8 ms·

Terrorists Turn to Bitcoin for Funding, and They’re Learning Fast

42 points by sneeze-slayer 7y ago

solveit 7y ago
Slightly misleading headline. They're remarkably late to turn to Bitcoin, but they're learning very fast. The body of the article makes this clear.
- tumetab1 7y ago
  And that they're learning that Bitcoin is not the best options > in part by using cryptocurrencies that provide even more privacy than Bitcoin.
error629 7y ago
Cryptocurrency can adapt & wallets can be frozen in some instances. Point being, something can be done. Governments can pick and choose their cryptocurrency once Swift is replaced by Japan. Fiat money can't & will always be used for terrorism.
- tuesdayrain 7y ago
  There is no way to reliably freeze BTC wallets as far as I'm aware. At best you could convince certain exchanges or miners to blacklist them, but even one that allows a trade or transaction to go through should be enough to swap to a different currency and lose anyone following the trail. Curious if there's another way that I don't know about.
  - jbverschoor 7y ago
    BTC, no.. if you’re implemented a cryptocurrency using for example ethereum, you could easily do that, and some actually do so.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      So something can be done, if the terrorists happen to be using a crypto with that functionality included. So basically, nothing can be done if they just use a different network? Or even just the most popular network.
    - eks39 7y ago
      BTC, yes https://wiki.trezor.io/CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY https://wiki.trezor.io/CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jbverschoor 7y ago
Propaganda. They used to turn to dollars. We should ban that currency
dagaci 7y ago
"a method that makes the donations nearly impossible for law enforcement to track" - This is an incredible statement, Bitcoin is a public ledger. It is the very opposite of anonymous. It is extremely easy for sophisticated governments in the USA and Israel to identify who has donated. I can imagine these authorities chuckling at the naivete of the "Terrorist"/"Palestinian authority" "secret" fundraising effort.
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  > Bitcoin is a public ledger. It is the very opposite of anonymous That's rather misleading, you can see the wallet address but you don't know who controls the wallet. I assumed bitcoin advocates here would prefer not to spread misinformation.
  - dagaci 7y ago
    But isn't the address is published on their website... ?
    - negamax 7y ago
      Destination is ofcourse (which can also be generated new for each donation btw) but what about the source? It could be anyone. There are services and protocol like coinjoin and tumble that will mix transactions, making it further impossible to narrow down on the right source
    - mortdeus 7y ago
      just because it is published that doesn't mean it's easy to track who the funds are coming from. In traditional finance there is usually some sort of method in place that directly associates (either concretely as in say requiring an ID or loosely as in just having video surveillance correlated with say a money order or money gram transfer) a persons identity with an account anytime they are conducting any form of financial transaction. With bitcoin, there is no way to pinpoint exactly who created an address. I can create thousands of wallets, and distribute them to all my terrorist buddies across the world for example, and it's not like traditional finance where i had to get somebody connected to the government (as the banks are) to sign off on me doing that. The only weaknesses bitcoin has that I can see is 1. that people's computers are typically less secure and easier to break into than banks who do a good job implementing security, and therefore its way easier to steal.. 2. Because its decentralized and entirely electronic based when somebody actually steals your money it is virtually impossible to reverse that without requiring a hard fork of the block chain and for some currencies you just can't do that. (for example, nobody is going to be able to hardfork btc and take over it just because somebody ripped off a $1m worth of BTC from joe shmoe who hadn't updated his Ubuntu PC in 2 months because he's too lazy to type in his password everyday) And lastly, the fact that bitcoin (and all other currency for that matter) becomes virtually worthless when nobody is willing to give you fiat in exchange for it. There is always going to be a weakness in the fact that these terrorists are going to need to convert their bitcoin into fiat eventually. Realistically, it doesn't actually make any sense why terrorist organizations would do this because of this weakness. You'd have to find a buyer for them who can give you fiat directly without raising suspicion. Which means direct cash exchanges and if you are already at that level of coming out into the open. You might as well just mail people cash using bogus identities and PO boxes.
unityByFreedom 7y ago
Bitcoin is more empowering for criminals than for law-abiding citizens, true or false? The same cannot be said of cash, in my opinion.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  True because generously, the only thing Bitcoin adds above and beyond what you can do with cash is skirt the law and pay anyone you want even if it's illegal to do so.
  - keymone 7y ago
    wait, what? can i not pay in cash for illegal product/service?
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Well if you want to pay someone on the international sanctions list in cash you're going to need to buy a plane ticket, and check your duffel back of money. If you want to wire it to them, you definitely can't (or if the wire goes through expect a knock on the door). So while in theory, yes, in practice, no.
      - keymone 7y ago
        I can’t even.. First, whatever you’re wiring - isn’t cash pretty much by definition. Second - why is your default example of paying for illegal product/service is about somebody in a different country on an international sanctions list? How about buying drugs on the street? Doesn’t involve planes and duffel bags of money. Does involve cash.
        arcticbull 7y ago
        Scope and breadth of effect, mostly. The AML/KYC/OFAC processes are designed to both enforce international sanctions [1, 2] and also to operate at a more local level [3]. Cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash specifically make traceability difficult or impossible. This situation is strictly worse along all axes. Just because it's currently possible to do something illegal (and we're working hard to crack down on that) doesn't mean our new goal should be to enable that faster, cheaper and easier (and not bother with enforcement at all) -- it's regressive. [1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-recognizes-bitcoin-and-crypto-as-an-official-industry-says-mp https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-recognizes-bitcoin-and-c... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/north-korea-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-blockchain-un-report-a8819446.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... [3] https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/wall-street-market-silkkietie-valhalla-dark-web-drug-monero-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/wall-street-marke...
jesusthatsgreat 7y ago
Another hitjob on Bitcoin paid for & promoted by old money. Terrorists using Bitcoin for funding are idiots. They're creating an undeniable, timestamped treasure trove of digital evidence which is far simpler to trace and track than any cash transactions. I would hope intelligence services are trying to lure terrorists in to using Bitcoin by pushing articles like this as opposed to actually believing that Bitcoin transactions can't be tracked and can't be used to hunt down funding sources.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  True, but by the time something goes wrong (read: explosions) having a digital paper trail is moot.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Another hitjob on Bitcoin paid for & promoted by old money. If it's true that the banks and old businesses are paying for news articles to denounce Bitcoin then that's a lot more interesting than this article. I think it's much more likely that a journalist read that a law enforcement agency confiscated a few Bitcoin and saw an angle for an edgy "OMG terrorists!" article.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  ... promoted by old money. I didn't know old money was defined as anyone who didn't want to get attacked by well-funded terrorists. In the future, I'd avoid this kind of conspiracy theory advocacy as it weakens any argument you staple it to. AML/KYC and the OFAC list aren't there because the acronyms make you sound fancy. They're there because society agrees payments should be censorable.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    Does it agree? Or is the average person just too uninformed and powerless to do anything about it, particularly because sinister effects of such procedures are long-term and hard to see? After all, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also a product of society.
choeger 7y ago
There is an interesting dynamic at play here. Western democracies have arguably created the foundation for developing bitcoin with their highly functional education systems and uncensored exchange between citizens. They also created the desire to implement something like bitcoin with their (more or less) subtle movement towards authority and policing. Next step, western governments (correctly) identify bitcoin as a threat to their current policy enforcements. Now we see the narrative spun against bitcoin as a tool of evil powers and criminals. Sooner or later it will be attacked more or less directly. Thus, the governments confirm the motivation for creating bitcoin in the first place to their own citizen. "See, the White House /wants/ to control us. We /need/ tools like it." You could replace bitcoin with any other technology that protects privacy btw. be it Tor, GPG, or whatever. So what happens now: Will the governments increase the motivation for the developers of said tools in an endless arms race, creating a vicious cycle, where governments trigger the development of better and better tools for criminals? Or will they at some point start to attack the means to actually implement these tools? Will there be a form of arms control for compilers? Like a government-controlled app store?
- joes223 7y ago
  It's worth adding that "terrorists" is a fictional organization and merely means "the bad guys".
arcticbull 7y ago
Fascinating, so you're telling me, that a permissionless, decentralized, trustless payments system can be used to pay literally anyone even if the broader society is being physically attacked by the payees? Truly, I'm shocked. SHOCKED. It's almost like those characteristics aren't desirable in a payments system.
cf498 7y ago
And look which 127 time Pulitzer price winner isnt above acting as a propaganda outlet. Its just sad, the headline is just the cherry on top.
buboard 7y ago
Wow it's so good that even terrorists are using it? Imagine that, terrorists are ditching the all-powerful greenback cash for bitcoin. Surely this is bad for bitcoin
katakuchi 7y ago
With or without mass adaptation of BTC, you will still have to convert cryptocurrency to monetary value. If you make a purchase or transaction - If you actually USE the funds it will still have to be converted to something physical or a service. There will thus undoubtly still be a trail to be followed. It might be more difficult but I still see it being very much possible to track terrorists with sufficient resources such as that of a nation state. What I'd think would be interesting to see, is what the security baseline and tech-saviness is of many of these terrorists. Do they simply outsource this? If not, apparently our traditional view of backwards thinking savages might not be that applicable anymore.
bouncycastle 7y ago
OMG terrorists! What next? We must not use knifes for cutting our food because terrorists use knifes to do bad stuff?
- StreamBright 7y ago
  Literally what is happening in the UK. Not that I agree with this.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    What are you referring to? Do you have a source?
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47507937 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47507937 https://thefederalist.com/2018/04/13/britains-knife-control-bad-parody-gun-control/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/04/13/britains-knife-control-...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
afroboy 7y ago
When Algeria start their revolution and resistance they were called terrorists for years till they got their freedom now they are heroes, history just repeating it self.

42 points by sneeze-slayer 7y ago

Slightly misleading headline. They're remarkably late to turn to Bitcoin, but they're learning very fast. The body of the article makes this clear.

tumetab1 7y ago
And that they're learning that Bitcoin is not the best options > in part by using cryptocurrencies that provide even more privacy than Bitcoin.

error629 7y ago

Cryptocurrency can adapt & wallets can be frozen in some instances. Point being, something can be done. Governments can pick and choose their cryptocurrency once Swift is replaced by Japan. Fiat money can't & will always be used for terrorism.

tuesdayrain 7y ago
There is no way to reliably freeze BTC wallets as far as I'm aware. At best you could convince certain exchanges or miners to blacklist them, but even one that allows a trade or transaction to go through should be enough to swap to a different currency and lose anyone following the trail. Curious if there's another way that I don't know about.
- jbverschoor 7y ago
  BTC, no.. if you’re implemented a cryptocurrency using for example ethereum, you could easily do that, and some actually do so.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    So something can be done, if the terrorists happen to be using a crypto with that functionality included. So basically, nothing can be done if they just use a different network? Or even just the most popular network.
  - eks39 7y ago
    BTC, yes https://wiki.trezor.io/CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY https://wiki.trezor.io/CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jbverschoor 7y ago

Propaganda. They used to turn to dollars. We should ban that currency

dagaci 7y ago

"a method that makes the donations nearly impossible for law enforcement to track" - This is an incredible statement, Bitcoin is a public ledger. It is the very opposite of anonymous. It is extremely easy for sophisticated governments in the USA and Israel to identify who has donated. I can imagine these authorities chuckling at the naivete of the "Terrorist"/"Palestinian authority" "secret" fundraising effort.

unityByFreedom 7y ago
> Bitcoin is a public ledger. It is the very opposite of anonymous That's rather misleading, you can see the wallet address but you don't know who controls the wallet. I assumed bitcoin advocates here would prefer not to spread misinformation.
- dagaci 7y ago
  But isn't the address is published on their website... ?
  - negamax 7y ago
    Destination is ofcourse (which can also be generated new for each donation btw) but what about the source? It could be anyone. There are services and protocol like coinjoin and tumble that will mix transactions, making it further impossible to narrow down on the right source
  - mortdeus 7y ago
    just because it is published that doesn't mean it's easy to track who the funds are coming from. In traditional finance there is usually some sort of method in place that directly associates (either concretely as in say requiring an ID or loosely as in just having video surveillance correlated with say a money order or money gram transfer) a persons identity with an account anytime they are conducting any form of financial transaction. With bitcoin, there is no way to pinpoint exactly who created an address. I can create thousands of wallets, and distribute them to all my terrorist buddies across the world for example, and it's not like traditional finance where i had to get somebody connected to the government (as the banks are) to sign off on me doing that. The only weaknesses bitcoin has that I can see is 1. that people's computers are typically less secure and easier to break into than banks who do a good job implementing security, and therefore its way easier to steal.. 2. Because its decentralized and entirely electronic based when somebody actually steals your money it is virtually impossible to reverse that without requiring a hard fork of the block chain and for some currencies you just can't do that. (for example, nobody is going to be able to hardfork btc and take over it just because somebody ripped off a $1m worth of BTC from joe shmoe who hadn't updated his Ubuntu PC in 2 months because he's too lazy to type in his password everyday) And lastly, the fact that bitcoin (and all other currency for that matter) becomes virtually worthless when nobody is willing to give you fiat in exchange for it. There is always going to be a weakness in the fact that these terrorists are going to need to convert their bitcoin into fiat eventually. Realistically, it doesn't actually make any sense why terrorist organizations would do this because of this weakness. You'd have to find a buyer for them who can give you fiat directly without raising suspicion. Which means direct cash exchanges and if you are already at that level of coming out into the open. You might as well just mail people cash using bogus identities and PO boxes.

unityByFreedom 7y ago

Bitcoin is more empowering for criminals than for law-abiding citizens, true or false? The same cannot be said of cash, in my opinion.

arcticbull 7y ago
True because generously, the only thing Bitcoin adds above and beyond what you can do with cash is skirt the law and pay anyone you want even if it's illegal to do so.
- keymone 7y ago
  wait, what? can i not pay in cash for illegal product/service?
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Well if you want to pay someone on the international sanctions list in cash you're going to need to buy a plane ticket, and check your duffel back of money. If you want to wire it to them, you definitely can't (or if the wire goes through expect a knock on the door). So while in theory, yes, in practice, no.
    - keymone 7y ago
      I can’t even.. First, whatever you’re wiring - isn’t cash pretty much by definition. Second - why is your default example of paying for illegal product/service is about somebody in a different country on an international sanctions list? How about buying drugs on the street? Doesn’t involve planes and duffel bags of money. Does involve cash.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        Scope and breadth of effect, mostly. The AML/KYC/OFAC processes are designed to both enforce international sanctions [1, 2] and also to operate at a more local level [3]. Cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash specifically make traceability difficult or impossible. This situation is strictly worse along all axes. Just because it's currently possible to do something illegal (and we're working hard to crack down on that) doesn't mean our new goal should be to enable that faster, cheaper and easier (and not bother with enforcement at all) -- it's regressive. [1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-recognizes-bitcoin-and-crypto-as-an-official-industry-says-mp https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-recognizes-bitcoin-and-c... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/north-korea-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-blockchain-un-report-a8819446.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... [3] https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/wall-street-market-silkkietie-valhalla-dark-web-drug-monero-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/wall-street-marke...

jesusthatsgreat 7y ago

Another hitjob on Bitcoin paid for & promoted by old money. Terrorists using Bitcoin for funding are idiots. They're creating an undeniable, timestamped treasure trove of digital evidence which is far simpler to trace and track than any cash transactions. I would hope intelligence services are trying to lure terrorists in to using Bitcoin by pushing articles like this as opposed to actually believing that Bitcoin transactions can't be tracked and can't be used to hunt down funding sources.

cameronbrown 7y ago
True, but by the time something goes wrong (read: explosions) having a digital paper trail is moot.
onion2k 7y ago
Another hitjob on Bitcoin paid for & promoted by old money. If it's true that the banks and old businesses are paying for news articles to denounce Bitcoin then that's a lot more interesting than this article. I think it's much more likely that a journalist read that a law enforcement agency confiscated a few Bitcoin and saw an angle for an edgy "OMG terrorists!" article.
arcticbull 7y ago
... promoted by old money. I didn't know old money was defined as anyone who didn't want to get attacked by well-funded terrorists. In the future, I'd avoid this kind of conspiracy theory advocacy as it weakens any argument you staple it to. AML/KYC and the OFAC list aren't there because the acronyms make you sound fancy. They're there because society agrees payments should be censorable.
- feanaro 7y ago
  Does it agree? Or is the average person just too uninformed and powerless to do anything about it, particularly because sinister effects of such procedures are long-term and hard to see? After all, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also a product of society.

choeger 7y ago

There is an interesting dynamic at play here. Western democracies have arguably created the foundation for developing bitcoin with their highly functional education systems and uncensored exchange between citizens. They also created the desire to implement something like bitcoin with their (more or less) subtle movement towards authority and policing. Next step, western governments (correctly) identify bitcoin as a threat to their current policy enforcements. Now we see the narrative spun against bitcoin as a tool of evil powers and criminals. Sooner or later it will be attacked more or less directly. Thus, the governments confirm the motivation for creating bitcoin in the first place to their own citizen. "See, the White House /wants/ to control us. We /need/ tools like it." You could replace bitcoin with any other technology that protects privacy btw. be it Tor, GPG, or whatever. So what happens now: Will the governments increase the motivation for the developers of said tools in an endless arms race, creating a vicious cycle, where governments trigger the development of better and better tools for criminals? Or will they at some point start to attack the means to actually implement these tools? Will there be a form of arms control for compilers? Like a government-controlled app store?

joes223 7y ago
It's worth adding that "terrorists" is a fictional organization and merely means "the bad guys".

arcticbull 7y ago

Fascinating, so you're telling me, that a permissionless, decentralized, trustless payments system can be used to pay literally anyone even if the broader society is being physically attacked by the payees? Truly, I'm shocked. SHOCKED. It's almost like those characteristics aren't desirable in a payments system.

cf498 7y ago

And look which 127 time Pulitzer price winner isnt above acting as a propaganda outlet. Its just sad, the headline is just the cherry on top.

buboard 7y ago

Wow it's so good that even terrorists are using it? Imagine that, terrorists are ditching the all-powerful greenback cash for bitcoin. Surely this is bad for bitcoin

katakuchi 7y ago

With or without mass adaptation of BTC, you will still have to convert cryptocurrency to monetary value. If you make a purchase or transaction - If you actually USE the funds it will still have to be converted to something physical or a service. There will thus undoubtly still be a trail to be followed. It might be more difficult but I still see it being very much possible to track terrorists with sufficient resources such as that of a nation state. What I'd think would be interesting to see, is what the security baseline and tech-saviness is of many of these terrorists. Do they simply outsource this? If not, apparently our traditional view of backwards thinking savages might not be that applicable anymore.

bouncycastle 7y ago

OMG terrorists! What next? We must not use knifes for cutting our food because terrorists use knifes to do bad stuff?

StreamBright 7y ago
Literally what is happening in the UK. Not that I agree with this.
- feanaro 7y ago
  What are you referring to? Do you have a source?
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47507937 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47507937 https://thefederalist.com/2018/04/13/britains-knife-control-bad-parody-gun-control/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/04/13/britains-knife-control-...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

afroboy 7y ago

When Algeria start their revolution and resistance they were called terrorists for years till they got their freedom now they are heroes, history just repeating it self.