Would make sense if he withdrew small amounts from an ATM incrementally, but if he withdrew say $5k and then his web footprint went dead it draws a lot of red flags.
Although it depends who your adversary is at the end of the day.
Although it depends who your adversary is at the end of the day.
In fairness, using contactless payments is super convenient and although it leaves a data trail, the sheer convenience of being able to buy a beer without fumbling around in my pockets is great. It's the old privacy versus convenience argument. But then, here in the EU you can compartment your card use with things like Revolut, and you can even secure your card by setting a limit on how much you can spend with contactless (no affiliation with Revolut, I just enjoy their app).
Of course in an ideal world, there would be no such (transparent) data trail and you would pay for everything with Monero, over Tor lol
I had the same dirty feeling whenever I paid with my Revolut cards as I do when someone I legit want to connect with adds me on Facebook.