Thread by @Dry_Observer

#Cryptocurrency is readily admissible evidence re: a host of felonies. But no one may have stated how much more it can do or how easily. Until now.

.@ericgarland .@counterchekist .@911CORLEBRA777 @20committee @thespybrief @patribotics @gametheorytoday .@FBI .@NSAGov @GCHQ

1st, some basics. #Cryptocurrencies create a permanent, online record of each transaction, arguably the most easily tracked exchanges on Earth. But law enforcement shut down multiple #Darknet auction sites even before that was common knowledge. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Those sites had tens of thousands of users. And money launderers, Russian intelligence, terrorists & ordinary criminals have moved into it en masse. The world’s worst method for making nefarious transactions. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Those & other criminal activities implies there are at *least* a few hundred thousand felonies out there on cryptocurrencies, just waiting to be identified and rolled up. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Probably millions, given how many millions of cryptocurrency transactions have taken place. The scale of that map alone is staggering. Now merely cross-reference w/other obvious elements. Bank transfers/money laundering found by #FinCEN. .@FBI .@NSAGov

*Also* cross-reference the crypto w/the drug trade/gun trade/porn trade/etc - including everything IDed on Darknet auction sites they've already taken down. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Now take all your #FARA violators - whether carefully uncovered, blatantly obvious, or rolled up as deliverables in plea deals - & integrate them into this map as well. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Then we’ll be taking #botnets & hacked kompromat & adding them in also. & spies including supposedly deep-cover spies who are more exposed than they know. #FISA warrants/intel intercepts will vary depending on your access. .@FBI .@NSAGov

A global map of criminal activity. Not just organized crime & espionage, but almost everything touched directly or indirectly by the Internet.

#BigData & geolocation - & a few other advancements – will tie the whole thing together. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Also remember, re: cryptocurrencies: There's a lot of transactions that are blatantly illegal. Not just the wrong drugs/guns/pornography. But basic things. Tax evasion? #FARA violations? Taking undeclared income when you have TS clearance? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Which is why we're likely looking at hundreds of thousands if not *millions* of blatant felonies to roll up. But again, that's *just* the basics of cryptocurrency, with a little FinCEN/IRS/FBI investigation thrown in for good measure. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Take a list of #cryptocurrency exchanges of interest going to their assorted accounts. Tie those accounts to individuals, when you know who they are (start w/#BigData & what you already have). Expand your database w/other transactions & people of interest. .@FBI .@NSAGov

As noted above, you only need to show tax evasion, a #FARA violation or receipt of undeclared income w/TS clearance to prosecute someone. And as all #cryptocurrency information is essentially public domain, you can access it w/out SIGINT or search warrants. .@FBI .@NSAGov

All presumably admissible & just sitting there. But this wildly understates the value of just that 1st layer of information. Consider the multiple Darknet black-market auction sites shut down by law enforcement, w/users estimated in the tens of thousands. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Knowing a host of accounts/individuals are actively criminal sheds light on many associates. So look at your above people of interest and tag accounts w/names & further descriptors, noting everything from known intelligence agents/assets to drug dealers. .@FBI .@NSAGov

For example, trading w/an account used solely for drug deals. Or taking money from a foreign government w/out registering as a foreign agent. Again, we know a lot of those radioactive accounts. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Also key: Because we know so many tainted accounts, we have a certain probable cause that comes up in certain transactions. Eg, anyone buying from a drug dealer, moving cash through a money launderer, getting paid by foreign intelligence. .@FBI .@NSAGov

If you see enough of these exchanges, you may get a much clearer idea of the dealer’s customers, the money launderer’s clients, the intel agent’s immediate assets. Not all of them, but their interactions in turn will reveal further information. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Again, some individuals, once identified, have legal restrictions on their activities. Receiving #bitcoin that never shows up on their taxes, unregistered payments by foreign governments, undeclared income of any kind for people w/TS clearances. .@FBI .@NSAGov

This may sound modest, until you realize you’re not just looking at tens of thousands of people on Darknet auction sites or those interacting w/known intelligence operatives or criminals, but public-domain databases showing millions of transactions. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Further, with something like the Kremlin scandal, you appear to be looking at multiple interlocking #RICO investigations either directly involved or incidentally uncovered. It’s much easier to prosecute those on a large scale. .@FBI .@NSAGov

The above is devastating in itself. But we’re not doing all this on a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop. With a little #BigData work, you start to assemble a digital map of criminal activities worldwide. Not because they’re all using #cryptocurrency or even online. .@FBI .@NSAGov

But because having hundreds of thousands or even millions of illegal transactions publicly available to law enforcement, converted to a searchable database, augments every other tool at their disposal. Take #FinCEN sifting through money laundering, etc. .@FBI .@NSAGov

What happens when they can link suspect accounts to #cryptocurrency exchanges, and vice versa? What happens when a known #Darknet drug dealer makes a large, “inexplicable” payment to someone else through a bank transfer? Or an “investment” to launder the money? .@FBI .@NSAGov

So, we’re talking about probably *millions* of illegal exchanges by a host of criminals who are effectively revealing their associates through these transactions, bank transfers & records seized under warrant/turned over in plea deals. .@FBI .@NSAGov

This would already be apocalyptically bad for the criminal underworld and, I admit, was what I was hoping for when I let it metastasize for a ½-decade+. Remember, every time you shut down a money launderer, drug cartel, etc, you get a lot of people. .@FBI .@NSAGov

But remember, this global map of crime is just where we *start,* & what we’re adding to. There are several further elements to include. So let’s add a few more pieces of information to this layer. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Add security clearances, known criminal or espionage activities, known methods of communication (phone numbers, emails, social media), employment, businesses & other investments. Remember, much of this data will *also* be public domain. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Is some piece of information coming up again and again? A business, a set of #cryptocurrency accounts, a phone number? What would be a dizzying search for individual investigators to track manually may emerge instantly under #BigData. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Next, let’s geolocate individuals, organizations & key properties. Even knowing someone is in the DC/New York area helps, but you can get much more precise than that. Knowing people work or hang out together is also useful. What correlations appear? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Are funds going to some corner of the world just before a shipment of drugs leaves it? Are known Hawala networks receiving funds at one end & disbursing at the other? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Warrants or intelligence intercepts allowing someone to be tracked through their phone or other means may show immediate proximity between two persons of interest, or long-term proximity between a person of interest & someone not previously on radar. .@FBI .@NSAGov

We may also want to note any key skills or social circles involved – anything from TS clearances to nuclear physics. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Now let’s start refining our list with other information focused on the Russia investigation. Transition emails have information that can be sifted into the database. Are email addresses or names popping up that correlate to suspect individuals/accounts? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Supposedly some deep-cover spies like to have their IDs “re”-issued by law enforcement or other authorities to give them a legitimate paper trail. One #BigData search to see if there was ever a preceding ID to any re-issued IDs & their made. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Similarly, taking the names of children who died young is supposedly a popular choice. Sift those records w/#BigData to see where a child is suddenly resurrected decades later & you have another tell. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Before we proceed, remember you may further pass all this information through a filter, showing the overall information investigators are allowed to see vs evidence that is actionable by law enforcement. Granted, knowing someone is compromised helps. .@FBI .@NSAGov

But now we’re getting into what is willingly handed over to investigators. .@FBI .@NSAGov

#FARA alone decimates DC foreign influence & corruption, particularly in the context of a huge investigation w/tons of people looking for deliverables. Think DC staffers with nothing to offer the .@FBI beyond a legion of #FARA violators. .@NSAGov

How many low-level congressional staffers are worried about whether they’re implicated in the coup but have nothing on it the .@FBI doesn’t already know? But who know at least a few, or few hundred, #FARA violators? .@NSAGov

But think about how many emails & texts are getting seized under warrants or handed over as deliverables by flipped witnesses.

Oh, you deleted those? Really? Such that data forensics actually can't get them off *your* computer? .@FBI .@NSAGov

What about the other guy's computer? The other people cc'ed?

The server logfiles that were there for a year and which the FBI may well have started collecting over a year ago? With warrants? & how many warrants have been approved since? .@FBI .@NSAGov

And then there are the botnets & hackers gathering kompromat (blackmail information). .@FBI .@NSAGov

As w/Pyotr Levashov and the Kelihos botnet, it's not just the botnet & crimes the .@FBI will presumably be interested in, but to what degree Kelihos was used to gather & implement blackmail/kompromat. Could unearth a ton of assets not yet exposed. .@NSAGov

There's a number of reasons Russia's intel networks may be in the process of vaporizing. Consider botnets. Millions of illegally linked computers harvesting/deploying kompromat? Creating data trails *everywhere*? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Throw in everything else from #cryptocurrencies to flipped witnesses to #FARA deliverables from those *seeking* immunity. As .@ericgarland pointed out, a Russian hack of 3 billion Yahoo email users could have been one of many giant kompromat tools. .@FBI .@NSAGov

But now we're at the stage of everything getting exposed, and I don't think most operatives fully grasp the degree to which everything can be counterhacked and exposed in the digital world. The .@FBI only seems quiet until it really gets moving. It's moving *now.* .@NSAGov

It's easy to think in terms of mass counterhacks, etc, the value in these botnets may prove much more practical.

Where have they gone? What did they touch? What kompromat did they glean? What demands did they transmit? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Botnets can be valuable by leveraging a host of computers. What few consider is they also represent thousands - potentially *millions* - of points of vulnerability. It's impractical to purge the digital traces from each of a host of computers. .@FBI .@NSAGov

But even if you *did* scrub their files, those transmissions passed over a multitude of servers in turn, each of which keeps logfiles for at least a year. And let's not even get into individual computers with old backups lying around. .@FBI .@NSAGov

And then there's what I like to call the *bad* part. Millions of interlinked computers, taken over by a hostile intruder to serve what is presumably a conspiracy demanding a giant #RICO investigation? Even if your warrants are limited to *that*... .@FBI .@NSAGov

Can you imagine a more effective way to find everything compromised - assuming you don't just find a server/backed-up memory somewhere with the whole operation described in detail? Anything that sprawling leaves traces *everywhere.* .@FBI .@NSAGov

Thousands, even millions of computers bound together in a network gathering kompromat & transmitting blackmail demands? All of them storing data? All the servers they transmit through w/logfiles for a year? .@FBI .@NSAGov

Each one represents a point of vulnerability it itself. So does every 3rd-party server they've transmitted over. And thousand or millions of computers spamming/malwaring/blackmailing the Internet leave a *lot* of traces. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Why mention this now? It's the same pattern .@ericgarland noted in krav maga. A multitude of rapid strikes to keep your opponent hurt, off balance and enraged until you can take them down. Multiplied a million-fold and coming in from ten-thousand directions. .@FBI .@NSAGov

The implication that the hack of 3 billion Yahoo email accounts and other major hacks being traced back to Russia & serving as ideal sources of kompromat is also well taken. .@FBI .@NSAGov

They probably did not realize how easily all this could be backtracked.

Find the kompromat, find the treason, find the traitors. .@FBI .@NSAGov

John Schindler/@20committee wrote that "illegal" operatives were harder to make and more valuable. With this host of data rolls in - from #botnets, #cryptocurrencies, flipped witnesses, intercepts, #FARA, etc. .@FBI .@NSAGov

The Dutch have *how* much data from the SVR? Not to mention the US & her other allies? Russia is apt to lose her intel networks at a catastrophically rapid pace. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Reflect also on all the data *not* mentioned above. The Panama Papers. The Paradise Papers. Al Qaeda’s *entire* fundraising records at the time of Osama bin Laden’s death. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Like a hologram, all these data points can be used to further refine and sharpen the emerging image. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Oh, and to clarify: That million-fold multiplication of attacks? That's *counterattacks.* When you have to defend not only every agent, asset & secure computer - but every troll, useful idiot, shill & *bot* in your *botnet* & every person & computer they *touched?* .@FBI .@NSAGov

They *all* become points of vulnerability. Now throw in the FBI, US & allied law enforcement/intel, #FinCEN, the IRS & a host of interlocking #RICO investigations, and the means to glean much of this evidence on a massive scale. *Try* to defend all that. .@FBI .@NSAGov

And remember, most of this *doesn't* need to be critical for bringing down your primary targets. Reveal another traitor you don't know about, it's a win. Reveal whole networks, roll them up, take their pleas, reap their data... And do it globally. Annihilation. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Based on my own work, it seems the breakthrough required to make quantum & post-zetascale supercomputing possible already exists. The problem in transmitting it now or keeping it in a hackable format is that Russia et al might get it & while the US ignores it. .@FBI .@NSAGov

Unfortunately, that technology has quite a few applications, too many of which are easily weaponized. Efforts to limit the military applications are incomplete and still ongoing. .@FBI .@NSAGov

If that tech would be of interest, please reach out. As you can see above, some of us are doing what we can with conventional technologies in the meantime. .@FBI .@NSAGov

“I can calculate the movements of the heavens, but not the madness of men.” - Isaac Newton
.@FBI .@NSAGov

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