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Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

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Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#61

Post by technofiend »

duckwheat wrote: post #57
technofiend wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still getting the occasional piece of mail for previous tenants and I've owned my house since 2004. Of course rampant package theft means anything sent to my house is stolen within minutes, so all you're doing is buying free stuff for thieves. I've long ago switched to a post office box.

Is package theft really that bad/fast where you live?

It's entirely anecdotal of course but my wife bought a one-of-a-kind dress (trunk show sample) and it was stolen out of our mailbox. We found the packaging for another dress that came separately but couldn't find her $1,000 dress.

That was three or four years ago and I've had a PO Box ever since. So I thought my neighbors on nextdoor were exaggerating and then I was forced to have a package delivered because Google uses FedEx Ground for their slowest and cheapest option.

It was less than an hour between email notification of package delivery and my checking to find it gone. So add some buffer time in case the driver was slow to update the package status but still I'd say an hour to an an hour and a half was rotten luck or people are actively searching for packages. Probably both to be honest. I'm sure there's lots of confirmation bias there.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#62

Post by duckwheat »

technofiend wrote: post #61
duckwheat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is package theft really that bad/fast where you live?

It's entirely anecdotal of course but my wife bought a one-of-a-kind dress (trunk show sample) and it was stolen out of our mailbox. We found the packaging for another dress that came separately but couldn't find her $1,000 dress. That was three or four years ago and I've had a PO Box ever since. So I thought my neighbors on nextdoor were exaggerating and then I was forced to have a package delivered because Google u…

That sucks. I am in the suburbs of a fairly small city along the gulf coast, we mainly have issues with package theft in November/December. People just follow the UPS truck.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#63

Post by Casseres »

mtgx wrote: post #36
dkersten wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Zcash perhaps, I guess?

Don't forget to use shielded addresses, though.

And only use shielded addresses:

http://jeffq.com/blog/on-the-linkability-of-zcash-transactio...

At least with Monero you don't have to worry about that because everything is private by default.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#64

Post by Casseres »

nukeop wrote: post #6

Ok, so just move to Monero. Or use a mixer. Mindblowing, I know.

Mixers are a bad idea. First, you have to trust that there's no collusion with any entities. Secondly, you have to hope that you don't get tainted coins in return.

A more thorough explanation:

https://moneroforcash.com/monero-vs-dash-vs-zcash-vs-bitcoin...

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#65

Post by escapologybb »

alexfoo wrote: post #39
jstanley wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the postman who delivers the post will notice that he's delivering the odd bit of post for somebody who doesn't live there.

I get at least 2 or 3 letters a week for previous residents of my house (and I've owned it for 10 years). Probably 1 or 2 packages a year too. (Yes I follow the recommended process for dealing with it.) UK: https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/... " It's my address but someone else's name We deliver to addresses rather than names so our advice here would be to put a cross through the address an…

Mildly off topic but I was a postman for a few years and the advice you linked to will get you almost all the way. Next time you get a letter that isn't for you put a big circle around the label, then put a cross through the circle. Don't write anything on it, but next time you see the postman give it directly to him/her/them and ask them to put it in with the blind letters. That will work. Probably.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#66

Post by dkersten »

Casseres wrote: post #63
mtgx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to use shielded addresses, though.

And only use shielded addresses: http://jeffq.com/blog/on-the-linkability-of-zcash-transactio... At least with Monero you don't have to worry about that because everything is private by default.

Yeah, Monero seems a bit more user friendly in that respect.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#67

Post by ineedasername »

gmueckl wrote: post #45
Invictus0 wrote: post #12

Did I misread the article or does they're entire hack consist solely of scraping the internet for places you may have posted your public address? This is the oldest trick in the book.

I think you need to read the story differently: even when using only such a low bar, you can find lots of evidence. As the article mentions, there are other known ways to find suspicious Bitcoin wallets and their owners on top of that.

That's how I interpreted it: even using the simplest and easiest methods, they were able to tie transactions to individuals.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#68

Post by LyndsySimon »

This isn't a "drug" problem, this is a "government" problem.

What happens if the US federal government goes authoritarian right-wing, and you get raided because you donated some bitcoin to WikiLeaks in 2012?

What happens is they go authoritarian left-wing, and you get raided because you donated to WikiLeaks in 2016?

Having permanently-visible transactions is a huge liability; we don't know what the future holds.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#69

Post by sli »

gomox wrote: post #53
nukeop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seriously think people order drugs to their own addresses, right?

Consider this: People order pills online on an anonymous site designed for people to be untrackable, using anonymous methods of payment, and then ingest the aforementioned pills they received in the mail from China without a second thought. I would say compared to getting poisoned with unknown substances, trouble with the law seems like a distant secondary issue.

This is certainly a concern, but I'm not convinced it's all that rampant. You can't make much money if you 1) poison your customers, or 2) are a brand new seller (e.g. if you make a new account after every sale to avoid stacking negative community ratings).

And if the buyer isn't testing their drugs before doing them, that's on the buyer. That's the reality of that market.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#70

Post by dmix »

xya3453 wrote: post #42
amelius wrote: post #3

> ... the evidence of that drug deal may still be hanging around in plain view of law enforcement, even years after the Silk Road was torn off the dark web. How about your delivery address being in the merchant's raided servers?

Plausible deniability.

Seriously, I've never heard of anyone getting arrested from some home address on a server or bitcoin data. At the very minimum the police would need to do what's called a "controlled delivery" to the persons house and confirm the recipient identity and confirm they are receiving the package. Then they'll have a warrant prearranged and verify they opened the package upon entry into the house.

Alternatively, they'll nab someone as they pick up a package at a post office and driving home.

Even in that advanced scenario the people still have a significant degree of plausible deniability, as anyone can send anyone else a letter. So there better be some good proof the person was also the person who bought the Bitcoin and good proof that it was sent to some dealer/drug site.

Plus most of those sites required the user PGP encrypt their address when sending it via the web app, so it's not necessarily accessible on the server even if they have the raw DB.

This article is spreading complete FUD.

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