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Well, I think that there is something like the ink packet for bitcoins, or there could be. I may be wrong (and please correct me if I am mistaken), but it is m

Well, I think that there is something like the ink packet for bitcoins, or there could be. I may be wrong (and please correct me if I am mistaken), but it is my understanding that every Bitcoin transaction is public (just peruse the block chain), it's just that they are transfered between possibly unknown parties. You could track where those bitcoins went (the thief's account), and where that thief subsequently spent or laundered those bitcoins. You can trace them as far as you like though they would quickly get combined with bitcoins that came from legal means and then you can only give lower and upper bounds on how many bitcoins are illegal in each wallet. We could, as a society, decide that we will not accept bitcoins transfers from addresses that are reported to have taken any stolen bitcoins, whether directly implicated or implicated by violating the rule I just described. We could also decide that the only way to get your address back into good standing is to, for instance, transfer whatever coins that could possibly be ill-gotten into a bitcoin sink (an account that everyone agrees to never accept transfers from, basically dead bitcoins). You can even come up with more continuous proposals; not just illegal or legal, but rather you can have a 90% clean account, and it is clear how that translates to value of your bitcoins when dealing with people who won't accept illegal coins. This is in many ways like an ink-packet. That doesn't get the other person their bitcoins back, but it removes the financial incentive to steal. Of course this is probably ripe for abuse. It would definitely be a way to screw over whoever you were sending money too, but it wouldn't be a charge reversal. You lose the money but the other party gets no spendable money.

epequeno 14y ago
Addresses in the bitcoin system are designed to be disposable, you can generate as many as you want. Adding an address that you can prove was involved in theft to a blacklist is wasted effort. Edit: Also, the use of "anonymizers" in the bitcoin ecosystem is common. Silk Road has something they call tumbler which masks transactions in such a way that you can't really say for sure where the bitcoins are coming from.
- smithzvk 14y ago
  If you look at the Anonymity page on this wiki, it basically states that being able to generate as many addresses as you want is not much protection. The coins still need to be transfered between your wallets, and that means people can track whether a wallet has received any funds from an address that has been reported as having stolen coins (after the theft was reported, of course) In fact, I think it is down right easy to do. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity I assume that "tumbler" is basically as good as any eWallet service with a bit of obfuscation on the transactions in and out. That is fine, if you trust someone enough to take you coins, mix them with a bunch on other peoples money, and then send them back to when you need them, you can remain pretty anonymous. This is because that person/organization can do virtual funds transfers off of the bitcoin block chain record. However, in the scenario where address are marked as dirty or clean, that eWallet supplier is going to find him/herself in the possession of many dirty bitcoins and will have to burn them. In the Silk Road example, if people use stolen bitcoins on that network, all bitcoins that get sent in are tainted by that (to some percentage) and the value of the entire working volume of Silk Road bitcoins in the "tumbler" laundering machine is lessened. This means that either Silk Road passes that loss of value on to the sellers, possibly pissing them off, or they throw those bitcoins away (or send them back) and tell the person paying with them to pay again from a clean address because that money was reported as stolen.

epequeno 14y ago

Addresses in the bitcoin system are designed to be disposable, you can generate as many as you want. Adding an address that you can prove was involved in theft to a blacklist is wasted effort. Edit: Also, the use of "anonymizers" in the bitcoin ecosystem is common. Silk Road has something they call tumbler which masks transactions in such a way that you can't really say for sure where the bitcoins are coming from.

smithzvk 14y ago
If you look at the Anonymity page on this wiki, it basically states that being able to generate as many addresses as you want is not much protection. The coins still need to be transfered between your wallets, and that means people can track whether a wallet has received any funds from an address that has been reported as having stolen coins (after the theft was reported, of course) In fact, I think it is down right easy to do. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity I assume that "tumbler" is basically as good as any eWallet service with a bit of obfuscation on the transactions in and out. That is fine, if you trust someone enough to take you coins, mix them with a bunch on other peoples money, and then send them back to when you need them, you can remain pretty anonymous. This is because that person/organization can do virtual funds transfers off of the bitcoin block chain record. However, in the scenario where address are marked as dirty or clean, that eWallet supplier is going to find him/herself in the possession of many dirty bitcoins and will have to burn them. In the Silk Road example, if people use stolen bitcoins on that network, all bitcoins that get sent in are tainted by that (to some percentage) and the value of the entire working volume of Silk Road bitcoins in the "tumbler" laundering machine is lessened. This means that either Silk Road passes that loss of value on to the sellers, possibly pissing them off, or they throw those bitcoins away (or send them back) and tell the person paying with them to pay again from a clean address because that money was reported as stolen.