3 ms·

You are not attaching any form of ID to the transactions. Bitcoin is anonymous. The fact that the NSA can track you down by various means is a whole different

by jafaku 13y ago

You are not attaching any form of ID to the transactions. Bitcoin is anonymous. The fact that the NSA can track you down by various means is a whole different thing. And by that logic nothing in the Universe is anonymous, since it's deterministic and it doesn't lose information, so theoretically everything could be traced back to its origin.

betterunix 13y ago
"You are not attaching any form of ID to the transactions. Bitcoin is anonymous." That is kind of like saying, "StackOverflow is anonymous. You do not attach any form of ID to your questions!" Of course, that worked out pretty badly for a certain high-profile Bitcoin user recently (yes, he leaked his real name at one point; however, he had also used his pseudonym in many other places, which was part of the problem): https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a "by that logic nothing in the Universe is anonymous, since it's deterministic" Hardly, in fact, all the evidence points to a probabilistic universe; by extension, probabilistic approaches to anonymity might be possible. It just so happens that in the context of electronic payments, that is entirely possible, and for more than 25 years cryptographers have been studying such things (and there is a pile of published research). Yes, you can even have an electronic payments system that protects your privacy from the NSA.
- jafaku 13y ago
  > yes, he leaked his real name at one point So either he attached his ID, or he was traced by other means. Stackoverflow can be anonymous. It doesn't require an ID verification. But you can put your real name if you want to, nothing is stopping you. And again, by your logic you won't be able to give me an example of something that is anonymous: Whatever you say, I will say that the NSA planted a cam in your home. BOOM! Not anonymous anymore. > Hardly, in fact, all the evidence points to a probabilistic universe Not a physicist, but AFAIK that's the old interpretation of quantum mechanics, disproved by some cheap but crazy experiments.
tree_of_item 13y ago
>And by that logic nothing in the Universe is anonymous, since it's deterministic and it doesn't lose information, so theoretically everything could be traced back to its origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_process If a process is irreversible it means information was lost. And from the article, "All complex natural processes are irreversible".
- jafaku 13y ago
  Nowhere in there it says that information was lost. It just says that to reverse the process it requires introducing energy to the system and that the impossibility resides in that the changes occurred in an "not easily predictable". So it's a practical impossibility, not theoretical. The Universe doesn't lose information. The one thing that made physicists believe for a moment that it did, was something about blackholes, but it was then proven to be wrong.

by jafaku 13y ago

betterunix 13y ago

"You are not attaching any form of ID to the transactions. Bitcoin is anonymous." That is kind of like saying, "StackOverflow is anonymous. You do not attach any form of ID to your questions!" Of course, that worked out pretty badly for a certain high-profile Bitcoin user recently (yes, he leaked his real name at one point; however, he had also used his pseudonym in many other places, which was part of the problem): https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a "by that logic nothing in the Universe is anonymous, since it's deterministic" Hardly, in fact, all the evidence points to a probabilistic universe; by extension, probabilistic approaches to anonymity might be possible. It just so happens that in the context of electronic payments, that is entirely possible, and for more than 25 years cryptographers have been studying such things (and there is a pile of published research). Yes, you can even have an electronic payments system that protects your privacy from the NSA.

jafaku 13y ago
> yes, he leaked his real name at one point So either he attached his ID, or he was traced by other means. Stackoverflow can be anonymous. It doesn't require an ID verification. But you can put your real name if you want to, nothing is stopping you. And again, by your logic you won't be able to give me an example of something that is anonymous: Whatever you say, I will say that the NSA planted a cam in your home. BOOM! Not anonymous anymore. > Hardly, in fact, all the evidence points to a probabilistic universe Not a physicist, but AFAIK that's the old interpretation of quantum mechanics, disproved by some cheap but crazy experiments.

tree_of_item 13y ago

>And by that logic nothing in the Universe is anonymous, since it's deterministic and it doesn't lose information, so theoretically everything could be traced back to its origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_process If a process is irreversible it means information was lost. And from the article, "All complex natural processes are irreversible".

jafaku 13y ago
Nowhere in there it says that information was lost. It just says that to reverse the process it requires introducing energy to the system and that the impossibility resides in that the changes occurred in an "not easily predictable". So it's a practical impossibility, not theoretical. The Universe doesn't lose information. The one thing that made physicists believe for a moment that it did, was something about blackholes, but it was then proven to be wrong.