World’s Bitcoin Exchanges Track and Report Customer Activity

[MicroGuy]

So you’ve heard about Bitcoin and how you can buy items anonymously using the Darkweb’s most popular digital currency? Well – you’re not alone. Bitcoin has taken over the seedy underground of the deepweb as pedophiles and hipster drug pushers alike flock to the digital gold like birds of a feather.

According to a story published in the Guardian today, it seems a planetary wave of cyber crime is funneling into the cryptocurrency.

"A pan-European drive to use the financial system to fight online child abuse has succeeded in reducing sales of child abuse material using conventional payment systems – but research suggests that abusers have been driven underground, turning to anonymiser technologies to evade law enforcement, and bitcoin to pay for material."

Thankfully, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchanges are working with law enforcement agencies to quietly track customer activity and share collected intelligence (blockchain data). These efforts could help rout out sexual offenders and make bitcoin the safest, most traceable, trackable, and eventually the most secure payment system ever created.

The EFC (European Financial Coalition) along with the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) are among those reportedly working with exchanges:

"The IWF said it was working with several of the world’s largest bitcoin exchanges to share intelligence and develop strategies for preventing the currency being used by distributors of child sexual abuse images."

The best approach as identified by these reports is to use Bitcoin exchanges to identify suspicious transactions in order to follow the money back to the abuser, and prioritizing the identification of individuals who have access to children.

Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2015/06/worlds-bitcoin-exchanges-track-and-report-customer-activity/

[BillyBobZorton]

It's quite funny, because I remember saying an article like this back in 2012, where BTC got linked to paedos, drug dealers and other criminals, which made me totally ignore it as something not good.
Thanks to that FUD article, I lost the chance of being a millionaire a year later, but thanks to that article, im here today ahead of a lot of other people, with a couple BTC under my belt, ready for the revolution to take over the world in the next decade.

[fatguyyyyy]

And most of them report to the IRS, FinCEN, etc

[AlgoSwan]

Another reason for filing tax information to the governments!

Be a nice guy.

[blablaace]

i use localbitcoins .. why bother with all that ID bullshit on circle or coinbase??

[achow101]

It's hard to track and trace Bitcoin transactions to a single person. However, transactions to and from addresses can be traced, but it is hard to know who owns what addresses. It can be very anonymous when done correctly.

[newIndia]

i use localbitcoins .. why bother with all that ID bullshit on circle or coinbase??

Yes exactly. Direct trading exchanges are the way forward.

[Amph]

another reason to have zerocoin here and immediately, one should always look carefully at his transaction, and try to left as minimum traces as possible, to avoid being traceable

funny how many were talking about why we need anon for bitcoin... this is why, my friends, i hate being fucking monitored by individuals like those, privacy is important

[elvizzzzzzz]

It's good to hear that my online presence is valued. Really, Sincerely.

But might I suggest that while all these resources are being devoted to monitoring
activity that is probably 99.9 percent legitimate - If I spend my bitcoin I know
the risks - maybe a small amount of these resources could be directed to actual abuse.

And in other news ...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/579760/Lord-Janner-spotted-London-dementia-child-sex-abuse

"House of Lords politician Lord Janner was seen out and about north London in photos to emerge
over the weekend.
It was just last month that Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Alison Saunders, ruled that the
86-year-old was not able to stand trial because he has dementia."

Maybe if he had only used bitcoin he might now be in the dock. We may never know.

[anderson00673]

Another reason for filing tax information to the governments!

Be a nice guy.

Yeah.  Someone has to pay for the expense of blowing up all those brown people.  Sometimes it makes me sick what my taxes go to.

And wtf, why put them in jail just burn all the pedos at the steak.  Fing evil bastards.

It's hard to track and trace Bitcoin transactions to a single person. However, transactions to and from addresses can be traced, but it is hard to know who owns what addresses. It can be very anonymous when done correctly.

Care to share a link?   

[bryant.coleman]

I don't have a problem with Bitcoin exchanges helping the government in nabbing the pedophiles. But at the same time, some of the exchanges (such as Bitstamp and Localbitcoins) have helped the government agencies to bring money laundering charges against innocent users. Their only crime was that they had traded more than $10,000 worth of coins in these exchanges, without a license.

[elusive1]

"It cites IWF research that found 22 sites exclusively taking bitcoin in exchange for child abuse material in 2014, and 37 accepting it overall. "

The problem is reporters don't do their jobs and fact check whats spoon fed to them, whether it be government or politicians, or special interest groups.. Could that statement be true, perhaps. The group making the claim is far from impartial. When you see an environmental groups TV ad stating how many million acres are deforested a day, or a public service announcement stating that 68% of American kids go to bed hungry, be suspicious of the claims. I saw on TV that when an NGO was pressed on the amount of American kids going to bed hungry, he stated what mean bu hungry is to go to bed with "food insecurities".


Just like the United States authorities going after Craigslist and Backpage for facilitating prostitution, they claim to be saving children but its really just a bunch of people with their own agendas, whether it be stomping out prostitution or not allowing private financial transactions.


Extraordinary claims take extraordinary proof.

[Slark]

I don't have a problem with Bitcoin exchanges helping the government in nabbing the pedophiles. But at the same time, some of the exchanges (such as Bitstamp and Localbitcoins) have helped the government agencies to bring money laundering charges against innocent users. Their only crime was that they had traded more than $10,000 worth of coins in these exchanges, without a license.

Yes you are right. Unfortunately exchanges are gathering every bit of information about their users. Not just high profile large scale traders. Everything is within theirs databases.
We can be sure that these info will be shared with government as previously US government admitted that they received personal information of every MtGox user and probably will be using this info to point bitcoin users and tax them in the future.

[rayhan]

It's quite funny, because I remember saying an article like this back in 2012, where BTC got linked to paedos, drug dealers and other criminals, which made me totally ignore it as something not good.
Thanks to that FUD article, I lost the chance of being a millionaire a year later, but thanks to that article, im here today ahead of a lot of other people, with a couple BTC under my belt, ready for the revolution to take over the world in the next decade.

Block Chain Technology can be used for a lot of things and well, anonymity can be used for various purposes and this is one of those evils good tech offers.
The next decade indeed will be an interesting time for crypto currency.

[bryant.coleman]

Yes you are right. Unfortunately exchanges are gathering every bit of information about their users. Not just high profile large scale traders. Everything is within theirs databases.
We can be sure that these info will be shared with government as previously US government admitted that they received personal information of every MtGox user and probably will be using this info to point bitcoin users and tax them in the future.

That's why I have always supported exchanges such as BTC-e, which respects the privacy of their users. But as usual, whenever I post something supporting them, people here argue that these sites are not safe, and sites where anonymity is not permitted are much more risk-free. And what happened in the end? No one lost their money in BCT-e. On the other hand, their main rivals (Mt Gox) made a lot of Bitcoiners bankrupt.

[anderson00673]

Yes you are right. Unfortunately exchanges are gathering every bit of information about their users. Not just high profile large scale traders. Everything is within theirs databases.
We can be sure that these info will be shared with government as previously US government admitted that they received personal information of every MtGox user and probably will be using this info to point bitcoin users and tax them in the future.

That's why I have always supported exchanges such as BTC-e, which respects the privacy of their users. But as usual, whenever I post something supporting them, people here argue that these sites are not safe, and sites where anonymity is not permitted are much more risk-free. And what happened in the end? No one lost their money in BCT-e. On the other hand, their main rivals (Mt Gox) made a lot of Bitcoiners bankrupt.

I have used btc-e before and had no problems, but only once.  People here talk a lot of smack about them, but never really give any specifics.  One guy said that you shouldn't use and Chinese exchange because of Chinese culture.  WTF is that supposed to mean?  I pretty much disregard this stuff unless specific evidence is brought to support the accusations.

[bryant.coleman]

I have used btc-e before and had no problems, but only once.  People here talk a lot of smack about them, but never really give any specifics.  One guy said that you shouldn't use and Chinese exchange because of Chinese culture.  WTF is that supposed to mean?  I pretty much disregard this stuff unless specific evidence is brought to support the accusations.

Some people say that we shouldn't trust BTC-e because the identity of the owners are not known. They are only known as "Alexei" and "Alexander", and it is known that they are Russian citizens from the city of Moscow. Earlier they were based in Kiev (Ukraine), but later shifted their operations to Sofia (Bulgaria).

IMO, why we should bother about the real ID of the BTC-e owners? The identity of the Mt Gox owner was known to everyone. Did that prevented him from running away with $600 million worth of coins and cash?

[anderson00673]

I have used btc-e before and had no problems, but only once.  People here talk a lot of smack about them, but never really give any specifics.  One guy said that you shouldn't use and Chinese exchange because of Chinese culture.  WTF is that supposed to mean?  I pretty much disregard this stuff unless specific evidence is brought to support the accusations.

Some people say that we shouldn't trust BTC-e because the identity of the owners are not known. They are only known as "Alexei" and "Alexander", and it is known that they are Russian citizens from the city of Moscow. Earlier they were based in Kiev (Ukraine), but later shifted their operations to Sofia (Bulgaria).

IMO, why we should bother about the real ID of the BTC-e owners? The identity of the Mt Gox owner was known to everyone. Did that prevented him from running away with $600 million worth of coins and cash?

Thanks!  That seems like a pretty flimsy reason to not use btc-e.  What do I care who runs it?  What I care is if the business is legit, provides a good service, and won't go out of business or somehow run off with my coins.  The have a good presence in bitcoins so it seems silly to me that they would somehow scam users.  They stand to make FAR more as a legitimate exchange then as a one timer scam site.  I could be wrong I guess.

[QuestionAuthority]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

[lemipawa]

Cash is the only truly anonymous method of payment. Bitcoin has a ledger that will be around forever. Eventually computer forensics will be able to use that ledger to peg transactions to IP addresses or possibly trace it straight to the user with the help of ISPs. If you really want to be anonymous when you buy online I suggest Simon Gift Cards and Debit Cards. https://www.simon.com/giftcard/

Do you understand how the blockchain works? It never records the IP address from which the transaction was sent. How would Gift Cards or Debit cards be more anonymous? Those are linked to a name and address, whereas Bitcoin addresses are only linked to a 30-some character string of random numbers and letters?