Although the Bitcoin decentralized blockchain network gives users the independence from third-party agencies to control their assets, it doesn’t stop them from spying on you! In one of the shocking revelations, whistleblower Edward Snowden recently presented some classified documents to media outlet The Intercept which shows that the U.S National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying and tracking Bitcoin users from around the globe.
The Intercept also notes that the major reason for NSA to do so was to keep a track on the flow of money to terrorist organizations. The internal NSA report dated March 15, 2013, shows that the security agency was keeping a track on a number of different cryptocurrencies but Bitcoin remained as the number one priority.
The NSA could manage to do this by analyzing and harvesting raw data from the internet traffic and using a popular anonymizing software, as per the documents. The details show that NSA has been using a subprogram named MONKEYROCKET of the popular Oakstar program which was advertised as a software that guarantees anonymity.
While mention MONKEYROCKET, the report states that “Currently there are approximately 16,000 registered users, and the site is generating about 2,000 events per day… Iran and China are two of the countries with a significant user base.”
Using this software the NSA managed to lure users specifically from the Middle East, Europe and Asia. One of the memos read: “SSG11 analysts have found value in the MONKEYROCKET access to help track down senders and receivers of bitcoin.”
This way. the NSA was successful enough to tap directly into the user data and the browser history. The NSA was also able to get access to other crucial and private user information like passwords, user session and media access control address. Other personal information like billing details and IP address was also been captured.
However, the spying project named Oakstar did not seem to target general Bitcoin users as its mission describes it as “looking at organized crime and cyber targets that utilize online e-currency services to move and launder money. These illicit finance networks provide user access to international monetary systems while providing a high degree of anonymity.”
The NSA used all the gathered information to detect any possible link between their data and the target “Bitcoin users”. The agency is said to have made use of other sophisticated tools to tap into the Technical centers of Europe as well as their optic fiber.
While commenting on the report about NSA activity to track Bitcoin users, Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, said: “[This is] bad news for privacy, because it means that in addition to the really hard problem of making the actual transactions private … you also have to make sure all the network connections [are secure].”
