bitcoins

[iBMe]

Custom PC has an article in the current issue about bitcoins. According to them, you can buy a BitForce Jalapeno for $149 which mines at 4.5 GH/s, pays for itself in a matter of weeks, and represents the power of about seven regular graphics cards.

Thats pretty cool, does it still draw huge amounts of power? maybe I could get one and start spending more time at my work centre

[soto]

An interesting and allegedly anonymous way of sending money around. Bitcoin is a currency, so once you've got some bit coins you can exchange them for cash at a currency exchange.

It's a pretty confusing system to get your head round. Anyone here heard of it?

Bitcoin (sign: BTC) is a decentralized digital currency based on the open source protocol created by a pseudonymous developer named Satoshi Nakamoto.[6][1] It is subdivided into 100-million smaller units called satoshis.[3]

Internationally, bitcoins can be exchanged by personal computer directly through a wallet file or a website. They can also be exchanged through physical banknotes and coins.[7][8]

Physical 1-BTC Casascius Coin with public key shown

Unlike most currencies, bitcoin does not rely on a central issuer, like a bank or government. Bitcoin uses a transaction log across a peer-to-peer computer network to record transactions, verify them and prevent double spending. The verification process awards effective bitcoin nodes or "bitcoin miners" with a limited release of bitcoins and transaction fees (if any). This process requires intense computing power, electricity and significant investment as it solves hashes through bruteforce to verify transactions and add them to the network's transaction log.

As of 2013, bitcoin is the most widely used alternative currency:[2] All bitcoins converted at the current market price would be worth over 150 million US dollars.[9][10]

Privacy

Because transactions are broadcast to the entire network, they are inherently public. Unlike regular banking,[59] which preserves customer privacy by keeping transaction records private, loose transactional privacy is accomplished in bitcoin by using many unique addresses for every wallet, while at the same time publishing all transactions. As an example, if Alice sends 123.45 BTC to Bob, the network creates a public record that allows anyone to see that 123.45 has been sent from one address to another. However, unless Alice or Bob make their ownership of these addresses known, it is difficult for anyone else to connect the transaction with them. However, if someone connects an address to a user at any point they could follow back a series of transactions as each participant likely knows who paid them and may disclose that information on request or under duress.

It can be difficult to associate bitcoin identities with real-life identities.[60] This property makes Bitcoin transactions attractive to sellers of illegal products,[61][62] although many Bitcoin experts criticise such usage as "dumb".[63]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

h ttp://bitcoin.org/

Edited January 23, 2013 by soto

[cocojoe]

There is a recent thread about bitcoins, have a search.

Edited January 23, 2013 by cocojoe

[charas]

here

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=265277

C

e2a

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=307533

Edited January 23, 2013 by charas

[Noah Bennet]

Its used a lot by "hackers" and the more seedier side of the internet, its an interesting concept, but its not as anonymous as it first appears(if you google it people have posted ways that the feds would be able to trace transactions to an IP easily enough) and its not easy to get bitcoins without either buying them (traceable!) or mining for them.

mining for them is basically allowing your cpu time to be used in exchange for them, its a slow process though, to do well you will either need to invest in expensive hardware (not cost effective!) or be a "hacker" and find ways to setup botnets which allow you to use others people CPU's to do the work (illegal!).

Edited January 23, 2013 by Noah Bennet

[soto]

h ttps://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

[charas]

I have been quite interested in the Tor project, and the 'dark net' for sometime now

Bitcoins are a very strange 'currency' but I believe the hidden market place that I won't mention, uses them successfully

There is more info on this subject here in this locked topic http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=307533

C

Edited January 23, 2013 by charas

[~nobody~]

mining for them is basically allowing your cpu time to be used in exchange for them,

That's the bit I don't get; what is your computer doing when it's mining?

[Noah Bennet]

I have been quite interested in the Tor project, and the 'dark net' for sometime now

Bitcoins are a very strange 'currency' but I believe the hidden market place that I won't mention, uses them successfully

There is more info on this subject here in this locked topic http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=307533

C

id be wary of using it to be honest, its hardly secret or underground, the exact people you are trying to avoid will be heavily invested in running and monitoring tor end nodes and running honeypots on all those 'dark net' sites.

[tengreenfingers]

That's the bit I don't get; what is your computer doing when it's mining?

Really... really... REALLY hard sums.

[tengreenfingers]

id be wary of using it to be honest, its hardly secret or underground, the exact people you are trying to avoid will be heavily invested in running and monitoring tor end nodes and running honeypots on all those 'dark net' sites.

It wouldn't be enough to run a TOR exit node. They'd need an entry, mid and exit node.

You do something which your TOR client encrypts three times and sends to an entry node.

The entry node knows who you are but not what you're doing.

The entry node decrypts the outer layer of the encryption and sends it onto a mid-node.

The mid node knows which entry node you've used, but not who you are or what you are doing.

The mid node decrypts the 2nd layer of encryption and sends it onto the exit-node.

The exit node knows what you were doing, but doesn't know who you are, where you are or what entry node you used.

In order to know WHO you are, AND what you are doing, someone would need to have control of each step... and considering you'll be routed through several legal juridictions that is borderline impossible to achieve.

If they had an exit node, they'd need to get access to the mid node to see where the package came from... get control of THAT node to see where the packet entered the relay and then get control of THAT to know who sent it... and as far as I can remember the individual nodes employ "off the record" practices so I'm not even sure that the information they want could be discovered even if they managed to pull that off.

The worst case scenario is that the powers that be are watching for connections to particular sites through their exit node... one of which may (in the case of a Silk Road order) contain your shipping address... but that does NOT imply that YOU were responsible for the order! With proper security techniques at the client end there should be no record on your machine of anything you've done on TOR.

There's no absolute security - but used properly, TOR is probably about as close as it gets.

Edited January 23, 2013 by tengreenfingers

[charas]

thanks Noah, I am very wary of the sites on the Darknet and deepnet, but it holds some mystique to me. I haven't got the tor browser on my equipment and have not used my ip address to look, except through sites like Onion and hidden wiki.

They seem to be trying to get rid of all the horrid porn sites.

h ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Wiki

C

e2a thanks Tengreenfingers, great information.

Edited January 23, 2013 by charas

[Noah Bennet]

It wouldn't be enough to run a TOR exit node. They'd need an entry, mid and exit node.

There's no absolute security - but used properly, TOR is probably about as close as it gets.

If they were running the entry and the exit node that would be enough, the chances of that of that are slim and i do agree in principle with your post, but giving someone the tiniest bit of the wrong information through a monitored exit node might be enough, if you are not security minded you will make that mistake soon enough.

anonymous have also proved that tor isnt that secure if you have the resources in the past by hacking .onion sites.

to be honest, its not really necessary to things through tor unless you are a political dissident or something. buying drugs from randomers over the internet is pretty dumb imo.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Noah Bennet

[~nobody~]

Really... really... REALLY hard sums.

For who and to what ends though?

[tengreenfingers]

If they were running the entry and the exit node that would be enough, the chances of that of that are slim and i do agree in principle with your post, but giving someone the tiniest bit of the wrong information through a monitored exit node might be enough, if you are not security minded you will make that mistake soon enough.

Yep - staying anonymous online is a MASSIVE effort. You're effectively creating an entirely new, virtual identity that must be completely divorced from your real identity in every way. A slight slip can remove that separation.

I don't think an entry and exit node would be enough though.

Entry node knows who you are and that you're doing something through TOR.

Exit node knows what is being done through TOR but not who is doing it.

Without the mid node I don't think there's a way to connect action to individual without a lapse in security.

To the best of my knowledge, the encrypted bundle the entry node recieves doesn't reveal anything useful when the first layer of encryption is removed. It's just an encrypted bundle sent on to another node. As I understand it, ONLY the exit node knows what website/service you're attempting to connect to, but that connection could be coming from almost anywhere in the world. How could that connection be traced back to its origin without knowing which entry-node sent it to the mid-node?

anonymous have also proved that tor isnt that secure if you have the resources in the past by hacking .onion sites.

Didn't know that. You don't mean Operation Dark Net do you? Where they broke into and DOSed child porn sites?

to be honest, its not really necessary to things through tor unless you are a political dissident or something. buying drugs from randomers over the internet is pretty dumb imo.

Agreed to a point. If the network were a bit swifter it'd be good to see everyone get on there - but then I'm a big believer in the RIGHT to privacy and anything that pokes the nosey feckers in government in the eye and stops them prying is a good thing in my book.