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How a Bitcoin Evangelist Made Himself Vanish, in 15 Not So Easy Steps
- jak92 8y agoSounds good, but I suspect many of those steps won't actually work. That is, he hasn't truly vanished, maybe to online trolls who are into SWATTING.
- ghaff 8y agoIt’s a continuum. There’s a lot of difference between hiding from stalkers and online trolls and effectively hiding within a nation state that is devoting considerable resources to find you. It’s also somewhat a function of what you’re willing to give up to hide.
- stcredzero 8y agoSounds good, but I suspect many of those steps won't actually work. That is, he hasn't truly vanished, maybe to online trolls who are into SWATTING. If this sort of thing could be structured so that it could be delivered economically, there are a lot of YouTubers who would be a potential market for this sort of service. That level of security would be entirely appropriate for them and very valuable. This certainly fits into the category of things that don't scale.
- 1024core 8y ago"Bitcoin evangelist": The most anonymous way to buy things, of course, is to simply use cash.... Buys a house, in cash. Buys another "throwaway" house for his car, in cash. Buys car, in cash. And then claims: "Mr. Lopp estimates that his efforts to disappear have cost him about $30,000." Yeah, right.
- tom_ 8y agoI interpreted this as referring to the privacy stuff on its own: paperwork, legal advice, etc. - and, yes, the place for his car to live. (Which sounds like it probably wasn't very expensive.)
- Syzygies 8y agoAuto insurance is a legal requirement. My insurance company asks me to state where my car is habitually parked, and would consider a misleading answer fraudulent.
- RandomBacon 8y ago> Auto insurance is a legal requirement. Not in all states. In Texas, you do not need auto insurance if you can prove you have the financial ability to pay what an insurance company would otherwise pay.
- ghaff 8y agoIf you're serious about hiding your physical location, this honestly doesn't seem like much of a showstopper. It happens routinely anyway and, barring obvious red flags, it's going to be hard for an insurance company to discover the fraud.
- marcus0x62 8y agoMaybe $30k net. He could have sold the old house and car for a market price and then purchased a new house and car for a little less. It is entirely believable that he found a run-down shack in North Carolina to buy for less than twenty grand.
- ilamont 8y agoI am surprised it is possible to get a corporate credit card without a human’s name or identity tied to it.
- SilasX 8y agoIsn't it tied to someone via the corporation's ownership, still?
- ilamont 8y agoThe article said it was possible to register an LLC in those states without a name, and the CC is (apparently) tied to the LLC, not the owner or employee.
- SilasX 8y agoBut they still record the name of the person who registers it, right? It's not like they'll find a homicide tied to a CC and then be like, "oh, the CC is in the name of an ownerless corporation, I guess we're out of luck".
- cypherpunks01 8y agoThe article is slightly vague on this point. It says NV/WY/NM "don’t require corporations to record their owner", but that is not really accurate. The owners are recorded when the LLCs are filed with the secretary of state, however these states are simply willing to keep the identities of the owners private, without publishing them as most other states do. As in most other states, you do need a Registered Agent, but you can delegate this to an attorney or company who serves to receive legal notices, correspondence, etc. If there is any type of law enforcement investigation of the company, police would simply go to the secretary of state to determine the owners.
- stcredzero 8y agoThe owners are recorded when the LLCs are filed with the secretary of state, however these states are simply willing to keep the identities of the owners private How hackable/social engineering proof are these state agencies? How likely is it that they are already compromised by people acting as resources for federal and non-governmental organizations?
- mnw21cam 8y agoBitcoin is the very opposite of anonymous. Permanently recorded for posterity would be a better description. The best you can get is pseudonymous, and that's if you never actually spend any of the coin.
- Matticus_Rex 8y agoHe didn't get targeted for having BTC -- he got targeted for being very public and loud about promoting BTC.
- DonHopkins 8y agoMaybe this is actually a lesson about why not to be a bitcoin shill, instead of a lesson about how to vanish.
- OpenBSD-supreme 8y agoHaha buttmad nocoiner detected! :^)
- josu 8y agoLiterally from the Bitcoin white paper: "The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone." That Bitcoin wasn't private was clear since day 0.
- uponcoffee 8y agoPerhaps I'm missing something, but the DMV links him to his LLC which is linked to everything else. A quick records search on myself pulled up the requisite registration information, so I'm left to question how anonymous he actually is.
- seanalltogether 8y ago> That would make him easy to track down if someone learned the name of the L.L.C. Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico, however, don’t require corporations to record their owner. Mr. Lopp took advantage of that.
- uponcoffee 8y agoHis real identity is tied to the DMV, which ties him to the car, which is tied to the LLC; does this not deanonymize the LLC? From the LLC you get the rest of his large assets, namely his second house.
- duiker101 8y agoHow is the car tied to the LLC?
- uponcoffee 8y ago> When he purchased a new car, he picked a much less flashy model, and he used the L.L.C. to sign the papers. > To register his car, the D.M.V. insisted on a real name — not an L.L.C. — and a street address. As far as I can tell, the car belongs to the LLC, it's not in his name, but his real identity is a registered driver or some such to said car.
- erikig 8y agoFinal step, post it all on NYTimes! Seriously though, the toughest part about seeking anonymity is working against human nature and one's need for social validation.
- pjc50 8y agoAlso quite a good checklist for money laundering. I think buying a house in the UK now requires ID for this reason, and there's an ongoing campaign to close the loopholes for companies. I do remember when I was briefly the director of a tiny UK non-profit that the company identity information was mandatory .. except for a very small list of those who were exempt because of intimidation, after a nasty terrorist campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-the-disclosure-of-your-psc-information/restricting-the-disclosure-of-your-information https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-the-d...
- raincom 8y agoThese days, American big banks want to know who is controlling LLCs when accounts are opened. This is due to new KYC rules.
- cypherpunks01 8y agoThis article has so little to do with Bitcoin that I think a more descriptive title would have been: "How a Very Wealthy Person Conceals His Name and Address From The Public"
- CPLX 8y agoWealthy maybe but not very wealthy. A very wealthy person would have many more options. This is more of a guide for someone that has money to burn on this as a (serious) hobby but isn't ludicrously out of reach for most readers.
- cypherpunks01 8y agoI'd politely disagree, for most of the points yes, it's achievable for folks with disposable income, however I don't think the average reader (NYT or HN) can afford to buy 2 new homes and 1 new vehicle all in cash. > When he found a property to buy, he used the L.L.C. and a cashier’s check from the L.L.C.’s bank account to pay for the house in full. A mortgage was not going to be possible. > 9. Buy a boring car. > 10. Buy a decoy house to fool the D.M.V.
- stcredzero 8y agoyes, it's achievable for folks with disposable income People living in NC and TX generally have a lot more disposable income than people in CA at the same gross income level. (In that sense, those other places are more free.) pay for the house in full. A mortgage was not going to be possible. It's entirely possible for an LLC to lease property. I also know for a fact that there are people in Chinatown who, for a variety of reasons, can't get a mortgage, but they can get alternative financing to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of dollars. > 9. Buy a boring car. Very affordable. I just did this. > 10. Buy a decoy house to fool the D.M.V. In the Blues Brothers movie, I think one of the characters had Wrigley Field as their address. If you have friends at an organization like a church, you could use that address. The subject of the article did it with money. There are other people who do some things like this through their connections.
- chris_va 8y ago> To make sure his phone wasn’t keeping a record of everywhere he’d been — and potentially transmitting it to apps he was using — he turned off all its geolocation services. ... Of course, IMEI tracking (from tower registration) can get you pretty much all of this data anyway. This article is more about how to partially obfuscate your identity to private actors. It would be interesting to know how fast a professional could unravel all of this. Minutes? Hours?
- user9182031 8y agoIt looks like $300 is enough to buy the IMEI data. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-29/seems-you-can-track-someone-s-cellphone-for-300-lawsuit-ensues https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-29/seems-you...
- 0xCMP 8y agoYou'd need the IMEI from either knowing the LLC or knowing his location and successfully recording it, no? So maybe, like parent said, track him at an in-person conference appearance?
- mLuby 8y agoSatellite phone + satellite GPS would be better, right? Since money is apparently no object…
- compuguy 8y agoSatellite phones can be tracked..
- gumby 8y agoBut private actors can't easily map IMEI to user. Law enforcement typically can but the article doesn't suggest he's trying to defend against them, just private actors. Sure, individuals in law enforcement or the phone companies can be suborned (i.e. bribed) but all the procedures procedures described in the article are part of "defense in depth". And in fact some of the others make it harder to even know which IMEI to track. I don't know the IMEIs of the handsets of any of my friends -- or even my own, though I could look it up.
- badideaprojects 8y agoIt just all seems like cosplay. Time, expense and inconvience in order to gain anonimity from casual twitter followers? Will this protect him against a slightly funded and half motivated actor? Probably not. “Announcing Jameson Lopp as a speaker at Baltic Honeybadger 2019 Bitcoin conference #bh2019, (link: https://bh2019.hodlhodl.com https://bh2019.hodlhodl.com) bh2019.hodlhodl.com” https://twitter.com/hodlhodl/status/1099286199783481350 https://twitter.com/hodlhodl/status/1099286199783481350 Unless he is making a virtual appearance, just follow him or grab him there. EDIT: I should make it clear I’m not just referencing the article but also the twitter conversations I’ve seen from th author (swatting is a good reason to take some of these steps obviously). For example, https://twitter.com/lopp/status/920669889064570880 https://twitter.com/lopp/status/920669889064570880. He even comments himself in that thread “Local PD isn't going to send out the SWAT team again without calling me first”
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoThe article started out with him being swatted. If your threat model includes anyone that can obtain your address and the lack of morals to swat someone then the steps listed above should work fine. Going to a physical location and kidnapping is something far above the event that motivated the change.
- stcredzero 8y agoWill this protect him against a slightly funded and half motivated actor? Probably not. There is a large contingent of online craptivists who won't be bright enough or motivated enough to get to him, and the ones who are bright enough and motivated enough will probably be more interested in other people. just follow him or grab him there At least he's crossed the threshold of people having to do that. "I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you."
- DonHopkins 8y agoMaybe as a bitcoin shill, he should not have crossed the threshold of people WANTING to do that to him in the first place. Then at least he could still stay in touch with his friends and family, and so many people wouldn't be so motivated to extract their revenge on him. But no, running his illegal get-rich-quick pyramid scheme and fooling and exploiting other people was more important to him than his own and his dog's safety. If he wasn't just doing this for cosplay and attention, and was actually concerned about his privacy, then maybe he shouldn't have contacted the New York Times and had them write an article about him, huh?
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoA lot of the comments here are about how this wouldn't hold up to state actors. I don't see anywhere that indicates that this is the goal (except for maybe the title?)
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoI think it's clear that Lopp was seeking privacy from swatters and is well aware that privacy from the government is a moot discussion.
- gumby 8y ago> To register his car, the D.M.V. insisted on a real name — not an L.L.C. — and a street address. I don't understand: whose name appears on all the corporate vehicles driving around? A security van for Google, and Amazon delivery truck, a Brinks van: I'm supposed to think there's some employee's name on the title? What if that employee leaves?
- nexuist 8y agoCorporations can and do register cars in their names. I assume LLCs are not afforded the same privilege because they do not undergo the same level of regulation that a C corp does. When you're involved in a car accident, your insurance doesn't want to go through webs of shell LLCs to find out who they need to sue / file a claim with.
- ghaff 8y agoA quick search suggests that a title can be transferred to an LLC. (e.g. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/transfer-private-vehicle-llc-3668.html https://smallbusiness.chron.com/transfer-private-vehicle-llc...). IANAL.
- PeanutNore 8y agoA vehicle title and a vehicle registration are separate things, though. It's entirely imaginable that an LLC may be able to own a vehicle title while still not being able to register that vehicle.
- dublinben 8y agoVehicle registration is a common service offered by registered agent companies in the states mentioned in the article. An out-of-state license plate could attract unwanted attention though, which may be why Lopp chose not to employ this technique.
- phlowbieuq 8y agoI feel like another unstated risk here is that if someone can get his plate number through the DMV registration, they could buy tracking on it from one of the large ALPR firms and deduce his home location.
- mdtancsa 8y agoOne of my fav Wired articles was about this... https://www.wired.com/2009/08/gone-forever-what-does-it-take-to-really-disappear/ https://www.wired.com/2009/08/gone-forever-what-does-it-take...
- veb 8y agoWonderful article... but incredibly selfish. I'm pretty sure if I'd faked my death and then later on reached out to my wife, she would murder me and nobody would know.
- dnprock 8y agoIt's weird to see someone publishing info about how he's concealing. I'm hiding, here's how I did it. Perhaps, he sees an opportunity in concealing identity business.
- guillim85 8y agoHe may be testing his privacy framework. If publishing it doesn't make it weaker, it's a good framework. I guess he does not believe in security by obscurity.
- madrox 8y agoThat, and it's also possible he's taken more steps than described in this article.
- Newtonip 8y agoMaybe the article is a decoy and what he said is not how he did it.
- turc1656 8y agoI might be missing something here, but he's buying a bunch of stuff in the name of the LLC but they aren't actually LLC expenses. Isn't that a violation of tax law at minimum? Possibly something more serious like fraud, no? I have a side business and it's an LLC. I know I can't just start buying cars, houses, cell phones, etc. and claim them as business expenses. How is he doing that legitimately?
- dragonwriter 8y agoBuying them in the name of the LLC doesn't mean they are being claimed as business expenses.
- turc1656 8y agoReally? I didn't know that. I figured that was kind of a must, but apparently not.
- CPLX 8y agoAll you have to do is properly label any such spending as an owners draw or disbursement. As long as you properly report any income received and don't call personal spending a business expense you're not doing anything wrong.
- turc1656 8y agoInteresting. Thanks. I guess since I keep everything perfectly separated I didn't even know that was a possibility.
- lgregg 8y agoSo, does he just never visit family and friends to maintain privacy? Sounds lonely.
- sunstone 8y agoI would be interested to know how he arranged his DNS service.
- voidmain 8y agoThe New York Times somewhat ironically won't let me read this article in private mode. "You're in private mode. Log in or create a free account to continue reading."
- arisAlexis 8y agoas typical the clickbait title implies much more than reality