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Given where we are (hacker news) I'm astounded the first response to this article wasn't "Use bitcoins!" since that's exactly the type of thing that it is best

by awalton 13y ago

Given where we are (hacker news) I'm astounded the first response to this article wasn't "Use bitcoins!" since that's exactly the type of thing that it is best at. Then all you need to do is start explaining bitcoin to your significant other just long enough for their eyes to go glassy, begging you to stop.

lightcatcher 13y ago
Paying for porn with bitcoin puts all of your porn purchases on a public ledger. I don't think too many people want that.
- awalton 13y ago
  Let's be serious here, laundering a bitcoin is as easy as trading it at an exchange for another one. Getting a wallet is as easy as generating a new one. There's no permanent record that person X had bitcoin Y, just which wallets it passed through along the way. If your significant other works for a Three Letter Agency, then maybe it's possible they could reverse the network connection logs to the exchanges, dig through their databases and prove that you were the one who owned the coin that bought that porn. Maybe. But given how little the FBI has done with the cache of bitcash they seized, I doubt it. So admittedly, it's not as clean as a cash business... but neither is the sex industry.
  - hmsimha 13y ago
    All true, but who needs to launder bitcoin to keep a transaction hidden from their significant other, unless their SO is well-versed in the technology behind bitcoin AND really likes to snoop. In that case, an easier and more likely point of failure is a session logger/keylogger on one's porn-browsing device
- jrockway 13y ago
  The source address is public, but who owns the source address is only as public as you want it to be.
- sireat 13y ago
  If you mine the BTC yourself(or through one of the multipools, mine GPU based scrypt coins auto converted to BTC) it should be pretty much anonymous. Granted there is the startup cost..
- sickpig 13y ago
  stealth address, coinjoin and mixing services are already here and people can/should start using immidiately

by awalton 13y ago

lightcatcher 13y ago

Paying for porn with bitcoin puts all of your porn purchases on a public ledger. I don't think too many people want that.

awalton 13y ago
Let's be serious here, laundering a bitcoin is as easy as trading it at an exchange for another one. Getting a wallet is as easy as generating a new one. There's no permanent record that person X had bitcoin Y, just which wallets it passed through along the way. If your significant other works for a Three Letter Agency, then maybe it's possible they could reverse the network connection logs to the exchanges, dig through their databases and prove that you were the one who owned the coin that bought that porn. Maybe. But given how little the FBI has done with the cache of bitcash they seized, I doubt it. So admittedly, it's not as clean as a cash business... but neither is the sex industry.
- hmsimha 13y ago
  All true, but who needs to launder bitcoin to keep a transaction hidden from their significant other, unless their SO is well-versed in the technology behind bitcoin AND really likes to snoop. In that case, an easier and more likely point of failure is a session logger/keylogger on one's porn-browsing device
jrockway 13y ago
The source address is public, but who owns the source address is only as public as you want it to be.
sireat 13y ago
If you mine the BTC yourself(or through one of the multipools, mine GPU based scrypt coins auto converted to BTC) it should be pretty much anonymous. Granted there is the startup cost..
sickpig 13y ago
stealth address, coinjoin and mixing services are already here and people can/should start using immidiately