Quote from: goblin on June 03, 2012, 12:22 pmQuote from: vlad1m1r on June 03, 2012, 08:54 amQuote from: goblin on June 03, 2012, 12:05 amQuote from: vlad1m1r on June 02, 2012, 11:25 pmI have just been reminded that SR vendors do have a mixer built into their accounts to stop their withdrawals being traced through block chain analysis. If I were in their place I would use Bitcoinfog too to be on the safe side but I'll leave it to our resident drug dealers to speak for themselves! :-DV.vlad1m1r, yes, I also have thus heard, but I wonder about its effectiveness. After all, I never saw any analysis or explanation of how such a mixer is supposed to work. Does anyone know for sure? I don't know, I guess I'm just super paranoid, but I think that's the proper way to be in this increasingly authoritarian world.Hi goblin,For a brief explanation you can visit the Bitcoin wiki : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_serviceAn oversimplified way to think of it is to think of the mixing service like a big vault of coins with a large, imposing man standing outside. You and other users walk up to him with your box of coins and he then hands each you a token with the right number of coins written on it. He then takes your box and flings your coins into the vault onto the large pile of coins already in there.The big pile of coins is then churned around a number of times (maybe using a large stick, I don't have much imagination!)The big man then inspects your token and randomly takes that number of coins from the big pile. These could belong to anyone of course and will almost certainly not belong to the same person. He then places them in a new box which you can then collect anonymously.The new box i.e the new Bitcoin address to which your coins are sent is crucial in that it breaks the easy to follow chain of transactions between your previous Bitcoin address and this one. As I mentioned before, Bitcoins must be sent from the same address at which they're received. (If we think of it as locked boxes once again, if I have coins in my box, in order to give them to you I must first unlock my own box, take them out and place them in yours, and a record of this is made.Using a mixing service hugely reduces the risk of your purchases being traced in this way. It's by no means perfect as it may still be possible to trace the transaction through examining Bitcoin transfers for similar amounts around the same time but if you have no choice but to obtain your Bitcoins in a traceable way e.g through bank transfer then I would say using a mixing service is essential.V.Also, how exactly do we know that such a mixer is really there, without fallling into the trap of "trusting" DPR? As far as I know there's no way to be certain that SR uses a mixer. Perhaps an analysis of the block chain would reveal this? I'd be happy to send you 0.01 Bitcoins from my SR account to yours and see if it seems to come from the same address if you want to do an experiment ; maybe send me a PM if interested?V.