcasting transactions; using change addresses.

The video itself is not about crypto as much so as about overall privacy and anonymity from governments / malicious participants.

But you links are better for the crypto related parts of said security.

[uche6215]

Privacy is one thing that is of concern to many in the inter space currently because of what we are faced with. It's worthy of note that anyone who doesn't take his privacy seriously will live to regret it because the Internet space is no longer safe for people to just expose themselves like that without been security conscious. In our Bitcoin hustle the first thing that we should be thinking about is how I can securely protect my Bitcoin this can be done by taking proactive steps that will see you become security conscious.

[PostQuantumBTC]

It is still arguably better than doing every single thing through public and identifiable ways but caring for your Privacy means actually caring.  Not pretending to care by doing Coin Joins on your Binance withdrawals to deposit it on Binance again.  People used to actually care before, they were skeptical about any thing.  Nowadays they would give even finger prints or their retina to a Bank just to have the newest cool feature on their Card or App.  They do not care any more.

Looking for privacy and using Binance, that is stupidity when there are still many exchanges that you can exchange coins without no KYC. The only problem is when you want to exchange to fiat, that can be difficult in today's world in some countries. One I noticed is in my country, to see people that use bisq and other decentralized exchanges is not common, either you see one ad or not ad at all. Most times it is no ad at all. I make use of a KYC exchange because of this but only the money I want to convert to fiat that I am sending there.

[melinoe]

Privacy is one thing that is of concern to many in the inter space currently because of what we are faced with. It's worthy of note that anyone who doesn't take his privacy seriously will live to regret it because the Internet space is no longer safe for people to just expose themselves like that without been security conscious. In our Bitcoin hustle the first thing that we should be thinking about is how I can securely protect my Bitcoin this can be done by taking proactive steps that will see you become security conscious.

Either that, or you just not being a bum that would click on all the links there are, etc.

Some social engineering tricks do wonders even with hard-proven members of the appropriate communities, crypto or not.

Usually it all comes down to small things, and not falling for them for any reason..

[Ucy]

The Bitcoin Privacy/anonymity feature is used for hiding the identities of innocent users or network participants and their private data. It's not designed to shield criminals and their activities otherwise its transparent and trustless features will be unnecessary. The transparency can be used by the public or anyone to track and blacklist criminals coins while the trustless feature is used to prevent fraud especially, from happening.


The dark figure you mentioned won't be very comfortable hiding behind bitcoin privacy/anonymity to commit crime as he will be easily tracked and frustrated by users/participants. So Bitcoin won't be a suitable system for him for constant crimes.


If a criminal can successfully hide from the authority, it's likely because the authority doesn't have full control of either local or international (or both) system of communication, especially the artificial ones, so the criminal feels invisible in Russia but likely visible in country like USA with greater control of the system. But with more advanced or higher intelligence it becomes possible to gradually unmask the toughest criminals.

[PrivacyG]

Looking for privacy and using Binance, that is stupidity when there are still many exchanges that you can exchange coins without no KYC. The only problem is when you want to exchange to fiat, that can be difficult in today's world in some countries. One I noticed is in my country, to see people that use bisq and other decentralized exchanges is not common, either you see one ad or not ad at all. Most times it is no ad at all. I make use of a KYC exchange because of this but only the money I want to convert to fiat that I am sending there.

There are cases where using Third Party platforms such as Binance is in my opinion almost mandatory.  You can not do Day Trading on Bisq.  Hell.  If you run out of good offers you can not rely on Bisq even for less often Trades.  I would much rather prefer the non Know Your Customer Binance but I do get why SOME people HAVE to use a Custodial platform.  I would hate it if I was living on Trading and I missed a good Trade because of a lack of offers or how long Bisq Transactions take.

It also does make sense if you are a company and every thing you do financially is kind of public too.  I would like to know large holders such as Saylor are holding their Bitcoin in a Non Custodial way but that would make only ME happy as a Bitcoin holder.  If I held Micro Strategy stocks I would need an assurance that they are held properly.  The last time I heard about the way a Billionaire company holds something was when the CEO of Binance revealed the entire thing sat on an USB stick.  Now I have trust issues.

Not that I did not have trust issues before this.

Nowadays even to see people paying in Cash is not common as the convenience of paying by touching your Smart phone to the POS takes over.  People over 70 years old are using their Smart phone to pay but they still do not know how to answer a call.  It is a wet dream to think about people using Non Custodial Exchanges primarily one day.  Or maybe one day some body does a Satoshi again and invents a better way to exchange Bitcoin instantly on a second Layer and it will be so easy people will have no reason to use Centralized Services ever again.  Even the Traders.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

There are cases where using Third Party platforms such as Binance is in my opinion almost mandatory.  You can not do Day Trading on Bisq.  Hell.  If you run out of good offers you can not rely on Bisq even for less often Trades.  I would much rather prefer the non Know Your Customer Binance but I do get why SOME people HAVE to use a Custodial platform.  I would hate it if I was living on Trading and I missed a good Trade because of a lack of offers or how long Bisq Transactions take.

With different options and different purposes, people can choose centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges for different goals they want to do and achieve. The advice is never store all money or most of your capital in any centralized exchange as you don't own private keys and your account can be terminated, fund can be frozen anytime.

The biggest part of your capital in bitcoin or cryptocurrency need to be stored in non-custodial wallets, firstly it is safest place for long term storage, secondly it is helpful for your investment and holding practice.

Storing coins on centralized exchanges results in more likely active trading, then risk of loss from trading, together with risk of losing your account and fund.

Exchanges are very scam too.
Cryptocurrency exchange graveyard.