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A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

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Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#91

Post by tudorconstantin »

jcranmer wrote: post #18

I have to imagine that the first person at the FBI (or whichever agency is responsible for tracking money laundering) to come across bitcoin fell out of their chair laughing when they came across it. It's a protocol that has a public, dated, irrefutable log of every transaction made... and its users think it untraceable (or at least, they thought it untraceable back when it first came out).

As long as you're able to create btc addresses without having to show an id to an official, it should be possible to anonimize them. Or at least create a pseudo plausible story of getting them in a legal fashion. Of course, it's pretty difficult for an authority to believe that you received 10k stolen BTCs from donations in the address that you posted on your blog, but it's also pretty difficult to prove that you sent them yourself.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#92

Post by colordrops »

jcranmer wrote: post #73
colordrops wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's about as untraceable as cash. If you pick some up anonymously, then use a different address for each transaction, all while obfuscating your connection using Tor or the like, your transactions should be difficult to trace.

What makes cash difficult to trace is the difficulty of establishing that transactions took place in the first place, let alone other potentially pertinent details. The fact that Bitcoin has a public record of all transactions makes it far easier than cash to deanonymize addresses. Suppose you bought $2.56 worth of Bitcoin via credit card from a friendly Bitcoin seller that doesn't keep any record of this transaction…

Visa would not be considered an anonymous source.

And cash has ID numbers, of which official entities and corporations also track.

Both cash and bitcoin require good opsec.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#94

Post by scurvy »

topmonk wrote: post #88
darpa_escapee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you pick some up anonymously, That's quite the premise. For the layperson, there are very few ways to come across Bitcoin anonymously.

Mine it

Mining requires enough infrastructure and investment to be easily identified. Mining might have been anonymous 4+ years ago, but not now.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

craigc wrote: post #19

The only problem is there is no way to prove that that address actually belongs to the GRU. The transaction referenced in the indictment clearly happened, but Mueller and his team could have easily searched through the Bitcoin blockchain to find any transaction that paid for a VPN, hosting, or domain registration using Bitcoin on or around the date of the hack. The indictment makes it sound like the request for 0.026…

> The only problem is there is no way to prove that that address actually belongs to the GRU.

Sure there is; for instance, you could have surveillance (video, keylogger, etc.) of the GRU officer at the GRU computer in GRU headquarters executing transactions on it.

> If you are Russian Military Intelligence about to hack the government of the United States, why would you include references and payment info related to your Bitcoin transactions in hundreds of emails? Surely just keeping track of the Bitcoin addresses on the blockchain would be enough since that is the entire point of the Blockchain.

Even if one grants that this is correct in some ideal sense, “government bureaucracy has operational staff proficient with new technology but imposes counterproductive documentation processes” is something literally no one would be surprised about int their own government.

> It is certainly possible that this is exactly what happened, but I think the American people deserve to see some evidence.

If Mueller files a report, and Congress decided to make it public, concerning the one subject of the investigation for whom normal criminal process is not likely to be the first response to any apparent crimes, and the evidence is directly germane to the findings of the report, the American people will have a legitimate right to demand the evidence.

If the indictment under discussion, or any other to which the allegation is necessary, goes to trial, the defendants will have a legitimate right—a Constitutional right—to demand the evidence.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#96

Post by civilitty »

throwawayou812 wrote: post #84
civilitty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grand juries follow the instructions of the judge presiding over the proceedings.

And then the grand jury, completely independent of any judge, makes a decision as to whether or not to indict. Your argument is like saying the referees decide who wins the Super Bowl.

Grand juries cannot even exist independent of a judge, let alone decide things of consequence like an indictment.

What planet do you live on?

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#97

Post by throwawayou812 »

civilitty wrote: post #96
throwawayou812 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the grand jury, completely independent of any judge, makes a decision as to whether or not to indict. Your argument is like saying the referees decide who wins the Super Bowl.

Grand juries cannot even exist independent of a judge, let alone decide things of consequence like an indictment. What planet do you live on?

You're actually trying to argue that judges have an active decision making role in deciding whether or not a grand jury issues an indictment? You're really destroying your own credibility and making my point for me the deeper this conversation goes.

There's an old saying: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#98

Post by plaguuuuuu »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #27
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #26

>In short, we can be confident that the bitcoin address used in the alleged conspiracy was 1LQv8aKtQoiY5M5zkaG8RWL7LMwNzVaVqR. I tried to verify this using blockchain explorer and couldn't find any matching addresses, is there a better way to do this? I'm pretty out of the loop at this point (last used it years ago)

https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/1LQv8aKtQoiY5M5zka...

Thanks!

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#99

Post by craigc »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #85
craigc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two other points worth noting 1. The FBI never had physical access to the hacked servers and were relying completely on the report from a third party company, CrowdStrike: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313555-comey-fbi... 2. The former tech director of the NSA, William Binney, claimed that the data could not have been copied remotely because the download speed was around 22 MB/s (176 Mb/s) which he and…

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346468-why-the-lates... Your point two is is based on an embarrassingly incorrect assumption.

I wouldn’t say it is embarrassingly incorrect. Nothing in that article proves that the report I referenced is not a possibility.

I agree it makes it less likely because the files could have been copied multiple times which could change the metadata, but that doesn’t prove definitively that they were.

Re: A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment

#100

Post by patrickg_zill »

root_axis wrote: post #12
patrickg_zill wrote: post #2

A skeptic's counterpoint: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/19/establishm...

That is not a "counterpoint" to anything, there is zero mention of bitcoin, blockchain or anything cryptocurrency related within. I think it's pretty clear you're here to push a political agenda.

You can check my karma and how long I've been around, in addition to my comments.

Anyone who does this will know that your claim as to why I'm here doesn't hold water.

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