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September 29, 2014

Inside the black markets for your stolen credit cards

password_black_market-1.jpg

These sites often take payment in Bitcoin,
the digital cryptocurrency first popularized by Silk Road, but also accept transfers via Webmoney, MoneyGram, and Western Union, among others. Since such payment methods aren’t reversible like credit card transactions, the storefronts rely heavily on their reputations. They can also use third-party services that add an additional level of security, an act that’s become necessary with the recent surge in sites selling fake credit card numbers across the stolen personal data industry.
Kernel Mag

Posted by gerardvanderleun at September 29, 2014 6:43 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I've been total cash for 5+ years now.
No credit cards, no checks, just green.
We're prepared to go full gold and silver when the time comes, and barter.
Life is better and easier this way.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 7:20 AM

You sir are admirably ahead of the curve. I just had my ATM card changed (again) because Home Depot let my transaction information be exposed.
I'm looking on Amazon for a practical money-belt.

But since for various reasons (and I know this will make you regard me with distain) I don't currently own a firearm of any kind. Mostly that's because I live in the People's Republic of MA but also I found myself at a place when all my friends who I had enjoyed shooting with moved away and then of course the house burned down taking my last piece with it.

Of course I bring this up because to commence running around with large sums of cash on my person is asking for trouble. Or is it? The single redeeming advantage of credit cards and ATM debit cards was the surety against loss. The single worst feature of those forms of payment was the never mentioned fact that your activity, your purchases, even your movements or location was being compromised and recorded. When the RFID chip began being put into credit cards I returned the first one I received and refused to use it. But even before the replacement card arrived I realized that without very expensive equipment I couldn't be sure that a chip wasn't still embedded in that card (aren't I the perfect little paranoid nut?) So I bought a EM shielded wallet. (yup! I'm a kook)

Later I found that I needed to move my transit pass into that wallet. The incident that caused me to do that came shortly after the public transit system in Boston installed new gates at all the stations. I arrived in Boston one morning and leaving the station I hung right and walked by the front of several of those gates at a range of at least three feet. Each gate obediently opened with a boop-boop signaling $1.80 was being withdrawn from my account as each gate reached out and read the chip in the transit pass hanging on my belt. Until that moment I never thought about the range that those damn chips could be detected and my movements recorded.

Hell of a world we've created. Isn't it?

Posted by: Onthenorthriver [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 7:58 AM

northriver- "Hell of a world we've created. Isn't it?"

I don't fault the technology. I do have major anger at the criminal element ("government") that as individuals and groups, create nothing and are empty vessels of protoplasm. Government uses what WE invent, develop, and manufacture against us. This is the way THEY stay in power.

Posted by: Terry [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 8:19 AM

I predict that ten years from now people will do business in coins and banknotes; that all recordkeeping will be done on paper; that all telephones will be analog/land-line; that all mail will be "snail mail"; and that the Internet as we know it will not exist.

Why?

Because we will have learned the hard way that maximized efficiency is not desirable in all aspects of life. We will have seen at first hand the hell on Earth that appears when money, credit, commerce, personal information, and the fundamentals of human civilization are reduced to digital form and placed under the control of a technocratic elite.

Oh, digital computers will still exist a decade from now. They will have their uses -- space exploration, for example. But no one who survives the next ten years will ever again entrust their money, their livelihood, their thoughts, or their lives to networked digital computers.

Posted by: B Lewis [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 12:10 PM

Ghost, I understand you going off the grid. I use cash for just about everything unless it is a large purchase where the card acts as insurance.

However the Gummint doesn't like that since Big Brother in it's kind and loving ways wants to be able to take care of you; so it NEEDS to know where you are every minute of the day.

Travel? You cannot book a room without a credit card and photo ID.
Rent a car? Samo-samo.
Carry big bucks when traveling? If the Po-Po stops you and the cute doggy does a run around lots of money might cause the pooch to hit on the car. Why? Because so much of our money is handled by dopers, that the bills have the drugs rubbed into them. One or ten bills may not be enough to alert the dog, but a bag full probably will.
then they confiscate your money and claim you're a drug courier.
If you have someone on the local force that knows the handler of the drug dog ask them.

After all, they're from the Gummint and here to help.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 12:23 PM

Vermont Woodchuck: Good points, all. It is, for example, impossible to run a legitimate business without using banks, plastic cards, and checks.

P.S.: It's "same old same old", which is short for "the same old 'same old thing'", not "samo-samo", which has no meaning in English.

Sorry; pet peeve.

Posted by: B Lewis [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2014 2:27 PM

Just looked in my wallet and there's $27 in it. I don't carry big sums and I don't go many places, partly because everything is so far away. There is one of them cash boxes sitting over there with maybe another $300 in it that I dip into when my wallet runs low.

Regardless if I have $27 or $300 on me if someone tries to take it it will most likely be the last mistake they ever make. Yeah, I'm willing to die for $27 because it's the principle of the thing - smart thinkers know what I'm talking about.

For those a little slow: anyone willing to risk their life trying to take my $27 is deranged and taking my money won't be enough for them, my life is their goal, and mine as well. Plus, the psychological back pressure from having my ass kicked is more than I can bear.

Anyway, I got a new bird dog yesterday, a 5 month old female Australian Brittany, and today I'm going to Rural King to get her outfitted, so I will be totin' some coin and a heater as well as all the regular onboard equipment I never leave home without.

One more time, ladies and gentleman and you better pay the hell attention. The key word here is

"Situational Awareness"

and it becomes more and more important each and every day. Study it, practice it, live it. Because if you don't you may very well die from lack of it.

Onward.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 30, 2014 6:48 AM

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