4 ms·

Should have used bitcoin :(

by drcross 10y ago

aerovistae 10y ago
Wouldn't help much once the bitcoin is exchanged for another currency, thus linking the bitcoin address to his personal information if the authorities compel the exchange to provide the info.
- hueving 10y ago
  Bitcoin can be laundered through mixers pretty easily making it very difficult to track it into a currency conversion.
- deftnerd 10y ago
  There are ways to "launder" the payments. Could use JoinMarket to tumble the funds to a decent extent. Could also send the BTC to shapeshift.io and convert it to Monero and then convert it back to Bitcoin at xmr.to. I am really shocked they had an advertiser pay to a bank account, especially one in the owners name. It's a huge OpSec mistake.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    While this comment and its siblings do mention methods that can, in theory, be used to launder bitcoin, it's still really difficult to do it correctly. People vastly overestimate the privacy benefits of bitcoin. In many practical cases, bitcoin is probably one of the least private ways to get payment; every transaction is publicly recorded and can easily be traced through the blockchain without subpoena, warrant, social engineering, or any justification whatsoever. This is a treasure trove for law enforcement and will likely allow them to find criminals that never would've otherwise appeared on their radar. Some tumblers are honeypots and many are scams that will skim the top off your btc while barely doing anything to your coins' "taint" rating. Even if one's understanding of bitcoin and practice of opsec is impeccable, there is still the need to worry about trading partners out to the nth degree; one weak link somewhere in the chain may very well lead back to an otherwise-meticulous user. One also must worry about getting discovered through some other means, like getting a computer booked into evidence and having the bitcoin wallet found and a legal order entered compelling its decryption. If law enforcement finds out someone unsuccessfully engaged in an attempt to conceal their possession of bitcoin, that person is adding years to a potential prison sentence with conspiracy charges, money laundering, tax evasion, etc. Bitcoin is awesome for everyday use. Anyone who wants to use it for "underground" endeavors needs to do some serious homework, and not just plunge in believing "it's anonymous currency" or "it's anonymous as long as I send my coin to a tumbler after getting it".
    - dmix 10y ago
      > This is a treasure trove for law enforcement and will likely allow them to find criminals that never would've otherwise appeared on their radar. If this was the case then why has it never been used as a means to catch someone so far? There have been hundreds of darknet related arrests and none have been related to bitcoin. Pretty much every other investigative means is easier than tracking down bitcoin like that.
      - aerovistae 10y ago
        Give it time. Bitcoin's still pretty new. I don't think law enforcement is quite on top of it yet, if I had to guess.
  - seesomesense 10y ago
    I have a professional acquaintance ( my profession, not his) in the anti-moneylaundering division of a large national, non-US bank. He mentioned that their default assumption is that if an account or a transaction involves bitcoin, it is connected to criminals. They log the details and pass it on to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
    - jjnoakes 10y ago
      The same thing happens where I work (a restaurant). One of my professional acquaintances assumes that if meal preparation involves a knife, it is connected to a murder. He writes down the wielder, date, and time, and sends the information to the police each day.
      - DyslexicAtheist 10y ago
        :D if I could upvote twice I would
      - milesokeefe 10y ago
        Was it a very niche brand of knife that is the nearly exclusive choice of criminals?
        jjnoakes 10y ago
        Yes, it was. And don't confuse "nearly exclusive choice of criminals" with "only criminals choose it". After all, cars are the nearly exclusive choice of bank robbers for getaways. But I don't think you are suggesting that every person driving in a car away from a bank should be documented and reported to the authorities.
        milesokeefe 10y ago
        No I'm not meaning to imply that anyone should assume someone using BTC is a criminal. However it's not irrational to pay closer attention to them. I do think reporting every single BTC user to a three letter agency is pushing it though. I would understand doing that for accounts that raise red flags beyond simply using BTC, but doing that for every single one seems a bit paranoid and ineffective anyways.
- burger_moon 10y ago
  Isn't that what bitcoin tumblers are for?
- CyberDildonics 10y ago
  Not only can bitcoin be tumbled, but think about the scenario where it is exchanged for another crypto-currency like litecoin then exchanged for bitcoin at another site, then exchanged for cash. Good luck tracing that.
  - UweSchmidt 10y ago
    But that's just more data, you just JOIN another table - the exchanges have a list of transactions, left column BTC adress, right column litecoin adress. The difficult one-time work will be done when chasing terrorists. Everyone can be compelled to hand over data. Crime is impossible.
    - CyberDildonics 10y ago
      If you sell btc for ltc on one site, split up the balances, then sell the ltc for btc on different sites, how exactly would someone piece that back together? The crypto currency exchanges would be transferring to and from their internal addresses. There would be no direct connection without knowing all the addresses the exchanges use, and they can (and should) use a different address for each transaction. > Crime is impossible. Lets not get carried away
      - UweSchmidt 10y ago
        The "sites" keep track of the transactions. This information could leak or law enforcement could successfully request this information. High level analysis could find btc-altcoin transactions that "fit" together, maybe with later transaction when the person will eventually cash out, and use other data thats not obvious to us right now. A difficult problem, but one that is straightforward, fashionable (big data), profitable (lots of money at stake), and potentially something that law enforcement/intelligence agencies work on. We tend to underestimate future capabilities ;)
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    > Good luck tracing that Subpoena the trading sites? An active adversary would be running the trading sites, though I doubt they'd waste that info on a low-level case. LocalBitcoins says they retain all messages for 180 days, up from their previous 90. Is that purely for internal disputes? Sure, if you're not doing anything illegal enough, you can get away with simply using sites in multiple jurisdictions and hoping it's too much of a pain. But let's not pretend it's not traceable. I'd only be happy with zero knowledge proofs (if they're real; I haven't understood the maths at all.)
fellellor 10y ago
Should have moved to Russia.

Should have used bitcoin :(

by drcross 10y ago

Should have used bitcoin :(

Wouldn't help much once the bitcoin is exchanged for another currency, thus linking the bitcoin address to his personal information if the authorities compel the exchange to provide the info.

hueving 10y ago
Bitcoin can be laundered through mixers pretty easily making it very difficult to track it into a currency conversion.
deftnerd 10y ago
There are ways to "launder" the payments. Could use JoinMarket to tumble the funds to a decent extent. Could also send the BTC to shapeshift.io and convert it to Monero and then convert it back to Bitcoin at xmr.to. I am really shocked they had an advertiser pay to a bank account, especially one in the owners name. It's a huge OpSec mistake.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  While this comment and its siblings do mention methods that can, in theory, be used to launder bitcoin, it's still really difficult to do it correctly. People vastly overestimate the privacy benefits of bitcoin. In many practical cases, bitcoin is probably one of the least private ways to get payment; every transaction is publicly recorded and can easily be traced through the blockchain without subpoena, warrant, social engineering, or any justification whatsoever. This is a treasure trove for law enforcement and will likely allow them to find criminals that never would've otherwise appeared on their radar. Some tumblers are honeypots and many are scams that will skim the top off your btc while barely doing anything to your coins' "taint" rating. Even if one's understanding of bitcoin and practice of opsec is impeccable, there is still the need to worry about trading partners out to the nth degree; one weak link somewhere in the chain may very well lead back to an otherwise-meticulous user. One also must worry about getting discovered through some other means, like getting a computer booked into evidence and having the bitcoin wallet found and a legal order entered compelling its decryption. If law enforcement finds out someone unsuccessfully engaged in an attempt to conceal their possession of bitcoin, that person is adding years to a potential prison sentence with conspiracy charges, money laundering, tax evasion, etc. Bitcoin is awesome for everyday use. Anyone who wants to use it for "underground" endeavors needs to do some serious homework, and not just plunge in believing "it's anonymous currency" or "it's anonymous as long as I send my coin to a tumbler after getting it".
  - dmix 10y ago
    > This is a treasure trove for law enforcement and will likely allow them to find criminals that never would've otherwise appeared on their radar. If this was the case then why has it never been used as a means to catch someone so far? There have been hundreds of darknet related arrests and none have been related to bitcoin. Pretty much every other investigative means is easier than tracking down bitcoin like that.
    - aerovistae 10y ago
      Give it time. Bitcoin's still pretty new. I don't think law enforcement is quite on top of it yet, if I had to guess.
- seesomesense 10y ago
  I have a professional acquaintance ( my profession, not his) in the anti-moneylaundering division of a large national, non-US bank. He mentioned that their default assumption is that if an account or a transaction involves bitcoin, it is connected to criminals. They log the details and pass it on to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    The same thing happens where I work (a restaurant). One of my professional acquaintances assumes that if meal preparation involves a knife, it is connected to a murder. He writes down the wielder, date, and time, and sends the information to the police each day.
    - DyslexicAtheist 10y ago
      :D if I could upvote twice I would
    - milesokeefe 10y ago
      Was it a very niche brand of knife that is the nearly exclusive choice of criminals?
      - jjnoakes 10y ago
        Yes, it was. And don't confuse "nearly exclusive choice of criminals" with "only criminals choose it". After all, cars are the nearly exclusive choice of bank robbers for getaways. But I don't think you are suggesting that every person driving in a car away from a bank should be documented and reported to the authorities.
        milesokeefe 10y ago
        No I'm not meaning to imply that anyone should assume someone using BTC is a criminal. However it's not irrational to pay closer attention to them. I do think reporting every single BTC user to a three letter agency is pushing it though. I would understand doing that for accounts that raise red flags beyond simply using BTC, but doing that for every single one seems a bit paranoid and ineffective anyways.
burger_moon 10y ago
Isn't that what bitcoin tumblers are for?
CyberDildonics 10y ago
Not only can bitcoin be tumbled, but think about the scenario where it is exchanged for another crypto-currency like litecoin then exchanged for bitcoin at another site, then exchanged for cash. Good luck tracing that.
- UweSchmidt 10y ago
  But that's just more data, you just JOIN another table - the exchanges have a list of transactions, left column BTC adress, right column litecoin adress. The difficult one-time work will be done when chasing terrorists. Everyone can be compelled to hand over data. Crime is impossible.
  - CyberDildonics 10y ago
    If you sell btc for ltc on one site, split up the balances, then sell the ltc for btc on different sites, how exactly would someone piece that back together? The crypto currency exchanges would be transferring to and from their internal addresses. There would be no direct connection without knowing all the addresses the exchanges use, and they can (and should) use a different address for each transaction. > Crime is impossible. Lets not get carried away
    - UweSchmidt 10y ago
      The "sites" keep track of the transactions. This information could leak or law enforcement could successfully request this information. High level analysis could find btc-altcoin transactions that "fit" together, maybe with later transaction when the person will eventually cash out, and use other data thats not obvious to us right now. A difficult problem, but one that is straightforward, fashionable (big data), profitable (lots of money at stake), and potentially something that law enforcement/intelligence agencies work on. We tend to underestimate future capabilities ;)
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  > Good luck tracing that Subpoena the trading sites? An active adversary would be running the trading sites, though I doubt they'd waste that info on a low-level case. LocalBitcoins says they retain all messages for 180 days, up from their previous 90. Is that purely for internal disputes? Sure, if you're not doing anything illegal enough, you can get away with simply using sites in multiple jurisdictions and hoping it's too much of a pain. But let's not pretend it's not traceable. I'd only be happy with zero knowledge proofs (if they're real; I haven't understood the maths at all.)

fellellor 10y ago

Should have moved to Russia.