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Step One: Use a mix so the coins can't be tied to any specific drug deal by the time you cash them out

Step Two: Use anonymous ATM cards to cash them out so you don't need to explain the $100,000's that just landed in your bank account. I am pretty sure some of the cards can cash out $1,000 a day so get 100 of them and you could technically cash out 100k in a day , one vendor I know has like 8 of them all anonymous so thats ~$56,000 a week in cash out potential with none of it tied to a IRL identity other than the fake / stolen ones used to obtain the cards.

Another option is mix + cash out to western union and pick up with a fake ID

Another option is mix + cash out to another E-currency like pecunix or LR, lots of exchangers for those will cash out to WU for you plus it adds another layer of obfuscation. I still have yet to hear of anyone who uses pecunix + offshore exchangers being traced via a financial trail , it isn't bulletproof by any means but it is still a lot better than paypal, the pigs will need to get records from pecunix + records from the exchanger and that usually involves two different international jurisdictions. Pick the exchangers wire up with a fake ID and it makes it all the harder, now it takes three international jurisdictions and they will end up at a dead end with nothing but CCTV footage if they are lucky.
 
There are two distinct goals, the first is to avoid being traced via a financial trail. Correctly implemented and heavily used mixes do an excellent job of achieving this, better than anything else, especially blind mixes. The second goal is to avoid having unaccounted for money showing up under your name, and risking money laundering charges by being tied to a mix. This can be achieved in a few ways, anonymous ATM cards, anonymous / fake ID wire pick ups , layering traditional E-currency accounts / exchangers in between your bank account and the mix (less secure than the other options but better than nothing, also only good for hiding that you used a mixing service not from hiding that you obtained money) etc. 

Doing either of these things is good and some of them actually help achieve both goals (for example, cashing out with an anonymous ATM will help avoid you being traced through financial trails and it also hides that you obtained money, even if you don't use a mix or anything else), but using both sorts of technique together means you are golden.

What you don't want to be doing is cashing in via a bank account under your own name, using your real IP address at the exchanger, and then sending the bitcoins right to a vendor without mixing them. You also don't want to be taking your coins from SR and then with your real IP address making a deal with an exchanger to get money in your real bank account for them. Doing that is hardly better than using Paypal, although as long as you bounce Bitcoins around a few accounts that are not linked on the network layer you should obtain plausible deniability in an evidence context, but that does fuck all at preventing intelligence from indicating your involvement.

Quote from: kmfkewm on May 02, 2012, 06:10 am

That sucks if it is the case. You need to find a way to be anonymous when you buy and sell bitcoins. There is absolutely no point in using anonymous cash in methods if you connect to the exchanger from your real IP address. Buy a private VPS anonymously and connect to it via Tor, then use the VPS for exchanger stuff. Or find an exchanger that doesn't lock accounts that they see proxies connecting to. At the very least use open WiFi from a random location when dealing with them.

Yeah, but than you transfer the funds to a bank account under your name, ID, social security and everything?

I would cash out with an ATM card obtained with fake documentation / stolen identities if required, and shipped to a location that I can not be tied to (or to someone I trust to destroy their copy after transferring it to me, and then have them message me an encrypted copy of the magstrip data so I could encode it to a blank card and never have to physically pick anything up). I would also cash in anonymously, I hear there are IRC channels where people offer bitcoins for cash in the mail and such. At the very worst I would try to find a western union accepting exchanger and send with no ID or fake ID. Or maybe I would buy some greendot recharge packs and offer them for bitcoin. There are a lot of options, and they all have different levels of anonymity, but I can assure you that I would not cash in or out through a bank account under my real name. I don't care if it is absolutely legal to buy and sell bitcoins, or not, I care if I will be linked to a drug deal or at risk of being charged with money laundering if I use a mix.  Not to mention none of the mixing services are using blind mixing algorithms so the anonymity they can provide against the mix operator is zero.

Isolation of web browser FTW. Prevents all potential leaks. I can run flash , java, javascript, use applications that leak DNS in fifty different ways and be rooted and the attacker still can not get my real IP (although of course I don't do such dangerous things, at least there is a strong layer of protection even in worst case scenarios)

Welcome to the difference between evidence and intelligence. IP address has very rarely ever been used as evidence, but it is still enough to get a search warrant (during which time evidence will be collected), and it is still enough to get you put under surveillance. This precedent has already largely been followed in CP investigations, people who are raided based on IP address *intelligence* (ie: every single person busted with CP) almost always have charges dropped if no CP is recovered during the raid, but it has already also been established that an IP address *is enough probable cause for a search warrant* and nobody is going to get out of charges if additional evidence is found after they are raided / put under surveillance after they are identified by their IP address.

"But the only reason they knew I was mailing heroin is because they put me under surveillance after they found my IP address!" is not going to fly.

"But the only evidence they have that I am the one who sent them heroin is that they traced their communications with the person they made a heroin deal with back to me!" has essentially never been enough to get a conviction in court and usually the judge throws out cases where a traced IP address is the *only* evidence

you shouldn't use this list, let Tor pick nodes for you, they already mark bad nodes at the authority servers and your client will not select nodes with the 'bad' flag.

should be safe to use tor browser and non tor browser at same time, only risk is if you use both to access the same site with tor and without tor at the same time, your internet could die and that will leave a correlation that could deanonymize you.

Quote from: kmfkewm on May 03, 2012, 02:25 am

Quote from: Jimmy245 on May 03, 2012, 02:20 am

Quote from: Jimmy245 on May 03, 2012, 01:09 am

But what happens in such a society when some person or some group unjustly impinges on the rights of some other person or group?  What if the latter is the weaker?  Are they just fucked?

Okay, I think I partially answered my own question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_resolution_organization

What about weapons of mass destruction, such as nukes?  Surely society needs the state to (hopefully) minimize their use, no?

Private defense agencies will limit the ability of those they think would use nuclear weapons against their customers, to both obtain and use nuclear weapons. Every single thing the state does can be privatized. What about them do you find so magic that allows them to do things that other groups of people can not do?

It's not that I think there's any magic involved.  But I do think one has to ask/think about what the world would look like if nuclear weapons were in control of one or more corporations, as you so nonchalantly are suggesting.  I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with the "they won't kill me because I'm their customer" theory.

The government is a corporation that makes its money from extortion murder and enslavement, I would much rather a company that profits from defending customers has control over nuclear weapons.