Will this protect him against a slightly funded and half motivated actor? Probably not.
“Announcing Jameson Lopp as a speaker at Baltic Honeybadger 2019 Bitcoin conference #bh2019, (link: https://bh2019.hodlhodl.com) bh2019.hodlhodl.com”
https://twitter.com/hodlhodl/status/1099286199783481350
Unless he is making a virtual appearance, just follow him or grab him there.
EDIT: I should make it clear I’m not just referencing the article but also the twitter conversations I’ve seen from th author (swatting is a good reason to take some of these steps obviously). For example, https://twitter.com/lopp/status/920669889064570880. He even comments himself in that thread “Local PD isn't going to send out the SWAT team again without calling me first”
Going to a physical location and kidnapping is something far above the event that motivated the change.
He hired a PI to test the work. Presumably that defeats this viewpoint? Not saying it protects him from the FBI, but I'd say if a PI can't find you then anyone who does want to is going to need to be more than slightly motivated to do so.
There is a large contingent of online craptivists who won't be bright enough or motivated enough to get to him, and the ones who are bright enough and motivated enough will probably be more interested in other people.
just follow him or grab him there
At least he's crossed the threshold of people having to do that.
"I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you."
Then at least he could still stay in touch with his friends and family, and so many people wouldn't be so motivated to extract their revenge on him.
But no, running his illegal get-rich-quick pyramid scheme and fooling and exploiting other people was more important to him than his own and his dog's safety.
If he wasn't just doing this for cosplay and attention, and was actually concerned about his privacy, then maybe he shouldn't have contacted the New York Times and had them write an article about him, huh?
I don't understand: whose name appears on all the corporate vehicles driving around? A security van for Google, and Amazon delivery truck, a Brinks van: I'm supposed to think there's some employee's name on the title? What if that employee leaves?
... Of course, IMEI tracking (from tower registration) can get you pretty much all of this data anyway. This article is more about how to partially obfuscate your identity to private actors.
It would be interesting to know how fast a professional could unravel all of this. Minutes? Hours?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-29/seems-you...
This is not that hard and there are private web forums where cellco reps surreptitiously offer their services for money/bitcoin/
Sure, individuals in law enforcement or the phone companies can be suborned (i.e. bribed) but all the procedures procedures described in the article are part of "defense in depth". And in fact some of the others make it harder to even know which IMEI to track. I don't know the IMEIs of the handsets of any of my friends -- or even my own, though I could look it up.
So maybe, like parent said, track him at an in-person conference appearance?
"The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone."
That Bitcoin wasn't private was clear since day 0.
I do remember when I was briefly the director of a tiny UK non-profit that the company identity information was mandatory .. except for a very small list of those who were exempt because of intimidation, after a nasty terrorist campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-the-d...
"How a Very Wealthy Person Conceals His Name and Address From The Public"
> When he found a property to buy, he used the L.L.C. and a cashier’s check from the L.L.C.’s bank account to pay for the house in full. A mortgage was not going to be possible.
> 9. Buy a boring car.
> 10. Buy a decoy house to fool the D.M.V.
If this sort of thing could be structured so that it could be delivered economically, there are a lot of YouTubers who would be a potential market for this sort of service. That level of security would be entirely appropriate for them and very valuable.
This certainly fits into the category of things that don't scale.
How is he doing that legitimately?
Seriously though, the toughest part about seeking anonymity is working against human nature and one's need for social validation.
Buys a house, in cash. Buys another "throwaway" house for his car, in cash. Buys car, in cash. And then claims: "Mr. Lopp estimates that his efforts to disappear have cost him about $30,000."
Yeah, right.
Not in all states. In Texas, you do not need auto insurance if you can prove you have the financial ability to pay what an insurance company would otherwise pay.
