I tried to think up some catchy title for this, but I guess the facts are catchy enough on their own. I read an article in Technology News that began with this...
"There are crooks and then there are lots of normal and innocent people who deal with Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies [sic]. The digital bloodhounds at the NSA took it as a challenge to hunt them all down and track their activity. This required new tools and techniques. You may think that your crypto-wallet is safe and private, but that perception will crumble once you know that the NSA is on your heels. ⁃ TN Editor"
It goes on to say that "it looks like all of the conspiracy theorists and other internet paranoiacs were right." Since 2013, according to Edward Snowden, the NSA has been tracking all BTC transactions employing a myriad of different techniques. This is a list of some of these programs...
PRISM
FAIRVIEW
BLARNEY
STORMBREW
OAKSTAR
XKEYSCORE
MARINA
TRAFFICTHIEF
PINWALE
BOUNDLESSINFORMANT
PRISM is perhaps the best known, it's the program that mines data stored by most of the social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Apple, Skype, Microsoft, Youtube and AOL among others. By the way, if you use Windows and haven't turned off automatic updates, you should immediately. (and read this article my computer security guy sent me) https://www.computerworld.com/article/3247676/microsoft-windows/microsofts-mystifying-meltdownspectre-patches-for-amd-processors.html I would also encourage everyone to open an encrypted email service. I have protonmail.com- it's free (and even I can use it). Some of what PRISM collects is...
However, it seems that PRISM is the least of our worries- it only deals with generalities. There are several more sophisticated software applications being used to gather data on BTC. What began as a program designed to track crypto-funds being used by drug dealers and terrorists in their attempts to launder money using BTC has grown into a sophisticated web that tracks all transactions... and it's no longer limited to BTC. In an article in CyberScoop Mark Satter wrote: "Documents show that although the NSA was also interested in surveilling the users of other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was their first priority." (see link at end)
The "umbrella program" used by the security agencies (and we have to believe that with FVEY all five nations involved have the data) is called FAIRVIEW which, if I understand correctly, focuses on phone messages. The Daily Dot explains: "Details on FAIRVIEW’s operations are scant, but it appears that the program works (at least in part) as follows: The NSA partners with U.S. telecommunications companies that then make agreements with international companies for their Internet data. There are likely many different means through which the NSA intercepts these companies’ information. Based on conversations with Drake, the FAIRVIEW program also appears to encompass direct link-ups with offshore submarine cables. It is likely that the former operation fall under the purview of the BLARNEY program."
Using the computer surveillance system XKEYSCORE, data from sources such as Google and even TOR tracks internet searches, emails, documents, usernames, passwords, etc... basically everything someone does online. The tracking of BTC users is done through a program known as OAKSTAR, "a program that consisted of a 'collection of covert corporate partnerships enabling the agency to monitor communications, including by harvesting internet data as it traveled along fiber optic cables that undergird the internet.'" This is likely how the government receives information from complicit companies such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, et.al.. This graphic shows roughly how XKEYSCORE is set up...
Perhaps the two most important (and dangerous) aspects of this for crypto users are OAKSTAR, because it specifically targets crypto users and a sub-program of OAKSTAR called MONKEYROCKET, an entrapment device offered to crypto users as an anonymity enhancement tool. Cointelegraph did an article on this and I'll include their take on OAKSTAR and MONKEYROCKET as well as a link to the article... "
Though the agency was interested in monitoring some competing cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (“a decentralized digital currency system, wherein the units are known as Bitcoin or BTC”) was its primary target.
Tracking was performed by means of a secret internet surveillance program under the code name OAKSTAR, which represents a range of covert corporate partnerships that enabled the agency to monitor communications and pull data directly from the fiber optic connections that form the internet undergird.
A VPN-like service called MONKEYROCKET, a subprogram of OAKSTAR, played a crucial role in identifying Bitcoin users. Instead of hiding user data, MONKEYROCKET tapped network equipment to obtain data from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and South America."
I'm the first to admit that when it comes to computers that I still live in the Dark Ages and don't understand as much as my 6 year old granddaughter. What I do understand is that we live in a surveillance society and that out right to privacy has been grossly violated. I'm going to include some other links about this issue in hopes that someone much smarter than I will read them and explain them to me.
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2018/03/21/bitcoin/
https://www.cyberscoop.com/nsa-bitcoin-oakstar-monkey-rocket/
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/nsa-spy-prgrams-prism-fairview-blarney/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-national-security-agency-develops-system-to-identify-bitcoin-users-say-leaked-docs
https://nsa.gov1.info/dni/xkeyscore.html
https://nsa.gov1.info/dni/black-budget.html
