I went on Venmo's public feed once and a handful of the dozens of transactions I scrolled through were clearly regarding something illicit... sometimes they were spelled out clearly lol.
I hope they know they're posting all their transactions publicly.
Venmo also just scans your phone book (I believe) and adds contacts it finds in your 'friends' feed. I have quite a few professional contacts who are quite different in the way they express themselves with their friends than in the professional setting (as one would expect). They're older (50+) and not in a tech field, and I don't think they realize that it's public by default.
I heard someone at a storytelling event talk about a job interview with one of the payments companies. The job was to build an internal database of local market prices for different sex acts and drugs.
No, bitcoin wouldn't have been a better choice. Quotes like these really show how the public view such sentiment.
Unless under Subpoena or if there's a equivalent emergency of CALEA for an payment gateway, they would not reveal the exact financial statement or settlement. The ledger is private.
Meanwhile the bitcoin ledger is public, anyone can see a transaction and know when it happened.
With the payment gateway via applepay/cashapp, you know who the person sent it and received it only under warrant/Subpoena. If this is released wrongly, or non-intentionally, then it can easily be inadmissable in court breaking chain of evidence, etc etc.
With bitcoin, once you know one party's address, you can view all transactions and see the immediate network effect. Same with knowing the payment gateway details of authorizer and debtor/debtee. There is no need for warrant/Subpoena to view this.
Not without trusting a third party that they're not going run off with your money. Also, coinjoins on BTC are craxy expensive because transaction fees are crazy high.
Luckily BCH has near-perfect coinjoin privacy with CashFusion. It is capable of running > 20 person coinjoin rounds with no change outputs and no trusted third party. And the transactions always cost a fraction of a penny cause BCH has reasonable sized blocks.
Yeah, this is probably why the fake IRS makes you buy gift cards and ask you to give them the codes.
In the alternate universe where Gaetz was a little bit smarter, he would've withdrawn cash from an ATM and bought Amazon gift cards from a retail store, and sent the girls the codes from messaging account not associated with him.
Bitcoin would be clearly a better choice. Yes, you don’t need a subpoena to view the ledger, but the ledger doesn’t necessarily provide a way to identify you.
People suck at opsec (see: Silk Road), and the people making these mistakes would’ve used an exchange required to adhere to KYC/AML requirements to operate in the US (which connects chain information to PII).
Cash in an envelope leaves no trail. Large ATM withdrawals can be explained away.
Bitcoin seems like a silly choice, even if your prostitute accepts it. Cash seems much more obvious and easier. Plus, lower transaction fees and faster transfer.
I read several articles where the FBI says butcoin is the most traceable form of money. Sure you don’t know which person creates a wallet but then there is usually an entry point and exit point into fiat cash requires identity unless you literally sell your wallet on a thumb drive in person.
With bitcoin how would law enforcement know the sender or reviever address? They would have to subopoena whatever service converts bitcoin to/from fiat currency. So at worst it's as bad.
They know the receiver address since they can just ask the girl. They also know as much as she does about what addresses he used to pay her.
The harder part is proving that those addresses are his or a proxy for him when he denies it. It’s possible to hide this well with effort but guy who used cashapp is probably not your best chance.
I'm not sure what you are responding to. I admitted that the transactions could be traced via. the onramp, but my point is that Bitcoin is not any worse than Cashapp. (Which the parent is trying to say)
Where are the social justice warriors on Kara swisher and her tweet itself?
She is making light of an underage girl and calling her a hooker...clearly when you are part of the SV elite rules and common decency don’t apply.
Simultaneously she is giving the old SV wink and nod to Bitcoin - which I’m sure she is heavily invested in - as part of her joke at the expense of this unfortunate underage girl.
As for the Congressman, he is a deplorable human being and didn’t use Cash App because he is dumb...he used cash app for the same reason Kara Swisher freely made a joke at the expense of an underage girl caught up in sex trafficking... because Kara and the Congressman are self-righteous, rich, nobles who believe they are above reproach and consequence. Unfortunately for society they are both correct. My guess is it will even come out the Congressman was behind the Text to his father demanding $25M to keep this quiet as a ploy to sidetrack and muddy the waters of the investigation itself.
I read some of the reply’s and kara’s responses and she acknowledges the investigation is targeting the underage sex trafficking.
I characterized the tweet as an attempted joke (that also promotes Bitcoin), how would you characterize it? It’s certainly not a serious suggestion.
If there were no allegations of underage sex trafficking sure just a joke at the expense of another corrupt public official, but under the set of allegations she is labeling a underage girl a hooker along with consenting adult sex workers.
The responses to my comment are exactly my point...people will excuse the SV elite, and it’s no different than the people who will make excuses for the congressman.
> "Apple Pay for hookers? Seems like Bitcoin would be a better choice."
Yes there were more women involved and at this time only 1 is alleged to have been underage, but she also acknowledges in another tweet in the thread the investigation is targeting the underage sex trafficking.
The alleged payment(s) may have been to consenting adult sex workers, but no one knows so it’s not accurate to say these were payments to “hookers” as opposed to payments to facilitate underage sex trafficking (or both). In any case the Tweet is clearly intended to be a joke, so under the circumstances it’s definitely at the expense of at least 1 underage girl, and oddly that would be true whether there turns out to not be an underage girl involved.
> They are also determining whether he financially supported her, including paying for her to travel with him over state lines, in exchange for sex, which could amount to sex trafficking of a minor.
I look forward to seeing someone make the argument that if you pay the travel costs associated with a woman traveling with you, you are in fact "sex trafficking" that woman.
> I look forward to seeing someone make the argument that if you pay the travel costs associated with a woman traveling with you, you are in fact "sex trafficking" that woman.
You quote it but seem to deliberately ignore a key part of the quote in your own comment:
> paying for her to travel with him over state lines, in exchange for sex, which could amount to sex trafficking of a minor. [emphasis added]
If the woman in question was a minor at the time it constitutes trafficking and similar crimes by definition in many jurisdictions.
> you pay the travel costs associated with a woman traveling with you...
You've somehow missed both the "in exchange for sex" and "with a minor" part? This one doesn't seem difficult or ambiguous at all. This is clearly trafficking.
I missed neither of those things. The particularly stupid argument first:
> "with a minor"
Sex trafficking is criminalized regardless of whether the woman is a legal minor. Conduct that is "sex trafficking of a minor" when you do it to a minor must be "sex trafficking" of a non-minor when you do it to a non-minor, right?
The less stupid argument:
> "in exchange for sex"
There is no line to be drawn between paying for someone to travel with you, and sleeping with them (900% legal, and still legal when the someone is a minor), versus paying for someone to travel with you, so that you can sleep with them (illegal, but even more illegal when the someone is a minor). There is nothing even slightly unusual about traveling with someone with whom you have a sexual relationship, or about paying their travel costs.
And the one in the middle:
> This is clearly trafficking.
Perhaps, if you're prepared to admit that "trafficking" means nothing more or less than "prostitution". That is not the common use, however; "trafficking" would notionally involve Gaetz receiving money from other third parties so that those third parties could sleep with the girl.
> There is no line to be drawn between paying for someone to travel with you, and sleeping with them (900% legal, and still legal when the someone is a minor), versus paying for someone to travel with you, so that you can sleep with them
You can argue for that in front of a judge or jury, but you need to remember: they are not legally obligated to believe your bullshit. Sure, maybe Gaetz just happens to like hanging out with 17-year-old girls, who he brings to states that showed up in a list of "states with lower age of consent", and his favorite form of hanging out just so happens to be spending a few hours at a hotel where they have sex. But just because he makes that argument doesn’t mean that the jury has to believe him. They don’t leave their critical thinking skills at the door.
> "trafficking" would notionally involve Gaetz receiving money from other third parties so that those third parties could sleep with the girl.
Where do you get this idea? Sex trafficking is any time you move someone and exploit them for sex... No third party needs to be involved. (According to both dictionary and wikipedia definitions.)
> The term “sex trafficking” means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
"Commercial sex act" is also defined in this section:
> (4) Commercial sex act
> The term “commercial sex act” means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Finally, "severe trafficking" is defined as:
> (11) Severe forms of trafficking in persons
> The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means—
> (A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
If you combine all of those definitions it seems clear that if the prosecution can show:
- Matt Gaetz paid the transportation costs
- of a minor
- in exchange for a sex act (for himself or another)
That would constitute a "severe form of trafficking" according to the United States Code. Paying for travel would constitute transportation. If the payment for travel is in exchange for a sex act, that would transform it into a "commercial sex act". Finally, if that person is a minor that would trigger the 11 (A) condition to make it a severe form of trafficking.
CashApp, Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal and even Zelle are actually more common than I would have thought among sex workers; way more popular than crypto. CashApp especially as CashApp does not reveal your real name.
It's not that Gaetz was a "genius" for using CashApp, it's already incredibly common. I don't believe most sex workers and their clients consider police enforcement a real threat, especially given how lax prostitution laws are enforced if you keep out of the public eye. Most sex workers are probably more worried about men who would leak their info or stalk them. So in terms of relative importance privacy is a top concern, but having a traceable ledger isn't (because the police are unlikely to spend the money to throw you behind bars). In fact it's harder to get infromatino from CashApp than it is from Bitcoin. After all a SW's wallet is probably public and at this stage of the investigation it wouldn't be hard to get Gaetz wallet as well.
That said, if I were Gaetz and for whatever reason I needed to pay minors for sex I'd seek help. Failing that I would probably exclusively use cash or dead drops.
This article strangely paints sex workers who use payment apps in a positive light while also painting Gaetz in a negative light for using those payment apps to pay a sex worker. Is paying willing sex workers for sex morally acceptable or not?
The child in question was 17 at the time of the payments. In many states the age of consent is 16. Do you think the age of consent should be made higher in those states? If so, what do you think is an acceptable minimum age?
Could you answer my question first? Do you think the age of consent should be made higher in those states? If so, what do you think is an acceptable minimum age? This is not a matter of current policy but your legal opinion.
On the one hand this I can totally see the average politician being both this stupid and this morally questionable.
On the other hand the fact that the reporters have been able to see payment details from multiple payment apps and they are reporting this while he is still being just investigated and hasn't been charged yet smells a little too convenient.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 99.3 ms ] threadI hope they know they're posting all their transactions publicly.
Unless under Subpoena or if there's a equivalent emergency of CALEA for an payment gateway, they would not reveal the exact financial statement or settlement. The ledger is private.
Meanwhile the bitcoin ledger is public, anyone can see a transaction and know when it happened.
With the payment gateway via applepay/cashapp, you know who the person sent it and received it only under warrant/Subpoena. If this is released wrongly, or non-intentionally, then it can easily be inadmissable in court breaking chain of evidence, etc etc.
With bitcoin, once you know one party's address, you can view all transactions and see the immediate network effect. Same with knowing the payment gateway details of authorizer and debtor/debtee. There is no need for warrant/Subpoena to view this.
I can go on, but you get the picture, I hope.
Luckily BCH has near-perfect coinjoin privacy with CashFusion. It is capable of running > 20 person coinjoin rounds with no change outputs and no trusted third party. And the transactions always cost a fraction of a penny cause BCH has reasonable sized blocks.
In the alternate universe where Gaetz was a little bit smarter, he would've withdrawn cash from an ATM and bought Amazon gift cards from a retail store, and sent the girls the codes from messaging account not associated with him.
Cash in an envelope leaves no trail. Large ATM withdrawals can be explained away.
The harder part is proving that those addresses are his or a proxy for him when he denies it. It’s possible to hide this well with effort but guy who used cashapp is probably not your best chance.
You can tumble coins, but many people don't know how and many competent ones do get scammed.
She is making light of an underage girl and calling her a hooker...clearly when you are part of the SV elite rules and common decency don’t apply.
Simultaneously she is giving the old SV wink and nod to Bitcoin - which I’m sure she is heavily invested in - as part of her joke at the expense of this unfortunate underage girl.
As for the Congressman, he is a deplorable human being and didn’t use Cash App because he is dumb...he used cash app for the same reason Kara Swisher freely made a joke at the expense of an underage girl caught up in sex trafficking... because Kara and the Congressman are self-righteous, rich, nobles who believe they are above reproach and consequence. Unfortunately for society they are both correct. My guess is it will even come out the Congressman was behind the Text to his father demanding $25M to keep this quiet as a ploy to sidetrack and muddy the waters of the investigation itself.
"Apple Pay for hookers? Seems like Bitcoin would be a better choice."
I'm not sure that is what you characterize it as.
I characterized the tweet as an attempted joke (that also promotes Bitcoin), how would you characterize it? It’s certainly not a serious suggestion.
If there were no allegations of underage sex trafficking sure just a joke at the expense of another corrupt public official, but under the set of allegations she is labeling a underage girl a hooker along with consenting adult sex workers.
The responses to my comment are exactly my point...people will excuse the SV elite, and it’s no different than the people who will make excuses for the congressman.
She never called her a hooker though.
And Gaetz was using the app to procure prostitutes most of whom weren't underage so its accurate.
Yes there were more women involved and at this time only 1 is alleged to have been underage, but she also acknowledges in another tweet in the thread the investigation is targeting the underage sex trafficking.
The alleged payment(s) may have been to consenting adult sex workers, but no one knows so it’s not accurate to say these were payments to “hookers” as opposed to payments to facilitate underage sex trafficking (or both). In any case the Tweet is clearly intended to be a joke, so under the circumstances it’s definitely at the expense of at least 1 underage girl, and oddly that would be true whether there turns out to not be an underage girl involved.
It describes two separate scenarios being investigated and the latter does not mention payment.
> "Apple Pay for hookers? Seems like Bitcoin would be a better choice."
There were several people mentioned in the one I’m referencing.
I look forward to seeing someone make the argument that if you pay the travel costs associated with a woman traveling with you, you are in fact "sex trafficking" that woman.
You quote it but seem to deliberately ignore a key part of the quote in your own comment:
> paying for her to travel with him over state lines, in exchange for sex, which could amount to sex trafficking of a minor. [emphasis added]
If the woman in question was a minor at the time it constitutes trafficking and similar crimes by definition in many jurisdictions.
You've somehow missed both the "in exchange for sex" and "with a minor" part? This one doesn't seem difficult or ambiguous at all. This is clearly trafficking.
> "with a minor"
Sex trafficking is criminalized regardless of whether the woman is a legal minor. Conduct that is "sex trafficking of a minor" when you do it to a minor must be "sex trafficking" of a non-minor when you do it to a non-minor, right?
The less stupid argument:
> "in exchange for sex"
There is no line to be drawn between paying for someone to travel with you, and sleeping with them (900% legal, and still legal when the someone is a minor), versus paying for someone to travel with you, so that you can sleep with them (illegal, but even more illegal when the someone is a minor). There is nothing even slightly unusual about traveling with someone with whom you have a sexual relationship, or about paying their travel costs.
And the one in the middle:
> This is clearly trafficking.
Perhaps, if you're prepared to admit that "trafficking" means nothing more or less than "prostitution". That is not the common use, however; "trafficking" would notionally involve Gaetz receiving money from other third parties so that those third parties could sleep with the girl.
You can argue for that in front of a judge or jury, but you need to remember: they are not legally obligated to believe your bullshit. Sure, maybe Gaetz just happens to like hanging out with 17-year-old girls, who he brings to states that showed up in a list of "states with lower age of consent", and his favorite form of hanging out just so happens to be spending a few hours at a hotel where they have sex. But just because he makes that argument doesn’t mean that the jury has to believe him. They don’t leave their critical thinking skills at the door.
Where do you get this idea? Sex trafficking is any time you move someone and exploit them for sex... No third party needs to be involved. (According to both dictionary and wikipedia definitions.)
"Sex Trafficking" and "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" are defined in 22 U.S. Code § 7102 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7102).
> (12) Sex trafficking
> The term “sex trafficking” means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
"Commercial sex act" is also defined in this section:
> (4) Commercial sex act
> The term “commercial sex act” means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Finally, "severe trafficking" is defined as:
> (11) Severe forms of trafficking in persons
> The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means—
> (A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
If you combine all of those definitions it seems clear that if the prosecution can show:
- Matt Gaetz paid the transportation costs - of a minor - in exchange for a sex act (for himself or another)
That would constitute a "severe form of trafficking" according to the United States Code. Paying for travel would constitute transportation. If the payment for travel is in exchange for a sex act, that would transform it into a "commercial sex act". Finally, if that person is a minor that would trigger the 11 (A) condition to make it a severe form of trafficking.
It's not that Gaetz was a "genius" for using CashApp, it's already incredibly common. I don't believe most sex workers and their clients consider police enforcement a real threat, especially given how lax prostitution laws are enforced if you keep out of the public eye. Most sex workers are probably more worried about men who would leak their info or stalk them. So in terms of relative importance privacy is a top concern, but having a traceable ledger isn't (because the police are unlikely to spend the money to throw you behind bars). In fact it's harder to get infromatino from CashApp than it is from Bitcoin. After all a SW's wallet is probably public and at this stage of the investigation it wouldn't be hard to get Gaetz wallet as well.
That said, if I were Gaetz and for whatever reason I needed to pay minors for sex I'd seek help. Failing that I would probably exclusively use cash or dead drops.
Are they adults who are consenting and not being exploited? Then that's different. (And, imho, we should decriminalize and regulate sex work.)
Your framing ignores the fact that one of the participants was a child.
Also, moving a minor across state lines for sex runs afoul of federal law, not just state laws.
Are you suggesting what Gaetz did was somehow ok?
On the other hand the fact that the reporters have been able to see payment details from multiple payment apps and they are reporting this while he is still being just investigated and hasn't been charged yet smells a little too convenient.
That’s what makes it investigative journalism. It’s one of the reasons journalism even exists.