Topic: STOP SUPPORTING CRIMINALS AND SCAMMERS (Read 3749 times)

No, you understood wrong.

A transaction spending inputs from 1BBBBB... and 1AAAAA... Is sent.

Therefore we can conclude that Anon and Nonny are the same person since they were both able to sign the same transaction. This of course ignores coin joins, but those are easy to spot.

Knowing that your coin is now at 1Baksdjkuashdkahsdkahsiuy tells you exactly nothing. From that address it can go to a mixer/any combination of other stuff I've mentioned. At which point you're basically done. Funny and typical: https://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_just_chased_him_through_a_bitcoin_tumbler_and
No, you've posted a link to [perhaps someone's/perhaps pure fiction] dox, don't take threads like that seriously.
Am i understanding you right?
1. Anon posts address 1AAAAAAAA...
2. Anon steals
3. Nonny posts address 1BBBBBBBBB...
4. Coins stolen by Anon show up in 1BBBBBBBBB...
5. Via (given)aforementioned & some blockchain sleuthing, we conclude that
    5a. Anon controls 1AAAAAAAA... (given)
    5b. Is thief  (given)
    5c. Nonny controls 1BBBBBBBBB...  (given)
    5d. Anon = Nonny*
    5e. Anon controls 1AAAAAAAA... & 1BBBBBBBBB...*
How does blockchain sleuthing help us?

---

*Stolen coin showing up in 1BBBBBBBBB... proves only that Anon has sent [some] stolen coin to Nonny. Nonny can't stop Anon from sending him coin, BTC pushes transactions.

I am talking about two distinctly different things, analyzing the blockchain to find out where the Bitcoin is going, and finding identities of those who may be involved, potentially through their bitcoin addys.

True, blockchain analysis doesn't lead to IRL identities. But if someone posts an address on this forum, and then steals some bitcoin and sends a transaction that involves both the address the stolen bitcoin were sent to and the address he posted on this forum, then we can assume with reasonable confidence that that person on the forum was the thief. He can be doxxed, people can ask theymos (or governments can subpoena him) for all of the ip addresses ever used by that guy. If at one point he wasn't careful and accidentally used his real ip to access the forum, then people (governements) can go to the ISPs and ask for the information about whoever was using that ip address at whatever time that ip was used to log into the guys account and bingo, you got his IRL identity.

I posted a link to his dox, you must have missed it. Here it is again. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--326914

In the future, hopefully there will be payment processors who also act like the credit card intermediaries (essentially escrows) who can do that or similar.

If your credit card number was stolen, contact your bank....they are FDIC insured in the USA, and you'll get your money back. 

>analyzing the blockchain and getting identities
I'm guessing you're repeating stuff that you heard on the internet, so let's start with TL;DR of what blockchain analysis is all about.

Analyzing blockchain doesn't lead to IRL identities.  The malefactor would have to be mindnumbingly careless and stupid, reuse addresses, be unfamiliar with TOR, proxies, mixers, exchanges, casinos, etc., etc.  Such Keystone Cops' criminal counterpart would literally have to post his IRL identity, along with a bitcoin address where the stolen coin iz, and then publicly make a payment from said address. Only then will it be possible to link IRL identity and transaction.
e.g.
"I am Joe Schmoe from 27 Anystreet, Anytown. I control 1JArS6jzE3AJ9sZ3aFij1BmTcpFGgN86hA, where the stolen money's at; I'm sending  0.003813 BTC to 136pcbRqE5XeayiisdgAiJZezsiQufLH16 at [has to be some future time; after this is posted]."
Even this doesn't tie Joe Schmoe to the transaction--the real crook, the one actually controlling the address, could be impersonating Joe Schmoe, setting him up.  So we'll still need some corroborating evidence.
Of course, the transaction above must be outbound. Having taint from 'criminal' addys in yours is totally meaningless--BTC payments are pushed, any criminal can send a few BTC to your addy.

But even your tongue-in-cheek success story 'TF haz ur coinz,' is not linking transactions and identities.  
Knowing that Anon going by TradeFortress has your money is hardly more enlightening than knowing [BTC address] has your money. Not unless you know who TF is IRL, which you do not.

If I'm in error, please correct, and sorry in advance for straying so far off topic.

That is true, but you forgot about credit card fraud and identity theft. That is also a huge problem with fiat and it costs people millions of dollars a year. But it hasn't and can't be stopped. The only thing people can do is to be careful and not give away their credit card info away so that it gets stolen. Likewise, people with Bitcoin shouldn't give away Bitcoin and get scammed. Their is nothing to stop that, it is going to be a fact of using Bitcoin. What we need to change is the impression. Make Bitcoin seem just like fiat, used as actual money, not magical internet money used for nefarious purposes.

Are you sure ? i would doubt that .... probably you meant to say accounts or else you are certainly wrong as there are no more than 100k users on this forum.


it is difficult for users on this forum ..it takes 5 minutes for the NSA or CIA to dox it...and you can be caught before dinner

I agree....survival of the fittest!  Gullible, feeble minded, uneducated, common folk like grandma should not use bitcoin because they may get ripped off; only the shrewd,  sharp witted, educated, elite should use the technology.  I mean....why should we care if grandma gets ripped off?  It's not OUR money, right?

As much as I agree with it, that is the exact mentality that holds the technology down.  I'm just saying that for bitcoin to become more relevant, it needs to become adopted by a greater crossing section of the population, but that's not what's happening; it's being adopted by a more specialized demographic.  Currency gets its value off the backs of the average laborer and we should be able to put our brilliant minds together to come up with a solution that would include them in the game.  Finding a solution that could protect the average person would benefit us all.

or we could, you know, use our brains and not get scammed in the first place.

it's fiat money more and more and more in illegal traffics.
it's accepted every where by every one, you can spend in a lot of way, also you can deposit and move legal, without giving problem to anyone...
do you have any idea how many money get the criminals groups in the world?
TONS of cash, the entire btc capitalization can cover only a small part of yearly gross income!
and a small "classic" criminal, sometimes doesn't have the knowledge to use safely btc, and prefer cash without doubt...
only some "elite" can use btc... but for very big quantities of money...

I think I said that the "IMPRESSION is that bitcoin is used to engage in illegal, immoral, or otherwise 'dark market activities'."  I mean, why use bitcoin unless one is buying porn, gambling, avoiding taxes, laundering money, funding terrorists, dealing drugs, or initiating a scam?  That's its "table image" in pokerspeak.  I'm not saying that it doesn't have legitimate uses; I AM saying that it attracts people whom engage in those type of activities.  The hard question is:  How do we, as a community, enforce its tender?  On the streets we beat the fool that robs our homies and that acts as a deterrent.....how do we catch the keyboard pecker who hides behind an avatar to rob our people?

Nice find, I always thought something was very suspicious when these annoying newbies show up making demands of everybody.

Never said that analyzing the blockchain and getting identities would ever recover anyone's Bitcoin. And why would anyone selling goods or services to TF return the coins that TF gave them to his victims? That means a loss for them and no harm done to TF, which is entirely pointless.

Law enforcement?  Huh?  It's Sat. night, I'll assume you're drunk.
But you can track your coins to whoever has them now because blockchain and a little sleuthing. right?  Many people lost shitloads of money with TF, they'll give you the addys they paid from, why not make a quick fortune by figuring out who has them now?

TL;DR: No coins, from any major BTC scam/theft/hack were ever recovered by analyzing 'blockchain & some sleuthing.'

Gox: Mark Karpeles or whatever law enforcement seized his coins
TF: TF does, duh. Or he spent them. Doesn't really matter, but the guy that stole/scammed was TF. Here is his dox

In that case, mind telling me who has the Gox coins? Who has TF's coins? Who has ...well, you point to any major bitcoin theft/hack and tell me who got the coins. I mean, if your blockchain mojo is strong, i'm sure the millions at stake are worth 'some sleuthing,' no?
If I double dog dare you?

What if someone had posted the bitcoin address somewhere like this forum? Then they know what account it belongs to, and they can try to dox it through whatever means people figure out how to dox people.

But addresses won't do much of identification unless a person knows how much was dealt. He could search for the amount in the block chain and it could return some data pointing to the amount in the dealings, but that alone wouldn't do much in terms of identification.

 According to a Readers Digest commissioned study the odds of getting your lost wallet and money returned are 90:102
ie. 47% of the "lost" wallets were returned to their owners.

You can view article here - http://www.rd.com/culture/most-honest-cities-lost-wallet-test/

 I have a cool story about my wife's purse but she would kill me if I told it.  Suffice it to say we got it back with all the money (about $600USD), credit cards, passports, iphone and digital camera.  The person who returned it didn't even leave a name or contact number.

 

Yes, most of that is true. There are ways to identify who an address belongs to, but it is very difficult.

Although your original statement that the majority of transaction is for illegal stuff, I still say that is false. You can't know for sure. Actually, I'm fairly certain a large percentage of those transactions are actually for gambling.