The CIA Is Deep into Cryptocurrency, Director Reveals | Hacker News Reader

The CIA Is Deep into Cryptocurrency, Director Reveals

vice.com

49 pointsDocFeind33 comments

I mean, of course? It seems like it could be a pretty useful tool for open-source intelligence gathering.

> "If it came out (and was proven) that Bitcoin was created by the CIA, it wouldn’t significantly diminish my bullishness. The only thing it would change is my view of Satoshi. But, crucially, Satoshi is not Bitcoin. That connection was severed years ago," tweeted Spencer Schiff, who is a Bitcoin promoter and the son of stock broker and anti-crypto advocate Peter Schiff.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if anything would diminish the bullishness of a "Bitcoin promoter." They often give off this weird power of positive thinking vibe where they treat their desired goal as an axiom. Isn't the joke that they'll respond "_____ is good for Bitcoin" in response to pretty much anything, good or bad?

Plus a perfect way to fund spies and dissidents. Bank transfers too easy to track, cash incriminating, handing over a public key for a one-off account trivial.

> Plus a perfect way to fund spies and dissidents. Bank transfers too easy to track, cash incriminating, handing over a public key for a one-off account trivial.

No? The reasons Bitcoin is useful for open-source intelligence are the exact same reasons why it would be a terrible choice for those use cases. I hope the the CIA isn't dumb enough to have their spies use cryptocurrency that leaves a public record the Chinese Ministry of State Security can trace, now or in the future.

Bitcoin does not provide privacy, since any opsec failure, now or in the future, will compromise it.

Bitcoin no, but Monero or ZCash, yes

You know exactly what address got what. But one-off addresses? What exactly are you going to trace?

Then you exfiltrate your spy and they have their goodies safely awaiting them.

What’s a one-off address? It somehow got coins attached to it, and they came from somewhere, which is shown on the ledger. And whoever receives the coins will eventually want to spend them, which will also be shown in the ledger.

Funding spies and dissidents has never been a challenge. The challenge is it's very difficult for them to spend more money than they officially earn without drawing the attention of their home government's counterintel operations. No currency can solve this because it isn't the transfer of currency that gives you away. It's the receipt of whatever you purchased.

Also a way to raise untraceable funds, like the cocaine smuggling thing.

> Isn't the joke that they'll respond "_____ is good for Bitcoin" in response to pretty much anything, good or bad?

I filled in the best and worst things I could think of and the result is "false" for the best but "true" for the worst. I picked post-scarcity for "best". I'll leave "worst" as an exercise for the reader.

My hypothesis is that bitcoin was invented by a contractor at the CIA/NSA/etc.

Tons of security/crypto nerds who are strongly discouraged from doing outside projects, and often too much spare time.

Also explains why the $55 billion in bitcoins is sitting there: their contracts forbid them from outside projects, and their employers are allowed to keep any proceeds from illicit projects.

I’m sure B. Allen would love $55bil in bitcoin.

I mean if you look at the skill set necessary to the create bitcoin, and who possesss that skill set, the US intelligence establishment seems like a good candidate.

Your hypothesis is wrong because money was never invented by the government but by the people as medium of exchange for everyday trading.

Completely ignores the point of op and rebute with some random aisine point

There's no information in this article that's useful at all.

I had never heard that Satoshi-Nakamoto-is-the-CIA conspiracy theory before. It doesn't seem all that crazy to me.

Where is this paradisal isle which is free from people spouting this theory? I'd love to vacation there.

Funny, it's the oldest BTC conspiracy there is - that the government created bitcoin to track us.

Welcome to Vice News tech coverage. To be fair, you're probably not the target audience.

At best it's regurgitated news that you should already be aware of from other more direct sources. At worse it's this.

Gavin Andresen, a Bitcoin core developer, gave a talk at Langley (CIA HQ) early early early in the Bitcoin timeline, like 2010 or 2011 or so?

It was at this point that the person or people known as Satoshi stopped communicating.

If you want to find a bunch of criminals, make an anonymous currency exchange and wait patiently. It's not necessarily the case, but it's plausible.

What does the CIA do?

Report to POTUS on foreign adversaries, overthrow democratically-elected leaders, steal information, and drone American teenagers and innocent families. They're not a law-enforcement organization.

Edit: They're an international paramilitary insurgent branch of the Executive Branch.

I guess they're migrating from smuggling drugs to crypto mining with all their "free" hardware?

Or smuggling drugs to buy hardware and bitcoin

I was always under the impression that they have enough crypto to manipulate the markets.

Having it alone is not enough to manipulate the markets, you have to move it through exchanges. I guess it's not impossible, just tricky. I think when the rich sell their crypto, they don't do it on the open exchange as they don't want to the price to move when they do so.

I’m not that surprised that CIA is deep into the ecosystem. But please guys, the conspiracy of “CIA created Bitcoin”? Seriously? Next phase is gonna be “CIA created Bitcoin to control novax”

I wouldn't be surprised if they or the NSA created it so there was a way to trace previously dark (aka money in suitcases) money.

Totally could imagine Satoshi working at the NSA :)

You mean Nakamoto SAtoshi? Surely there'd be some sort of clue if that were the case? ;)

Happy to know our tax dollars are being spent on Tulip bulbs

Is it surprising the CIA is interested in monitoring secret funds transfers?

That explains why my fan keeps kicking on.

Yours too? (Twilight Zone music.)

Odds are they helped develop and encourage it's adoption.

Results of crypto 1. One of the primary attack vectors on gold, one of the main enemies of the dollar and federal reserve.

2. Mass speculation and greed in crypto has led to it's adoption, which has led to the talk that we need a digital currency for several reasons. Results of a fully digital currency? Every dollar is tracked, no need for the $600 bank reporting requirement to catch the RICH

3. I still can't see the developer of Bitcoin not being a large group associated with government. Who could resist the temptation to be one of the richest people in the world from your creation, a group who is utilizing it for another purpose.

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