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Bitcoin is as anonymous as cash if you use a mixing service.

by cbr 14y ago

mootothemax 14y ago
Bitcoin is as anonymous as cash if you use a mixing service. No it's not. There's plenty of information that will still leak out, whether it's what service(s) the outgoing money is then sent to, the time of day following transactions take place, and a million other tiny little pieces. And this is ignoring any issues with the mixing service.
- Gormo 14y ago
  Why not? What if the mixing service operates like a checking account, and you keep a permanent bitcoin balance with them, making deposits as you receive bitcoin payments? When you want to make a bitcoin payment, you instruct the service to make a transfer from its own bitcoin wallet, and reduce your balance in its own records accordingly. With this method, incoming and outgoing payments would be asynchronous, so it would be hard to use timestamps to associate them. The interesting thing here is that with bitcoin, a cash-like transaction may not be anonymous, but a check-like transaction usually would be. Of course, the middleman institution could still be compromised here, but since it uses its own protocol to track its customers' balances, it could use one that does preserve anonymity effectively.
  - mootothemax 14y ago
    Why not? Because what you've just described is still just obfuscation. With this method, incoming and outgoing payments would be asynchronous, so it would be hard to use timestamps to associate them. Doesn't matter. An outgoing payment will happen at some point in your day, and unless you have zero time patterns in your life, it will help identify you. As will the resulting services and people you send money to, even if the pieces start as small and as basic as "Orders pizza."
    - trhtrsh 14y ago
      An outgoing payment need not be human-present. It can be automated on a randomized schedule. The same argument could be made against cash's anonymity.
      - mootothemax 14y ago
        An outgoing payment need not be human-present. It can be automated on a randomized schedule. You can split it into a million micropayments whilst you're at it; it still doesn't stop the information leak. The same argument could be made against cash's anonymity. Can you explain this in a bit more detail? I'm not sure I understand.
        MacsHeadroom 14y ago
        >You can split it into a million micropayments whilst you're at it; it still doesn't stop the information leak. Yes it does. If I split one payment into three different sizes and send them hours apart while I'm sleeping, from a shared eWallet used daily by 1000 other people, you think that is going to be traceable to me in any way? Not a chance.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        mootothemax 14y ago
        You want to buy a pizza for yourself or someone else. At some point your transactions will have been gathered together to do so, either in the merchant's wallet or elsewhere. Hey presto, there's some information. Either about liking to buy pizza, having friends in country X, or being based in country X. Trace it backwards, you have a list of people potentially involved. I'm not saying that a single transaction will identify you. However, much like that EFF browser identity page, it doesn't take many bits of information - plus a few "likely good with computers" type guesses - to start putting together a list of very plausible identities. You're kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.
    - 14y ago
  - lordgilman 14y ago
    What you're describing is a bank. People came to bitcoin to be able to handle their own cash and not use a bank - you're missing the purpose here. This is also money laundering, an illegal activity. If you need to do something illegal to get the bare minimum of functionality out of bitcoin it's not appropriate for business.
    - Gormo 14y ago
      It might enable money laundering, but it isn't itself money laundering; and people use Bitcoin for a variety of reasons, including its ability to offer enhanced anonymity in electronic transfers, which this method would further in some circumstances.

Bitcoin is as anonymous as cash if you use a mixing service.

by cbr 14y ago

Bitcoin is as anonymous as cash if you use a mixing service.

Bitcoin is as anonymous as cash if you use a mixing service. No it's not. There's plenty of information that will still leak out, whether it's what service(s) the outgoing money is then sent to, the time of day following transactions take place, and a million other tiny little pieces. And this is ignoring any issues with the mixing service.

Gormo 14y ago
Why not? What if the mixing service operates like a checking account, and you keep a permanent bitcoin balance with them, making deposits as you receive bitcoin payments? When you want to make a bitcoin payment, you instruct the service to make a transfer from its own bitcoin wallet, and reduce your balance in its own records accordingly. With this method, incoming and outgoing payments would be asynchronous, so it would be hard to use timestamps to associate them. The interesting thing here is that with bitcoin, a cash-like transaction may not be anonymous, but a check-like transaction usually would be. Of course, the middleman institution could still be compromised here, but since it uses its own protocol to track its customers' balances, it could use one that does preserve anonymity effectively.
- mootothemax 14y ago
  Why not? Because what you've just described is still just obfuscation. With this method, incoming and outgoing payments would be asynchronous, so it would be hard to use timestamps to associate them. Doesn't matter. An outgoing payment will happen at some point in your day, and unless you have zero time patterns in your life, it will help identify you. As will the resulting services and people you send money to, even if the pieces start as small and as basic as "Orders pizza."
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    An outgoing payment need not be human-present. It can be automated on a randomized schedule. The same argument could be made against cash's anonymity.
    - mootothemax 14y ago
      An outgoing payment need not be human-present. It can be automated on a randomized schedule. You can split it into a million micropayments whilst you're at it; it still doesn't stop the information leak. The same argument could be made against cash's anonymity. Can you explain this in a bit more detail? I'm not sure I understand.
      - MacsHeadroom 14y ago
        >You can split it into a million micropayments whilst you're at it; it still doesn't stop the information leak. Yes it does. If I split one payment into three different sizes and send them hours apart while I'm sleeping, from a shared eWallet used daily by 1000 other people, you think that is going to be traceable to me in any way? Not a chance.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        mootothemax 14y ago
        You want to buy a pizza for yourself or someone else. At some point your transactions will have been gathered together to do so, either in the merchant's wallet or elsewhere. Hey presto, there's some information. Either about liking to buy pizza, having friends in country X, or being based in country X. Trace it backwards, you have a list of people potentially involved. I'm not saying that a single transaction will identify you. However, much like that EFF browser identity page, it doesn't take many bits of information - plus a few "likely good with computers" type guesses - to start putting together a list of very plausible identities. You're kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.
  - 14y ago
- lordgilman 14y ago
  What you're describing is a bank. People came to bitcoin to be able to handle their own cash and not use a bank - you're missing the purpose here. This is also money laundering, an illegal activity. If you need to do something illegal to get the bare minimum of functionality out of bitcoin it's not appropriate for business.
  - Gormo 14y ago
    It might enable money laundering, but it isn't itself money laundering; and people use Bitcoin for a variety of reasons, including its ability to offer enhanced anonymity in electronic transfers, which this method would further in some circumstances.