In a cyber sized twist of irony, the FBI has requested additional funding, to the tune of $21 million to help fight “crypto crimes”. It seems that even when they have legal standing to get information, crypto world is a tough place to access it, so, they’ll be needing some new safe cracking tools to peer inside the wallets of would be criminals.
To be clear, the crimes are not involving crypto currency directly, merely being funded through tough to crack, bitcoin and altcoin sources. Meanwhile, that's the same technology that's currently shielding all of us from whatever is out there!
In addition to the duffel bags filled with cash, acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe is looking to hire a few good men, or women, 80 to be exact. James Comey also whined about the same security protocols slowing him down.
"Some of our criminal investigators face the challenge of identifying online pedophiles who hide their crimes and identities behind layers of anonymizing technologies, or drug traffickers who use virtual currencies to obscure their transactions."
He went on to say that when they do have success, it is often short lived, because these same technologies rapidly cycle through protocols in an effort to shield their users from hackers, and people like the FBI.
The money would be used in an increased effort to monitor and develop surveillance technologies for transactions occurring on the “darknet”.
Since so much of this “crime” he intends to fight is about drugs, I personally say, save the money, legalize and regulate. Problem solved, or, they could dip into the world’s largest bitcoin wallet and throw a few coins back into the pool to fund their new “crypto crimes” division.
What am I talking about? The FBI has been the world’s largest known holder of bitcoin for over 4 years after seizing 144,000 coins, then worth 23 million, from suspected Silk Road kingpin Ross Ulbricht. Even at their original value, that leaves enough left over for a nice condo on the beach. Of course, in today’s bitcoin, that treasure trove is worth over a half billion dollars.
I’m sure there are legal ramifications to spending seized crypto, but come on, Andy, it ain’t like you’re ever going to give them back, we know it, you know it and unloading enough to fund your crusade should be easy. Oh, wait, you probably can’t until you hire someone who understands how, huh?
If our government ever really catches on to how this works, instead of just seizing whatever they want, it will be the end of us. I guess the $38 million we gave them the last time to help them break encryption didn’t go very far. Geez, it’s only been a year! They’re like my kids on summer vacation.
Having already gained virtually full access to your bank records, including a personalized note every time you take out more than $10000 in cash, and free unfettered access to your browser history, now they want to see what you got hidden in your crypto wallets too.
It's all done, of course, under the guise of protecting us from ourselves and the growing wave of elicit crypto currency crimes! The ironic part being, while they can't access the wallets, all of the transaction keys of every transfer are public, meaning the data they seek may be hiding in plain site on the blockchains.
Of course, we know this will lead to more restrictions on law abiding citizens, because our presumption of innocence has been DOA at least since 9/11. So, while we are working to build the future without their help, the government, in typical style, wants to prepared to throw up roadblocks as fast as we can find solutions to their mistakes.
But, for my money, I think we win. I believe what we are witnessing is the last dying gasps of authoritarian governmental structures. The people can talk to each other now and there's really not much need for all the secrecy and "intelligence" gathering. In fact, if we stopped funding new enemies every couple of years and left the junkies alone, it might get downright peaceful around here.