What you call "fraud" I call "privacy". Anonymous transactions happen all the time with cash, and any new payment method needs an equivalent. In the modern era where it is no longer possible to gain privacy by being unobservable, a new definition of privacy is required. Dan Geer has a very good replacement definition; privacy is "the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself"[1]. If cash isn't possible, misrepresentation is the only option.

[1] http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt

What you call privacy might be called fraud in some countries. That's what my question is about.

I concur & I tread lightly in my guerilla tactics. My bank, my insurance company my Dept Of Motor Vehicles & the other "legit" govs that require my info get it(and I use offline services as exclusively as/while I am still able). For every other "reg required" service, discount card "brick & mortar" or any other entity that requires a unique account, they get all the mis-info I can feed them. In the end, they get their unique identity to track and disseminate, it's just a falsey.

*Granted, it is an easily unravelled ball of lottery hotlines & public spaces addresses that could easily be traced back to the real "me", but I'm not really hiding, just preserving my right to be left alone from prying marketeers and... ahem.... data scientists.

In the interest of discussion, I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Please don't attack me personally.

The difference between a cash transaction and, say, a bitcoin transaction is one of scale. To make a cash transaction requires us to be in the same place and to have at least a basic understanding of identity. A fraudster can obviously profit in this situation, but their targets are limited to who they can physically meet.

The Internet is an order of magnitude larger scale. Fraudsters can work in bulk and hide their transactions easily. It's wholesale and not retail, so to speak. That is a problem worth at least considering.

It doesn't create a risk of these activities.

It may make it easier for people to commit fraud, though I suspect anyone considering that career choice is probably slightly ahead of the content of this article.

As to identity theft - I can't see how this article would help or hinder anyone in that pursuit. I guess if you follow one of the practices described - unique ID attributes at your various throwaway / anonymity-desired sites you visit - you may make it slightly harder for someone to pinch your identity.

What identity are you stealing though?