Ralph Cerchione Profile picture
Jun 4, 2018 16 tweets 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Hmm. *How* easy is it to track #cryptocurrencies?

By definition, a permanent, online, irremovable record of each exchange.

Aka, the #blockchain.

@Bambenek literally set up an automatic tracker of neo-Nazi #bitcoin transactions. @NeonaziWallets.
twitter.com/NeonaziWallets
I go into this rather extensively. In part because of just how *much* has surfaced recently on how vulnerable it is.

For criminals at least.
If your wallet public/private key is out there, people can literally Google it.

But notice just how *many* huge cryptocurrency law-enforcement takedowns have been in the news recently.

Backpage gets taken down for child trafficking & money laundering $1/2 billion... in bitcoin?
All those tens of thousands of accounts the IRS seized from Coinbase? The BTC-e shutdown?
But what's so deadly is this is all happening in the context of the world's largest #FinCEN/counterintelligence/law-enforcement investigation in history.

One starting with huge reputed money launderers.
And with everyone from criminals to Russian intel running bribes & money laundering through #cryptocurrency.

If #FinCEN investigates financial crimes, you cooperate with them or cease to be a bank.

Because no bank in the world can function if US banks won't countersign them.
Cryptocurrencies, like a number of other would-be weapons - #botnets, evolutionary algorithms used in psychological operations, etc - creates a vast web of admissible information which, combined w/#FinCEN's resources, forms a global map of subversion & crime.
& while there are exponentially more powerful options for tracking & analyzing this data, one thing I wrote when telling the @FBI about the #cryptocurrency flaw in mid-September, 2017, was how to radically augment their supercomputing power to this end w/conventional means.
But to close: Look at each major criminal nexus shut down in the last several months.

Cambridge Analytica, Cohen's records, even things like Backpage or the anonymity of large accounts running through operations like Coinbase.

What do they have in common?
cc: @ericgarland
If you wanted overwhelming, devastating, admissible evidence on one or more elements of the larger conspiracy or simply global organized crime, these are the places you would go to.

The "taint team" has cleared over a *million* documents for prosecutors' use from Cohen alone.
When you superimpose each new dataset of evidence on the global map, you can see even more each time.

Some of these things are terrifying.

Targeting 50 to 200 to 300-million+ Americans w/psychological operations?
The most *benign* interpretation is they were knowingly targeting millions of people who could be hurt far more than others.

People suffering from dementia, brain injury, PTSD, paranoia, phobias, suicidal, etc.

The less benign & more probable interpretation?
The likelihood they knew who many of these people were, whether from direct access to seized medical records or by induction in their "psychographic profiles."

The likelihood they knowingly used that information to "enhance" their impact.
Evolutionary algorithms are easy to apply, even if you're inept.

Try a bunch of different configurations, see what works best.

Keep those, toss the rest.

Except when you're targeting people's darkest fears & hatreds, the game gets very dark indeed.
But on one end, say, Cambridge Analytica, you have the data & practically the whole *crime,* frozen in amber.

Everywhere else on the Internet you have data trails & keywords/phrases endlessly repeated in sequences it becomes trivially easy to unravel.
The logfiles alone are there for a year. But the nature of these interventions means you leave vast data trails *everywhere.*

And if a mere civilian saw this, imagine what the .@FBI, .@NSAGov, .@DHSgov, .@GCHQ have seen.

Imagine what they know.

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More from @Dry_Observer

Sep 23, 2018
@ericgarland Only the beginning, Eric.

Why?

I considered the flaw in cryptocurrency enabling the mass tracking/takedown of organized crime/Russian intel a modest side project for more than one reason. As we proceed, *why* will become more apparent.
@ericgarland So, SS7 protocols represent a massive flaw in cell-phone security.

Likely useful for years, but less so as it becomes public knowledge.

But sources & methods you *can* safely declassify?
cc: @LouiseMensch @ninaandtito @thespybrief @911CORLEBRA777
@ericgarland @LouiseMensch @ninaandtito @thespybrief @911CORLEBRA777 What if a staggering source of hard evidence in the Russian coup came from a technical weakness of rapidly diminishing utility, & which urgently needed to be closed anyway?
Read 16 tweets
Sep 15, 2018
@ericgarland @911CORLEBRA777 @JamesFourM @thespybrief @patribotics @LouiseMensch @ninaandtito @DirkSchwenk @xtrixcyclex @colinkalmbacher @claytonpurdom @emzanotti @RoyBlunt @FBIWFO @NewYorkFBI @FBILosAngeles @INTERPOL_HQ @DHSgov It's hard to overstate how important a cooperating Manafort becomes to unraveling media subversion.

But let's start with Eric's documentation of media-influence operations & go from there.
@ericgarland @911CORLEBRA777 @JamesFourM @thespybrief @patribotics @LouiseMensch @ninaandtito @DirkSchwenk @xtrixcyclex @colinkalmbacher @claytonpurdom @emzanotti @RoyBlunt @FBIWFO @NewYorkFBI @FBILosAngeles @INTERPOL_HQ @DHSgov First, remember @ericgarland initially just released the public, executive summary of his research into *one* aspect of this - a consistent pattern of harassment in response to his original Game Theory thread.
@ericgarland @911CORLEBRA777 @JamesFourM @thespybrief @patribotics @LouiseMensch @ninaandtito @DirkSchwenk @xtrixcyclex @colinkalmbacher @claytonpurdom @emzanotti @RoyBlunt @FBIWFO @NewYorkFBI @FBILosAngeles @INTERPOL_HQ @DHSgov There are so many critical details to go over here.

One, the patterns were easily detected, & hard evidence could be found in abundance.

Two, Eric *didn't* stop with documenting & researching just that one piece.
Read 55 tweets
Sep 6, 2018
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ @LincolnsBible @USTreasury @BarackObama @NATO @DARPA @JohnBrennan @GenMhayden @CIA @TheJusticeDept @gametheorytoday @DEAHQ So, to list of other things .@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ .@USTreasury could use in a #BigData search to pull any remaining deep-cover spies:

Yes, as I've noted before, you can pull all the "re-issued" credentials, then check for any preceding ID.

But that's just a start.
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ @LincolnsBible @USTreasury @BarackObama @NATO @DARPA @JohnBrennan @GenMhayden @CIA @TheJusticeDept @gametheorytoday @DEAHQ That's an obvious thing .@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ .@USTreasury could do, given the supposed tendency of deep-cover operatives to request "re-issuing" of a "lost" ID that never existed in the first place.
Read 173 tweets
Aug 21, 2018
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ @LincolnsBible @USTreasury @BarackObama @NATO @DARPA Again, there was a warning about more evidence being released in tandem with egregious attacks on Kremlin's critics.

Given the targeting of Brennan, we’ve hit another tipping point.
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ .@USTreasury
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ @LincolnsBible @USTreasury @BarackObama @NATO @DARPA I was planning to drop more evidence sources, but I don't think everyone yet realizes the security-clearance fiasco is a giant evidence-reaping machine *in* *itself.*
@JohnBrennan @GenMhayden
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ .@USTreasury
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ @LincolnsBible @USTreasury @BarackObama @NATO @DARPA @JohnBrennan @GenMhayden As discussed previously in this thread, we have no shortage of people who direly need to proffer *something,* in the face of an investigation that needs neither their testimony nor their evidence.
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ .@USTreasury
Read 227 tweets
Aug 4, 2018
@ericgarland @20committee So, .@ericgarland gets a new kind of botnet targeting, & .@JamesFourM runs into issues w/his article on @Medium?

There was a warning about harassment & the countering release of evidence on the conspiracy.
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ The warning: Any egregious harassment of Kremlin critics could release or expedite yet *another* major evidence source against the conspiracy.

While unpleasant, I think these two each warrant something modest… yet formidable.

& apropos.
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ
@ericgarland @20committee @JamesFourM @Medium @FBI @NSAGov @DHSgov @GCHQ So, Eric you brought up the agencies rating investments recently, as well as AIG, stock markets, etc.

What, you might ask, is so deadly about global finance & the conspiracy? Beyond the obvious flows of money & influence?
.@FBI .@NSAGov .@DHSgov .@GCHQ
Read 322 tweets
Jul 28, 2018
@TheRickWilson @LouiseMensch Oops.

For everyone seeking a deal w/law enforcement, there is one *small* detail we may have glossed over for all parties.

Asset forfeiture. To the government, and... to civil suits.
cc: @thespybrief @ericgarland @TrueFactsStated
@TheRickWilson @LouiseMensch @thespybrief @ericgarland @TrueFactsStated And if you're thinking you'll fight - *great!*

A #RICO conviction proving guilt up front?

Involving treason, organized crime, media collusion, child trafficking, etc?

*&* you harassed or threatened people's kids? *Not* just the adult ones?
@TheRickWilson @LouiseMensch @thespybrief @ericgarland @TrueFactsStated I'm sure jury pools drawn from DC, New York, London, etc will be sympathetic.

But do remember a couple of *other* trivial details.

One, the Democratic Party already filed such a suit, and named Russian intelligence as a defendant.
Read 11 tweets

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