
A way to make anonymous online donations - JumpCrisscross
http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-way-to-make-anonymous-online-donations.html
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Acrobatic_Road
He had to give a postal code to register the card and presumably had his IP
address logged. It should be easy enough to trace his real identity.

Yes, he says a fake address may have worked, but that may be criminal fraud.
Also, the given address could be automatically checked against the geolocation
of his IP address to make sure he's being honest. And it's not difficult to
filter Tor/VPN IPs.

Another problem is that while he never gave personal information, he still
created a pseudo-anonymous identity that can be profiled and potentially
linked to his real identity based on a myriad of potential factors. Whereas if
he used something like Monero (which he seems to be aware of), then there
would be no such risk. There's really no point to this method anymore, and
another commentator pointed out it wouldn't even work in certain countries.

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gruez
>Yes, he says a fake address may have worked, but that may be criminal fraud.

How? I get how it might be the case if you're doing it to evade donation
restrictions, but merely lying about your identity isn't fraud anymore than
giving a fake phone number/zip code to the cashier when asked. AFAIK if you're
not benefiting financially from the deception, it's not fraud.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud#Elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud#Elements)

~~~
alasdair_
>merely lying about your identity isn't fraud anymore than giving a fake phone
number/zip code to the cashier when asked. AFAIK if you're not benefiting
financially from the deception, it's not fraud.

This makes me wonder if giving a fake phone number to a cashier to obtain a
financial discount (like a supermarket club card) is fraud...

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noprivacyforme
In my country we have to activate prepaid debit cards by SMS, meaning that the
prepaid cards are tied to our real life identity via our phone numbers.

Prepaid SIM cards need to be registered and tied to your SSN here, so a
prepaid SIM would not work to get around this problem.

You might think I live in some authoritarian state or something but I actually
live in Norway. In general life is good but I find these things disconcerting
:(

I guess it might be doable to use one of those online services that will send
and receive SMS on your behalf without registering any personal information.
But I didn’t try that and for all I know it could be that SMS from such
numbers would be rejected or flagged by the bank.

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markvdb
Getting a sim card using social engineering is easier and safer. You go into
shopping street in front of a cell phone shop, explain you're a foreigner in
distress.

"Sorry to disturb you, but could you please help? I just lost my phone. I
urgently need to be reachable for {"my ill grandmother", "my biggest client"}.
I have money on me, and I already bought a new phone, but I left my id at the
hotel in $next_city, and the shop won't sell me a sim card without it. I'm
desperate! Could you please help me out and get me a 20€ prepaid card?"

Give it 10 minutes tops and you'll have your sim...

~~~
breakingcups
Or you can go to neighbouring countries and pick up 10 free sim cards at the
local Lebara market.

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herodotus
Really old school, but why not stick plain old cash in an envelope? Make sure
that the envelope contents are not visible (eg, wrap the bills in plain
paper), and mail the envelope to the charity. Put a fake return address if you
want. Explain in the enclosed note that the return address is made up. Or use
the name of someone real - they will get a surprise tax receipt.

Yes there is a slight risk that someone in the delivery chain will open the
envelope and steal the money, but I suspect the chances of this happening (at
least here in Canada) are slim, especially if the envelope is inconspicuous.

Cash is still the ultimate way to make anonymous transactions.

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new_guy
Just don't lick the stamp, or they'll have your DNA to identify you with.

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salawat
That's what the squirrel is for.

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smitty1e
> We don't want wealthy people to have an outsized influence on politicians.
> And we want donations to be transparent so we can see how politicians might
> be influenced by certain donors.

As a pure thought experiment, let's just admit that the rich _own_ our
political process, and make it explicit:

\- You ballot gets multipied by the amount of tax you choose to pay.

\- All contributions _have_ to go through the Treasury, and are public.

\- If caught violating the "all your cash in the open" rule, the offender is
disbarred from public service.

Again, this is not a complete thought, but the intent is to drive politics
away from the current poker match, toward chess.

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gruez
>\- You ballot gets multipied by the amount of tax you choose to pay.

I heard of a variation of this where the multiplier is ln(x) or sqrt(x), so
there's diminishing returns from additional donations. That way the rich don't
have as much outsized impact on politics.

~~~
smitty1e
I'm OK with that.

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418tpot
> if in public life I am a well-known conservative Evangelical, but I donate
> to a cause (say abortion education) that I privately support, I might prefer
> avoiding any chance that the donee leak my information in an attempt to
> 'out' me.

This sentence really stood out to me as an example of why politics has become
so polarized.

If you have political ideals {A, B, C} and there are others who have ideals
{A, B, !C}, and you allow your shared beliefs of {A, B} to either sway your
opinion on C, or be not willing to communicate openly about it, then you are
exacerbating the problem.

This forces people to try to try to identify with the group that they have the
largest intersection with, and usually assume the ideals that that group has.
Which means that a majority may silently be in support of C, but are so set in
an us-vs-them mindset, that they allow !C to become part of their ideology.

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Pigo
I always thought people who just agreed with me on everything were boring, or
afraid to admit otherwise. I'm no debate master, but I enjoy sparring with
someone who knows more than I do, or has a view I hadn't considered.

Do schools even have debate anymore?

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philfreo
In the US, another way to make anonymous donations to charity is to use a
Donor Advised Fund [1]. For example Fidelity Charitable [2] makes it easy to
make grants anonymously if you choose.

Beyond that, there can also be additional tax advantages to giving to giving
via DAF, especially if you have appreciated stock, bitcoin, etc. [3]

1\. [https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-
organiz...](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-
organizations/donor-advised-funds)

2\. [http://fidelitycharitable.com/](http://fidelitycharitable.com/)

3\.
[https://twitter.com/philfreo/status/964970877338247169](https://twitter.com/philfreo/status/964970877338247169)

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ddtaylor
To prevent MITM/downgrade attacks (such as by someone at the same coffee shop)
you should always use an HTTPS link. Malicious parties can inject ads,
trackers or botnet mining scripts otherwise. Here is a secure mirror:

[https://archive.is/RTF2i](https://archive.is/RTF2i)

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bonyt
Payment processors have a way to block prepaid cards, and I wouldn't be
surprised if many organizations used these as a blunt instrument to prevent
fraud. A political organization can probably even decide to treat those
transactions as though they were anonymous cash donations.

Though, I'm thinking of the US, so this may be different in Canada or
elsewhere.

See, e.g., [https://support.stripe.com/questions/find-the-type-of-
card-a...](https://support.stripe.com/questions/find-the-type-of-card-a-
customer-is-using)

> The funding parameter of the card object exposes whether the card is a
> credit, debit, or prepaid card. A card may be unknown if Stripe was unable
> to determine its funding type.

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chiefalchemist
To be fair to PayPal and the link, the receiving organizations have been
selling your name and address to each other for a long time. Make a donation
to say the Red Cross and in a couple of weeks you'll be getting (snail) mail
from org you've never even contacted asking for money.

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gruez
> __The way to nip donation fraud in the bud would be to require payment
> processors to avoid processing any prepaid debit card payment for political
> parties

If SaaS startups can block prepaid cards from being used for trials, there's
no reason why this shouldn't be required for political campaigns.

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Akababa
Do virtual credit cards like Google Pay do something similar to this?

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chiefalchemist
Not really, as those are tied directly to you / an account. The article is a
POC for how to give money and mitigate your identity.

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dead_mall
Monero anyone?

