A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment
blog.cotten.io
blog.cotten.io
Assuming you're right, though, other anonymous ways to get cash include:
- selling something
- getting paid in cash (as many restaurant and undocumented workers do)
- laundering it
- stealing it
- using a stolen ATM card
That's quite the premise. For the layperson, there are very few ways to come across Bitcoin anonymously.
The fact that Bitcoin has a public record of all transactions makes it far easier than cash to deanonymize addresses. Suppose you bought $2.56 worth of Bitcoin via credit card from a friendly Bitcoin seller that doesn't keep any record of this transaction. The government can go to VISA and ask "okay, who gave $2.56 to this vendor within this time frame." Now the government knows your credit card, and can then ask VISA to find all of the other transactions you did, and then look for bitcoin movement of the appropriate size to those transactions involving single-use addresses. All of those addresses are now tied together.
See, the untraceability is entirely dependent on how good your operational security is, and how well you know the capabilities of government financial tracking. And, when you consider that governments have been trying to tackle this problem for difficult-to-trace cash flow, bitcoin is at best no harder and at worst much easier.
And cash has ID numbers, of which official entities and corporations also track.
Both cash and bitcoin require good opsec.
1. Converts to Fiat 2. Buys/Ships something online 3. Transfers to an exchange
It’s now fairly visible to entities keeping a close eye (governments).
I'm guessing you haven't read the white paper where this was directly addressed - by the creator. Page 6 of a 9 page document: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trust...
In my experience this is very rarely the case for any serious bitcoin user I have met. In fact, those seeking anonymity have moved on to monero etc. For many the traceability just doesn't matter that much.
I wish there was more technical discussion of the hack and the indicment. Due to the political nature of the case nearly everything written is extremely partisan. However there is actually quite a bit of "source material" out there: The indicment, the crowdstrike analysis, the published hacked data, the bitcoin blockchain. Which could use some cold headed technical analysis.
Due to the nature of the case the FBI seems to have thrown more resources after the investigation than they normally would do. One thing I notice is section 41 in the indicment.
As I am understanding this, the perpetrator, strugling to formulate the contents of the wordpress site he would publish the day after, was typing in phrases into Google (presumely) under that later would occur on the Guccifer 2.0-site.
Showing two things. That searches are logged extensively and are accessable to American authorities. And that the said GRU perpetrators didn't really care to cover their tracks that much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller#Director_of_the...
are to be trusted on anything at all.
Also, I read the indictment (https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2018/07/Mueller...) but I missed the part about, "these "operatives" signed their e-mails with their full names including patronymics and ranks like "GRU captain"". Please point me to it?
I assumed they used stolen identities, like it seems to state in count 10's paragraph 59 and 60, and uses multiple accounts across multiple exchanges to obscure the money trail (paragraph 63).
edit: It's common knowledge who Robert Mueller is. He's been a public figure for decades, and nobody ever made any effort conceal his background. Why are you providing me a wikipedia link?
That said, the Dutch were able to watch[0] Unit 26165 (a/k/a Cozy Bear, APT29) on CCTV, so it doesn't seem entirely implausible that the NSA or some other FVEY group was capable of retrieving emails from whatever webmail provider Unit 26165 was using (appears to be yandex and mail.com in the indictment).
0: https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...
People will never be satisfied. If/When the full emails quoted in the indictment are released, they will point out that e-mails are just UTF-8 characters in a file that anybody could have created. There simply is no evidence, nor is it even possible for there to be any evidence, that people could verify at home. Even if the official Russian "Certificate of Excellence in Hacking Democracy", printed on Russia's own polonium-laced paper, affixed with "Putin's Seal of Outrageous Heterosexuality" self-appointed sceptics will complain that all they can access is a photo, and the FBI isn't letting them stop by and inspect the original.
that was sarcasm, sorry, I forgot it doesn't go well here. there is nothing in the indictment about how they were able to identify particular perpetrators including their full names.
>I assumed they used stolen identities,
No one in Russia uses their full names with patronymics spelled out in paper mail or e-mail or in official paperwork, except in e.g. a job application or similar i.e. where one must be fully identified. So unless it's a bad case of a Hollywood movie script, those could have come only from hacked internal databases. I am not sure a spy agency would thus reveal it has hacked those internal databases or had a mole in GRU. And on top of that they would be somehow able to match a record in that database with a hacker out there - a truly miraculous feat. On the other hand if those are stolen identities, there are no hints of that in the indictment. They are presented as true identities. And still, full patronymics just don't compute.
>Why are you providing me a wikipedia link?
What do you want me to provide to prove that he is not to be trusted? My own investigation?
https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...
> according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous.
It is clear the reporter was not shown any of the evidence or videos:
> It's unknown what exact information the hackers acquire about the Russians
So what we have is anonymous sources with no way to verify anything. It does not mean it's false, but some skepticism is in order.
This isn't Iraq WMDs 2.0 where an administration pressured career civil servants until they found one who was partisan enough to back them up. This is an international counterintelligence operation stretching the Five Eyes, Dutch AIVD, and half a dozen other countries.
> This isn't Iraq WMDs 2.0 where an administration pressured career civil servants until they found one who was partisan enough to back them up. This is an international counterintelligence operation stretching the Five Eyes, Dutch AIVD, and half a dozen other countries.
I think this is a very kind way of describing the Iraq fiasco. The US intelligence agencies claimed there were WMDs, the UK intelligence services produced the Dodgy Dossier[1], and don't get me started about what the Israeli intelligence claimed (I was stupid enough to believe them and prepare the bomb shelter for a chemical attack).
The one thing I learned is that claims by intelligence agencies or anonymous sources in those agencies are meaningless until hard evidence is provided.
Nor will any evidence be presented because there will not be a trial. Mueller purposely indicted all Russians who are physically in Russia, knowing that they could not and would not be extradited.
The transaction referenced in the indictment clearly happened, but Mueller and his team could have easily searched through the Bitcoin blockchain to find any transaction that paid for a VPN, hosting, or domain registration using Bitcoin on or around the date of the hack.
The indictment makes it sound like the request for 0.026043 BTC came via email. I think that is a bit strange. If you are Russian Military Intelligence about to hack the government of the United States, why would you include references and payment info related to your Bitcoin transactions in hundreds of emails? Surely just keeping track of the Bitcoin addresses on the blockchain would be enough since that is the entire point of the Blockchain. Keeping a reference via email sounds like a good plot for an episode of America’s Dumbest Criminals, not the Russian military.
It is certainly possible that this is exactly what happened, but I think the American people deserve to see some evidence.
I would have thought there would have been clear protocols about VPNs, some "we're 99.999% sure this is a clean laptop, don't do anything else here, and only do thing here and inside this brand new VM each day..." kinda stuff that would prevent such mistakes.
They then state that that must mean that the Russians must have forgotten to log onto their VPN first. But I mean, what? Using a dedicated VPN makes no real sense in the era of TOR, and such a mistake would have been literally impossible with TOR. It's also mentioned in the article that "The US (or a partner)" hacked at least two GRU computers. If this is the case then it's safe to assume other actors could have as well, and suddenly what exactly does a login from the GRU IP actually mean?
Or in the machines that the GRU allegedly hacked, their behavior was discovered by the presence of logs that the hackers apparently had to manually delete? State level malware does not automatically delete logs? Wow. And then they allegedly rented servers in Arizona and Illinois for illicit activities, knowing full well that their are a gazillion different domestic digital surveillance programs being carried out by the NSA? And then apparently they were exchanging emails, literally discussing theft of DNC materials, in plain text without encryption?
These things just never really make any logical sense. It simultaneously tries to paint Russians as these super hackers capable of achieving anything. And then it also shows them getting busted making mistakes that I'd like to call amateur, but that implies that these are mistakes even an amateur might reasonably make, which is probably doubtful. It's bizarre.
Beyond that are you saying that some other actor hacked a GRU computer and framed them or something? That's a pretty big leap there without anything to it.
As for logs having your malware just delete logs automatically could be useful at times... less so other times. I would think you would want to choose to do it when you wanted. A lot of malware does log wiping, I'd be tempted to look for log changes over time just to find malware based on that alone..... suddenly missing logs would be a big sign.
Beyond that I'm not going to get into it. These seem like just you and me logicing things out in our head and that doesn't mean we're right or wrong. Humans don't make sense at times, they dork up, that isn't surprising to me.
Just because some of it is curious to me and maybe choices I wouldn't have made, doesn't make it not true, or those choices as odd or wrong as we might thing anyway.
1. The FBI never had physical access to the hacked servers and were relying completely on the report from a third party company, CrowdStrike:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313555-comey-fbi...
2. The former tech director of the NSA, William Binney, claimed that the data could not have been copied remotely because the download speed was around 22 MB/s (176 Mb/s) which he and a team concluded was not possible for a remote hack with servers in Russia and routing through a commercial VPN service:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-r...
>He said they did not, but obtained access from a review of the system performed by CrowdStrike, a third-party cybersecurity firm.
>"We got the forensics from the pros that they hired which -- again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this, my folks tell me, was an appropriate substitute," Comey said.
>DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told PolitiFact that the DNC cooperated with the FBI’s requests, which resulted in the DNC providing a copy of their server.
>"An image of a server is the best thing to use in an investigation so that your exploration of the server does not change the evidence (just like you don’t want investigators leaving their own DNA around a physical crime scene) and so that the bad actors cannot make changes to the evidence while you are looking at it," Watson said. "Any suggestion that they were denied access to what they wanted for their investigation is completely incorrect."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/...
It's interesting, this is the second time I've seen this talking point in two days. The first one linked to a slightly less blog-ish source, and pointed out that this "fact" had been established in _The Nation_, a reasonably well-respected and left-sympathetic newspaper.
Here's the article in The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-qu...
It now has a gigantic disclosure in front of it which takes most of the weight of the "findings" away.
"In the end, Fidelis, FireEye, SecureWorks, Threat Connect and other CrowdStrike competitors all confirmed Crowdstike’s results."
"I find it interesting that people are so eager to [ignore credible evidence], but willing to accept the forensics of an anonymous blogger, with no reputation, that no one knows anything about”
Holy 2018.
Second, I read the disclosure, and all it does is point out that it is a possibility and not a fact. It also points out that the intelligence agencies have not provided any hard evidence that Russia was behind the leak, and they are the same groups who lied to the public about WMDs in Iraq to justify that invasion.
This article also says that the original reports were published by Consortium News, the source I linked to.
Your point two is is based on an embarrassingly incorrect assumption.
I agree it makes it less likely because the files could have been copied multiple times which could change the metadata, but that doesn’t prove definitively that they were.
Only saying that if they were dumb enough to do that they may have been dumb enough to go directly too.
Show me where in the indictment it talks about that? I only saw a reference to a much smaller number of emails.
Right, because you can't prove a negative.
There were two batches of emails published by WikiLeaks. The second batch wasn't published by GRU's front DCLeaks / Guccifer 2.0. So it's possible that the source of that second batch is a different one, and it's certainly possible it could be Seth Rich.
They don't have to. This case isn't going to trial; it was basically a PR stunt. It wouldn't survive a trial. The strategy is simple: Indict a bunch of people that you cannot extradite, and you get a PR win with just some broad strokes and have to prove nothing. You get to keep your unlimited budget to continue the investigation, and the press keeps listening to you.
Sure there is; for instance, you could have surveillance (video, keylogger, etc.) of the GRU officer at the GRU computer in GRU headquarters executing transactions on it.
> If you are Russian Military Intelligence about to hack the government of the United States, why would you include references and payment info related to your Bitcoin transactions in hundreds of emails? Surely just keeping track of the Bitcoin addresses on the blockchain would be enough since that is the entire point of the Blockchain.
Even if one grants that this is correct in some ideal sense, “government bureaucracy has operational staff proficient with new technology but imposes counterproductive documentation processes” is something literally no one would be surprised about int their own government.
> It is certainly possible that this is exactly what happened, but I think the American people deserve to see some evidence.
If Mueller files a report, and Congress decided to make it public, concerning the one subject of the investigation for whom normal criminal process is not likely to be the first response to any apparent crimes, and the evidence is directly germane to the findings of the report, the American people will have a legitimate right to demand the evidence.
If the indictment under discussion, or any other to which the allegation is necessary, goes to trial, the defendants will have a legitimate right—a Constitutional right—to demand the evidence.
1. Select a victim 2. Every time you are about to make a Bitcoin transaction, send an email to the victim's address requesting the amount you are about to send. (Bonus point if you can get directly into the spam folder.) 3. Send bitcoins as you intended to do.
Now lay back and wait for your victim to be linked to your shady activities.
(I'm writing this as a critique of the technique used and conclusions reached in the article. Hopefully the investigation has something more robust.)
Maybe they'll accuse you of financing terrorism in the end. It's your right to trust justice to never make mistakes.
That's quite unlikely, because of exactly what you pointed out. The reality is that this case could not and was not meant to be able to stand up to the rigors of a federal prosecution with good defense attorneys in a US court. People that could not be arrested or extradited were indicted for a reason - Mueller knew this case would never actually be litigated. This was Mueller's ham sandwich indictment for the day [1].
This indictment was meant for Mueller to justify his existence and the expenses that we, the taxpayers, have incurred on this investigation. He got a PR win that satisfied the media's need for headlines about Russian involvement in the election by putting together some broad strokes, knowing that he'd never have to actually prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
[1] https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ind...
https://i.imgur.com/8BaL1w9_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...
Guilty: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/05/22/ap_1703269051709...
Guilty: https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/02/19...
Guilty: https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/...
Guilty: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/21/us/21meuller_dc/2...
You see, that's how a system based on law and order works.
Oh and did I mention, Mueller and the vast majority of his team are career Republicans, were appointed by Republicans, and gave up multi-million dollar a year jobs to do this? You know, the DEEP STATE.
They didn't lie, they don't have to. Everything in this indictment may be what they believe happened. But these are broad strokes. It looks like any of these allegations would be difficult or impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Grand juries indict based on probable cause, which an entirely different (and far lower) standard. They have probable cause if a credible witness, such as an FBI agent, simply tells them that they believe something happened.
> 1. Select a "victim" under investigation by all US law enforcement agencies involved in counterintelligence and a significant fraction of Western intelligence agencies in general
Fixed that for you.
I used to do that in a weird way with a lightly paranoid coworker (he wasn't battling mental illness or anything, he was fine). He did have a lot of concerns about e-privacy in the 90s (legit forward thinking stuff) and I would send him emails through open mail relays like whitehouse.gov and such "Hey man I dropped off all the magic white powder stuff in your blue Honda Accord.". It was all in jest, he was fine last I heard.
I tried to verify this using blockchain explorer and couldn't find any matching addresses, is there a better way to do this? I'm pretty out of the loop at this point (last used it years ago)
[1]https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/18/stripping-...
>"The people wanted to hear this," he says. "So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then ... our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire."
>Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait.
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...
The left just seems to value the truth more than the right. That is being vividly illustrated by our current president.
> left just seems to value the truth more than the right.
huh?
Anyone who does this will know that your claim as to why I'm here doesn't hold water.
Cough b.s. DNC needs to sober up and admit defeat ahead of the RNC hack releases. Right now the hilarious Trump Derangement Disorder they're suffering from will only continue to promote inequality.
We're already at a point where security researchers question if you can ever declare any device "clean" simply due to the complexity of devices and attacks.