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Conducting crime using crypto is quite stupid these days, because there’s a large cottage industry of companies dedicated to de-anonymizing every single transac

by numair 5y ago

Conducting crime using crypto is quite stupid these days, because there’s a large cottage industry of companies dedicated to de-anonymizing every single transaction that occurs on the major blockchains. You know how people criticize these blockchains for having slow transaction rates? Yeah, well, combine that with the fact that all of the transactions are public and that they tend to be interconnected (it’s a network after all) and it isn’t hard to see why chain analysis isn’t particularly difficult. My point is, even if this guy didn’t use Coinbase and went way off into the wilderness, they’d find him. I think the FBI et al let a lot of the lesser crimes go “unsolved” so criminals don’t get too smart about this too easily.

authed 5y ago
What about ZEC and XMR?
ryanlol 5y ago
You are seriously overestimating the capabilities of blockchain analysis tools.
beeboop 5y ago
How does that analysis work? If I buy drugs on the internet over dark market, how does a company know that the wallet I'm sending money to belong to a drug dealer? And if they don't know stuff like that then what's the point of the analysis?
- numair 5y ago
  It’s amazing that people still don’t understand that a significant portion of “dark” markets are either created or controlled by law enforcement, often acting in a multinational collaborative effort that can go on for years without revealing itself to be a giant trap. This isn’t a conspiracy theory — it’s standard operating procedure. Again — for better or worse, a lot of crimes that matter to you and I are just not that important to people who view the full ecosystem of criminality from 10,000 feet up. Some of those dark markets are a lot darker than the others... Back to your point, how are you planning on converting your fiat into crypto, and are you sure that all of the other wallet addresses etc associated with the transaction are totally “clean?” And remember, ISPs etc are going to give up all of that info easily, so can you guarantee that those other wallets you used weren’t ever opened or accessed on the same network / IP / etc? Once you start aggregating data points it’s not terribly difficult for most transactions. Yes, there’s still some that are super hard, but you can imagine that de-anonymizing those would be a very fun detective game, rather than an impossibility that causes investigators to give up.
  - beeboop 5y ago
    Are you telling me that law enforcement is facilitating the sale of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of drugs over the course of many years on the internet? These dark markets work - you get real drugs in the mail. I find it a little hard to believe they'd put so much effort into it, have the competence to do it, and facilitate so much harm at the same time. Also compounded that some markets require Monero - why would they require something that makes their jobs harder?

by numair 5y ago

authed 5y ago

What about ZEC and XMR?

ryanlol 5y ago

You are seriously overestimating the capabilities of blockchain analysis tools.

beeboop 5y ago

How does that analysis work? If I buy drugs on the internet over dark market, how does a company know that the wallet I'm sending money to belong to a drug dealer? And if they don't know stuff like that then what's the point of the analysis?

numair 5y ago
It’s amazing that people still don’t understand that a significant portion of “dark” markets are either created or controlled by law enforcement, often acting in a multinational collaborative effort that can go on for years without revealing itself to be a giant trap. This isn’t a conspiracy theory — it’s standard operating procedure. Again — for better or worse, a lot of crimes that matter to you and I are just not that important to people who view the full ecosystem of criminality from 10,000 feet up. Some of those dark markets are a lot darker than the others... Back to your point, how are you planning on converting your fiat into crypto, and are you sure that all of the other wallet addresses etc associated with the transaction are totally “clean?” And remember, ISPs etc are going to give up all of that info easily, so can you guarantee that those other wallets you used weren’t ever opened or accessed on the same network / IP / etc? Once you start aggregating data points it’s not terribly difficult for most transactions. Yes, there’s still some that are super hard, but you can imagine that de-anonymizing those would be a very fun detective game, rather than an impossibility that causes investigators to give up.
- beeboop 5y ago
  Are you telling me that law enforcement is facilitating the sale of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of drugs over the course of many years on the internet? These dark markets work - you get real drugs in the mail. I find it a little hard to believe they'd put so much effort into it, have the competence to do it, and facilitate so much harm at the same time. Also compounded that some markets require Monero - why would they require something that makes their jobs harder?