Thread by @Dry_Observer

@ericgarland Remember the IRS has the names and identities of thousands of people converting cryptocurrency into large sums of cash via Coinbase (& probably similar operations).

Huge money gets exchanged via bitcoin.

$1 billion+ is the biggest exchange I've heard of.
twitter.com/whale_alert/wi…

@ericgarland But as Eric said, all of this links together.

That's why I sat on the realization that bitcoin could tie vast amounts of criminal activity together for over half a decade.

Letting it metastasize rendered almost every network vulnerable.

And it *isn't* the only major flaw.

@ericgarland Not even close...

@ericgarland Oh, & as I brought up re: Epstein's videos:

Imagine being part of a conspiracy literally to profit from photographic & video evidence of child rape.

Imagine the Epstein circle has been going on for decades, so the statute of limitations. Never. Started.

https://twitter.com/Dry_Observer/status/1162907568936837125

@ericgarland So if you're tied into that conspiracy, or any other long-running RICO conspiracy, the clock for your statute of limitations apparently doesn't start running until the *last* act taken in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Which may have *never* ended.

@ericgarland And if knowingly profiting from a RICO conspiracy makes you culpable for *every* crime undertaken as part of that conspiracy...

Well, things may get *very* interesting for you.

Especially in Rikers.

@ericgarland For those who haven't seen the redacted version of what I sent the @FBI on cryptocurrency, botnets, TOR & child pornography in September, 2017...

A quick refresher.

https://twitter.com/Dry_Observer/status/1037549050025988096

@ericgarland @FBI "In the late 2000s I came up with a currency innovation that also turned up as a critical element of the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

"I do not know if my idea preceded bitcoin or not, but they may have developed it independently and concurrently regardless."

@ericgarland @FBI "Nevertheless, my familiarity with a partially decentralized non-digital currency gives me a certain insight into the concept.

"Specifically, the mutual verification of transactions was meant as a way of pushing out and exposing criminals, not promoting them."

@ericgarland @FBI "Despite the use of encryption & darknets in these transactions, illicit exchanges are extremely vulnerable to mass exposure given both vulnerabilities to the darknets themselves and changes in existing technologies."

@ericgarland @FBI "The key weakness is that verifying transactions and spreading out transmitted data through a large number of computers not under your direct control means critical information is still very accessible..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...especially when finding and decrypting that data proves far easier than is generally understood.

"Given the Mueller investigation looking into hackers and other darknet and cryptocurrency issues associated with Russia..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...as well as events such as the Equifax hack, this seemed like a propitious time to share what I know.

"This problem has metastasized for so long as a means of letting as many dangerous people as possible get drawn in."

@ericgarland @FBI "These technologies are essentially a living deathtrap for criminals, and I did not want to tip law enforcements hand, whether everyone was aware of the following trump cards or not."

@ericgarland @FBI "First, darknets either operating through multiple nodes or as peer-to-peer networks have an interesting legal weakness when child pornography is being shared over them."

@ericgarland @FBI (Actually the redacted stratagem shared was less useful than later ones & I'd forgotten key details re: the images. The primary point proved *very* valid, however.)

@ericgarland @FBI "There are issues with encryption as well as the scale of an operation targeting a host of computers rather than just a few dozen or a few thousand nodes.

"The latter issue is unfortunately all too easily solved in the U.S.

@ericgarland @FBI "The actual arrests, as rules against the seizure of property for drug-related crimes have recently been removed mean a large-scale shutdown of any criminal darknet would be apt to lead to considerable property confiscations by local and state police."

@ericgarland @FBI "Hence, the arrest of numerous suspects could involve their local law enforcement and in many cases the cost would not only be shifted to the local level but would be offset by such confiscations."

@ericgarland @FBI "The other practical advantage would be finding a legal basis for the seizure of logfiles directly related to such a case and then indirectly accessing data also on the individual computers found to be definitely and intentionally active in a such a crime by, say..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...using the node logfiles to prove culpability and then automating the sifting of data directly downloaded or further communications provided by the logfiles."

@ericgarland @FBI "The other reason for starting with a crime which is easily proven and involves data transmission and data storage is because there is enough overlap between child pornography and darknet marketplaces to thoroughly expose the latter which can in turn..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...lead to other people of interest, such as hackers selling services or exploits over the same marketplaces.

"If said hackers happen to be intentionally facilitating the transmission of child pornography or engaged in other self-evident crimes, so much the better."

@ericgarland @FBI "The encryption is a more interesting challenge, but also strangely vulnerable.

"First, it is important to realize that the above information, combined with Treasury FinCen information on transactions through conventional banking and other government data resources..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...could create a revealing three-dimensional map of criminal, terrorist and espionage activities, particularly in the hands of a counterintelligence/law-enforcement agency able to bring these data sets together."

@ericgarland @FBI "In some cases, it will not just be the actor who was directly involved who is most important but the one who shows up again and again with data leading back to them –"

@ericgarland @FBI "...ownership of businesses tied to multiple questionable organizations or transmitting large sums of money to people paying hackers, etc."

@ericgarland @FBI "But the key thing to remember, both in creating that map and unravelling these networks, is that we are not just dealing with a chart in space, but in operations taking place over time."

@ericgarland @FBI "While that temporal element will also be very useful in database forensics (accounts, botnets or intelligence assets remaining dormant until needed), it is absolutely crucial in the mass-decryption of these networks and financial transactions."

@ericgarland @FBI "You have the time to decrypt, assess and unravel immense amounts of information, especially aided by the right technology..."

@ericgarland @FBI "Once collected, a year’s worth of logfiles along with other records will hold considerable evidence, and even if full decryption were not moving..."

@ericgarland @FBI "...at a rapid clip, radical improvements in decryption expected in the near future – especially with regards to quantum decryption – means full access to the data is only a matter of time."

@ericgarland @FBI "However, that is a timeline we should be able to dramatically accelerate.

"Regarding mass decryption, you can take an “embarrassingly parallel problem” or set of problems, such as standardized encryption over a specific darknet, and..." (Information Redacted. See the .@FBI.)

@ericgarland @FBI "This is a place where cryptocurrencies help tie the entire map together..." (Less effective suggestions redacted.)

@ericgarland @FBI "Other assessments may be more complex, but there are undoubtedly many simple indicators you can search to speed the process along, such as the one’s used by the NSA’s XKeyscore."

@ericgarland @FBI "Relevant data points include multiple connections to known criminal sites or individuals, suspicious financial or cryptocurrency transactions, references to multiple indicative keywords, and so forth."

@ericgarland @FBI "Having months to comb through this information means almost everything can be retrieved in time, but being able to automate the process not only accelerates everything, it lets you prioritize."

@ericgarland @FBI "Some criminals and some crimes are obviously more important than others, and deals with anything ranging from heavy weapons to sensitive hacking to large drug shipments will be matters of concern."

@ericgarland @FBI "Obviously investigators will want a tremendous amount of processing power to expedite this research.

"One way to put together a computer with immense processing power for a relatively narrow set of tasks would be..." (Information Redacted.)

@ericgarland @FBI "As noted by the Department of Energy, 'System power is the primary constraint for the exascale system."

@ericgarland @FBI "The invention in question thus appears to solve the largest problem facing the development of exascale systems as well as facilitating the practical use of quantum computing."

@ericgarland @FBI "Counterintelligence may find the unsecured computers drawn into a botnet remain vulnerable to counter-hacking and where they have the legal authority to do so, may be able to unravel them in a mass hack, possibly backed by the assets cited above."

@ericgarland @FBI "A foreign-intelligence controlled botnet of foreign computers might be temporarily turned into a botnet under investigators’ control as part of a counterintelligence operation if only in using their own processors to search them for malware and data breadcrumbs."

@ericgarland @FBI "Mass hacking a foreign criminal darknet may be enabled by the ability to mass decrypt using clusters and/or quantum processing."

@ericgarland @FBI So, obviously the above message - sent in unredacted form via the FBI's tip submission page for Internet crimes - provided some basic methods to track and unravel networks.

This would have been six months before that Darknet illegal-pornography site was taken down.