I'd like to conceal my identity as much as possible while shopping online. I try not to resort to online transactions in my daily consumer habits, in part because of privacy, but also because cash is just generally better for budgeting. I'm not Opsec paranoid about having my identity found out, but I don't want to make it easy for retailers to create a consumer profile about me.
I've toyed with the idea of prepaid cards and gift cards. Paying in cash for digital credit at a brick and mortar won't stop the FBI from coming after you, but it does address the inherent problem of disclosing your credit card online. The former is expensive, inefficient, and often times has high fees and all sorts of gotchas they don't disclose when purchasing the card. The latter is better but also a walled garden.
Then there's the fundamental issue of where to ship your merchandise, if you're buying physical commodity. I PO box seems like a good idea initially, but, even with an alias (which, I think, might be illegal to do), you're still associating yourself with one or two recipient accounts–not only that, but you're associating yourself with a static recipient even if you move, so it can even be detrimental. You can persuade someone, such as a neighbor, to be a proxy for your stuff, but that has to be a relationship with a lot of trust, not to mention patience for our obsessive insanity. You could accept their packages while they accept your packages in a kind of pseudo-onion routing way of concealing your actual buying habits, but that seems unrealistic.
Is it hopeless? Does anyone else have this concern, or am I just unhealthily concerned with this topic to detract from other anxieties in my life I have less perceived control over? If there are people like me out there, maybe we can put our heads together and figure something out.
I've had other people order stuff, then give it to me personally. Well I just did it once, but it is an option. Finding a person who won't give you shit could be a problem though.
Charles Kelly
find a store near you that has what you want online. go to store. buy item. go home.
Logan Harris
Some stuff can only be bought online though.
Nathaniel Price
What I sometimes do is use xmr.to to spend Monero where bitcoin is accepted.
bitwants.com
purse.io alagoria.com
thebigcoin.io (never actually used this personally, the fees are high)
Use a proxy then. Every other store requires a cc, which can always be traced back to you.
Julian Foster
In many countries there are automatic post machines at big stores etc. that only require you to enter a code that the vendor gave you. You can eg. make anonymous paypal and email account, buy your stuff with those entering false info except for the store where you pick up and then just pick up the packet with the code they emailed you.
Wtf, is this the future we are looking forward to?
Ryder Murphy
You could buy gift cards to use online. Amazon and PayPal can be used in a lot of online stores. Get the items delivered to a local store. Some have secure dropboxes where you enter a code to retrieve the item.
Brody Kelly
In my country, Amazon has the option to deliver to certain shops. They do not ask for a license or something, just show them the Amazon email and you get your package. You could just give a false name and get it delivered three towns over.
Brayden Bennett
you live in cyberpunk or some thing? the only time they ask for my information in america is when the place wants me to do one of those shitty membership.
Wyatt Green
You can pay cash for gift credit cards. There is a $5 charge to enable them which is kinda shit. You need to register them online before you can use them online, but you can use garbage info. The biggest issue is where to ship your item to. PO box is most certainly not anonymous. You can scout the neighborhood for homes with for sale signs, but you have to be careful they are empty. Dragon dildos are not cheap.
Carson Cox
OP just want to by onaholes and dakimakuras
Cameron Gonzalez
For the record, this happened to me, too. I bought an adjustable wrench in cash at ACE, and the cashier insisted that I give her my name and phone number. Being the sperg I am, I capitulated, which a strongly regret. I went to get a haircut, and they fucking asked for my name and email and refused to service me unless I gave them both; when I sat down to get my hair cut, the barber started talking to me about their record of the previous haircuts I got. I bought a router from a wholesale store, and I was asked for my email just so I could get a reciept. I got a fucking influenza shot at CVS, and the automatically opted my into their mailing list just to get a goddamn shot, made me sign a EULA for their service, and told me that I could refuse there service and could only opt out after I signed up for their service. I fucking hate everything. I'm just giving people bogus numbers and Cockmail addresses from now on.
Jaxon Ross
What the fuck is a secure drop box? What kind of local store lets you order stuff and hold it for you?
Justin Moore
Literally everything you said is in the fucking OP.
Jordan Morris
Just where the fuck do you live?
Parker Price
A third world country called the United States of America
William Evans
Tobaccoists and supermarkets, at least in my area.
Ian Barnes
Are these big chains or local businesses?
Leo Phillips
I know this is a /biz/ question, but do use a remote node? Is the bandwidth/size expenditure for running the daemon yourself a lot, or do people exaggerate it? Because I never see any specific numbers. I've never done this before.
Hunter Roberts
lol mail is botnet and has been for like 50 years who knows. to get a PO box you have to provide official ID or else jail and muh federal offence / terrorism, drug lord, etc shipping to your neighbour is shit because he has no balls your best bet is probably to find a house with a real mailbox (LOL they're phasing these out too now, they pretty much don't exist in my city of 2 million people) and grab the package out before the house owner realizes it's there (for example they're on vacation or you know they wont check the mail for some other reason within your time period)
they probably asked so they can spam his email with promos
then you either live in SF Bay or North Korea i have a list of emails made on random services for when people ask me for email
Luis Nguyen
Go to any store and pay $20 cash for a set of hair clippers. No more barber shops, no more wasted time and money, no more botnet.
Thomas Morris
Sounds like some kind of third world special feature. OP nobody gives a fuck what you buy online, you aren't trying to order methamphetamine precursors are you? The CIA doesn't give a fuck about your onahole or body pillow.
Thomas Martin
just show your ID whenever you receive mail like a good goy
Benjamin Bailey
Yeah, but malicious 1st retailers like Amazon does, advertisers do, identity fraudsters do.
Landon Adams
I can't even browse any of these sites via Tor thanks to Cloudflare.
Liam Harris
Tobacconists are local businesses, but quite tightly regulated due to the state having a monopoly on tobacco sales and so they all have to buy directly from the state. Supermarkets are big chains. Austria, btw.
Anthony Thomas
except they literally don't. would you rather your anime oli fleshlight gets dropped onto a conveyor belt by a robot or have to get it rung up by a female cashier?
Lucas Long
The latter, obviously. I would look her straight in the eye while I do my transaction. Furthermore, and I don't want to sound harsh, but you kind of are projecting. Privacy isn't about purchases we find embarassing or even illegal, or even my personal purchases: it's just about retailers taking advantage of me, of you, your family, and your community. There's no reason to even involve advertising and promotional services in your immediate purchase. That isn't to say either practice is bad, but those kind of added variables just make exchange which is already very fundamentally sensitive because you're exchanging tender and revealing the commodity you consume potentially inecure, unreliable, and just overall untrustworthy.
Brandon Morales
Anyone else?
Brayden Ortiz
I run my own remote node on a VPS that I can use from my computers and phone. It's used about 100TB in 300 days on a 200Mbit/s connection. You can set any limits you want on your daemon though. The blockchain is about 66GB on disk and currently growing at 1 or 2 GB/month. You will want an SSD for the initial sync but it should wok fine if you move it to an HDD after that.
I can recommend using remote nodes though. moneroworld.com is a good resource. A remote node plus the Monerujo android app is easy, looks nice, and works well. A remote node plus the CLI is trickier but works well. The GUI seems to work with a remote node most of the time but it gives less feedback than the CLI so I don't like to use it like that. The GUI with a local node is good though. Running your own node will give you the most privacy and a local node will also be faster when your wallet is scanning the blockchain.
Carson Adams
Don't be a cuck. Find another store and service - vote with your money.
Don't give them anything. If they refuse to serve you - find another servants.
Blake Walker
Rather than refusing, just give them some fake (but real sounding) name and email. It's not like they'll ask for ID.
With these NPCs, I've always noticed that's it's better to comply (with with false info) than spend 10 minutes arguing why I don't want to give out that info.
Blocking 3rd party requests to merchant\analytics domains should be more than enough, sharing your account with a significant other helps too. (amazon's recommended stuff for my account is all sort of wrong now for example, it's great.)
