Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: paranoia on July 09, 2012, 02:37 am

Title: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: paranoia on July 09, 2012, 02:37 am
Hi as my username suggests I'm paranoid about bitcoin transactions.

For the official bitcoin application what settings do people use? Is there a way to configure the bitcoin application to find peers over tor?

I know when you send bitcoins it records your IP address and websites such as blockexplorer etc record the information.

I want to know the best way to send people bitcoins anonymously as possible. VPN?
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: Cozmo on July 09, 2012, 08:14 am
Hey i remember being in your position not too long ago, 4 months to be exact.
The official program that uses bitcoins and is your wallet bascially is just another node (think of this as a bit torrent network then it will make alot more sense)
Yes all bitcoins are tracked in the way that they must be signed off for if your taking care of a prisoner. And these in turn generate the new coins. Its very weird how it all works, but it does trust me.
Also i found for personal useage i.e. mining actual coins using GPU or FPGA. The official application is perfect, but i would suggest move your stuff onto online wallets.
SR has a great facility on online wallets and http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/silkroad/buyers_guide is where you should be looking at that before making your own wallet.
Basically, cause i'm tripping on 25i, use online wallets i.e. SR ones, unless you are going to mine coins using FPGA or GPU then go ahead and use official program.
Also you get the added security of mtgox if there is a hardware failure but if your comp goes, so does your wallet.
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: UKMJ on July 09, 2012, 09:13 am
Aside from using a stolen paypal account bitcoin is the most anonymous form of payment available at present. Using a VPN will ensure that the IP address linked to the BTC cannot be linked to you (depending on what data your VPN provider stores).
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: paranoia on July 09, 2012, 12:05 pm
Hey i remember being in your position not too long ago, 4 months to be exact.
The official program that uses bitcoins and is your wallet bascially is just another node (think of this as a bit torrent network then it will make alot more sense)
Yes all bitcoins are tracked in the way that they must be signed off for if your taking care of a prisoner. And these in turn generate the new coins. Its very weird how it all works, but it does trust me.
Also i found for personal useage i.e. mining actual coins using GPU or FPGA. The official application is perfect, but i would suggest move your stuff onto online wallets.
SR has a great facility on online wallets and http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/silkroad/buyers_guide is where you should be looking at that before making your own wallet.
Basically, cause i'm tripping on 25i, use online wallets i.e. SR ones, unless you are going to mine coins using FPGA or GPU then go ahead and use official program.
Also you get the added security of mtgox if there is a hardware failure but if your comp goes, so does your wallet.

Thanks for the help

Quote
Aside from using a stolen paypal account bitcoin is the most anonymous form of payment available at present. Using a VPN will ensure that the IP address linked to the BTC cannot be linked to you (depending on what data your VPN provider stores).

Do you have any advice for configuring my client over VPN or what VPNs to use with bitcoins?
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: paranoia on July 10, 2012, 01:39 am
tor is the far superior option, you can set it by telling your bitcoin client to run through the proxy at localhost:9050. don't listen to anybody telling you to buy a specific vpn, especially if that somebody is a member of an illicits forum, it's probably gonna be a fed honeypot

I did that and I'm not getting any connections to the bitcoin network. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: paranoia on July 10, 2012, 01:42 am
Nevermind it's just taking allot longer to find peers over tor. But it should I should be protected now right?
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: paranoia on July 10, 2012, 01:46 am
I'm getting

 Jul 10 11:43:11.659 [Warning] Your application (using socks4 to port 8333) is giving Tor only an IP address. Applications that do DNS resolves themselves may leak information. Consider using Socks4A (e.g. via privoxy or socat) instead. For more information, please see https://wiki.torproject.org/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#SOCKSAndDNS.

In the message log for Vidalia
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: monkey wrench on July 10, 2012, 04:29 pm
what he said above
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: UKMJ on July 10, 2012, 04:52 pm
A good VPN that will not collect connection IP addresses and will mot share info with the feds and will not be a honeypot;

IPREDATOR

Based in Sweden, run by the piratebay guys, pretty damn safe.
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: James Bond 007 on July 11, 2012, 12:27 am
im paranoid as well....to send em
Title: Re: Best way to send bitcoins anonymously
Post by: QwertAnon on July 11, 2012, 02:45 am
you don't need to send/receive bitcoin over tor.

receiving bitcoin is already 100% anonymous, no matter whether you use tor or not.
sending bitcoin is sort of anonymous - every node in the system passes on the transactions it receives, so nobody knows if you were the one making the payment or just passed on that information, or so i heard.

however, the bitcoin you send have a certain history and might be traceable back to whatever bank account you used to buy them.
so you should send your bitcoin multiple times through an eWallet like bitcoinfog or instawallet (they don't claim to anonymize your bitcoin but in blockexplorer it looks like they do, does anyone know more?) and only access that page with different tor IPs and cleared cookies.
there's a list of eWallet sites on the bitcoin wiki.