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According to TechDirt:
It's beginning to look like a US-based encrypted communications platform may be headed for a Lavabit-esque future. As we're well aware, agencies like the FBI and NSA are firmly opposed to encrypted communications, which is something Surespot -- a text-messaging service -- offers.
Surespot has been in the news lately, thanks to terrorist groups utilizing encrypted services to keep their communications secret. UK's Channel Four looked into Surespot and found that 115 "ISIS-linked" people "appear" to have used the service in the "past six months." Because UK 4 wasn't able to get this information from Surespot directly (because Surespot doesn't store personally identifiable information or users' communications), it has only been able to infer this from messages on social media services that refer to Surespot.
What this means in terms of terrorists "flocking" to encrypted apps is still very vague, but there's no doubt any additional layers of secrecy are welcomed by those wishing to hide their communications. What 115 ISIS-linked users means in terms of an installed user base of at least 100,000 is also open for discussion, but it's quite obvious there are plenty of non-terrorists using the service as well.
[..]
George Maschke of Antipolygraph.org has been periodically sending emails to Surespot, unofficially acting as the service's warrant canary. For several months, his questions have been answered. But as of May 25th, he has still received no response to his canned questions.
There's good reason to believe this is true. A recent plea agreement by a 17-year-old Virginia native charged with providing material support to ISIS (via instructions on how to use Bitcoin to provide anonymous donations) specifically mentions Surespot.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday June 15 2015, @07:35PM
I have no idea how he pays, but I could imagine a system where you pay with bitcoins, have the bitcoin transaction contain a public key, and as authentication have to provide the bitcoin transaction ID signed with the corresponding private key as proof that you were the one doing the payment.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Monday June 15 2015, @07:48PM
Needlessly complicated. Bitcoin encourages you to create a new key for every client which trivially tells you who paid. However, the BTC not really anonymous. Even the best possible laundering^W mixing services will leave tracks. Permanently, in the blockchain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2015, @09:24PM
But are the records meaningful? Unless they reveal your identity, I imagine it would be hard to track you down if you take precautions.
(Score: 1) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:02PM
Yes, they are meaningful. BTC is much more private than something directly tied to your name, such as credit cards, but much less private than cash. Statistical methods can be used to bring different bits of information together and it only takes one action somewhere along the line, which is insecure in some arcane detail, to identify you in past transactions. Worse, you are susceptible to tracking methods which have not yet been invented and can do very little to protect yourself against unknown unknowns.
I have nothing against cryptocurrency and bitcoin is a very cool experiment, but it can quite possibly be traced by governments or others with sufficient resources and sufficient reason to take an interest in you. (It will probably take them a while if you are careful.)
(Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday June 28 2015, @05:22AM
It's best remembered that VPN anonymity is very often used not for safety from governments, but rather safety from ISP level monitoring, for matters of piracy, or simply other mostly secret but not the end of the world for the high level law enforcement to be aware of. Now, if the files on the NSA working often with the copyright lobby were to come forth, I'd probably backpedal, but to my knowledge right now most pirates are quite happy to simply sidestep things like the 6 strikes policy with a simple mostly anonymized VPN.
In any case, you'd be better off using prepaid credit cards bought with cash from a public but not surveilled wireless access point (preferably with a password required, such as a Starbucks hotspot from outside the building). Ideally with a one time use raspberry pi over a public but password protected wifi point in a camera-free zone (ssh into it on a shared offline wireless access point with a clean (this may be the most illusory part...) phone/tablet with 3G/4G turned off in lieu of a monitor/keyboard).
But honestly, if you're going to these lengths, then why not just sidestep the VPN in the first place as you're already doing better at hiding your identity than the VPN can in the first place. Perhaps the added benefit of geolocation spoofing being a vague option, but it seems a bit convoluted for the casual scofflaws who just don't want the Internet cut off or a lawsuit over using bittorrent, or performing similarly modest civil offenses.