Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#71

Post by dmix » Fri, Jan 26, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

philfrasty wrote: post #4

I read in a different article that the creator of another darknet market ran their entire operation on a WooCommerce store with a nice MySQL database...of course carefully „preserving“ that precious customer data.

You're missing a big part of how these Bitcoin markets work. People would use PGP encryption when sending their addresses through the web app to the dealer/vendor, the vendors PGP public key.

So even if law enforcement got access to the database they wouldn't necessarily have any customer addresses, except for the minority of people who got lazy.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#72

Post by slededit » Fri, Jan 26, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

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.

Because shielded transactions take a lot of CPU power many ZCash clients (especially exchanges) are refusing to send to private addresses. It really reduces the private pool and reduces the anonymity.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#73

Post by Daviddd » Fri, Jan 26, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

There was an similar post on bitcoincommerce.nl its written in Dutch though.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#74

Post by nukeop » Fri, Jan 26, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

Casseres wrote: post #64

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...

I'm sorry but you've been misinformed. This article is also factually incorrect in many regards. There are no "tainted" coins. For example this excerpt from your article is completely false:

"Not all Bitcoins are equal and have the same value. Some Bitcoins have been blacklisted and blocked by several entities, making those coins less valuable than the rest. If you receive Bitcoins that were used in the past for illegal purposes, then your Bitcoins could be blacklisted even though you had nothing to do with the illegal activity."

Bitcoins are interchangeable and indistinguishable; exactly alike. They are not physical objects and carry no identifying marks. Their only property is their amount.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#75

Post by gomox » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

sli wrote: post #69

gomox wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure poisoning customers is bad for business, but the stakes are as high as it gets (pun intended).

Statistically speaking I'm sure a very low percentage of people that do drugs get in trouble with law enforcement as well.

Still, it speaks volumes about the buyers' risk aversion which was the original point.

That being said you have a good point about testing. Personally I'm not a consumer so I don't know how widespread testing is.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#76

Post by Casseres » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 12:51 AM UTC

nukeop wrote: post #74

Casseres wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'm sorry but you've been misinformed. This article is also factually incorrect in many regards. There are no "tainted" coins. For example this excerpt from your article is completely false: "Not all Bitcoins are equal and have the same value. Some Bitcoins have been blacklisted and blocked by several entities, making those coins less valuable than the rest. If you receive Bitcoins that were used in the past for ille…

> They are not physical objects and carry no identifying marks. Their only property is their amount.

True. It's not the "bitcoin" itself that's being tracked and tainted, it's the transactions between addresses that are being linked.

An amount of Bitcoin is just the balance of an address. However a property of Bitcoin is that transactions contain the plaintext address where an amount of Bitcoin was deducted and the plaintext address where the corresponding amount of Bitcoin was credited.

Thus you can track an amount of Bitcoin as it was held by different addresses.

While it's intangible, it is quantifiable and traceable.

Re: Bitcoin drug deals could haunt people for years

#77

Post by acdha » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #51

pc86 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're seeing people deported for minor crimes committed decades ago, before they were legal adults [citation needed] Not that I don't believe you but I honestly haven't heard of this.

The DACA "Dreamers" are all potentially in this category. There's also this case: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/01/2... > According to his “notice to appear” from the Department of Homeland Security, Niec’s detention stems from two misdemeanor convictions from 26 years ago. In January 1992, Niec was convicted of malicious destruction of property under $100. In April of that year, he was conv…

That was the most recent example I had in mind. Also things like https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/us/undocumented-husband-depor... which are both heartless and pointless.