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A Blockchain Analysis of the July 13th Mueller Indictment
- patrickg_zill 8y agoA skeptic's counterpoint: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/19/establishment-strikes-back.html https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/19/establishm...
- sehugg 8y agoThe site you linked: Strategic Culture Foundation, a Moscow think tank run by Yuri Profokiev, a former head of Moscow’s Communist Party and member of the Soviet Politburo.
- mccarthyism2 8y agoStill waiting for the evidence behind this growing Russian conspiracy.
- Gabriel_Martin 8y agoOdd how you made this account 8 minutes ago to attempt to discredit this idea
- nutjob2 8y agoAnd happens to be strongly pro-Trump. How curious.
- BRAlNlAC 8y agoReally? this article[1] doesn't seem pro-Trump at all. [1]https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/18/stripping-away-local-governmental-powers-global-rising-tide-fascism.html https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/18/stripping-...
- nutjob2 8y agoThat's not counterpoint, it's just typical right wing propaganda.
- dominotw 8y agowhy is right full of 'typical' propaganda while left is honest ppl with verifiable facts. seems curious
- glorkk 8y agoThe "left" are good at circular quotations. They are also in complete control of Wikipedia, Snopes, and a few other "authoritative" websites.
- reefoctopus 8y ago> He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories. >"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/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...
- nutjob2 8y agoBecuase it's got nothing to do with left or right, just true or false. The left just seems to value the truth more than the right. That is being vividly illustrated by our current president.
- dominotw 8y ago>it's got nothing to do with left or right > left just seems to value the truth more than the right. huh?
- root_axis 8y agoThat is not a "counterpoint" to anything, there is zero mention of bitcoin, blockchain or anything cryptocurrency related within. I think it's pretty clear you're here to push a political agenda.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoYou can check my karma and how long I've been around, in addition to my comments. Anyone who does this will know that your claim as to why I'm here doesn't hold water.
- jcranmer 8y agoThat says nothing about this article, which is basically "lol, I can do trivial financial analysis to strip the anonymity of Bitcoin. Think how much more information government experts at tracking money laundering have."
- mccarthyism2 8y agoWow, they’re even pulling bitcoin into this witch hunt! None of this changes the fact that Bitcoin is the real occupy wallstreet movement. The world needs a money which can protect us from central banks. Bitcoin is it.
- nutjob2 8y agoYou can protect yourself from those evil central banks: just send that toxic fiat currency over to me. I'll dispose of it responsibly.
- Gabriel_Martin 8y agoOdd how you made this account 8 minutes ago to attempt to discredit this idea
- mccarthyism2 8y agoHacker news has a shadow banning problem. Unpopular opinions are downvoted into oblivion. Then your posts start going into the void.
- RobLach 8y agoI mean if your speech cannot survive in a free marketplace of ideas...
- sillysaurus3 8y agoThe other side in this situation is far into the barrel. But it's mistaken to say HN is a free marketplace of ideas. I could give some substantive points in support of this statement, but it's an old conversation and I've gotten in trouble for the ways I've expressed it in the past.
- CamperBob2 8y agoHN is a "marketplace of ideas" the way Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign was. Post article on controversial or flamebait-ish topic, wait for users to take the bait, then yell at them. Their house, their rules, and IMHO the good outweighs the bad... but make no mistake, calling HN a "marketplace of ideas" is inappropriate.
- kapauldo 8y agoCome on guys, you know the rules, no substantive debate. Hn censors, please flag this.
- throwaway5752 8y agoDetails on count 10 are pretty damning. They managed to correlate their various sources of information pretty well. There's not much to say, they managed to tie a wallet address to a person/ip address and were able to trace a surprising amount of attempted money laundering that way.
- igivanov 8y agoWell, maybe something is damning, but if you believe that these "operatives" signed their e-mails with their full names including patronymics and ranks like "GRU captain" I have a cheap sunny beach in Greenland for sale. Or if you believe that the US spies had somehow full access to this info and are not afraid to compromise their sources by these revelations. Or, finally, if you believe that the US security agencies including Mueller himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller#Director_of_the_FBI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller#Director_of_the... are to be trusted on anything at all.
- throwaway5752 8y agoWhat is your explanation of those ledger entries? Was Mueller setting up Russia before he was named Special Counsel? Also, I read the indictment (https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2018/07/Muellerindictment.pdf 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?
- uxp 8y agoI don't think there has been any public release of information confirming the evidence revealed in the indictment. Indictments are supposed to be somewhat hyperbolic in appearance (not literally, but figuratively). They aren't supposed to lie, but at the same time they will omit key facts explaining how or why they know or suspect person X did action Y. Those facts will be revealed to the defense or during trial. Unfortunately, these indictments will never result in a trial or pre-trial discovery on part of the defense, so the public may never know the reasons. 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-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...
- throwaway_98554 8y agoGreat, now I know how to frame someone using Bitcoin. 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.)
- weddpros 8y agoNext time you want to frame someone, send money simultaneously to them AND to the Bitcoin address cited in the article, and they'll be linked to a Russian conspiracy...
- throwaway5752 8y agoIf they find evidence the wallet owner communicated with you to send the money and then used the transaction to pay for goods and services used in the course of a criminal act, then you might be in trouble. Otherwise, I don't see why you think it would be viewed as anything but a stupid prank.
- weddpros 8y agoI guess the government investigating why your wallet is somehow related to a russian spy's wallet may cause quite some trouble in your life. Maybe they'll accuse you of financing terrorism in the end. It's your right to trust justice to never make mistakes.
- downandout 8y agoHopefully the investigation has something more robust. 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/indict_a_ham_sandwich/ https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ind...
- jcranmer 8y agoI have to imagine that the first person at the FBI (or whichever agency is responsible for tracking money laundering) to come across bitcoin fell out of their chair laughing when they came across it. It's a protocol that has a public, dated, irrefutable log of every transaction made... and its users think it untraceable (or at least, they thought it untraceable back when it first came out).
- colordrops 8y agoit's about as untraceable as cash. If you pick some up anonymously, then use a different address for each transaction, all while obfuscating your connection using Tor or the like, your transactions should be difficult to trace.
- jackpirate 8y agoYou don't have to do any of that with cash.
- jerkstate 8y agoReally? you think cash that you withdraw from the ATM is not traceable to you?
- smt88 8y agoNo. Banks don't tie the serial numbers on bills dispensed at an ATM to the cardholder who withdrew it. 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
- guelo 8y agoAt the two American banks that I'm familiar with the cash serial numbers are not tracked.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
- craigc 8y agoThe only problem is there is no way to prove that that address actually belongs to the GRU. 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.
- rhizome 8y agoYou might be interested in Micah F. Lee's take: https://theintercept.com/2018/07/18/mueller-indictment-russian-hackers/ https://theintercept.com/2018/07/18/mueller-indictment-russi...
- duxup 8y agoTY, that is very interesting... also surprisingly lazy by the Russians. 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.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoThe problem with these allegations is they always seem to have this sort of issue, as well as logical problems. Some of the things in the article don't really make any sense. For instance they state that they way they decided that Guccifer was part of the GRU is that on one occasion the IP for that Twitter account was from the GRU. 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.
- plaguuuuuu 8y ago>In short, we can be confident that the bitcoin address used in the alleged conspiracy was 1LQv8aKtQoiY5M5zkaG8RWL7LMwNzVaVqR. 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)
- sillysaurus3 8y agohttps://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/1LQv8aKtQoiY5M5zkaG8RWL7LMwNzVaVqR https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/1LQv8aKtQoiY5M5zka...
- plaguuuuuu 8y agoThanks!
- exabrial 8y agoUltimately, by letting their servers unsecured, the DNC, RNC, and HRC, DTC are fully guilty of nothing [sic][sarcasm] 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.
- duxup 8y agoBad security maybe, but facing a state sponsored and determined attack and I'm not sure given enough time that any security is enough. 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.
- slim 8y agoThat's not money laundering. There's no dirty money involved and it's not about the money at all
- chvid 8y agoThis is great, 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.