Hi All,

I'm considering making a small donation to the Russian Tracker Website however it seems on the payment page that you can only pay crypto....

Can anyone recommend the safest way to pay? I would have hoped to use a virtual card with revolute but I'm concerned about info being shared and potentially being scammed in the future with payments...

 

Everything is traceable online. Crypto donations are relatively the safest way to send money to someone.
If you don't trust it then don't do it. listen to your feeling.

 

Thanks...

From what I can decipher I need to use an app like BitPay to transfer the crypto....

Setting up the account with them involves sending on a picture of passport, utility bills etc. and it's making me wonder how safe it is for those reasons...

 

But these days it's hard to acquire crypto without KYC (meaning handing over a copy of your ID)

The easiest way that I know of is:
Getting any kind of crypto with your ID at a exchange - send it to a wallet - trade it on a DEX (Decentralized Exchange) for Monero and then do with it as you'd like.

 

But then your data is stored. The data is for the authorities in case of
fraud or theft, etc., such as black money, extortion and computer fraud.

It is supposed to be quite secure.

What are the advantages of working with BitPay?
Merchants receive direct bank deposits for all Bitcoin processed through BitPay.

The full value of Bitcoin payments received is guaranteed and price volatility risk is eliminated. BitPay provides secure and fast payments for customers, without the risk of identity theft and without additional PII / PCI costs.

 

Ok. Thanks for explaining that.

My question now is - if I set up my BitPay account and as I am currently interested in learning and using Crypto in the future... what is the likelihood that I could be scammed by The Russian Tracker website or another scammer again by using this BitPay app?

I do apologise if that comes across scaremongering however after looking through Reddit there were a few comments that we're alarming but my understanding that was from using personal credit cards....

 

Alternative: etoro Mobile Wallet

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In the eToro Mobile Wallet, users can store, send and receive a total of over 100 cryptocurrencies. Of course, all 43 cryptocurrencies that can be bought and traded via one's trading account at eToro are also supported. In order to use the eToro Wallet app and send or receive cryptocurrencies, one merely has to log in with the user data (username, password) of one's eToro account.

The eToro Wallet is also popular because of the integrated staking option for Tron, Cardano and Ethereum (ETH 2.0). This allows users to generate passive income purely by holding their crypto deposits.
It is the high level of user-friendliness that sets the eToro Wallet apart from competitors like BitPay Wallet. The easy on the eyes, intuitive user interface offers a dashboard with subwallets, and the current balance is displayed in token units and US dollars. Simply tap on the subwallet to send or receive cryptocurrency.

LINK:
www.etoro.com
www.etoro.com/customer-service/help/

Note: The most secure is bitcoin.

 

These types of file hosting websites, etc. all locate themselves in countries because they are tax havens, lack of questions about content/intellectual property, and so on. This is common with ships and boats, as well. Some guy from Greece has a ship sailing under the flag of Cambodia, as an example...."domiciled" I believe is the term. They find a place where conditions are more favorable.

it's geolocation should not have any political meaning, necessarily. just saying. Actual transactions and banking, would be the obvious source of any real concern. Just like always.

 

Last edited: Mar 16, 2022

I am not going to judge your reasons but your should be careful as you are entering somewhat of a wild west world of anything goes and people put in a corner generally have very little to loose and a lot to gain especially when times are tough.

If you want to be super paranoid about it:

Choose any reputable wallet, don't give away your personal information for any reason, protect your seed phrase and key private key because nobody but you ever needs to know them. Turn on 2FA preferably using an authenticator and not sms, that way even if your pass and username are stolen you wallet is locked behind the auth code. Keep your device clean or only transact from a secured SE operating system.

Encrypt all device data that hosts sensitive information and be shameless, a lot of stuff is lost in the act of your donation your username is linked to the donation and your email and then you get a blackmail letter saying you transferred money to kiddiediddlersunffilmzbukkake.ru and if you don't hand over the dosh we are going to tell your friends, family and the police. So you are being anonymous make sure it's all burner vapor names outside of your wallet which isn't technically anonymous as blockchain ledgers are somewhat porous by the nature of way they work, so you are not going to be anonymous to any state actors if they really give enough of shit to backtrack transactions but you are a little fish in a big ocean making a small scale transaction state actors have better things to do for the most part.


Since this is a donation and you don't expect anything back you are basically giving away money then the straight transfer isn't going to bite you in the butt as long as you separate your concerns, don't transact from a computer with warez on it especially if you are bypassing OS counter measures. It doesn't have to be the tracker that is being malicious, and things slip by sometimes. Always use a VPN that doesn't log and multiple hops are encouraged.

 

Wow, that didn't take long to go off-topic/political. Please stay on-topic or we have to close this thread (too).

 

Thanks for the reply. Again, I have absolutely no knowledge of crypto and therefore alot of this stuff is going right over my head....

I assume you were being sarcastic about the blackmail letter?!

Burner vapour names mean no link to your own tracker username right?

By state actors you meant legit state actors or just people imitating?

In general, I'll probably just stay on this site... I feel I'm way in over my head....

 

The blackmail: No sarcasm, it actually happens and extortion is one of the most common forms of crypto-scam.

Burner username: Your username and email address at the tracker should be a paper doll. You only need it to log in there and it should not be linked to who you actually are or an email actually registered to your real name or address.

State actors: Real state actors of course, although someone can pretend to be a state actor those people generally don't show up at your door with guns and handcuffs.

 

If you listened to your gut, you would say to yourself " I tried but it's too unsafe " !

Electronic money in bits and bytes via cell phone. If someone only wants BitCoins, that means he doesn't want the
money to be tracked. If you want to donate something to me, you can get my postal address or a PayPal address.

The left man in the ear says ' Transfer and take the risk ', the right man in the ear says ' Leave it alone, avoid any risk '.
Who will win, reason or stupidity ?

 

Oh, how refreshing was to refresh this page..;) Let's keep it technical

Some things to consider, @jimyjohn2:

Do you really need that tracker so badly? Usually what's out is out and you can probably get it in a safer manner.
Don't assume you're anonymous in any way. With anonymizers you're just adding a 'layer of privacy' - nobody is going to waste resources to track you down ..probably.
Only give away as much as you are prepared to lose.

For small amounts, you should be able to get your coins locally (ATM machines, gas stations,..) without serious KYC

I was just about to say that he wasn't sarcastic at all. But, you'd use an email that you created using VPN just for that purpose anyway, wouldn't you?

I don't think the supposedly bad guys can track you down just by receiving your coins in their wallet though.. @JMOUTTON, am I right?

 

Generally no as the only thing in the ledger for the blockchain is going to be origination which is private if not anonymous the amount and transit of funds to destination's public key + acceptance. Depending on you localities rules and the interest of state actors it could be revealed to them by subpoena or other means. There are ways to anonymize to a certain point with currencies like Monero or Zcash being at the top of the pile.

Let me say that this is mostly an case of extremism for the most part, but when you want to swim in murky waters it doesn't hurt to at least know what you are diving into and that none of this is secret voodoo or not available pretty much everywhere already.

It's pretty hard for the "bad guys" to track back to you if you don't initiate a penetration point with an email/phone/ip/phone number etc... State actors are more interested in larger transactions and money laundring than a one time, one way transaction with no guarantee of reciprocation.

The safety the transfer of cryptocurrency isn't where exposure to cybercrime or penetration happens, it is everything leading up to and following the transaction especially if one expects recognized remuneration. You can call it a "donation" if you really want to, but if someone expects any sort of credit or expanded service for this donation it becomes a purchase and the buyer has to take ownership somehow and this ownership is a penetration point unless it was predesignated as dead end to begin with.

The issue of installing warez as a penetration point is better left alone as it unnecessarily complicates things, but even ignorant script kiddies were taking some control of enough machines to sell DDoS as service decades ago and things weren't as sophisticated. So as always when dealing with warez on TOR check you hashes from trusted groups and trust nobody beyond reason, get hash keys from known sources, etc...

 

Thanks for taking the time, very informative

Couldn't agree more!

That being said, IMO knowing more about cryptocurrencies and everything around it makes you less vulnerable to exploitation. Also, a lot of security procedures that one should follow here are the same for everything else, esp. if it involves personal data sharing, banking, etc.

I wouldn't scare to death anyone that want to get their feet wet. Crypto is not a bad thing per se and even if you don't like it, it's here.

I'd appreciate anyone sharing their good/bad experience, especially with wallets, apps, trading, privacy, security..


Now I'm going to fire up my four 3090s and take a nap.. lol