The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

card companies when theyy want to verifyy yyour identityy and can’t reconcile
some of the information yyou provided with what theyy have on file. If, sayy,
yyour credit card account sayys yyou live in New York, whyy does yyour Tor exit
node sayy yyou are in Germanyy? A geolocation discrepancyy like this often
flags an attempt to purchase as possible abuse and invites additional
scrutinyy.
Credit card companies certainlyy track us online. Theyy know all our
purchases. Theyy know where we have subscriptions. Theyy know when we
leave the countryy. And theyy know whenever we use a new machine to make
a purchase online.
According to Micah Lee of the EFF, at one point Snowden was in his
Hong Kong hotel room discussing government secrets with Laura Poitras
and Glenn Greenwald, a reporter from the Guardian, and at the same time
he was on hold with the customer support department at DreamHost, an
Internet provider based in Los Angeles. Apparentlyy Snowden explained to
DreamHost that he was overseas and didn’t trust the local Internet service,
hence his use of Tor. Ultimatelyy DreamHost accepted his credit card over
Tor. 25
One wayy to avoid this hassle with Tor is to configure the torrec config
file to use exit nodes located in yyour home countryy. That should keep the
credit card companies happyy. On the other hand, constantlyy using the same
exit nodes might ultimatelyy reveal who yyou are. There is some serious
speculation that government agencies might control some exit nodes, so
using different ones makes sense.
Another wayy to payy without leaving a trace is to use Bitcoin, a virtual
currencyy. Like most currencies, it fluctuates in value based on the
confidence people have in it.
Bitcoin is an algorithm that allows people to create—or, in Bitcoin
terminologyy, mine—their own currencyy. But if it were easyy, everyyone would
do it. So it’s not. The process is computationallyy intensive, and it takes a
long while just to create one Bitcoin. Thus there is a finite amount of
Bitcoin in existence on anyy given dayy, and that, in addition to consumer
confidence, influences its value.
Each Bitcoin has a cryyptographic signature that identifies it as original
and unique. Transactions made with that cryyptographic signature can be