On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, brainteaser wrote:
So am I right in saying there isn't, and never really was, a way of making truly anonymous transactions?
I don't know if I'd go that far. I can say that I've spent many years looking for it as an intellecutal exercise and I've yet to find a system that couldn't be cracked with good forensics and a search warrant. Another aspect is whether you want the entire transaction anonymous or just some aspect of it. For example, you could arrange to meet a bum at one time and place. Have the bum execute your plan (ie go into store and then head down street) and then meet you at another time and place. Have the two meeting in a residential neighborhood where you've scoured the neighborhood for obvious external cameras. The point here is to increase the cost of the cops finding the video. If they see a video camera on a house and they say saw the bum turn down that street from the store camera they could subpeona that camera. So you'd want to create a situation where the cost to find the camera was prohibitive. This of course has its own problems like the bum running off w/ your money. There'd still be the geographic similarity you, the bum, the store, and the MO share. You'd probably never want to use that site or bum again. And so on. My personal belief is there is no security. That the best you can hope for is an escalating growth in complexity and cost. Others differ on this point. ____________________________________________________________________ If the law is based on precedence, why is the Constitution not the final precedence since it's the primary authority? The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Choate wrote: [...snip...]
For example, you could arrange to meet a bum at one time and place. Have the bum execute your plan (ie go into store and then head down street) and then meet you at another time and place. Have the two meeting in a residential neighborhood where you've scoured the neighborhood for obvious external cameras.
Classic bad move. Time to read up on your tradecraft Jim! You need to meet in a public place, preferably crowded, where both of you might be reasonably expected to be found. Railway stations are the classic case - noisy, busy, everyone goes there, and you have an excuse to either rush through in a hurry or wait for hours. Noise drowns out voice far better than distance conceals it. Airport departure lounges are probably too quiet. *Very* busy large shops might work. Supermarket aisle at 18:00 the last working day before Christmas. Big sports events might be good. Yeah, yeah, they have cameras - but you aren't pretending not to *be* there - all you want is to be able to pass a note or a few private words - the bloody cameras can't lipread through the back of your head - if they pull you up you just say you were talking about the game - after all, mostly, you were. Loud music events would be great. As long as both of you look like the sort of person who belongs there. Smelly bum + 40-something fat guy in a business suit probably would look out of place in a hardcore dance club, but might get away with it in some other venue. In England, pubs are surprisingly useful for this sort of thing. Residential areas where you don't live yourself are likely to draw attention to you. As for "scouring the neighbourhood", it's hard to think of a worse way. In the city thousands of people pass each other surreptitious packages every day. How many get caught by cameras? Ken
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Ken Brown wrote:
Classic bad move. Time to read up on your tradecraft Jim!
You need to meet in a public place, preferably crowded, where both of
Right, so you'll have dozens of cameras on you. What you want in this situation is NO WITNESS, not lots of them and especially not tourists with their 35mm's and the security systems in all the various stores. Bus stations, train stations, airports, etc. are the WORST place to meet in a 'high technology' society. The crowds won't do you any good. ____________________________________________________________________ Beware gentle knight, there is no greater monster than reason. Miguel de Cervantes The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Bus stations, train stations, airports, etc. are the WORST place to meet in a 'high technology' society. The crowds won't do you any good.
I should explain why, Cameras stop time. ____________________________________________________________________ Beware gentle knight, there is no greater monster than reason. Miguel de Cervantes The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Bus stations, train stations, airports, etc. are the WORST place to meet in a 'high technology' society. The crowds won't do you any good.
I should explain why,
Cameras stop time.
In this matter, I fear, Jim's moment to be right has come around again. Crowded noisy spaces are right when the threat model is humans listening and humans watching. When the threat model is machines recording, and data storage is cheap enough that people can go back through the system weeks or months later to see what went on exactly, Crowded noisy spaces are no longer right. I don't even know what spaces are right for meetings any more, especially considering that this came up in the context of getting a vagrant to act as your physical agent in purchasing a MO. The average vagrant has neither patience nor attention span nor trustworthiness for operations requiring more than a few hours of working for someone else, especially while holding a negotiable instrument and traversing a relatively witness-free space. *sigh*. At best, you trade one risk for another. At worst, the vagrant makes a fuss and yells for an officer and claims he's being robbed when you try to get the MO you paid for. Bear
Meetings... Basicly, the reality suggests that you should assume everything and anything is known by any party interested. The complexities of this knowledge and correlation database are far more vast than your comprehension of yourself. Assume All is known. Based on this, any highly-public or open location is best suited for discussions on theorhetical or conceptual activities, however the assumption here is that your ability to cognise and PRODUCE/ACTIVATE the desired operation is far supperior than the ability of the 'others' to deduce your operations. You work on your primary project or activity, they must deal with a far more vast structure of heirchy or tactical information. Your internal logic and connections with your affiliates is a direct link at higher complexity than the surface appearance. "What exactly did he mean by that?" Is the key question that will arise in an external analysis. You comprehend what you do, they must deduce it before comprehending. On the inverse, any attempt to disguise or 'hide' activities will generate additional interest in the thing, due to technologies available, there are very few "secure" environments or capacities in which to disguise or ghost operations. You may assume that any attempt to hide will result in more expediant review and higher concentrations of resources (intellectual or otherwise) expended on your analysis. Unless you have a perfect environment, which with current techology on the public market, none such exist (no less that tech which we have not formally seen). Therefore the intellectual war becomes truely intellectual. Who can produce, accomplish, or otherwise activate the desired operation in a manner supperior to another? In context, it is your head against mine. If you stimulate my interest by hiding, you reduce your obscurity. If you do not waste my time and tell me what you are doing (which I can deduce within a short duration of analysis), then no undue heed will be taken to your activities, other than a routine analysis and notation. ["I" is conceptual] The existance of reality is based on a ballence. This must be sustained so as to not disrupt the perceptions of "sheep" or "good"/"bad" ... If you have a legitimate antagonistic project, your activities may be more desirable than not. If you stimulate 'competition' or whatnot, your chances of success are far higher than being eliminated due to unknown motivations for doing something. Intellectia is the goal, there is no reason to hide, there is reason to do, effeciently. Contrary, if you have a production project, it would be best to utilize semi-secure mediums and context so your low-level competitors do not usurp your work. On the broader spectrum, any competant logistic or intellectual activity will be reconstructable by infinitely many parties. Assume they know what you do, and strive to do something new rather than waste everyone's time hiding or suppressing common knowledge. All is known. Technology prevents total secrecy. Conceptual secrecy is the remaining factor, and the utilization of this concept is of highest importance in any activity. Can you function quicker, more efficiently, or more optimally than others? If you are concerned about the others and are not dilusional, then you have a high chance of completing the operation in a far more ideal manner. Let be known what will be known, however if something is more advanced than common comprehension, keep it quiet, yet not evasive in proportion, and allow reality to flow. The chances that others can reproduce what you think of in YOUR head as effectively as you can think on your own, is highly unlikely with 'current' technology. As such, ignore the threat of others' knowledge, your perception of this is dilusional. If you know it, someone else does. If you came up with it, it is probible that at least some other entity was able to do the same thing. If not, then you can expect to incorporate their capacities with your new revelations. Such is modern reality. Where is the best meeting place? -- Such is no longer relevant if all is known. How you utilize your choice of meeting place definitely is. In the pursuit of a competant reality... -Wilfred L. Guerin Wilfred@Cryogen.com At 03:32 PM 3/30/2001 -0800, you wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Bus stations, train stations, airports, etc. are the WORST place to meet in a 'high technology' society. The crowds won't do you any good.
I should explain why,
Cameras stop time.
In this matter, I fear, Jim's moment to be right has come around again. Crowded noisy spaces are right when the threat model is humans listening and humans watching.
When the threat model is machines recording, and data storage is cheap enough that people can go back through the system weeks or months later to see what went on exactly, Crowded noisy spaces are no longer right.
I don't even know what spaces are right for meetings any more, especially considering that this came up in the context of getting a vagrant to act as your physical agent in purchasing a MO. The average vagrant has neither patience nor attention span nor trustworthiness for operations requiring more than a few hours of working for someone else, especially while holding a negotiable instrument and traversing a relatively witness-free space.
*sigh*. At best, you trade one risk for another. At worst, the vagrant makes a fuss and yells for an officer and claims he's being robbed when you try to get the MO you paid for.
Bear
You missed the main point. It's not that they can't tell you are there from the picture, it is that they can't tell that you had any particular association with the other guy. If you meet out by the 3rd oak from the top of the wall in a Maine hayfield, it is obvious you met by arrangement (unless of course you both live i Maine and are in the habit of talking country walks). But if you are both on camera at the same football game it shows nothing but that you are both watching football. You walk in, buy your ticket, stay for the whole game and walk out and have done nothing out of the ordinary. Railway station even more so. Anyone and everyone can have perfectly legitimate reasons to go there. So you are on the photos? So what? Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Bus stations, train stations, airports, etc. are the WORST place to meet in a 'high technology' society. The crowds won't do you any good.
I should explain why,
Cameras stop time.
____________________________________________________________________
Beware gentle knight, there is no greater monster than reason.
Miguel de Cervantes
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Ken Brown wrote:
You missed the main point. It's not that they can't tell you are there from the picture, it is that they can't tell that you had any particular association with the other guy. If you meet out by the 3rd oak from the
Sorry, but I didn't miss anything. You're being naive about traffic analysis. Not if they have video. Simply proving you were geographicaly co-habitative is enough for probably cause. It doesn't help you, it does help them. ____________________________________________________________________ Beware gentle knight, there is no greater monster than reason. Miguel de Cervantes The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, but I didn't miss anything. You're being naive about traffic analysis.
Not if they have video. Simply proving you were geographicaly co-habitative is enough for probably cause. It doesn't help you, it does help them.
Not if you are in a place where you normally go.
participants (7)
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brainteaser -
Jim Choate -
Jim Choate
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Jim Choate -
Ken Brown -
Ray Dillinger -
Wilfred L. Guerin