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Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: Kiwikiikii on August 05, 2013, 10:38 pm

Title: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: Kiwikiikii on August 05, 2013, 10:38 pm
Ive seen alot of people advocate using prepaid cards as a form of anonymous cash to use at APCs and on USPS site, but you are buying these cards on camera, whats to keep them from getting the purchase date/loc of a card and looking at the security footage?
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: flashlight5 on August 06, 2013, 09:53 pm
well.... they know that this mostly will lead nowhere so they are likely to go bust sb else.

wear a hat, dont buy it near to your house or a place you frequent, wear a hat, look down, no fancy cloth.... footage of that is gonna be worth about nil... unless you are suspected of big crimes, in which case experts spend house analyzing your movements and what have you.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: flashlight5 on August 06, 2013, 09:56 pm
+ leave your mobile phone at home ... duh
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: postrex on August 06, 2013, 10:28 pm
Buying something in-store and anonymously is pretty damn easy...

Cameras shouldn't be useful to LE if you spend a few minutes thinking about what you are doing.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: mbius298074 on August 07, 2013, 04:33 pm
Ive seen alot of people advocate using prepaid cards as a form of anonymous cash to use at APCs and on USPS site, but you are buying these cards on camera, whats to keep them from getting the purchase date/loc of a card and looking at the security footage?

Depends how long the location you bought it from keeps the footage for.

You are right, the cards are not truly anonymous:

you <- card <- cctv <- ???

At the end of the day, it all depends on what you use the card for.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: QualityMeds on August 08, 2013, 05:50 am
I'll tell you what's keeping them from looking at the footage - most CCTV cameras record footage on a 24 hour loop and erase all footage that is older than 24 hours. they only keep the footage in case of a robbery, and 24 hours is plenty for that purpose. A CVS is not going to store 30 days of past footage from all their cameras, which could be 10 cameras X 30 days of footage = 300 days = 7,200 hours of video, do you know how much information that is and how much it would cost to store?!

Say LE buys something from you and wants to backtrack to find out where it came from. On average, it took 3 days to reach them. They then have to find out who bought the postage from the APC at the post office, they have to get a warrant to find out that information from USPS, they have to also get a warrant to make Visa/Mastercard tell them where the CC was bought from. They also have to get a warrant to make CVS hand over the video footage from the day the card was bought. All that takes a lot of time, much longer than 24 hours. I doubt by then that the video from the store is still available, it has been recorded over. Those cameras are not meant for long-term investigations, they are meant for the store's protection in the event of a robbery. In that case, 24 hours is plenty.

QM

Ive seen alot of people advocate using prepaid cards as a form of anonymous cash to use at APCs and on USPS site, but you are buying these cards on camera, whats to keep them from getting the purchase date/loc of a card and looking at the security footage?
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: mbius298074 on August 08, 2013, 08:28 am
I'll tell you what's keeping them from looking at the footage - most CCTV cameras record footage on a 24 hour loop and erase all footage that is older than 24 hours. they only keep the footage in case of a robbery, and 24 hours is plenty for that purpose. A CVS is not going to store 30 days of past footage from all their cameras, which could be 10 cameras X 30 days of footage = 300 days = 7,200 hours of video, do you know how much information that is and how much it would cost to store?!

You are joking right?

1 hr of 640x480 ~ 350 MB
1 day ~ 8 GB
30 days ~ 240 GB
10 cameras ~ 2.4 TB, which costs $100 to store.

It's a lot easier than you think
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: postrex on August 08, 2013, 06:25 pm
mbius298074: If the footage is only 640x480, then why would you give a shit about the camera lol?  No way that could identify you well enough to matter.

And, QualityMeds is absolutely correct.  The vast majority of security cameras are run on 24hr loops, or keep footage for maybe at best a week. Heck, about half the cameras you see are not even recording.  Businesses only need enough footage to pull proof of the robbery that just happened an hour ago.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: MrBlack999 on August 09, 2013, 04:22 am
Yes security cameras unfortunately are a waste of time....a rent a cop dude probably wouldnt even know what to do or even how to bring up the info if LEO was even trying to find you. Not to mention the amount of info. being processed to try and pick up one person using a GC...yeah they're not gonna be on to you trust me...


Mr.Black
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: kingghb on August 09, 2013, 06:16 pm
It depends. A lot of stores are using megapixel cameras now and can see right at your face level. Wear a hat, keep you head down. I do this often. But like stated before don't buy the cards near your house, use a wifi hotspot to activate the card and spoof your MAC address. I have a cheap DVR at one of my offices and I record data I beleive it's 60 days and that's continuous recording. They are analog cameras so they don't take up as much data as megapixel cameras. I think the average for most places would be 30 days. I think banks are probably much longer than that. They may also store snapshots of motion and have some kind of extra storage devices they backup to remotely. It all depends on where your getting the cards from. 711/CVS/Rite Aide would probably be 30 days max (I'm only guessing here). I wouldn't do it at a walmart they invest heavily in their loss prevention technology so wouldn't suprised me if they retained large amounts of data for a long time.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: jonniedepp on August 10, 2013, 08:22 pm
It depends. A lot of stores are using megapixel cameras now and can see right at your face level. Wear a hat, keep you head down. I do this often. But like stated before don't buy the cards near your house, use a wifi hotspot to activate the card and spoof your MAC address. I have a cheap DVR at one of my offices and I record data I beleive it's 60 days and that's continuous recording. They are analog cameras so they don't take up as much data as megapixel cameras. I think the average for most places would be 30 days. I think banks are probably much longer than that. They may also store snapshots of motion and have some kind of extra storage devices they backup to remotely. It all depends on where your getting the cards from. 711/CVS/Rite Aide would probably be 30 days max (I'm only guessing here). I wouldn't do it at a walmart they invest heavily in their loss prevention technology so wouldn't suprised me if they retained large amounts of data for a long time.

Yep.. QualityMeds is a bit deluded regarding the data stored by cameras.. 24 hour cycles were common in the 90's, now that a tiny external $40 HDD can store 2+ TB, why in the world would stores cycle on such a short frame? When my cousin worked at wal-mart as security they kept data for 120 days and cycled from there.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: postrex on August 10, 2013, 10:01 pm
QualityMeds is a bit deluded regarding the data stored by cameras.. 24 hour cycles were common in the 90's, now that a tiny external $40 HDD can store 2+ TB, why in the world would stores cycle on such a short frame? When my cousin worked at wal-mart as security they kept data for 120 days and cycled from there.
Most setups I have seen keep at most a week of footage.  Technology might be cheep, but security camera systems don't exactly get updated very often if they are still perceived to be working.

Your anecdotal single-case evidence from a non-verifiable third party isn't helping your argument much.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: tg00 on August 11, 2013, 03:14 am
You know you can buy those cards on silk road right? lol
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: devilish on August 23, 2013, 10:06 pm
Can anyone suggest some prepaid cards for the uk? I tried to get an ibux card but was unable too.
Title: Re: Using prepaid cards, easy to trace back to point of sale?
Post by: Kiwikiikii on August 24, 2013, 12:16 am
theres always that IR hat idea.....