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by ipt 5089 days ago
Would purchasing a Visa prepaid card and using that to donate be suitably anonymous (or do you need ID to buy one of those?)
3 comments

Even easier, donate to FDNN without directing the funds to Wikileaks. Part of it will go to WL, but the rest will go to laquadrature (fighting ACTA among other things), some free software associations and some independent ISPs.
Interesting question. It seems you can buy them with cash from local places like Dollar Stores and such, and use for in person purchases with no id. But on line verification uses your provided name, billing address and phone number as validation it is a legit purchase and not a stolen card. So you have to register the card before online use with this information. You are not required though to provide true information here, it just needs to be information that matches what you give when you make the purchase. I could find no reference that SSNs are required, but perhaps some issuers require it. That would be important to know which one since most states allow false names as long as not used for fraud, but there's now a federal law that makes using an incorrect SSN a crime.
I tend to get a Visa gift card from at least one person as a holiday gift. I spend them online without registering them. The big retailers expect lots of gift card buyers after the holidays and don't seem to be doing AVS.
Prepaid cards (bought in the US anyway) need a SSN before they work online.
I assume he is talking about Visa/Mastercard gift cards. If so then they do not need an SSN number to work online. At least here in the USA. You can pretty much enter whatever information you want.
Hmm, the last time I tried one, bought with cash at a 7-11, I needed to go on their website. and enter a lot of information before I could use it online. Are the gift-cards something else? Maybe I am just recalling incorrectly and SSN wasn't one of the things they asked.
They don't in the UK either, sometimes you need to register them (and supply the same info when purchasing) but you can put in whatever info you want there...