There have been a couple of quick updates I posted on the linked page. First, SDF does accept Bitcoin for validation.

Second, SMJ is personally upping the prize to $100. See the link for details.

I am very happy with the result of this stunt. So far this page has gotten over 100,000 which works nicely towards the goal of driving more users towards Tor and SDF.

As for the $10 reward, yes it is small, but the point is to see whether people can breach any of security, not to offer lots of cash (which I don't have anyway).

1. We have a little bit of text we can be reasonably sure voidnull wrote -- some sort of text-likeness algorithm might be able to give us some candidates -- pointed at newsgroups/forums/etc where SDF users might hang out.

2. Using the above, I would note that there are some grammar/typos/mistakes from possibly careless writing. That might be something to specifically try to isolate

3. The HTML on the page is very simple, but malformed -- perhaps look for pages like that (some missing </p> tags)

4. adnam made a comment that showed some familiarity with voidnull and SDF -- adnam might be easier to locate and an association might be discovered.

5. If I believe #4, voidnull is possibly a handle that has been used before (seems really dumb, though) -- perhaps it's a very recognizable alteration.

Anything else?

It saddens me that this needed to be clarified, that anyone would wonder whether putting a page on the internet without going through the "proper channels" was legal. Not surprising, but sad.

2. Use the credit card to buy hosting with whomever you wish to use.

3. Enjoy your anonymity.

I realize it may be possible for law enforcement to find you through tracking down the location the card was purchased at but in reality no one else can find who you are. Even then you could go out of your way to purchase the card outside your home area at a grocery store since they often have minimal / poor camera coverage.

Edit - Responses to some of the comments:

In the USA SSNs are only required for customized reloadable cards with your name on them which is obviously not the type you'd want.

As for AVS / name verification, most prepaid cards now have websites which allow you to set a name and address for use online. Others will pass AVS checks with any address. The packaging will often say if they can be used for online purchases.

It's difficult, and I've noticed recently that it's getting worse.

It used to be you could open a hotmail (or gmail) account pretty trivially without using any real personal info.

But lately these email services have started requiring you to link a phone number, and/or an alternative email address... in theory these are to reduce lockouts, account hacking, etc. -- and they really can help -- but they also mean it's far easier to connect those email addresses with a real person.

I had a gmail address that was "anonymous", linked to some content I was hosting on Google Pages and participation in discussion lists, etc..

Then one day YouTube accounts were merged into Google accounts; and I happened to be logged into the anon google account (and youtube) simultaneously. The was one prompt that I didn't read carefully... and then my public YouTube account that was obviously me was permanently, irrevocably linked to the anon gmail account.

Whoops.

I don't have any pressing need nowadays for an anonymous persona online, but I'm inclined to try again at some point, just because it's something I feel should be still possible.

Google cache to the rescue: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ivvU0sx...

You need a great deal of fore-planning, but it's certainly doable and there is probably no bigger unspoken bounty on an anonymous user's head than Satoshi's, to prove the point.

Also, for those thinking of finding out his identity through text analysis of his writings (you can view about 500 posts of his in the forums archive, iirc), from my experience reading them (though not actually analyzing through proper tools), he seems to deliberately always use the simplest words and short sentences.

Completely incorrect.

There are any number of free web hosts who require nothing more than an email verification.

Some may say that free web hosting is inferior to paid, and I will agree, however my content hosted on free web hosts is still not tied to my real identity.

Text/source matching is a no go, if you search for specific words used in the text maybe he has posted elsewhere on the subject of SSH/TOR/SDF, I came up with 2 names (last name withheld since this is a wild guess) Doug and Patrick.

Snooping around SDF shows very little, no gopher setup or usage by username voidnull.

Finger:

Login:voidnull

Name: Void Null

Directory: /udd/v/voidnull

Shell: /usr/pkg/bin/bash

New Mail received: May 1 19:21 2013

Unread mail Since: Apr 22 08:17 2013

The mail might elude to the fact that he set this account up a week + ago and tested this out before he posted it. So the best bet would be to figure out what was mailed to SDF during the week of April 22nd.

Best bet:

1. Find a security hole in SDF

2. Stake out an pay off someone at Post Office Box 17355 Seattle, WA 98127

I recall a few Iceland hosting services that do the same. As long as you aren't doing something incredibly illegal they won't care what you are hosting

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...

Why is the ability to post something in complete anonymity onto the internet a worthwhile goal?

Go on localbitcoins and find people who mail cash for bitcoins, or find somebody on IRC to do it.

Sell them bitcoins, have them mail the cash to SDF for your payment. Now you avoid all the problems of physically mailing something from where you live. It's actually common for people to ask for single US bills in the mail too, for collecting.

I also would edit Torrc file to use semi trusted exit nodes from torservers.net so you aren't using a malicious exit node.

The real question is whether authorities can find the postal address. They're not going to try of course.

Since we only get 1 batch of mail per day, I wonder how ties will be resolved. :)

Has the person never heard of pastebins and other services that don't require you to sign up in order to post content? If you are concerned about them tracing your IP, that's a different story. You might go to a public computer and hide from all the cameras. In 5 years, when cameras might be more ubiquitous, you will still be able to post via proxies.

At the end of the day, for his claim to be true, EVERY site that lets users post anonymously would have to record the IP of every transaction, maintain a whitelist of IPs from networks that have at least some identity checking or cameras, and ban everyone else. Unlikely!

Just a wild guess based on some quick searching https://smackernews.com/item/1755073 HN

Were you wearing gloves when you handled the dollar bill and the envelope? Did you lick the envelope to seal it?

Also read the comments, there are some nice tips.