Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: ArnoldLayne on December 11, 2011, 09:55 pm
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It seems to me that exchanging moneypak and bitcoins via a user on this site may not be very secure. Green Dot (company that makes MP) can track any moneypak code to store, register, date, and time purchased, and therefore to surveillance images. So if a SR moneypak to BTC provider is compromised in any way, then so are all of the users who purchased BTC from that provider. Furthermore, it seems that such providers may be flagged by Green Dot for suspicious behavior. I'm assuming that providers deposit the moneypak onto a prepaid card or some other account. Green Dot can then see that MPs purchased from locations all over the country (world?) are being deposited into one account, which might be seen as suspicious.
I'm probably just being overly paranoid, because LE probably isn't interested in connecting surveillance images to identities of people who are buying small quantities of contraband, but paranoia isn't such a bad thing to have here.
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No you are not being paranoid. First there are KYC (know your customer) rules and then there are AML (anti money laundering) protocols... all part of a global "task force" put together after 911. ALL financial institutions are required to track "structuring" The systems auto-generate "SAR" suspicious activity reports. Eventually these reports will go into big rational databases running complex algorithms, neural nets, and predictive models. In fact the systems are already in place, they are routine fare in the field of Data Mining as used by the big Credit Card companies on behalf of consumer product companies and the mega retailers... It's all bits and bytes. The problem is manpower not computing systems. At some point, you need to physically handle the file and "talk" to the suspect.