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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Pig notice only on checkout? That doesn't necessarily point to some issue with his payment method. The checkout server is likely different than the content server and may be subject to different protections.

Imho they are running the standard 'enemy IP' blocklists used by p2p filesharers for may years. Where one sees law enforcement using computers, one must first assume incompetence. In all likelihood he/she was using a machine at a known cop shop (Windows) without any sort of IP masking.

Some cops are highly trained IT specialists, but many investigators are actually just senior traffic enforcers who have been promoted into "technology crime" units. They have training and paper certifications, but lack any deep knowledge re technology. They make lots of mistakes. Think flowers by irene.

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You missed an important point: if they wait until checkout then the payment process will complete and they'll get to walk away with law enforcement's money.

They have every incentive to wait until the very end to tip their hand.

These fraud shops make you deposit first then you go shopping much like how silk rd worked, so at anytime could have seized the coins.

For all we know this screen upon checkout is random, and whoever doesn't complain to get their money back is the cop. Most fraud outfits have major customers they deal with or cashout teams they offer specific BINs over chat, the online store is for bottom tier thieves on public sites.

If they really wanted to increase their take they could have that fed identifying system running on the content server as well. That way they can show inflated prices to feds, have the feds try to buy, then walk away with a bigger haul.

I don't understand why they tip their hand at all. Why not just sell them randomly generated numbers?

This may be an over assumption, looking at the timing of the block. Article states that because of the timing the site owners were able to seize his funded account, getting a few hundred dollars for free.

May have flagged him prior, but like the opportunity to take government money.

10 years ago, maybe, but nowadays federal-level LE runs extremely high opsec. Theres no way they would've run something like this from a government IP, let alone a non-virtualized machine.

But how many investigators are actual feds? There are literally hundreds, thousands even, of US police agencies. Most any one of those can setup a few computers and start looking for online crime. This guy could be from a local department of five officers, not an unusual situation in the US.

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