US Says It Seized Cryptocurrency From Three Terrorist Groups (bloomberg.com) 39
The Trump administration dismantled digital campaigns by al-Qaeda and other other terrorist groups that used social media to obtain cryptocurrency for carrying out terrorist attacks, the Justice Department said on Thursday. From a report: The U.S. seized millions of dollars and more than 300 cryptocurrency accounts used by al-Qaeda; Hamas's military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades; and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS. "These actions represent the government's largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency in the terrorism context," the Justice Department said in a statement.
Re: The only terrorists (Score:1)
Re: The only terrorists (Score:1)
Not possible (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re: Not possible (Score:2)
US government run half+ of mining capacity?
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Maybe you are thinking of privacy coins like Monero. The whole point of Bitcoin is traceability.
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...The whole point of Bitcoin is traceability.
Ah, so that's why so many ransomware payments are paid with Bitcoin to criminals who get away with it.
Bitcoin has about as much traceability as IoT has security.
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They don't cash the coins directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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They don't cash the coins directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yes, and they don't hack your IoT directly. They just abuse 50,000 of them through a botnet. Just as ransomware abuses Bitcoin loopholes. Bitcoin mixing/tumbling is no different from money laundering, a concept as old as money itself.
Your claim was Bitcoin having traceability. Those that claim that, would also assume that cash has traceability. Based on highly successful illegal enterprises abusing both, I'd say no traceability claim is valid.
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Maybe you are thinking of privacy coins like Monero. The whole point of Bitcoin is traceability.
Yeah, that should have been obvious. But when non-IT folks started talking about it, what I kept hearing was "privacy". And when government and banking officials (let's not get into how that's a Venn diagram that looks like a donut) criticized it, they always talked about how people were using it for drugs, kiddie porn and terrorism because it was "untraceable". Hard to fault people for believing that line when it's all they heard reported in most media.
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There's a few ways they could have done this, all of them take more effort than just ordering a bank to seize funds but its stuff others have done before.
1: compromised the devices the wallets were stored on. If it was internet connected that's probably not that difficult. State intelligence agencies are certainly capable of compromising consumer grade computing devices easily.
2: seized the devices the wallets were stored on as part of normal counter terrorism operations. Again, very much within their capab
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Note, a 51% attack doesn't let them just make up transactions. Those still need to be signed by the appropriate wallet keys. What it WOULD allow them to do is rewrite the history.
I pay you, the blockchain verifies the payment, so you give me something in exchange (usually physical goods, but anything that can't be revoked/undone would work). I then set my 51% to work..they start from the block BEFORE the one that shows I paid you and rebuild the chain without our transaction, until the new chain is longer t
Excellent. (Score:2)
Seems the NSA is still on top of their game.
password (Score:1)
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Doing what?
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If you don't understand how the NSA would work on a cyber operation then you aren't qualified for this conversation.
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The story here is a big fairy tale as far as you know. The administration has to impress people with fancy "terrorist" crime stats. But Barr? What can we believe from him?
The NSA is no mystery
Re: The real question is (Score:3)
Isn't Muslims, blacks and even "antifacists" doing it more?
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Isn't Muslims, blacks and even "antifacists" doing it more?
No.
"aren't", not "isn't"
And I think (hope, even) that you forgot your "/s" tag.
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> No,
Ok. Provide me the evidence for your claim.
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You stated a rhetorical question, but you want me to provide facts to support my answer?
If you feel my answer is in error, please feel free to disagree with facts of your own. Then I'll respond in kind.
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Yeah of course.
I made a question. You replied to it with an answer. I want you to back your answer up with some evidence.
What's weird with that? Personally I don't think your reply is correct but as you claim it's that way go ahead and prove it. Else why do you make a made up / false claim?
I know one current trend is to massively restrict and pick among the data-set to make the claim that white supremacists cause more terror attacks (in the US than Muslims ...) but that's of course not true and honest (as t
Cryptocurrency is in another bubble again (Score:3)
The "Justice" department... (Score:1, Insightful)
Barr, right?
And what... we are supposed to believe this guy? Trump's little man? Like... Really??
The got the backup (Score:2)
The real ones are cashed-in right now as we speak'h'h'h'h'hwrite.
Sweet news! (Score:1)
Bitcoin is up again, possibly on the news that yet more bitcoins are rendered permanently unusable by this seizure.
What they ommited is that they are using it... (Score:2)
...themselves.
WRT to foreign "payments", Bitcoin is new cocaine. They have planted farms everywhere.
They usally "uncover" their deeds. (Score:3)
CIA & Co is using also Bitcoin for payments. Their partners have farms everyhwere.
Just like with child porn that they "uncovered":
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
now, about how it was done:
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
They have access to _every_ phone. Download some stuff from their servers that they keep handy, "delete" it and voilla! - you have a new "pedophile".
And just to make sure that users stay clueless and powerless about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux... [reddit.com]
Ofcourse, along with corresponding legislature "harmonization":
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
No cryptocurrency was seized (Score:1)
Read the article. They seized ACCOUNTS. Legality of that aside (hint: it isn't legal) they didn't seize ANY cryptocurrency.
That's why unlike normal drug busts where they say "Seized drugs street value $10,000,000,000" they say nothing. They got nothing. Just some accounts.
Yay. Go lame US right-smashers. You got them [whomever today you call] terrorists [with no proof and no due process].
The US government is truly the biggest joke around when it comes to "seizing" stuff and pretending they did somethin