3 ms·

It is actually the perfect means to buy illegal things if you are the purchaser. A person can use cash at a bitcoin machine and buy them anonymously. Walk up to

by 14 7y ago

It is actually the perfect means to buy illegal things if you are the purchaser. A person can use cash at a bitcoin machine and buy them anonymously. Walk up to the machine with a mask on and when you leave no one knows who you are and now you have bitcoin no one knows who owns it. If you order drugs and the police show up you can just say you had no idea why anyone would send those. I don't know how the seller easily gets his money out and wouldn't really care as long as my order went through. The public ledger would show that bitcoin was sent but no identity as to by who. Make a new wallet each purchase and have very little linking you to illegal purchases. Edit: upon reading up on the bitcoin ATM's it looks like some of them have started requiring phone verification where they will text you a sms, in that case you could need to use a burner phone creating one more step in the process of remaining completely anonymous. But certainly a doable step.

m-p-3 7y ago
There are many ways to get indirectly caught, either with physical proofs (fingerprints, gait recognition) or metadata (triangulating your cellphone signal to determine where you were approximately at a given time. None of this are definitive proofs, but it adds up. And showing up at an ATM with a mask will definitely attract some attention. I wouldn't be surprised if they further improve their system and requires facial detection (not necessarily recognition) as well.
- 14 7y ago
  Yes but looking at the original post I was replying to "I have never understood the appeal of BitCoin as a means of purchasing or selling illegal materials. The entire transaction history is literally encoded in a public ledger!" The point I was trying to get across is that with some effort bitcoin can be anonymous. Right now the machines don't require facial anything and I can tell you those machines are all over Vancouver. I did not mean walk in with a Halloween mask, although with Halloween coming it would be a fine time to go in to the machine and do such a thing with little people looking at you. Yes there are other risks of being caught, an adjacent store camera or cell tower pinging like you say so you would need to be aware of these and other risks and minimize as many as possible. This is a lot of effort for some people but for others the risk of being caught buying illegal items with cash is way to high. Also, where can you go and buy almost pure drugs, certainly not the streets of Vancouver. The dark net already has a reputation of selling better quality drugs as the sellers get rated on the dark markets. Also the availability of certain drugs just isn't there on the streets where on the darknet every thing imaginable is available. So that is why I believe bitcoin makes an appealing medium to purchase illegal materials. How the person selling these items gets their money I am not sure. Ordering drugs to your door always carries a risk but at least with everything for the payment separate you can deny it. Hand full of cash and drugs when the cops show up it is game over.

by 14 7y ago

m-p-3 7y ago

There are many ways to get indirectly caught, either with physical proofs (fingerprints, gait recognition) or metadata (triangulating your cellphone signal to determine where you were approximately at a given time. None of this are definitive proofs, but it adds up. And showing up at an ATM with a mask will definitely attract some attention. I wouldn't be surprised if they further improve their system and requires facial detection (not necessarily recognition) as well.

14 7y ago
Yes but looking at the original post I was replying to "I have never understood the appeal of BitCoin as a means of purchasing or selling illegal materials. The entire transaction history is literally encoded in a public ledger!" The point I was trying to get across is that with some effort bitcoin can be anonymous. Right now the machines don't require facial anything and I can tell you those machines are all over Vancouver. I did not mean walk in with a Halloween mask, although with Halloween coming it would be a fine time to go in to the machine and do such a thing with little people looking at you. Yes there are other risks of being caught, an adjacent store camera or cell tower pinging like you say so you would need to be aware of these and other risks and minimize as many as possible. This is a lot of effort for some people but for others the risk of being caught buying illegal items with cash is way to high. Also, where can you go and buy almost pure drugs, certainly not the streets of Vancouver. The dark net already has a reputation of selling better quality drugs as the sellers get rated on the dark markets. Also the availability of certain drugs just isn't there on the streets where on the darknet every thing imaginable is available. So that is why I believe bitcoin makes an appealing medium to purchase illegal materials. How the person selling these items gets their money I am not sure. Ordering drugs to your door always carries a risk but at least with everything for the payment separate you can deny it. Hand full of cash and drugs when the cops show up it is game over.