EH-Net

Yeah, I figure the title spelling is probably way off.

So, I was thinking several months ago, reading articles and reports of malicious activity, and we all know that hackers take steps to obscure their identities and locations. I wanted to ask about some of the methods used, In general, I would assume that tor would be an obvious choice, as well as routing traffic through compromised machines. is this a fairly accurate portrayal of modern techniques?

The word you're looking for is "Anonymity", beside of what you have mentioned, there are various other techniques: (HTTP Proxies, VPNs, SSH Tunneling...etc). For me, I would look at it like this; there are different techniques, each is suitable for a certain situation, ignoring the fact that whether those are old or modern techniques, it does not really matter as long as you accomplish your goal.

...and there are quite a lot of providers where you can buy a vpn access or even servers in different countries anonymously.

There is one thing I have seen mention of, but it doesnt make complete sense, you would probably have to purchase the vpn access with a credit card, and that would leave a trail...

I'd imagine that many of the more unsavory characters using VPN's wouldn't necessarily be paying for it with their own credit card.

You can get prepaid credit cards without having to provide ID, although, I don't know if these would be accepted by the vendors providing the VPN or not.

There are lots ways and I sure a while back someone on here posted a PDF by anonymous with details on how to hide yourself online.

No you don't... you can pay with bitcoins and be totally anonymous.. I know people who don't keep logs of their clients connections at al..

Hey I don't know nothing!! I ONLY HEARD ABOUT IT !!!  ;D ;D

Whenever I read anything about bitcoins, its always begins something like "Joe had $1,500 in bitcoins.... before they were all stolen without a trace."

Whilst I agree with you, it's probably worth mentioning that bitcoins aren't inherently anonymous. You would still need to take additional measures such as those you've already mentioned for example, or others to ensure you remain anonymous.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity

http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html


And only two day's later we have a Bitcoin exchange shutting after a heist:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/05/bitfloor_heist/

Took a quick look through the forum the operator is posting in. He seems to be asking for free help tracking the thief and recovering the $$ from a pool of PISSED OFF users. Best of luck with that.