Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: arajakata on April 16, 2012, 01:39 pm
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Hello everyone, sorry for what I know is a noob question, and hopefully this doesn't incite the boards collective ire, I'm just new to all of this. If I'm purchasing small amounts of bitcoins (like 10-20 at a time), and only really engaging SR for small person things, is it necessary to employ the elaborate procedures to ensure complete anonymity in terms of purchasing the bitcoins?
Again, sorry if this is a basic question. I have been reading through the message board, and it seems people are doing elaborate methods of obtaining and transferring bitcoins, but for far larger amounts than I plan on engaging with.
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Hello everyone, sorry for what I know is a noob question, and hopefully this doesn't incite the boards collective ire, I'm just new to all of this. If I'm purchasing small amounts of bitcoins (like 10-20 at a time), and only really engaging SR for small person things, is it necessary to employ the elaborate procedures to ensure complete anonymity in terms of purchasing the bitcoins?
If you care about your privacy/security, then yes, you should consider these "elaborate procedures". If not, then you are free to do whatever you want.
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It's not illegal to buy bitcoins. The bigest security threat for buyers is between you and the mailbox.
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Hello everyone, sorry for what I know is a noob question, and hopefully this doesn't incite the boards collective ire, I'm just new to all of this. If I'm purchasing small amounts of bitcoins (like 10-20 at a time), and only really engaging SR for small person things, is it necessary to employ the elaborate procedures to ensure complete anonymity in terms of purchasing the bitcoins?
Again, sorry if this is a basic question. I have been reading through the message board, and it seems people are doing elaborate methods of obtaining and transferring bitcoins, but for far larger amounts than I plan on engaging with.
Your anonymity isn't effected per se by the size of the transaction although if you do know the exact amount going through the network for a transaction it's easier to spot.
If you can link a persons identity to any Bitcoin address you can then follow the passage of coins throughout the network. As such if you use a bank account for instance to buy your initial Bitcoins and the Police were able to seize the records of your Bitcoin exchange provider, in theory they could link you to the purchase.
Of course, it would still be necessary to link the coins you sent to a specific seller and prove you received a specific item from them so the risk is quite small. You can minimise that by running your coins through a mixing service, which swaps the Bitcoins you bought for other people's.
My favourite mixer is Bitcoinfog. Feel free to repost if you need any more help.
V.
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But this is still unclear to me (not OP), and I've tried mightily to understand. Regarding linking coins to a seller, doesn't SR's internal tumbler solve this issue? And as for linking bitcoins throughout the chain, if I buy 2 bitcoins in my name from MtGox, for example, and Mt.Gox gives up my name to LE, are you saying that if I send those 2 bitcoins to my Bitcoin Wallet in my PC and then later use 1 bitcoin from my wallet to pay for something, my name is still attached in some way to that last bitcoin?
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But this is still unclear to me (not OP), and I've tried mightily to understand. Regarding linking coins to a seller, doesn't SR's internal tumbler solve this issue? And as for linking bitcoins throughout the chain, if I buy 2 bitcoins in my name from MtGox, for example, and Mt.Gox gives up my name to LE, are you saying that if I send those 2 bitcoins to my Bitcoin Wallet in my PC and then later use 1 bitcoin from my wallet to pay for something, my name is still attached in some way to that last bitcoin?
You're right saying that SR's internal tumbler takes care of things from the seller's perspective.
As for the buyer, if MtGox were to give up a Bitcoin address you used, they can trace the passage of those coins throughout the network by seeing to which address one was sent.
This doesn't mean that every coin has your name on it but in the nature of things you must send coins from the same address to which they were sent in the first instance. So if you were to receive two coins from one address and were to send each one to separate wallets, in theory they could still be traced provided you knew the owner of the original wallet.
In practice splitting your funds across several wallets or sending random amounts of money to your own wallets using a new address each time is a good way to make it more difficult to track the passage of your coins throughout the network.
The most secure method of anonymity is either to buy your coins for cash (a service which as I mentioned I hope to offer in the near future!) or run your coins through a mixing service like Bitcoinfog which for a commission of around 2-3% you can mix your coins with other people's, making them impossible to trace back to you by analysing the Bitcoin network.
V.