[opendais]

I'm not sure this part is true.

You can buy servers and server parts anonymously via places like Craigslist with cash. At which point, you just need a fake ID to trick the Colo and pre-pay them for 12 months in cash w/o being recorded. Its possible given I've run into colos that were run by college kids with just a single cage. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't turn the offer down and just say you were "too busy" to set it up yourself due to work.

[devconsole]

Then the authorities trace the server component to the person who sold it on Craigslist. And if your opsec isn't perfect, you're busted right there: Did you forget to set up a new email account for all of your craigslist transactions? Did you forget to set them up and connect to them only through Tor?

Did the person you met with write down your license plate number? Seem unlikely? Think again. Cameras write down your license plate number as you drive. Constantly. So the authorities will simply look up where the person drove to meet you (parking lot, etc) and any cars that drove to the area at the time. You'll probably be on a highway at some point, which is a highway of data collection. There weren't that many people who drove a long distance to go to the meetup area. Now the authorities know which of 1,000 people you are. The more times you do this, the fewer the number of suspects there are, until they're down to a number that they can just investigate one by one. Then you're caught.

Or did you take your cell phone with you, and did the person who sold you components take their cell phone? Yes, you're caught. The operation in the previous paragraph, which assumes that you're just driving to meet someone and both parties are leaving their cell phones at home, is already busted. So if you've taken your cell phone on top of it, then it's even easier. Anything involving correlating cell phone movements is trivial for authorities. And if you don't take your cell phone, how are you going to let them know you've arrived? What if they're late? Or you're late? Now you have two problems: Set up a burner phone in an anonymous way (hello, in-store security cameras) and then never, ever use this cell phone in the same place as your main cell phone. Not a good position to be in.

I've ignored the whole "fake ID" aspect, because if you're in a position where someone is putting their face onto a forged legal document, that person is going to be persuaded by authorities to betray you. And if that person is you, then obviously you're caught at this point. Your face is probably on Facebook, and facial recognition software is getting pretty good nowadays.

In general, physical ops are the most dangerous of all ops, and should be avoided until every other avenue has been explored. Better to anonymize your cash (which is also a physical op) and then use that cash to rent a single remote server.

[virtue3]

you are probably going to be one of the few people to meet up and do a cash drop for the server. Which is automatically going to make you standout to the hosting guys. Thus, MUCH more identifiable.

[opendais]

'course. But how else are you going to pay? Stolen credit card?

[opendais]

> Then the authorities trace the server component to the person who sold it on Craigslist. And if your opsec isn't perfect, you're busted right there: Did you forget to set up a new email account for all of your craigslist transactions? Did you forget to set them up and connect to them only through Tor?

If your opsec isn't perfect you are busted anyway. You already said that in the OP. ;)

> Did the person you met with write down your license plate number? Seem unlikely? Think again. Cameras write down your license plate number as you drive. Constantly. So the authorities will simply look up where the person drove to meet you (parking lot, etc) and any cars that drove to the area at the time. You'll probably be on a highway at some point, which is a highway of data collection. There weren't that many people who drove a long distance to go to the meetup area. Now the authorities know which of 1,000 people you are. The more times you do this, the fewer the number of suspects there are, until they're down to a number that they can just investigate one by one. Then you're caught.

We are assuming a criminal here. You use a fake license plate that you change regularly. You also move regularly and pay cash. Once again, your OpSec needs to be perfect but it is the only real obstacle. If they know which cluster of 1,000 people you are, your license plate gets changed, and you leave at the end of the month forever...they'd have to investigate all 1,000 people to maybe-possibly-id-you then try to figure out who and where you changed your license plate. But you are assuming they can trace the hardware of an anonymous cash transaction on craigslist again. I highly doubt that.

> Or did you take your cell phone with you, and did the person who sold you components take their cell phone? Yes, you're caught. The operation in the previous paragraph, which assumes that you're just driving to meet someone and both parties are leaving their cell phones at home, is already busted. So if you've taken your cell phone on top of it, then it's even easier. Anything involving correlating cell phone movements is trivial for authorities. And if you don't take your cell phone, how are you going to let them know you've arrived? What if they're late? Or you're late? Now you have two problems: Set up a burner phone in an anonymous way (hello, in-store security cameras) and then never, ever use this cell phone in the same place as your main cell phone. Not a good position to be in.

The last time I bought one, I met them at their house and rung the door bell. No phone required. You can also pay a bum to go in and buy the burners for you. Admittedly, I was just buying something to experiment with on the cheap so I didn't really care about anonymity.

However, you are making the assumption these components are easily traced in after market cash sales. I doubt strongly that they are that easy. And given you are trying to be anonymous, you don't care if either party is late since you'd wait a reasonable amount of time and if that failed, setup a new transaction elsewhere.

> I've ignored the whole "fake ID" aspect, because if you're in a position where someone is putting their face onto a forged legal document, that person is going to be persuaded by authorities to betray you. And if that person is you, then obviously you're caught at this point. Your face is probably on Facebook, and facial recognition software is getting pretty good nowadays. In general, physical ops are the most dangerous of all ops, and should be avoided until every other avenue has been explored. Better to anonymize your cash (which is also a physical op) and then use that cash to rent a single remote server.

You can't anonymize your cash for digital transactions given sufficient effort being expended to find you. If you don't do physical ops, you aren't paying cash. If you aren't paying cash, they will find you because the banks [which are intentionally letting things slide to increase business] can't hide it from the regulators forever. They've proven that repeatedly with billion+ dollar fines.

Honestly, it doesn't matter tho. I have no real interest in hiding to that degree. Everything I do is legal. :P Its just a fun mental exercise to me.

[devconsole]

This is a perfect illustration of how to get busted. For example, the whole idea of "How can I acquire a burner phone?" is misguided, because as soon as you speak into a burner phone, your voiceprint alone is enough to identify you.

Various assumptions like "I doubt it's that easy" are also the road to getting busted.

Trying to forge or steal legal documents, let alone a license plate that you drive around with and which officers can notice at any time, is also how to get busted.

[opendais]

I'll have to take your word for it. I'm pretty sure you are overthinking this tho.

What you are describing is basically:

1) They find the server [this likely takes months based on their performance so far].

2) They get a copy of the paperwork & server [fake id, so useless information on it and a fake picture. That is assuming they keep a copy at all, they might not.]. Server is commodity and basically untraceable. They trace you via license plate readers to a residential neighborhood with 1,000 people.

3) They see you leave a month later via license plate reader on a major freeway and somewhere along the way you disappear because the entire country isn't monitored, especially rural highways where there aren't traffic cams. You change your license plate in the middle of nowhere.

4) They somehow detect the license plate change and track you from there to your new destination.

I mean its possible, I just don't see it as being likely given how hard they've worked to find people who made publicly visible glaring errors. :P

[fru2013]

>They find the server...

I doubt you could host a large scale operation on a single server. Given the volume that SR1 && SR2 received, you would need more servers at some point. At that point you either need to hit up craigslist again or host via cloud providers. (of course all of this is assuming that the first guy you met on craigslist was not an undercover agent).

[opendais]

> I doubt you could host a large scale operation on a single server. Given the volume that SR1 && SR2 received, you would need more servers at some point. At that point you either need to hit up craigslist again or host via cloud providers. (of course all of this is assuming that the first guy you met on craigslist was not an undercover agent).

Given I've bought servers for cash on craigslist, I doubt this is really an issue.

You are making a large number of assumptions that in real world situations aren't likely.

They'd need to:

A) Locate you. Assuming good opsec, you'd move and so forth if they imaged/seized your servers and you were aware of it. B) Seed craigslist across a large enough area to catch you.

Hell, you could just move to Canada on "vacation" and pay cash to rent a room up there as well as buy servers in Vancouver or something.