Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: ONTHEGRIND on June 17, 2013, 11:26 am
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If i had a used laptop and sent a random person to buy a prepaid internet stick from the store and then i kept the laptop with the battery out and the netstick with sim chip removed untill i needed to check emails and then drove to a new location everytime and briefly used the internet, would i ever be traced?
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Generally, I would always assume that it is possible to be traced. The real question is whether or not it is probable.
The primary vulnerability with a prepaid stick is, I believe, in procuring it. I don't know what a 'random' person means to you, but if the person who bought the stick cannot be connected to you, and you use TOR with the stick, then yes, this method should provide high security. That is, there is a very low probability that you could be traced, given the resource limits and interests of LE.
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If i had a used laptop and sent a random person to buy a prepaid internet stick from the store and then i kept the laptop with the battery out and the netstick with sim chip removed untill i needed to check emails and then drove to a new location everytime and briefly used the internet, would i ever be traced?
To answer this question properly you need to give up a lot more information than you have. Would you probably be safe from the NSA, no. Would you probably be safe from the local Polish police, yes.
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I think it might depend somewhat on what vendor's internet stick you have. A lot of those have client software you must install in order to use it. So it might depend how much you trust that client software, i.e. what info does it leak when connecting. And of course make darn sure the stick doesn't have GPS per chance.
Different areas is probably smart each time. Probably mainly if you hit different cell towers each time. I don't know if the tower can triangulate your relative position but for safety I would assume it could.
Beyond that it doesn't seem too different from people using random open wifi hotspots.
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Someone could definely track that location the wifi stick was used at. If LE is looking for a vendor they would already know a general area you are shipping out of anyway though. I guess if you are just using it really fast and dissapearing that might be cool.
Honestly I probably wouldn't trust the device or sofware since it's probably not open source.
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I think the prepaid internet sticks normally use cellular broadband rather than wifi, though some I think include free wifi from that vendor's hotspots, usually only in bigger cities though.
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Your laptop will have an embedded LAN controller(network card). It could also be a wireless LAN. Either way, both have unique identifiable MAC addresses. These do not change. They can be changed with a bit of skill and hassle. If somehow a website you visit retrieves hardware profile data...for example make and model of motherboard...cpu....hard drives...how much RAM...lan ip address....ethernet controllers....more than likely will contain all your mac addresses(depending on how many network cards you have on your device).
tl;dr
If you keep buying prepaid internet and using it on the same laptop you're a high risk of being easily traced. Once that wireless software maps your hardware including all your MAC addresses and sends it back to base, your laptop is worthless in the sense of security.
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Your laptop will have an embedded LAN controller(network card). It could also be a wireless LAN. Either way, both have unique identifiable MAC addresses. These do not change. They can be changed with a bit of skill and hassle. If somehow a website you visit retrieves hardware profile data...for example make and model of motherboard...cpu....hard drives...how much RAM...lan ip address....ethernet controllers....more than likely will contain all your mac addresses(depending on how many network cards you have on your device).
tl;dr
If you keep buying prepaid internet and using it on the same laptop you're a high risk of being easily traced. Once that wireless software maps your hardware including all your MAC addresses and sends it back to base, your laptop is worthless in the sense of security.
Yes, but it is very easy to spoof a MAC address.