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Discussion (7 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Its really interesting because the article describes this as yet another case where the defendant moved to conceal their trades after the fact
When crypto used in specific ways can conceal your trades before the fact which alone wouldn't be a crime because obfuscating funds of legal origin is not a crime, while properly obfuscating funds of illicit origin would never be attributed to a person, as such the crime of money laundering can only ever be a tacked on crime to help increase the gravity of a sentence.
Otherwise the feds would have to immediately subpoena the oracle’s source for who had access upon resolution of every market, which would be a phenomenal waste of taxpayer resources, and even then not be able to prove someone traded if they had pre-obfuscated funds long in advance.
Anyone that keeps a balance of Monero is already in a good place, just pop on Tor and fund a virgin polygon address at that point in time
I hardly see a reason to have any clear addresses that werent initially funded by a treasury of Monero, swapped atomically or on a service triggered by a deposit of monero that spits out an equivalent on another chain
From all state actions I’ve seen for a decade straight in the crypto space, this largely seems to be an education issue that makes the state’s ability to prosecute a brief privilege
Indictment: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1442621/dl
Apparently the suspect is a staff engineer at Google with a 12-year tenure. He presumably had plenty of money arising from his employer and rank; why risk both his job and a felony conviction over a measly $1.2 million?
Also, let's not turn this into a "how to" or otherwise endorse insider trading or breach of our respective duties...
This is decade old base level OPSEC that people are just neglecting
basic privacy beforehand - and after - would so happen to send state actors to a deadend, whether its a government you respect or one you don’t it doesn’t make a difference
Thats not a how to, thats hygiene
Did Michael - an Italian citizen living in Switzerland - fly to New York himself to deal with this or was he extradited?
> WHEREFORE, I respectfully request that a warrant be issued for the arrest of MICHELE SPAGNUOLO, a/k/a “AlphaRaccoon,” the defendant, and that he be arrested, and imprisoned or bailed, as the case may be.
On the other hand, the press release says he "was presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in the Southern District of New York." The meaning of "presented" isn't clear from the context. They didn't use the word "appeared" which would suggest he was physically present.
UPDATE: ABC News reported he did appear in person and was released on a $2.5MM bond secured by $1MM cash: https://abcnews.com/US/google-employee-charged-inside-inform...
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> Thats not a how to, thats hygiene
Interesting perspective you have there. Can't it be both?
Or, you know, they could come up to you in a San Francisco public library while your computer is unlocked and logged into your account, slap handcuffs on you, and image the contents of the laptop's RAM, establishing proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you had access to the Monero account in question. Just like they did with Ross Ulbricht.
If there's anything you should learn from the history of state actions in this space, it's that the USG is very good at overturning naive assumptions about the real-world anonymity of these technologies.
Your recount of events is hyperbolic for emphasis about naive assumptions - attempted to rehash an XKCD comic strip - yet is a wholly unrelated attack surface. The imaging of Ross' laptop did not prove everything about the case, it did not prove ownership of some servers, and Ross was not using Monero which as several US court cases in the time frame I mentioned, specifically, for a reason, have shown, the US government has no access to Monero it believes it has seized in those cases. Doesn't even know the balances or whether its still there.
What you wrote isn't even a counterpoint to the concept of having basic privacy. This isn't a how to on how to deter the government, it deters everyone. If you're doing something that needs to involve the intelligence community, then do more or don't do it at all. But the gradient of actors from people that can't subpoena you, to ones that could but get nothing from said power, are all things to consider.