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Not true: A new transaction in the bitcoin network isn't linked to any IP address, since transactions diffuse through the network haphazardly: There's nothing t
by drcode 13y ago
Not true: A new transaction in the bitcoin network isn't linked to any IP address, since transactions diffuse through the network haphazardly: There's nothing to distinguish between a transaction coming from elsewhere and a new transaction originating in the client. The only way to figure out the originating IP address would be to collect all data on close to 100% of the network and analyse the data in a sophisticated way.
Hunting down a money trail through the block chain by getting user data from exchanges or points of purchases without trying to determine the raw IP for a particular transaction is much more tractable, as others have pointed out.
EDIT: User "sneak" has changed the wording of his original comment, so this reply now doesn't make as much sense)
- tlrobinson 13y agoI'm pretty sure an eavesdropper can simply watch for outgoing transactions which you never recieved and deduce that they originated from you. No fancy network analysis needed.
- drcode 13y agoExactly right. However, it means they would have to have direct access to 100% of the traffic from the user in question, while the original comment referred to having just a percentage of the backbone (user "sneak" has since edited the original comment to use different wording)
- tlrobinson 13y agoTrue, but that depends if you want to go from Bitcoin addresses to IP address or vice versa.