If you know for sure that NSA/CIA... are watching bitcointalk.org will U use it!

[MF Doom]

Once you're actively up on their radar then I'm sure there will be folks here researching and prodding. It sure beats having to get into a car and walk around asking questions in doorways.

As we've seen in dark markets and carding forums half the people on them are law enforcement, often the ones actually running them. No reason why this place gets an exemption if they're after someone.

pardon my ignorance, but whats a carding forum?

I think carding is stealing credit card info, or using fraudulent cc info to launder money through gift cards, like the cheap starbucks ones that used to be all over the place here.

I havent seen them on here recently though, hopefully the admins finally cleaned them off this forum.

[Carlton Banks]

As we've seen in dark markets and carding forums half the people on them are law enforcement, often the ones actually running them. No reason why this place gets an exemption if they're after someone.

I've heard it said that this is what happens frequently with terrorist cells also. The leadership are either amongst the agents, or a target of agents.

[tvbcof]

so Burt,

what are the fed shills doing on these boards?  Are they mostly
in the currency exchange section?  Are they trolling?  What's going on?

I cannot speak for all the agencies in all the sections but in general:

Be careful with anyone, especially noobs, who asks "How do you <insert something shady or illegal here>"

Only thing is higher ranking accounts on here are a dime a dozen, so I wouldn't limit suspicions to just noobs, but otherwise thanks for the advice.

They (shills or whatever you want to call them) aren't limited to this forum though, but if you look up "sock puppet" accounts you'll see that the gvt employs people to post on forums, blogs & basically anywhere on the web to steer discussion and gather info, among other things.

I've posted this: Forum Shill gets Busted: ATS and GLP Censor to Cover his Tracks or it's corresponding youtube coverage which is nicely done on various threads here lately because I think it is important information (and probably 'true'.)

We know from the HB Gary Federal e-mail hack that the U.S. govt is interested in and from other research that they have purchased sock-puppet software so it would not be surprising to find evidence of it.  That's why I believe that the 'forum shill busted' story is probably not a hoax.

As for accounts here, note that people do sell their mature accounts.  Not sure how much they bring, but I can imagine it being a fair sum.  Probably more than a dime/dozen at this point.  I've seen people who have undergone what seem to me to be eyebrow-raising chainges in the 4 years I've been around.

Also, the password database has been stolen multiple times.  A funded attacker could have probably extracted passwords for many dormant accounts.  If Theymos is legally obligated to gather and retain certain meta-data, he might as well go the extra mile and hand it over to interested parties for analysis of the (supposed) social media manipulation methods.  I hope he is doing so or will at some point in the future.

[dothebeats]

I have nothing to hide nor nothing to be afraid of, so yes, I would still use bitcointalk.org because I'm in it for the knowledge and my interest goes to bitcoin as well. I can use proxies/vpn/Tor but for an average user who doesn't do anything stupid or illegal, I wouldn't do it at all just to hide my tracks from whoever is watching over me.

[BurtW]

I've posted this: Forum Shill gets Busted: ATS and GLP Censor to Cover his Tracks or it's corresponding youtube coverage which is nicely done on various threads here lately because I think it is important information (and probably 'true'.)

Very interesting and eye opening.  I believe that when we found out through our mailman that HS was investigating my business that was also a "slip up", although on a lesser scale.

[tvbcof]

Since this thread has been (approrirately) moved to meta, let me just add:

I've posted this: Forum Shill gets Busted: ATS and GLP Censor to Cover his Tracks or it's c...
...
If Theymos is legally obligated to gather and retain certain meta-data, he might as well go the extra mile and hand it over to interested parties for analysis of the (supposed) social media manipulation methods.  I hope he is doing so or will at some point in the future.

Hopefully the edits and previews are captured and stored if the software supports it.  There might be some very interesting information to be had if one takes an interest in analysis.  There are many unethical reasons for doing so, but I could see instance where the risks outweigh the rewards.

Ideally, if edit and preview data is retained, it could be immediately transferred out of control of the website maintainer to complicate potential legal requests for such data.

One way or another, forum users should be advised that it is at least technically possible that anything submitted as an preview is subject to capture.  Edits also of course.  Whether it is actually happening or not is probably best to have remain an unknown.

I am pretty sure that if anyone has received what are known as 'national security letter' or similar legal instruments, it would be theymos and his team.  It is probably a fair guess that the administration of this forum has no choice but to tell straight up lies about certain things.

[unamis76]

This thread ended up having pretty nice insights on the topic... And many people posting too fast without looking at their posts. Anyways...

If the DA AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney - remember this is all Federal) believes you are guilty, and believes they can prove it then they should take you to trial; if they do not then they should drop the charges.

The AUSA and my attorney both agreed that the criminal case was a "coin toss" if sent to a jury.  We had a few pre-trial motions to try and assume they all failed the only thing left would have been:  Was what I was doing, trading Bitcoins on localbitcoins.com a business or not?  They claimed it was, we claimed it was not.  Since those wet noodles over at FinCEN did not define what constitutes a business as far a volume of transactions and/or volumes of trades and left it specifically ambiguous as "a matter of fact and circumstance" it would have been up to a jury to decide who was/is right.

BTW by not taking my case to trial this question has still not been decided.

This makes things even more weird. I question myself: what's considered a business? When does one have to acquire a license to trade? Do they emit licenses for Bitcoin traders so that they would be "inside" the law and be able to trade safely? Would a "licensed bitcoin trader" have to require ID to all the people they sell coins to?

If there's no law from FinCEN regulating what's a business or not, I'm curious how did authorities justify deploying people (from policemen to justice) to investigate, search, seize, look your things up and arrest you. There's got to be a reason beyond assets, even if it's a completely ridiculous reason. Maybe I'm failing something (haven't been catching up with the other thread about you).

Questioning your friends and having them give up coins is also very concerning.

[BurtW]

This thread ended up having pretty nice insights on the topic... And many people posting too fast without looking at their posts. Anyways...

If the DA AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney - remember this is all Federal) believes you are guilty, and believes they can prove it then they should take you to trial; if they do not then they should drop the charges.

The AUSA and my attorney both agreed that the criminal case was a "coin toss" if sent to a jury.  We had a few pre-trial motions to try and assume they all failed the only thing left would have been:  Was what I was doing, trading Bitcoins on localbitcoins.com a business or not?  They claimed it was, we claimed it was not.  Since those wet noodles over at FinCEN did not define what constitutes a business as far a volume of transactions and/or volumes of trades and left it specifically ambiguous as "a matter of fact and circumstance" it would have been up to a jury to decide who was/is right.

BTW by not taking my case to trial this question has still not been decided.

This makes things even more weird. I question myself: what's considered a business? When does one have to acquire a license to trade? Do they emit licenses for Bitcoin traders so that they would be "inside" the law and be able to trade safely? Would a "licensed bitcoin trader" have to require ID to all the people they sell coins to?

If there's no law from FinCEN regulating what's a business or not, I'm curious how did authorities justify deploying people (from policemen to justice) to investigate, search, seize, look your things up and arrest you. There's got to be a reason beyond assets, even if it's a completely ridiculous reason. Maybe I'm failing something (haven't been catching up with the other thread about you).

Questioning your friends and having them give up coins is also very concerning.

Their motivation for spending all the time, energy, money to follow me, go to the grand jury, indict me, arrest me, etc. instead of just sending me a fucking one page cease and desist letter is one thing we can try to guess at.  My guess is that Aaron got it in his head that I was another Dread Pirate Roberts level cyber criminal and want the bust for his resume.  Even when all the evidence, or more specifically the lack of any real evidence, did not support his narrative he just doubled down, went for the search warrants and hoped for the best.  All conjecture on my part.

The legal justification for all of this is that they claim I was running an unlicensed money transmittal business end of story.  If someone runs an unlicensed money transmittal business then the law kicks in and they can do everything they just did to me.

Was I running a business?  There is no written guidance or law as far as I can tell.  We did not go to trial so the decider of "fact and circumstance" - the jury - did not decide this question.

You could go get a license from FinCEN before you set up to trade on localbitcoins.com - that is an option.  I believe it is free.  Then you would, of course, have to check and see if you also need a state license which sometimes does cost money.

Then:

You would need to read up on and abide by all KYC/AML, banking, reporting, etc regulations that any money transmitter is bound by law to do  - and there are a lot of them from what I understand.  So yes, you probably would be required, as a business with a money transmittal license, to gather all the KYC info on every single person you trade with.  Once they give you a license then they have you by the balls for sure.

FinCEN has stated that if it is not a business and you are trading for your own account then you do not need to get a license and none of that KYC/AML stuff would apply.

IANAL, but in real life I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to many law firms and discussed most of this with them.

[Shinpako09]

Of course, nothing to be afraid of. You're not doing anything wrong and this is not hidden website.

[Xian01]

I think the question can be reduced further to "If you know for sure that NSA/CIA are watching the Internet, will you use it ?"

For me, the answer is "Yes".

It should be a given they are monitoring this site.

[MF Doom]

I think the question can be reduced further to "If you know for sure that NSA/CIA are watching the Internet, will you use it ?"

For me, the answer is "Yes".

It should be a given they are monitoring this site.

the same applies to basically any form of digital communication now.  You should know that they probably are monitoring whatever you are using, but if not, they have the ability to be monitoring it.

Even foreign leaders are not exempt from their spy web, so as regular citizens, I think you should expect everything to be potentially monitored.  Every site, every call, everything.

[Panthers52]

I understand that various 3-letter government agencies do monitor a large number of Internet forums, probably including this one. There is also the possibility that 3-letter government agencies would access information contained in PMs on here and elsewhere (possibly without even theymos's knowledge and/or disclosure).

While I am certainly not engaging in anything illegal nor anything that law enforcement would even "frown" upon, I do like to be able to maintain my privacy. So here is a crazy idea, often times I will use encryption (primarily PGP) when communicating with others, even if such communications may not be "sensitive" so that no one (regardless of how many letters is in their name) can easily view what I am discussing.

I think this would most probably be one of the better ways to protect yourself from an overly aggressive "big brother" or a bad apple in a law enforcement agency.

[gentlemand]

Live in a mud hut and trade in goats. Millions of people do it every day. I enjoy being 'unconnected' and would like to make it a permanent thing eventually. The world is becoming ever more warped due to its constant uptime.