Some people blame Bitcoin for its use in criminal situations. In the past we have seen Ross Ulbricht , Silk Road creator’s case as well as Trendon Shavers ’ case, who has plead guilty to running a BitcoinCT r: 8 Ponzi scheme starting back in 2011 until 2015.
All these revelations were based in the Blockchain that Bitcoin transactions create. Academic researchers and Bitcoin experts helped law enforcement put an end in these cases. But are Bitcoin transactions traceable? Traceable unless designed not to be
Derick Smith, Architect at Protocol in Blockchain Solutions , comments: “They are traceable unless they are expressly designed not to be so. This is the case with certain Bitcoin obfuscation techniques, or with a cryptocurrency like Dash’s Darksend”. Paul Glass, who has expertise in financial disputes, technology-related disputes and cyber security , in his article “ How secure is blockchain? ” says that at the Black Hat Asia conference in March 2015, Interpol demonstrated a proof of concept of software which could become malware allowing the subversion of the blockchain underlying Bitcoin. This uses the ability to introduce data unrelated to transactions into the blockchain.
Researchers from the University of Newcastle have also introduced a botnet command and control mechanism to send messages to bots on the Bitcoin network. These are early demonstrations of potential vulnerabilities, and the extent to which they can impact on an entire block chain is not yet clear.
What they do demonstrate, however, is that while blockchain technology may provide new ways of enhancing information security, those improvements will be another tool in a business’ armory rather than providing a solution to the problem. Fully traceable
People who want to use Bitcoin as a payment method are motivated by privacy concerns or just curiosity. Bitcoin has been in circulation since 2009 and […]
