Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Purpletown on August 16, 2013, 08:15 pm
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I see folks in other threads recommending localbitcoins as the best way of cashing out. This strategy formed in my head, and I figured if I can think of it then LE probably already has. It's a bit of fishing, but the potential for a bust is there:
1. Order something from a reputable, high-volume, well-established, etc. vendor on SR.
2. Allow the package to be delivered.
3. Monitor localbitcoins in the zip code and surrounding areas of the postmark. See who the top rated sellers are/who has the most reviews/etc.
4. Arrange an undercover meetup and buy bitcoins from that person. Identify them through license plate/tail/whatever. If there are multiple sellers, buy a btc from each, obtain the identities of each.
5. Run background checks (may not be indicative of vendor status, but can't hurt).
6. Place another order from that vendor. Watch the activity of the person BTC were purchased from. If a trip with a package to the post office follows, warrant/open the package. Make up a "dog smell" or "reasonable suspicion" story if they can't get a warrant for it, wouldn't stop them.
7. If it's SR, raid.
8. Optional, offer lighter sentence to control account and obtain PGP key, and honeypot away.
What I mean is, localbitcoins is only as anonymous as you make it. Somebody moving volume from localbitcoins is likely either a BTC day trader, or somebody moving illicit substances, or somebody moving money across borders/outside regulation. It's pretty easy to guess what the most common of those three profiles is. But anybody who is always available to sell BTC on localbitcoins is going to be somebody worth looking at.
So:
- Do localbitcoin meetups far away from your home and/or shipping location.
-Ride your bike to them and take a circuitous route home. Don't touch anything at the meetup other than a handshake and the money they hand you.
- Have a clean proxy with no clear relationship to you on paper sell your BTC for you. Or a family member in another city, or whatever. Anything to deindex your exchange location from your shipping location.
- Find out as much as you can about your localbitcoin buyers to be sure they're not LE
If LE are really on their game about this, they'd have a budget and a nonsuspicious address to order small quantities from every domestic vendor of note. They'd fingerprint the inside of every package. They'd have a database indexing vendor names to shipping zip codes. They'd have a buyer account with great stats. From there, the margin for error for an SR vendor becomes a lot smaller, and the circumstantial evidence becomes much more meaningful when coupled with even a shred of physical.
Just thinking out loud. Maybe this is overreaching, but it seems like it would be viable. Be careful guys.
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Very good post however you are not forced to meet people in person for selling Bitcoins. If you want cash then yes you have to meet in person but a lot of sellers on Local Bitcoin take other methods of payment. Look into Perfect Money as a new anonymous transaction system.
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Thanks. Yeah, you can buy that way, but the cash is one of the bigger reasons for using it, right? That's been my understanding anyway. People want to meet for cash, ostensibly because it's more anonymous.
Good point, anyway. Amend the above to say "IF you are meeting people to sell BTC for cash."
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Thanks. Yeah, you can buy that way, but the cash is one of the bigger reasons for using it, right? That's been my understanding anyway. People want to meet for cash, ostensibly because it's more anonymous.
Good point, anyway. Amend the above to say "IF you are meeting people to sell BTC for cash."
If you are smart, you don't shit where you eat. Meet for cash somewhere further away, like 30 miles or so at least. Not very convenient, but if it had to be done..
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Don't forget that LE doesn't have the money, manpower, or resources to initiate an operation as you described above without a VERY GOOD reason. Especially in this economy! It serves their interests for us all to believe they can, though. Keeps us in a fear state.
SS
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That's my motto , to assume and operate yourself as if you are being watched so in just case that one day you every are then you already have practice hiding your activities. I just heard about Perfect Money yesterday, saw an article saying that hackers and 'criminals' lol... are flocking to that site since Liberty Reserve got shut down as it's an anonymous payment system. I tried to sign up yesterday but no luck as the sign up page would freeze. Can anyone comment on the Perfect Money website from past exp? The site is :
CLEARNET: https://perfectmoney.is
The way I found out is that some sellers on LocalBitcoins only accept Perfect Money as payments so I'm guessing they got their bitcoins from some illegal activities so I'm thinking it might be a good alternative but not sure.
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Thanks for sharing. +1
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You should be concerned about localbitcoins as there are notices coming out about sellers and buyers both being setup. A buyer would meet the seller at a predefined point make the exchange and then have their friends pick pocket the cash back after the deal has been made.
The best way to get bitcoins is to mine them. You would then be paying your local electric company for bitcoins essentially. The second best is a seller who will allow you to deposit into an account.
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Like a lot of the LE attacks that we theorize about, this one is possible but expensive.
If localbitcoin transactions become more popular, I think we will see stings, especially on people who violate financial regulations, like the FinCEN limit of selling $1000 of BTC a day without a license. Some of those investigations could include drug dealing with BTC.
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Some of the big sellers on localbitcoins are miners
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Thanks for the insight folks. Granted the method described above could be budgetarily restrictive, but with the Forbes article about to come out and increased awareness of SR in the elite class in the US, I'd be surprised if departmental coffers WEREN'T given a little extra leeway in creative approaches to stymie "drug ebay."
Not to mention there are a lot of permutations that could be used... somebody moving volume on localbitcoins... take their photo... show it at local post offices asking if they regularly drop off a lot of packages (if it's a bulky item)... use that for leverage to watch them further/bring in local LE to distribute the costs.
The increased distribution of BTC mining combined with the increased hash difficulty combined with the early-on mining winners' stocks being diluted into the general economy is going to cause (is causing) the number of miners moving lots of coins to decrease substantially... that's just conjecture but it feels right.
Bottom line, just be careful with that particular method of exchange if your BTC come from SR.
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i thought of that too but i didn't post coz i didn't want to put any ideas into the heads of any LE that might be lurking here. still i bet they thought of it already too.