9 ms·

Please don't disclose the transaction. It's a serious decision, at least.

by malgorithms 13y ago

chevreuil 13y ago
why ?
- Zikes 13y ago
  Respect and professionalism?
- angrydev 13y ago
  Because a cornerstone of the currency is anonymity.
  - dsr_ 13y ago
    Psuedonymity. The difference is important.
  - harryh 13y ago
    A cornerstone of the currency rests on random folks like this threads OP not disclosing transaction IDs? That sounds like an incredibly weak cornerstone to me.
  - Phlarp 13y ago
    If that's really the case; the unmasking of Satoshi should (would?) be the final nail in it's coffin.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    Actually, disclosing the transaction ID would demonstrate the real cornerstone of bitcoin: the fact that when you get your fingernail under the surface, the whole thing peels up. Identifying Satoshi's account would likely reveal a great deal of information about him and his dealings, and the de-anonymizing can occur anytime, even years or centuries after the fact.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I have a question about Bitcoin: If someone spends some bitcoin at a cafe, then spends some at the XXX porn shop down the street, can the cafe look at the block chain and deduce that the person visited the porn shop?
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - paraboul 13y ago
        You always give a transaction you received before in order to spend coins. However, you're supposed to use a fresh (source) address for every new transaction (the wallet software does it for you). You can't (with the default wallet software) chose which transaction (called unspent transaction) you use in order to spend you coin (this is called coin control). That is, you can trace coins, not owners, unless you're always using the same source address.
        rayiner 13y ago
        If you say, get paid in Bitcoin, one transaction a month, and that's the only way you earn Bitcoin. Will you use the same source address all month?
        judk 13y ago
        The payer uses a source address, which changes because each transaction should "kill" the original source, sending it's money to two addresses: the payee and the "change" that goes back to the payer but using a newly invented address. You can invent a new destination address each time you transact (to get paid or to receive change). You make a new address by picking a random number and doing some math.
      - user24 13y ago
        It depends how you use your bitcoin addresses. If you're lazy like me and reuse your bitcoin address for multiple transactions then yes. Let's walk through this with one of my wallet addresses. https://blockchain.info/address/1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7PEvb9em https://blockchain.info/address/1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7P... You can see that I sent 0.00597702 BTC to an address beginning "1Jtfi". That was worth $3.99 yesterday, suggesting a USD pricing structure for that transaction. In the previous transaction, you can see 0.1198 BTC ($79.49) being paid to me. You might deduce that I sold something for bitcoin, or that I bought some bitcoin from someone. Given that they came from six different addresses, you might conclude that this is probably not a direct person-to-person trade, but went through some sort of escrow or mixer. The odd USD value might suggest non-USD, but it could easily have been $80 yesterday. Prior to that, I paid the same 1Jtfi address 0.0278 BTC. If you track the exchange rate back to the date of that TX, you can see it works out to $3.99 again, showing that I'm paying the same entity the same amount of money on multiple occasions. Prior to that, 1AVZ paid me 0.00271878 BTC Prior to that, I paid 0.0326 BTC to 1P4v. Let's assume that 1Jtfi is the cafe (it's actually me buying reddit gold for people, hence $3.99 each time). They can look up my blockchain info (not just on blockchain.info, that's just a convenient way of browsing it) and see the whole ledger. If the cafe knows that the 1P4v address is a porn site (let's say the porn site publish a donation address), then it's incontrovertible. Another example, try to 'follow the money' on my first purchase of bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/address/1ARvvMWkZRXcCupgJCZeiRsZxVGZRoYmTj https://blockchain.info/address/1ARvvMWkZRXcCupgJCZeiRsZxVGZ... In that tx, I am 12xSZ buying from 1ARvv. Click the 'change address' 1BTCcq (nice vanity address). Now try to track the seller, guess which of the two addresses is him and which is his client. It's pretty obvious that 1DPwh is the buyer and 1P5s1 is the same seller again. Now we can basically track the smaller amounts, with the theory that the guy I bought from is selling small amount from a large stash, keep clicking the larger amount, After a couple of transactions though it gets messy: https://blockchain.info/address/1Nt1sd2ECNyjdXmQsrpzqffPS9SJV95YBG https://blockchain.info/address/1Nt1sd2ECNyjdXmQsrpzqffPS9SJ... Ah, now who's our guy? Well, it's probably the one who kept an odd number of coins (much more likely someone will buy 5 BTC than 4.86764344 BTC). Now, the proper way to do it is for me to set up a new address for each transaction and move my funds between addresses every time I transact. That way you can't prove whether me sending $80 to 1abcde is sending to myself or to someone else. You can't trace the funds like we just did, because there's no time to establish patterns. You'd also want to avoid sending BTC to an address you've sent to before, and avoid round numbers of BTC. And avoid transacting at timestamps with a pattern to them. So, it's theoretically capable of a decent level of anonymity. But as with most things, in practice it is susceptible to human error. By the way, if you liked this comment, feel free to donate bitcoin to 1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7PEvb9em - maybe I can have fun tracing your transactions too :)
  - maaku 13y ago
    Bitcoin is not and never was anonymous.
  - runjake 13y ago
    > Because a cornerstone of the currency is anonymity. Pseudonymity, maybe. It's definitely not anonymous, by it's nature and function of the blockchain.
  - midmagico 13y ago
    No it isn't.
  - wdr1 13y ago
    I thought the cornerstone was everything is public & can be verified?
rayiner 13y ago
There is no social expectation that store keepers shouldn't talk about famous people that patronize their establishment. In fact, unless the nature of the establishment merits sensitivity, the expectation is the exact opposite.
- gpcz 13y ago
  He declined having a picture taken for public display when asked and gave a reason implying that he wanted to stay anonymous. Even if there's no general social expectation, I would argue that there was a specific expectation with this transaction.
- Zikes 13y ago
  There is a social expectation that an establishment of any kind not publish their customers' transaction information publicly. If nothing else, it's in poor taste.
  - npizzolato 13y ago
    I'm not familiar with many details of bitcoin, so correct me if this is wrong, but aren't all bitcoin transactions public for anyone to see?
- lotsofmangos 13y ago
  Gossip about seekers of fame is seen as fair play. I don't think you could class Satoshi as being famous in the same way as someone who actively chooses to be in the media, though. The expectation that it is good to mention if a movie star came to your shop is based on the fact that they make their living from their public life. Also, if someone like a famous actor specifically asked a business not to publicise that they had frequented it, then if the business went back on that, I think they would get less famous people visiting in the future.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > I think they would get less famous people visiting in the future. "Less famous people"? Do you mean people who are individually less well-known, or fewer famous people? My favorite quote from the George Bush II years was the day he announced there would be less soldiers in Iraq in the future. I immediately pictured the same number of soldiers, but each of them shorter.
josephlord 13y ago
I'm not a bitcoin user who is I'm generally a strong believer in privacy and I think the other article went to far (particularly in personal/family details). Having said that there is a legitimate interest for those who do hold bitcoin in anyone who holds a significant portion of the bitcoins as their actions could massively shift the value of their holdings. Owners of signficant stakes of public companies have to be declared for this type of reason. The interest in the transaction (and information about related holdings) is to me reasonable and relevant given this individual is believed by some to have a massive quantity of coins from very early mining.
- Adlai 13y ago
  Most of his fortune is directly traceable from early mining activity: http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/satoshi-s-fortune-a-more-accurate-figure/ http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/satoshi-s-fortune-a-...
  - midmagico 13y ago
    Not concretely, and many of those early blocks are mis-attributed.
    - Adlai 13y ago
      There's a strong enough suspicion that many people believe he has controls a large amount of funds.
simonebrunozzi 13y ago
Unfortunately, it would be relatively easy for anyone to find that transaction, even if he didn't want to disclose it. Don't look for Satoshi's wallet, look for the shopper's.

Please don't disclose the transaction. It's a serious decision, at least.

chevreuil 13y ago

why ?

Zikes 13y ago
Respect and professionalism?
angrydev 13y ago
Because a cornerstone of the currency is anonymity.
- dsr_ 13y ago
  Psuedonymity. The difference is important.
- harryh 13y ago
  A cornerstone of the currency rests on random folks like this threads OP not disclosing transaction IDs? That sounds like an incredibly weak cornerstone to me.
- Phlarp 13y ago
  If that's really the case; the unmasking of Satoshi should (would?) be the final nail in it's coffin.
- jellicle 13y ago
  Actually, disclosing the transaction ID would demonstrate the real cornerstone of bitcoin: the fact that when you get your fingernail under the surface, the whole thing peels up. Identifying Satoshi's account would likely reveal a great deal of information about him and his dealings, and the de-anonymizing can occur anytime, even years or centuries after the fact.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I have a question about Bitcoin: If someone spends some bitcoin at a cafe, then spends some at the XXX porn shop down the street, can the cafe look at the block chain and deduce that the person visited the porn shop?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - paraboul 13y ago
      You always give a transaction you received before in order to spend coins. However, you're supposed to use a fresh (source) address for every new transaction (the wallet software does it for you). You can't (with the default wallet software) chose which transaction (called unspent transaction) you use in order to spend you coin (this is called coin control). That is, you can trace coins, not owners, unless you're always using the same source address.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        If you say, get paid in Bitcoin, one transaction a month, and that's the only way you earn Bitcoin. Will you use the same source address all month?
        judk 13y ago
        The payer uses a source address, which changes because each transaction should "kill" the original source, sending it's money to two addresses: the payee and the "change" that goes back to the payer but using a newly invented address. You can invent a new destination address each time you transact (to get paid or to receive change). You make a new address by picking a random number and doing some math.
    - user24 13y ago
      It depends how you use your bitcoin addresses. If you're lazy like me and reuse your bitcoin address for multiple transactions then yes. Let's walk through this with one of my wallet addresses. https://blockchain.info/address/1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7PEvb9em https://blockchain.info/address/1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7P... You can see that I sent 0.00597702 BTC to an address beginning "1Jtfi". That was worth $3.99 yesterday, suggesting a USD pricing structure for that transaction. In the previous transaction, you can see 0.1198 BTC ($79.49) being paid to me. You might deduce that I sold something for bitcoin, or that I bought some bitcoin from someone. Given that they came from six different addresses, you might conclude that this is probably not a direct person-to-person trade, but went through some sort of escrow or mixer. The odd USD value might suggest non-USD, but it could easily have been $80 yesterday. Prior to that, I paid the same 1Jtfi address 0.0278 BTC. If you track the exchange rate back to the date of that TX, you can see it works out to $3.99 again, showing that I'm paying the same entity the same amount of money on multiple occasions. Prior to that, 1AVZ paid me 0.00271878 BTC Prior to that, I paid 0.0326 BTC to 1P4v. Let's assume that 1Jtfi is the cafe (it's actually me buying reddit gold for people, hence $3.99 each time). They can look up my blockchain info (not just on blockchain.info, that's just a convenient way of browsing it) and see the whole ledger. If the cafe knows that the 1P4v address is a porn site (let's say the porn site publish a donation address), then it's incontrovertible. Another example, try to 'follow the money' on my first purchase of bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/address/1ARvvMWkZRXcCupgJCZeiRsZxVGZRoYmTj https://blockchain.info/address/1ARvvMWkZRXcCupgJCZeiRsZxVGZ... In that tx, I am 12xSZ buying from 1ARvv. Click the 'change address' 1BTCcq (nice vanity address). Now try to track the seller, guess which of the two addresses is him and which is his client. It's pretty obvious that 1DPwh is the buyer and 1P5s1 is the same seller again. Now we can basically track the smaller amounts, with the theory that the guy I bought from is selling small amount from a large stash, keep clicking the larger amount, After a couple of transactions though it gets messy: https://blockchain.info/address/1Nt1sd2ECNyjdXmQsrpzqffPS9SJV95YBG https://blockchain.info/address/1Nt1sd2ECNyjdXmQsrpzqffPS9SJ... Ah, now who's our guy? Well, it's probably the one who kept an odd number of coins (much more likely someone will buy 5 BTC than 4.86764344 BTC). Now, the proper way to do it is for me to set up a new address for each transaction and move my funds between addresses every time I transact. That way you can't prove whether me sending $80 to 1abcde is sending to myself or to someone else. You can't trace the funds like we just did, because there's no time to establish patterns. You'd also want to avoid sending BTC to an address you've sent to before, and avoid round numbers of BTC. And avoid transacting at timestamps with a pattern to them. So, it's theoretically capable of a decent level of anonymity. But as with most things, in practice it is susceptible to human error. By the way, if you liked this comment, feel free to donate bitcoin to 1PWSyqweZ7SZ8AMi9hWRtEU5Cd7PEvb9em - maybe I can have fun tracing your transactions too :)
- maaku 13y ago
  Bitcoin is not and never was anonymous.
- runjake 13y ago
  > Because a cornerstone of the currency is anonymity. Pseudonymity, maybe. It's definitely not anonymous, by it's nature and function of the blockchain.
- midmagico 13y ago
  No it isn't.
- wdr1 13y ago
  I thought the cornerstone was everything is public & can be verified?

rayiner 13y ago

There is no social expectation that store keepers shouldn't talk about famous people that patronize their establishment. In fact, unless the nature of the establishment merits sensitivity, the expectation is the exact opposite.

gpcz 13y ago
He declined having a picture taken for public display when asked and gave a reason implying that he wanted to stay anonymous. Even if there's no general social expectation, I would argue that there was a specific expectation with this transaction.
Zikes 13y ago
There is a social expectation that an establishment of any kind not publish their customers' transaction information publicly. If nothing else, it's in poor taste.
- npizzolato 13y ago
  I'm not familiar with many details of bitcoin, so correct me if this is wrong, but aren't all bitcoin transactions public for anyone to see?
lotsofmangos 13y ago
Gossip about seekers of fame is seen as fair play. I don't think you could class Satoshi as being famous in the same way as someone who actively chooses to be in the media, though. The expectation that it is good to mention if a movie star came to your shop is based on the fact that they make their living from their public life. Also, if someone like a famous actor specifically asked a business not to publicise that they had frequented it, then if the business went back on that, I think they would get less famous people visiting in the future.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > I think they would get less famous people visiting in the future. "Less famous people"? Do you mean people who are individually less well-known, or fewer famous people? My favorite quote from the George Bush II years was the day he announced there would be less soldiers in Iraq in the future. I immediately pictured the same number of soldiers, but each of them shorter.

josephlord 13y ago

I'm not a bitcoin user who is I'm generally a strong believer in privacy and I think the other article went to far (particularly in personal/family details). Having said that there is a legitimate interest for those who do hold bitcoin in anyone who holds a significant portion of the bitcoins as their actions could massively shift the value of their holdings. Owners of signficant stakes of public companies have to be declared for this type of reason. The interest in the transaction (and information about related holdings) is to me reasonable and relevant given this individual is believed by some to have a massive quantity of coins from very early mining.

Adlai 13y ago
Most of his fortune is directly traceable from early mining activity: http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/satoshi-s-fortune-a-more-accurate-figure/ http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/satoshi-s-fortune-a-...
- midmagico 13y ago
  Not concretely, and many of those early blocks are mis-attributed.
  - Adlai 13y ago
    There's a strong enough suspicion that many people believe he has controls a large amount of funds.

simonebrunozzi 13y ago

Unfortunately, it would be relatively easy for anyone to find that transaction, even if he didn't want to disclose it. Don't look for Satoshi's wallet, look for the shopper's.