6 ms·

so the anonymity is pseudo, whereas the pedophilia is real?

by SI_Rob 7y ago

fooker 7y ago
Nobody has seriously claimed that Bitcoin is anonymous.
- jjulius 7y ago
  Be careful speaking in such absolutes as "nobody". Back when Silk Road was all the buzz, people who may've lacked the same technical knowledge you and I have would claim that using Bitcoin on Silk Road was an anonymous way to pay for what you bought.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  Not BTC being anonymous, but that BTC "mixer" services would anonymize the data in an untrackable way. I never trusted the mixers personally. But it was a hot debate item a few years back whether or not law enforcement could track transactions through a mixer. Its always been my firm belief that a mixer was just automated money laundering and probably puts you up for legal scrutiny as well. But we'll see how the FBI decides to handle those...
  - tempsy 7y ago
    It's relatively easy to identify mixers, so by sending money to a mixer you immediately flag your sending account as high risk...
    - jandrese 7y ago
      More importantly receiving money from a mixer could taint your wallet for converting the bitcoins into real money. KYC laws kick in. It's easy to check if you've ever had coins from a mixer enter your wallet. The idea that your transactions are mixed up and impossible to track doesn't matter so much if they just assume everybody who uses a mixer is a criminal.
      - __s 7y ago
        You can't reject someone depositing to your address. So a tumbler can taint whichever addresses it pleases You aren't tracking coins with the ledger, only totals. So address A can have 10 btc, tumbler adds 5 to A, then A transfers 5 to B, 5 to C. If C is an exchange, does it consider that A is still holding 5 tumbled coins? Or does it say B has the tumbled coins? Or does it reject A's offer of 5? Feel free to shift values such as A having 100 BTC, receiving 0.01 tumbled BTC, & wanting to send 1 BTC to exchange Also hard to track something like A sending tumbled coins to B, which triggers the owner of B to have C send non tumbled coins to D. You can even have this service offered at an exchange rate, so D receives less than B did
        jandrese 7y ago
        Easiest solution is to just taint any wallet that has ever had a coin from a known tumbler added to it. It's harsh and a malicious tumbler could mess up famous wallets, but easy to implement and "safe" to a point. A harder solution only allows them to withdraw up to the number of coins you can verify were not tumbled. So if some malicious tumbler deposits 0.000001 coin in your wallet you can convert all but 0.000001 of your wallet's value at an exchange.
    - steveeq1 7y ago
      You get around that by converting from btc to monero and then back again. Either through bisq or through xmr.to. "mixers" are obsolete now because it's a central point of failure.
      - dragontamer 7y ago
        Will monero just be consider a money laundering scheme by the FBI in the future? Why use monero unless you wanted to hide your transactions? Hiding your transactions is literally illegal in the USA (its called money laundering). Presumably, the FBI will be able to automatically determine if your BTC came from a Monero exchange.
        steveeq1 7y ago
        Hackers use "bisq" which is a decentralized exchange to get around this problem. I am baffled as to how "kingpin money launders" don't do this. I'm not a money launderer and I know this. As for the fbi consdering monero a "money laundering scheme" in the future. They can outlaw it, I guess, but it's like trying to outlaw video and music piracy, it's hard to do in practice.
        dragontamer 7y ago
        > Hackers use "bisq" which is a decentralized exchange to get around this problem. How does "bisq" provide anonymity to its users? If you're trading BTC, your wallets are still being connected to each other and provably written into the blockchain for all of eternity. Same with Ethereum and other "mainstream" cryptocoins. If the FBI only cares about "anonymous" coins, like Monero, and ONLY targets those, then all payment processors would "taint" Monero wallets (or any BTC coins which ever touched a Monero-related wallet), and refuse to process them. Its really not that hard for Monero (or any other minority-coin) to be shut out of the payment processor market and relegated to black-market goods.
        steveeq1 7y ago
        Because there are legimitate uses for monero and if you use a service like xmr.to to convert to bitcoin (which mixes the bitcoin on top of that), you are "far enough removed" from the tainted transaction to establish "plausible deniability".
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    Are any of the mixers still up? I remember about a year ago when one of the most popular ones abruptly shut down when it became clear the government would go after him for abetting money laundering if he continued.
    - lacker 7y ago
      Yeah. There was a leak recently from a Chainalysis employee who claimed that they were unable to trace transactions through the Wasabi wallet, which is a wallet that integrates a coinjoin mixer. I think there are other coinjoin-based mixer services operating.
      - RandomBacon 7y ago
        A supposed employee in an unverified AMA.
        steveeq1 7y ago
        yeah, but he knew his stuff so it at least sounds plausible
- simias 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure by now somebody has seriously claimed that Bitcoin cures cancer, speaks Romanian and cure male pattern baldness. Anonymity and protection from the Big Bad Government were definitely talking points used by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts. "It can't be banned and can't be seized", rings a bell? Except of course if the Big Bad Government comes knocking at your door and tells you to hand your wallet over "or else".
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    And how are they going to know you even HAVE a wallet? There are anonymization techniques like wasabi and monero that are fairly trivial to use. It's basically like trying to outlaw software piracy, it's a hard sell.
  - fooker 7y ago
    > Can't be banned This part is sort of true. A government can ban fiat <-> BTC conversion but there isn't really a way to stop people from providing services in exchange for BTC.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  I think anonymous/not anonymous binary distinction is too black/white. Bitcoin is more anonymous than a bank transaction. If I buy something with a credit card, they have my credit card number that is easily linked to me. With Bitcoin it is less easy. Unfortunately with Bitcoin once you have been 'revealed' then your transaction 'graph' is then revealed in the public, whereas the credit card doesn't have that problem. It depends who you want to be anonymous from. Governments can easily get bank transactions, and also they can investigate bitcoin-based crime and then just trace the public ledger. Businesses will not easily get bank transactions or map general bitcoin addresses to people, but if you use a credit card you tend to have to give them a lot of other matching information such as your name and address, whereas with bitcoin you don't need to give them anything. Assuming there is no delivery involved it can be pretty anonymous. But again if they did happen to pattern match (maybe they have another customer who you have dealt with too) they could join some dots. But to be safe it's best to assume Bitcoin is not anonymous and that anyone can find out eventually where you have spent your money.
NikolaeVarius 7y ago
From the very beginning, bitcoin never promised fully untraceable and anonymous transactions.
- wcoenen 7y ago
  Section 10 of the original white paper is about privacy. It imagined bitcoin transactions being public, but still about as private as stock trading transactions that are published on a ticker tape. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Bitcoin transactions turned out to be a great deal less private than that, because separate transactions from the same wallet can be linked via the change outputs (unlike separate trades on a ticker tape).
rolltiide 7y ago
SHUM should have used monero There is a reason that many darknet markets have it as an option and some use it exclusively
- ratsmack 7y ago
  What makes Monero different than Bitcoin?
  - simias 7y ago
    It effectively embeds a coin mixer in every transaction, so to speak. In bitcoin you can trace transactions from one account to the next in the public ledger, with Monero theoretically you won't be able to follow the funds quite as easily. Of course it remains to be seen if it really works if some three-letter organization really wants to figure out who you are.
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Does it remain to be seen? There have been busts and indictments where the state was not able to determine anything about the Monero wallet that were also seized in the operation
      - chrshawkes 7y ago
        Can't the data just be taken directly from the ISP connecting to whatever crypto services are out there? If the FBI really wanted to get that info, I would think they can track all activity from the main hub directly.
        steveeq1 7y ago
        It's encrypted, so no.
        rolltiide 7y ago
        Monero nodes see IP addresses, but they do not see the sender's crypto address, and they do not see the receiver's crypto address. So in its current state, ISPs would only know what someone has launched a Monero wallet at some point in time. Using Monero is completely benign. In its also current but also upcoming state, Monero clients automatically connect to TOR or I2P. So a Monero node would not know your IP address and an ISP therefore would not either. Monero exchanges are merely Monero clients, and a Monero client knows its own address, and it knows the address the sender told it to send to which would be the receiver. But neither of these addresses are ever seen on the blockchain, and the receiver's Monero client does not know which address sent to it. Since the receiver's client doesn't reveal which address sent to it, and there is no passive blockchain sleuthing possible, and the nodes don't see any of this either, there is very little the FBI could do if users are following best practices which are the default behaviors of this network. Non-default behavior would be users that rely on exchanges exclusively: they send their 2 Monero from one exchange to another exchange. Exchange 1 is an account that belongs to the user, and it knows the address of Exchange 2. Exchange 2 is an account that belongs to the user, and it only has the same balance and transaction id as Exchange 1's send. The FBI happened to have subpoena'd both exchanges and found the same transaction id. Improbable now, but it could happen anytime in the future. When the user adds their own Monero client into the mix (exchange 1 - client - exchange 2, + time + different amounts), this gets exponentially more difficult as you already need access to the user, the subpoena, and their Monero client. There are many barriers to getting that, especially in the face of benign economic activity, and the blockchain itself doesn't help. You also aren't supposed to re-use addresses. This is true for Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. It means that an exchange wouldn't even know if you were sending to yourself, one of your other wallets, to a vendor to pay someone, or what. With Monero none of those recipients know who sent to them.

so the anonymity is pseudo, whereas the pedophilia is real?

by SI_Rob 7y ago

so the anonymity is pseudo, whereas the pedophilia is real?

fooker 7y ago

Nobody has seriously claimed that Bitcoin is anonymous.

jjulius 7y ago
Be careful speaking in such absolutes as "nobody". Back when Silk Road was all the buzz, people who may've lacked the same technical knowledge you and I have would claim that using Bitcoin on Silk Road was an anonymous way to pay for what you bought.
dragontamer 7y ago
Not BTC being anonymous, but that BTC "mixer" services would anonymize the data in an untrackable way. I never trusted the mixers personally. But it was a hot debate item a few years back whether or not law enforcement could track transactions through a mixer. Its always been my firm belief that a mixer was just automated money laundering and probably puts you up for legal scrutiny as well. But we'll see how the FBI decides to handle those...
- tempsy 7y ago
  It's relatively easy to identify mixers, so by sending money to a mixer you immediately flag your sending account as high risk...
  - jandrese 7y ago
    More importantly receiving money from a mixer could taint your wallet for converting the bitcoins into real money. KYC laws kick in. It's easy to check if you've ever had coins from a mixer enter your wallet. The idea that your transactions are mixed up and impossible to track doesn't matter so much if they just assume everybody who uses a mixer is a criminal.
    - __s 7y ago
      You can't reject someone depositing to your address. So a tumbler can taint whichever addresses it pleases You aren't tracking coins with the ledger, only totals. So address A can have 10 btc, tumbler adds 5 to A, then A transfers 5 to B, 5 to C. If C is an exchange, does it consider that A is still holding 5 tumbled coins? Or does it say B has the tumbled coins? Or does it reject A's offer of 5? Feel free to shift values such as A having 100 BTC, receiving 0.01 tumbled BTC, & wanting to send 1 BTC to exchange Also hard to track something like A sending tumbled coins to B, which triggers the owner of B to have C send non tumbled coins to D. You can even have this service offered at an exchange rate, so D receives less than B did
      - jandrese 7y ago
        Easiest solution is to just taint any wallet that has ever had a coin from a known tumbler added to it. It's harsh and a malicious tumbler could mess up famous wallets, but easy to implement and "safe" to a point. A harder solution only allows them to withdraw up to the number of coins you can verify were not tumbled. So if some malicious tumbler deposits 0.000001 coin in your wallet you can convert all but 0.000001 of your wallet's value at an exchange.
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    You get around that by converting from btc to monero and then back again. Either through bisq or through xmr.to. "mixers" are obsolete now because it's a central point of failure.
    - dragontamer 7y ago
      Will monero just be consider a money laundering scheme by the FBI in the future? Why use monero unless you wanted to hide your transactions? Hiding your transactions is literally illegal in the USA (its called money laundering). Presumably, the FBI will be able to automatically determine if your BTC came from a Monero exchange.
      - steveeq1 7y ago
        Hackers use "bisq" which is a decentralized exchange to get around this problem. I am baffled as to how "kingpin money launders" don't do this. I'm not a money launderer and I know this. As for the fbi consdering monero a "money laundering scheme" in the future. They can outlaw it, I guess, but it's like trying to outlaw video and music piracy, it's hard to do in practice.
        dragontamer 7y ago
        > Hackers use "bisq" which is a decentralized exchange to get around this problem. How does "bisq" provide anonymity to its users? If you're trading BTC, your wallets are still being connected to each other and provably written into the blockchain for all of eternity. Same with Ethereum and other "mainstream" cryptocoins. If the FBI only cares about "anonymous" coins, like Monero, and ONLY targets those, then all payment processors would "taint" Monero wallets (or any BTC coins which ever touched a Monero-related wallet), and refuse to process them. Its really not that hard for Monero (or any other minority-coin) to be shut out of the payment processor market and relegated to black-market goods.
        steveeq1 7y ago
        Because there are legimitate uses for monero and if you use a service like xmr.to to convert to bitcoin (which mixes the bitcoin on top of that), you are "far enough removed" from the tainted transaction to establish "plausible deniability".
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  Are any of the mixers still up? I remember about a year ago when one of the most popular ones abruptly shut down when it became clear the government would go after him for abetting money laundering if he continued.
  - lacker 7y ago
    Yeah. There was a leak recently from a Chainalysis employee who claimed that they were unable to trace transactions through the Wasabi wallet, which is a wallet that integrates a coinjoin mixer. I think there are other coinjoin-based mixer services operating.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      A supposed employee in an unverified AMA.
      - steveeq1 7y ago
        yeah, but he knew his stuff so it at least sounds plausible
simias 7y ago
I'm pretty sure by now somebody has seriously claimed that Bitcoin cures cancer, speaks Romanian and cure male pattern baldness. Anonymity and protection from the Big Bad Government were definitely talking points used by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts. "It can't be banned and can't be seized", rings a bell? Except of course if the Big Bad Government comes knocking at your door and tells you to hand your wallet over "or else".
- steveeq1 7y ago
  And how are they going to know you even HAVE a wallet? There are anonymization techniques like wasabi and monero that are fairly trivial to use. It's basically like trying to outlaw software piracy, it's a hard sell.
- fooker 7y ago
  > Can't be banned This part is sort of true. A government can ban fiat <-> BTC conversion but there isn't really a way to stop people from providing services in exchange for BTC.
quickthrower2 7y ago
I think anonymous/not anonymous binary distinction is too black/white. Bitcoin is more anonymous than a bank transaction. If I buy something with a credit card, they have my credit card number that is easily linked to me. With Bitcoin it is less easy. Unfortunately with Bitcoin once you have been 'revealed' then your transaction 'graph' is then revealed in the public, whereas the credit card doesn't have that problem. It depends who you want to be anonymous from. Governments can easily get bank transactions, and also they can investigate bitcoin-based crime and then just trace the public ledger. Businesses will not easily get bank transactions or map general bitcoin addresses to people, but if you use a credit card you tend to have to give them a lot of other matching information such as your name and address, whereas with bitcoin you don't need to give them anything. Assuming there is no delivery involved it can be pretty anonymous. But again if they did happen to pattern match (maybe they have another customer who you have dealt with too) they could join some dots. But to be safe it's best to assume Bitcoin is not anonymous and that anyone can find out eventually where you have spent your money.

NikolaeVarius 7y ago

From the very beginning, bitcoin never promised fully untraceable and anonymous transactions.

wcoenen 7y ago
Section 10 of the original white paper is about privacy. It imagined bitcoin transactions being public, but still about as private as stock trading transactions that are published on a ticker tape. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Bitcoin transactions turned out to be a great deal less private than that, because separate transactions from the same wallet can be linked via the change outputs (unlike separate trades on a ticker tape).

rolltiide 7y ago

SHUM should have used monero There is a reason that many darknet markets have it as an option and some use it exclusively

ratsmack 7y ago
What makes Monero different than Bitcoin?
- simias 7y ago
  It effectively embeds a coin mixer in every transaction, so to speak. In bitcoin you can trace transactions from one account to the next in the public ledger, with Monero theoretically you won't be able to follow the funds quite as easily. Of course it remains to be seen if it really works if some three-letter organization really wants to figure out who you are.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Does it remain to be seen? There have been busts and indictments where the state was not able to determine anything about the Monero wallet that were also seized in the operation
    - chrshawkes 7y ago
      Can't the data just be taken directly from the ISP connecting to whatever crypto services are out there? If the FBI really wanted to get that info, I would think they can track all activity from the main hub directly.
      - steveeq1 7y ago
        It's encrypted, so no.
      - rolltiide 7y ago
        Monero nodes see IP addresses, but they do not see the sender's crypto address, and they do not see the receiver's crypto address. So in its current state, ISPs would only know what someone has launched a Monero wallet at some point in time. Using Monero is completely benign. In its also current but also upcoming state, Monero clients automatically connect to TOR or I2P. So a Monero node would not know your IP address and an ISP therefore would not either. Monero exchanges are merely Monero clients, and a Monero client knows its own address, and it knows the address the sender told it to send to which would be the receiver. But neither of these addresses are ever seen on the blockchain, and the receiver's Monero client does not know which address sent to it. Since the receiver's client doesn't reveal which address sent to it, and there is no passive blockchain sleuthing possible, and the nodes don't see any of this either, there is very little the FBI could do if users are following best practices which are the default behaviors of this network. Non-default behavior would be users that rely on exchanges exclusively: they send their 2 Monero from one exchange to another exchange. Exchange 1 is an account that belongs to the user, and it knows the address of Exchange 2. Exchange 2 is an account that belongs to the user, and it only has the same balance and transaction id as Exchange 1's send. The FBI happened to have subpoena'd both exchanges and found the same transaction id. Improbable now, but it could happen anytime in the future. When the user adds their own Monero client into the mix (exchange 1 - client - exchange 2, + time + different amounts), this gets exponentially more difficult as you already need access to the user, the subpoena, and their Monero client. There are many barriers to getting that, especially in the face of benign economic activity, and the blockchain itself doesn't help. You also aren't supposed to re-use addresses. This is true for Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. It means that an exchange wouldn't even know if you were sending to yourself, one of your other wallets, to a vendor to pay someone, or what. With Monero none of those recipients know who sent to them.