• shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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    9 months ago

    Disinformation alert. This person was dumb enough to have Bitcoin trade it for Monero and then trade it back to Bitcoin and send it to a centralized exchange. Monero itself was not traced. The amounts into and out of Bitcoin were traced, and then the person was dumb enough to send it to a centralized exchange to cash out. Stupid fuck.

    • nabio
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      9 months ago

      dumb Stupid fuck.

      Perhaps, you never know. it’s a little hard to believe that someone with technical skills would fail like that. is it also possible this event was done like that so they could falsely claim Monero was traced? yes.

      Later in the future I expect several fabricated events to make Monero look real bad in headlines, not just “traced”

      • XMR_loving_AnCap
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        9 months ago

        Wait for ~4h, churn (send to your own wallet), repeat this a few times and then start to cash out (not everything at once)

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        First, dont demand bitcoin, second dont attempt to “cash out”. I have my opinion on just how I would do this, but will not say.

      • tusker
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        9 months ago

        Number one is do not use BTC or any other coin with a public ledger, this is not money.

        The best thing to do is just use your Monero as money, buy things you need or want and pay people for services with it. You can also donate it to a good cause.

            • adminMA
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              9 months ago

              Monero is the solution to this specific problem though? Acceptance is a different problem and can be solved by asking the org to accept Monero.

                • adminMA
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                  9 months ago

                  Imagine extorting $50k from someone, you can see the bitcoin move from the extortionists wallet to a non-kyc instant exchanger and 30 minutes later a non-kyc instant exchanger sends $50k minus transaction fees to a Binance account. Doesn’t exactly require breaking encryption that’s been around for years to make the connection.

                  Doesn’t really matter though. If he had held onto the Monero, he would have still gotten caught because he accidentally uploaded his /home directory with personal info and published it with his extortion-account when trying to upload stolen data.

  • noride@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    It sounds like they went BTC -> Monero -> BTC. It’s not outlined explicitly in the article, but I am guessing it’s the on/off ramping that got him popped.

  • clever_banana@lemmy.today
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    9 months ago

    Kivimäki has not pleaded guilty yet

    Kinda fucked up they say “yet” and lead the reader to believe they’re guilty

  • stealths
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    9 months ago

    Lol, hard to believe that they really think this kind of misleading news can scare “big” hackers.

  • xmr_unlimited
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    9 months ago

    Meanwhile cryptocurrencies are still being created daily essentially printing money and this is ok with everyone. Monero just gives us a safe tool to use on the hostile internet and we are all criminals because we see the implications of a transparent ledger long term. I can’t even make money on stocks trying to diversify from monero…everything is manipulated…but everyone is fine with this. House prices are a criminal rip off…everyone fine with this…some anxiety ridden runt trades some monero and holy shit…off with all their heads. But everything’s fine…

    • Uncle Iroh ☑️@merovingian.club
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      9 months ago

      @xmr_unlimited @BrikoX

      Trad-Fi is a feeding trough right now.

      Honestly, it’s not that normies disagree with Monero’s goals, it’'s just still way too complicated for most normies to bootstrap into getting, let alone using. And I’ve tried showing people.

      In the end local people resort to anything that is useful as a currency - fish, meat, eggs, veggies, skill–swaps - I’m down for that too.

      • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        In essence, he got caught because he traded a certain amount of bitcoin for Monero and then traded a similar amount back? Wouldn’t converting to Monero stop the trail right there? Would converting from Monero to Bitcoin in smaller quantities have helped him evade the authorities? How did using bitcoin let them track him?

        What would people do if they want to pay in crypto but the service only accepts bitcoin?

        • Hestia@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Finnish investigators from the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP), with the help of Binance, followed the trail of payments to Kivimäki, who exchanged the funds for Monero and then exchanged them back to Bitcoin.

          What probably happened is that he extorted Bitcoin from a known entity, then he went to Binance and traded that Bitcoin for Monero, then sent a similar amount of XMR to Binance to exchange again for BTC thinking he was covering his tracks.

          • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Essentially what I said. If one were to exchange a similar amount amongst cryptocurrenies from brokers like Binance (who definitely run analytics on transactions), even XMR won’t be able to save them. With that said, I’d like a more comprehensive explanation, however my posts regarding such experiments have largely been ignored on the Monero forum on Lemmy. Would you know whom I could approach?

  • nabio
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    9 months ago

    KRP did not disclose the exact mechanism for tracing the Monero transactions, citing the need to protect sensitive investigative techniques that can prove invaluable in future cases.

    of course… looks like more of the usual, nothing.

  • tusker
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    9 months ago

    It was more likely a phone call to the big centralized exchanges and a question about if anyone has exchanged a large amount of Monero lately.

    The state runs on deception and intimidation, their technical capabilities are about 1/100th of what the public believes.

    • tusker
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      9 months ago

      Audited open source and decentralized honeypot, good one. 🎪🤡

      • MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        And its impossible because you can see the code and its decentralized…

        You know NSA hosts several TOR nodes? Its not hard…

        • tusker
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          9 months ago

          I am sure they also have a few Monero nodes, and we thank them for helping to run the network and making my transactions that much faster. 👍