FBI Honeypot?

[anonymousjoe 0]

I bought a subscription to AirVPN and paid with Bitcoin.

 

Due to the nature of Bitcoins public ledger curiosity allows me to follow the money. I was quite shocked to see the majority of my payment get delivered to the Silkroad Seized Coins address.

 

I have to ask why?

 

(EDIT) Response from the support ticket.

 

anonymousjoe,

A member of staff has replied to your support request.

-------------------------------------------
Hello,

we can't see your point. Coinbase and BitPay are our Bitcoin payment processors. The address displayed by them and which you transfer BTC to has nothing to do with us: it is a one-time generated address to collect Bitcoin for us, just like any other payment processor does. What the payment processor then does with the collected Bitcoin to each generated address is a business of the payment processor only and we don't see why you should be worried about that.

Kind regards
AirVPN Support Team
-------------------------------------------

[rootsecure9797 1]

i am love it

[DA623 6]

Your claim here seems dodgy. You give no references to this Bitcoin address actually being the one that AirVPN uses for purchasing subscriptions. Also, why would an ITALIAN group (Air Di Paolo Brini, their VAT ID is listed on the bottom of the website if you want to look it up) be associated with the FBI? I also doubt that AISI/AISE (the Italian equivalent to the FBI) would have anything to do with Silk Roads former bit coin wallet.

 

If this actually DOES relate to AirVPN's bitcoin address, its more than likely that Coinbase is falsely labeling their wallet ID to Silk Road. Could be too their wallet ID was falsely reported to Coinbase as this as well (maybe by someone trying to troll AirVPN or a competing VPN company trying to damage AirVPNs repetition).

 

Either way, I seriously doubt AirVPN is a "FBI Honeypot" as you claim.

[Guest]

[mehāniskākaravīrs935 24]

I bought a subscription to AirVPN and paid with Bitcoin.

 

Due to the nature of Bitcoins public ledger curiosity allows me to follow the money. I was quite shocked to see the majority of my payment get delivered to the Silkroad Seized Coins address.

 

I have to ask why?

 

Honeypot or not using AirVPN is not a means of evading international intelligence agency's. If you think that will ever be enough you are absolutely deluding yourself. That being said, it would be interesting to see if Air was a honeypot, but even if it was you will never get a response that you will ever 100% believe.

 

TL;DR: Partition of Trust is all you can get from AirVPN

[zhang888 1066]

OP, ever heard about Coinbase?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=373470.0

[darkshady 0]

Here's the address in question: https://blockchain.info/address/1PycNckcTw39yd7x6CGZgtTRvbYWsEDyVn

[anonymousjoe 0]

FTR, I was not claiming it to be a honeypot, hence the question mark in the title.

 

(EDIT) I've opened a support ticket with the Invoice# for an answer so will post that when/if I receive a response. And since my last 3 posts haven't been approved I am editing this one. (/EDIT)

 

 

 

Your claim here seems dodgy. You give no references to this Bitcoin address actually being the one that AirVPN uses for purchasing subscriptions. Also, why would an ITALIAN group (Air Di Paolo Brini, their VAT ID is listed on the bottom of the website if you want to look it up) be linked with the FBI? I also doubt that SISMI (the Italian equivalent to the FBI) would have anything to do with Slik Road.

 

If this actually DOES relate to AirVPN's bitcoin address, its more that Coinbase is likely falsely labeling their wallet ID to Silk Road. Could be too their wallet ID was falsely reported to Coinbase as this as well (maybe by someone and/or a competing VPN company trying to damage AirVPNs repetition).

 

Either way, I seriously doubt AirVPN is a "FBI Honeypot" as you claim.

I have no way to prove the reference of the Bitcoin address listed, nothing in my email or online invoices here.

 

Your information about Coinbase seems most probable. Strange that it is labeled it as such.

 

 

 

Honeypot or not using AirVPN is not a means of evading international intelligence agency's. If you think that will ever be enough you are absolutely deluding yourself. That being said, it would be interesting to see if Air was a honeypot, but even if it was you will never get a response that you will ever 100% believe.

TL;DR: Partition of Trust is all you can get from AirVPN

 

Thank you I am aware that AirVPN is no means of evading the intelligence agencies and you are correct that I/we will not receive any 100% belief regarding whether it is or is not a honey pot.

 

 

OP, ever heard about Coinbase?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=373470.0

 

 

Interesting read, thank you.

[darkshady 0]

Thanks to the transparency of the Bitcoin block chain, you can actually see that the FBI Bit-seizure has already happened. Reddit has located what looks to be the FBI’s Bitcoin wallet; there’s an influx of 27,000 Bitcoins into it starting on Wednesday, October 2. Someone has helpfully edited the blockchain information for the wallet so that its name is “Silkroad Seized Coins.” Now members of Reddit are starting to use the wallet as an email address, sending it tiny amounts of Bitcoins along with public messages, which can be read here.

 

“hey computer geek, who control this address,” writes one FBI “tipper.” “‘Ross Ulbricht’ is not the bad guy, you are a bad guy. Please open your eyes, dont be brainwashed, and think your self!!!”

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/10/04/fbi-silk-road-bitcoin-seizure/

[darkshady 0]

The address that OP pointed to is real. The $16.58 also converts from the one month plan correctly.

 

Question is: why is everyone paying The Fed?

 

https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX

[DA623 6]

How do you know this is the address is even remotely related to AirVPN at all? The one AirVPN uses from Coinbase changes per transaction and is valid only for 20 minutes. The Bitcoin address your BTC transaction logs should be going to and showing the address that it generated for that transaction, and not a static public hash like the one listed in the link.

 

Also, it would be very easy for someone to send that amount of BTC to this Bitcoin address to make it appear as if this is the Bitcoin wallet their using to try to create BS about AirVPN. The VPN business is extremely competitive with a ton of companies trying to get you to use their VPN over another, so I wouldn't put it past one of them to try to create FUD like this against their competitors.

 

Also, there's allot of people making small transactions for trolling to this wallet address as its extremely well known address. This also begs the question: If they were a "Honeypot", why would they make direct transactions from the user to a Bitcoin wallet that is extremely well known on the internet at this point? Seems like a extremely quick way to expose your plans and extremely stupid and short sited if your a government intelligence agency.

Either way, there's no hard, concrete evidence that this Bitcoin wallet is even remotely related to AirVPN in any way.

[darkshady 0]

AIRVPN staff - care to comment? 

[cm0s 118]

security is layers

 

also anonymity and encryption can be thought of like this:

 

you can have anonymity without the use of encryption

 

you can have anonymity with the use of encryption

 

encryption tho really has nothing to do with anonymity

 

harden yer local and the bad human habits and

 

aim at whatever yer threat model is yer rollen against

[flat4 79]

i want to see where this goes, give me some popcorn also.

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

 

Interesting thoughts. But I'm not sure which would surprise me more: that AirVPN was a honeypot or that the FBI actually had any skills whatsoever.

[DA623 6]

I see that the OP has decided to post about this in his blog as well: <link removed - staff - unlikely attempt to link keywords to harm Air reputation>

I also agree with AirVPNs response (which he posted in the blog) and IMO, this claim the OP is making should be far more related to Coinbase than with AirVPN (and I admit, it's something that didn't cross my mind before). As AirVPN's support said, they have no control over how Coinbase handles the transactions you pay to Coinbase, which they then process to go to AirVPN's bitcoin wallet. Coinbase is pretty much acting as a middleman here for your payment, similar to how PayPal is the middleman for your transaction when you use them to purchase something from a retailer. So IMO, if the OP is fearing "honeypots", they should be focusing on Coinbase far more than on AirVPN.

 

Though I still feel the OP's claim is quite dodgy since as of right now, they are currently the only one making this claim.

 

Also, yes I do edit my posts allot because I have OCD, and when I see an error in my post, I feel the need to have to correct it. Thus all the edits.

AirVPNs response to the OP that he posted in his blog:

Hello,

we can't see your point. Coinbase and BitPay are our Bitcoin payment processors. The address displayed by them and which you transfer BTC to has nothing to do with us: it is a one-time generated address to collect Bitcoin for us, just like any other payment processor does. What the payment processor then does with the collected Bitcoin to each generated address is a business of the payment processor only and we don't see why you should be worried about that.

Kind regards
AirVPN Support Team

[zhang888 1066]

Given the fact that OP could not look up this info by himself, although self-proclaiming himself as a "bitcoin analysis expert"

and ability to "follow the money" - quote in the first post, is kind of turns off anyone from reading his blog, no offense.

 

Pretty much anyone who knows the Bitcoin world knows that all U.S. agencies that "sieze" Bitcoins do that via Coinbase

and BItpay, which are both U.S. based and IRS regulated, and also the fact that anyone can "mark" any address on the

blockchain.info website with any message he wants to, including spam messages like many services do.

Even if you did not know the first fact, a simple Google query will return about a million results about various alleged

conspiracy stories, again raised by less educated individuals, and well formed answers that explain all those addresses

are controlled by Coinbase and they (addresses) seem to be their (Coinbase) cold storage or some kind of offline wallets.

 

Surprising how this topic went so out of context.

Quote from the blog post of OP:

 

Seems odd that any legit person would forward most of the payments to a compromised account

 

Seriously? Compromised by who? This is one of the wallets Coinbase uses, and they are pretty much open about it.

When Silkroad's bitcoins were seized they were forwarded to Coinbase for their safe storage, under a government

contract, given the fact that it is a U.S. based company with the tech and financial ability to keep this form of asset.

 

The rest of the post and allegations are a total nonsense, originating from mis-understating of the Silkroad and Coinbase event.

[anonymousjoe 0]

I was asking a question and I got my answers, thanks to those that added something useful, case closed.

[urbanconcrete 14]

This is one of the wallets Coinbase uses, and they are pretty much open about it.

[flat4 79]

so  off topic, if bitpay and coinbase are no bueno, who should you use?

[strangerthings 0]

I was asking a question and I got my answers, thanks to those that added something useful, case closed.

 

Air staff, if you allow any moron to publish FUD and bullshit your forum will get unreadable sooner or later. You should not allow publication of openly manifest misinformation and FUD. I have seen too many forums become unreadable for unmoderated trolls and retards.

 

Either anonymousjoe ignores the basics of bitcoin and writes randomly for plain stupidity, or we have ultimate lack of good faith here.

[LZ1 672]

 

I was asking a question and I got my answers, thanks to those that added something useful, case closed.

Air staff, if you allow any moron to publish FUD and bullshit your forum will get unreadable sooner or later. You should not allow publication of openly manifest misinformation and FUD. I have seen too many forums become unreadable for unmoderated trolls and retards.

 

Either anonymousjoe ignores the basics of bitcoin and writes randomly for plain stupidity, or we have ultimate lack of good faith here.

Air Staff frequently stop people from posting, for exactly those reasons though. So don't worry

 

Sent to you from me with datalove