It's anonymous. Details are left out. Keys go basically like this: Public & private key pair each for You and Alice -- that's 2 mated keys apiece. Take message "Hello." and scramble with a public OR private key. Now you have gunk "09D7C1". ONLY the mated public/private key can decrypt and reveal "Hello.". When you send to Alice you encrypt with her public key so that ONLY she can decrypt -- with her private key. But first you encrypt with YOUR private key! (AND THEN encrypt THAT with Alice's public key.) So then: Alice gets the gunk. (operation 1) Decrypts with her private key. Just more gunk. (operation 2) Decrypts THAT with YOUR public key. Now she sees "Hello.". Operation 1 is the true encryption: only Alice's private key mates to successfully decrypt. Operation 2 is the authentication: only your public key mates to successfully decrypt, which proves that it was encrypted with YOUR private key -- Alice is assured it was sent by you AND it hasn't been modified. These are not the *precise* details of a Bitcoin transaction; yet this *IS* the technology. NONE of the key material is sent: the reciever must find the package and understand which keys to use to decrypt -- you tell Alice "I just sent you something". On the network it IS just anonymous gunk. Details omitted include tracing by network activity: even though the package is anonymouse & safe, if you know the computer that sent it is Sony's head office, then you know someone sent it from that machine And of course the underlying security of encryption & authentication lies in the pseudo-inability to crack the keys. It IS possible, and heavy government machines do it. All this IS addressed in Bitcoin's design in a form.

Nope! They are not mutually exclusive. Bitcoin says the xactions are stored anonymously: your key is not stored; you encrypt and send. Nobody can decrypt unless they know the public key needed to decrypt: you tell only the recipient to expect coins from you, and TJEY use your public key to decrypt & cash in. Nobody knows anything except that in the network of, if you have the key(s) that fit what's been sent to you then it belongs to you.

If they really gave such a crap about the problem they would not make confusing stupidity that is rooted in vain glory, and instead they would write clearly what's wrong. And start a civil suit if they can. That way our grandparents can get involved too.

Parody weenies just want to get their privates stroked by being known as "the one that exposed it all".