Identifying the Person Behind Bitcoin Fog

The person behind the Bitcoin Fog was identified and arrested. Bitcoin Fog was an anonymization service: for a fee, it mixed a bunch of people’s bitcoins up so that it was hard to figure out where any individual coins came from. It ran for ten years.

Identifying the person behind Bitcoin Fog serves as an illustrative example of how hard it is to be anonymous online in the face of a competent police investigation:

Most remarkable, however, is the IRS’s account of tracking down Sterlingov using the very same sort of blockchain analysis that his own service was meant to defeat. The complaint outlines how Sterlingov allegedly paid for the server hosting of Bitcoin Fog at one point in 2011 using the now-defunct digital currency Liberty Reserve. It goes on to show the blockchain evidence that identifies Sterlingov’s purchase of that Liberty Reserve currency with bitcoins: He first exchanged euros for the bitcoins on the early cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, then moved those bitcoins through several subsequent addresses, and finally traded them on another currency exchange for the Liberty Reserve funds he’d use to set up Bitcoin Fog’s domain…

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In which case would one use the Modrian algorithm for (minimal) k-anonymization over SQL?

The Modrian algorithm has no knowledge of the inherent hierarchies and structures of data. By using manual SQL one could do the following mapping:
Berlin, Hamburg, Munich -> Germany
London, Manchester, Glasgow -> United Kingdom
While… Continue reading In which case would one use the Modrian algorithm for (minimal) k-anonymization over SQL?

How to get affordable DV certificates for onion sites

The Tor Project, the nonprofit developers of the Tor network and Tor Browser, have announced two exciting developments for onion services: affordable DV certificates for v3 onion sites from HARICA, and new, easy onion site setup guides. About Tor Milli… Continue reading How to get affordable DV certificates for onion sites

What’s the point in using proxychains for an nmap scan when you could use Tor?

I always hear on YouTube and other places on the internet that Tor is the best option to stay anonymous. Tor is used by many activists, journalists etc. hiding from oppressive governments and so on. Not a VPN nor a proxy would guarantee th… Continue reading What’s the point in using proxychains for an nmap scan when you could use Tor?