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> the agent wasn't aware of that

If thats the case, it's interesting that he wasn't aware of the fundamentals of the technology that enabled the people he was investigating.

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I personally know few quite technical people who even own some Bitcoins and tried to confront me in recent discussion when I stated that all BTC transactions can be publicly seen. They knew that BTC doesn't provide complete anonymity, but thought of it more like wire transfer, where you can only see transactions from some "authorized center", exchange or something, not that anyone can see them. So I guess this detail is easy to miss or misinterpret.

Is it? Criminals are often just dumb.

Well, you'd expect that the agents investigating those crimes would not be.

I'd expect agents to be organized and well versed in the goals and procedures of departments, not smarter or better at any random thing than any other human.

Why is that?

Because they are expected to have the skills needed to perform their job, specially such an important one.

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