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Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

arstechnica.com

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Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#61

Post by ringaroundthetx »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #39
vocatus_gate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not wrong, Monero is the only crypto (currently) enforcing fully private transactions by default. In a reddit thread about the AB bust someone pointed out that they weren't able to determine the amount of Monero he had, vs. listing exact amounts of his Eth, zcash, etc. edit for clarification: I wasn't saying he wouldn't have been caught, only that Monero offers additional benefits beyond some of the other coins…

Is that even in the case where the server is seized, or when "Dread Pirate Roberts" leaves his laptop with passwords & encryption keys open when being arrested? Or just by default if the attacker is looking at network activity but doesn't have access to the machine?

The Monero daemon does not know what addresses the deposits came from. So even if the server was seized there would not be any information to glean about this.

Withdrawals in the db may have addresses and amounts, although RingCT upgrades make this more and more useless, but even without RingCT the addresses do not correspond to any information in the blockchain. The best case law enforcement would have had, before RingCT is to have seized the database of several exchanges, where users transferred Monero directly between both exchanges and they could see addresses in both databases. In this respect, Monero is much more akin to accounts at financial institutions, where subpoenas are needed to glean any information at all. But further enhanced by retaining the individual control of private wallets that cryptocurrency allows, where financial institutions are an embellishment to temporary user experience problems.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#62

Post by ryanlol »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #58
ryanlol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero doesn't help if the FBI manages to get a copy of your DB with trade histories etc. With BTC-e being hosted on unencrypted servers in Germany, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have been able to get it.

What scenario are you describing exactly? What exact problem are you trying to thwart? A server containing a user's trade histories would show amounts deposited with Monero. But it would not contain the addresses those deposits came from, the Monero daemon doesn't know this. Similarly, the user's withdrawals wouldn't be to an actual address that they could cross reference. RingCT gives people one time use addresses.…

>What scenario are you describing exactly?

The scenario where an exchange gets shut down by LE, like BTC-e here.

>What exact problem are you trying to thwart?

The problem of exchanges getting shut down by LE, like BTC-e here.

Monero is great, I'm buying more every day, but it doesn't solve the issues exchanges may face.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#63

Post by [deleted] »

sna1l wrote: post #47
repomies6999 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if the guy had ran a monero exchange he wouldn't have been arrested, I guess?

Also you have to be careful not to store your Monero on something like Shapeshift as they can easily keep records and under some regulation I believe.

[deleted]

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#64

Post by mrb »

rayiner wrote: post #40
rcarrigan87 wrote: post #13

"Conventional financial institutions comply with anti-money laundering regulations that make it difficult for criminal organizations to use their payment infrastructure." Yes, yes of course. Just like how HSBC physically expanded their teller windows to make it easy for Mexican drug cartels to make cash deposits. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-execut...

Source? It sounds like a game-of-telephone version of what's in the HSBC deferred prosecution agreement: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/... . Notably, the inference of intent is completely different under your version. > 50. The Department alleges, and HSBC Bank USA and HSBC Holdings do not contest, that, beginning in 2008, an investigation conducted by HSI’s El Dorado Task Force, in conj…

"Source?"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-...

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#65

Post by ringaroundthetx »

ryanlol wrote: post #62
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What scenario are you describing exactly? What exact problem are you trying to thwart? A server containing a user's trade histories would show amounts deposited with Monero. But it would not contain the addresses those deposits came from, the Monero daemon doesn't know this. Similarly, the user's withdrawals wouldn't be to an actual address that they could cross reference. RingCT gives people one time use addresses.…

>What scenario are you describing exactly? The scenario where an exchange gets shut down by LE, like BTC-e here. >What exact problem are you trying to thwart? The problem of exchanges getting shut down by LE, like BTC-e here. Monero is great, I'm buying more every day, but it doesn't solve the issues exchanges may face.

The crux of the BTC-E event seems to be from blockchain analysis, given the information we have. In which case Monero would have stopped this investigation.

In general though, the currency has nothing to do with the exchange's problems? I'm not really sure what you are imagining. Decentralized solutions like EtherDelta and upcoming cross chain solutions are going to be accelerated by this culling.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#66

Post by ryanlol »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #65
ryanlol wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What scenario are you describing exactly? The scenario where an exchange gets shut down by LE, like BTC-e here. >What exact problem are you trying to thwart? The problem of exchanges getting shut down by LE, like BTC-e here. Monero is great, I'm buying more every day, but it doesn't solve the issues exchanges may face.

The crux of the BTC-E event seems to be from blockchain analysis, given the information we have. In which case Monero would have stopped this investigation. In general though, the currency has nothing to do with the exchange's problems? I'm not really sure what you are imagining. Decentralized solutions like EtherDelta and upcoming cross chain solutions are going to be accelerated by this culling.

>The crux of the BTC-E event seems to be from blockchain analysis, given the information we have. In which case Monero would have stopped this investigation.

You're wrong.

  shuf btc-e.sql|head -n 100|sprunge
  Using input from a pipe or STDIN redirection...
  http://sprunge.us/JNIP
>In general though, the currency has nothing to do with the exchange's problems?

You're right, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#67

Post by mrow84 »

DannyBee wrote: post #49
jaclaz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The bank didn't adjust the teller windows but people designed boxes to perfectly fit through the teller windows. The one thing does not exclude the other. It is entirely possible that previous windows were too small and, after they were enlarged, in order to optimize the deposit operation some special boxes were put in use.

Possible, but that set of facts do not appear to be alleged anywhere. If this was thought to be true, it would have definitely been alleged in the prosecution agreement. IE everything is entirely possible

"In some branches the boxes of cash being deposited were so big the tellers' windows had to be enlarged."

From the article reference here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14857385

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#68

Post by zimbatm »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
vkou wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that the informed, consenting adults who have funds in that exchange will soon discover exactly why dealing with an unregulated, secretive foreign financial company (Whose owners keep their identities secret, so that they won't be arrested) is a bad idea. HSBC has none of these properties (Which are more important to their legitimate users.)

If you're keeping coins on any exchange -- even Coinbase -- they are no longer your coins. You've just loaned them. And you may eventually discover why that is a very bad idea. No one thinks "It could happen to me" until it's too late. Stop keeping coins on exchanges. Stop using third party wallets and other software. If you want to invest in coins because they might go up, that might make sense, but at least treat i…

Same for PayPal accounts, this isn't limited to e-coins.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#70

Post by vocatus_gate »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #59
nubela wrote: post #26

This is the inherent problem with Bitcoin. It's just not anonymous! Imagine a dollar that has a history of every transaction written on it. Monero is the coin you want.

Monero, dash and zcash are the big three that have anonymity right? Any other big coins in the space?

Unfortunately Monero is the only one doing it right: all transactions are enforced private by default. Dash and zcash offer confidential transactions as an opt-in feature, but so few people use them that it draws additional scrutiny when they do.

At this point in time it's "Solo Monero" for privacy.

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