Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Catnip on June 22, 2012, 12:05 pm
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i have an regular MtGox account and an anonymous MTGox account. I only connect to it via VPN, so my real IP and Name is not known .
Is ist secure enough to send BTC from my normal MTGox account to the anonymous MTGox account from there to an second anonymous MTGox account and from there to SR ?
I know there are btc laundering but I would be interested if it also works this way.
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I would think that BTC tumbling is much easier and more effective than MtGox "tumbling". I mean you're talking like 3 or 4 intermediate steps, where a BTC tumbler would not only split up your total BTC into smaller chunks, but will also send them through many more transactions, thus making them harder to trace.
Correct me if I'm mistaken?
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I've always wondered, if someone were to follow your Bitcoin trail (?blockchain?), would they see the coins go from MtGox (for example), get split up into smaller packets, go to all these different wallets in multiple combinations and then come together in a single wallet (SilkRoad)? In other words, would the tumbling process be obvious? Could there be a real life, realistic situation were someone would make multiple small payments to several different people, over a short period of time, and those small payments continue in this manner (like the tumbling process). Especially if all these people then paid their small amount of coins to one person, with the final total almost exactly equaling the original number of Bitcoins at the start of the process (like when tumbled and then paid into SilkRoad wallet)!
I may have misunderstood exactly how Bitcoins can be followed. I have a very basic understanding of them, at best! I was just wondering if you did have to defend yourself in a court of law and justify your actions, would the way your coins are appearing to be tumbled suspicious in itself? This does all hinge on whether the coins can be directly traced to you, as in the OP case were he's buying them in his own name through MtGox.
Please enlighten me.
Love you all, fellow Roaders! :)
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Well if I was buying bitcoins from a verndor here for money from my bank, would I have to tumble those bitcoins to remanin anonymous? and if so, how would I go about it?
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i think its risky
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Well if I was buying bitcoins from a verndor here for money from my bank, would I have to tumble those bitcoins to remanin anonymous? and if so, how would I go about it?
Hi Bynter,
I think we need to be very clear about the methods used to buy Bitcoins from an exchange versus a vendor.
Buying Bitcoins from an exchange is quick and more convenient as you can get your BTC via bank transfer. The downside is that anyone with access to the exchange's records e.g the Police can see your wallet address and therefore any Bitcoins sent to or from it. The best way to illustrate this is to take your Bitcoin wallet address e.g on SR, copy it and go to Blockchain.info - you can paste your wallet address into the search bar at the top right. The website represents the Bitcoin block chain and you will see any Bitcoins sent to or from that address, as well as the addresses from which coins have been received/been sent.
As you can see it would therefore be quite easy to trace the coins you use on Silk Road back to the original address from where they were purchased i.e a Bitcoin exchange like MtGox.
You can reduce this risk by using a coin mixer like Bitcoinfog for a small fee (More info on coin mixers : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service). Silk Road uses a coin mixer for any withdrawals from your wallet although it doesn't provide quite the same level of anonymity of Bitcoinfog which allows you to withdraw random amounts of money over a longer period of time, making your trail of coins much harder to trace.
You can eliminate these risks by buying Bitcoins using cash - I should hold my hands up and say that I do offer this service to people living in the UK & Europe by selling BTC to people for cash in the mail but that doesn't make it any less true. Another safe way to obtain Bitcoins is to sell products/services in exchange for them - any other method can potentially be traced back to you.
V.
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I may have misunderstood exactly how Bitcoins can be followed. I have a very basic understanding of them, at best! I was just wondering if you did have to defend yourself in a court of law and justify your actions, would the way your coins are appearing to be tumbled suspicious in itself? This does all hinge on whether the coins can be directly traced to you, as in the OP case were he's buying them in his own name through MtGox.
Please enlighten me.
Love you all, fellow Roaders! :)
Your understanding is basically sound, see my post below for my limited understanding of the Blockchain. You're correct in saying that much will hinge on whether Bitcoin purchases can be linked to you personally but I think it's important to qualify this point.
If you were to receive a package in the mail containing something illegal and later tried to claim in court that you had signed for it as you didn't know what was in it, the fact that you had bought Bitcoins could be used in evidence against you (regardless of whether you then proceed to "tumble" them). For this reason I think you're much safer buying using cash from a vendor - I am not just saying this to get more customers, the same holds true for the USA as it does here in the UK :-)
V.
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mt gox is as anonymous as your IP addressee as they will close your account if you log in with TOR
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i do not login with tor! I use an VPN and Proxy.
If I have money or bitcoins in my account then mtgox can not easily disable my account, right?
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I think they will most likely "suspend" it meaning you cant touch your money until you have submitted all your documents so they know exactly who you are
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For fuck's sake people STOP USING MT. GOX FOR ANYTHING.
If you're in the US, use one of bitinstant's direct to address options. Faster, more anonymous, and cheaper than going through an exchange, and every step can be done over Tor
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the problem is... iam not in US... iam in Germany. and here is nothing like bitinstant or anything else :(