CipherTrace Scout App Takes Crypto Investigations Mobiile

[teddyelwyn]

Cybersecurity firm Ciphertrace announced today a mobile tool they built that "traces" addresses through the blockchain to identify what coins may have been used in dark market purchase or ransomware attacks.

The rise in street crime coupled with crypto is what sparked the resurgence of a visualization of how money "crypto' is moving.

I haven't had the chance to check it out yet but I think it's wild this all can be done on a app now. What do you guys think?


https://www.coindesk.com/ciphertrace-scout-app-takes-crypto-investigations-mobile

[squatter]

CipherTrace Scout’s rollout comes alongside a spike in street-level cryptocurrency use.

Bohn said law enforcement partners reported a surge in low-level uses cases: prostitution, drug sales, child pornography trades.

Street-level child pornography trades? Is that seriously a thing? I'd love to see the statistics behind these statements. Prostitutes and street drug dealers accepting bitcoins would actually be pretty cool.

“You can imagine some beat cop in a high risk area, literally finding something that appears to be tainted,” Barragan said. “He can share a case with an analyst at headquarters and that analyst could do the tracing very quickly to determine where the source of the funds were.”

A beat cop in a high crime area stumbling onto a bitcoin wallet or master pubkey? How likely is that?

[chaoscoinz]

It was only a matter of time before identification tools would be developed. I guess it is a gift and a curse. I can only imagine what they really have out there, or what is being developed as we speak, however it comes with the territory so i'm not surprised. The article claims that the tool is for tracking the dark-net users purchases or other illicit activities involving crypto-currencies, but my sneaking suspicion says otherwise.  

[akeegan]

I thought Ciphertrace tech was only able to track bitcoin, I guess they're starting to expand

[rmilly]

Does anyone know which currencies Ciphertrace's app works with?

[malevolent]

Street-level child pornography trades? Is that seriously a thing? I'd love to see the statistics behind these statements. Prostitutes and street drug dealers accepting bitcoins would actually be pretty cool.

Fear-mongering, like some media did with trying to associate Silk Road with child porn and murder services for hire.

A beat cop in a high crime area stumbling onto a bitcoin wallet or master pubkey? How likely is that?

Probably low, that's just their marketing.

[darylalban]

Decentralization is probably not possible in the future if we want crypto to be embedded in everyday life

I thought that was the goal of crypto? To have people expand from fiat to digital currency. There has to be some level of compliance and regulation otherwise all countries in the world won't agree. It would make sense to see ciphertrace bringing such tools to the table

[ccryptopark]

The app could be beneficial to NYPD for sure. I would be interested to know the cost to use it

[timerland]

Haha, what is this?

"Prostitution, drug sales, child pornography trades." - your telling me this is what BTC is being used for nowadays? I highly doubt this is what BTC is being used for, especially the last one. If they where going to such disgusting tasks, I'd imagine they'd be using a privacy coin.

CipherTrace Scout’s rollout comes alongside a spike in street-level cryptocurrency use.

Bohn said law enforcement partners reported a surge in low-level uses cases: prostitution, drug sales, child pornography trades.

Street-level child pornography trades? Is that seriously a thing? I'd love to see the statistics behind these statements. Prostitutes and street drug dealers accepting bitcoins would actually be pretty cool.

“You can imagine some beat cop in a high risk area, literally finding something that appears to be tainted,” Barragan said. “He can share a case with an analyst at headquarters and that analyst could do the tracing very quickly to determine where the source of the funds were.”

A beat cop in a high crime area stumbling onto a bitcoin wallet or master pubkey? How likely is that?

I would be pretty interesting, but not sure about how legitimate all of this is... Imagine hiring a prostitute and then asking for her BTC address after, that'll be hilarious it it's true. The 2nd quote makes the entire article even more of a joke, how would corrupt cops stumble across an open BTC wallet, or a private key, or a pubkey?

Sound like the media spewing shit again :p

[jdarren]

I would be interested too to see a use case of ciphertrace Scout app. I guess it would take downloading and trying it out for a run first. I ultimately want to know how it would work on site if they found anything

[squatter]

Prostitutes and street drug dealers accepting bitcoins would actually be pretty cool.

I would be pretty interesting, but not sure about how legitimate all of this is... Imagine hiring a prostitute and then asking for her BTC address after, that'll be hilarious it it's true.

With mobile wallets and QR codes, why not? It's not a far leap from Venmo and CashApp. In fact, before Backpage got shut down last year, sex workers had already been using Bitcoin to pay for ads for years.