The NSA’s War on #Bitcoin…

The NSA’s War on #Bitcoin Privacy: A Digital Dragnet Exposed

In a stunning revelation from March 2018, classified NSA documents leaked by Edward Edward Snowden exposed an aggressive surveillance apparatus specifically targeting Bitcoin users worldwide. The operation, which began in 2013, marked Bitcoin as the agency’s “#1 priority” among cryptocurrencies.

Under the codename #OAKSTAR, costing $9.41 million annually, the NSA deployed #MONKEYROCKET - a deceptive surveillance tool masquerading as privacy software. This program harvested vast amounts of user data through fiber optic cables that form the internet’s backbone.
The surveillance went far beyond monitoring Bitcoin’s public blockchain. The NSA collected:
• Password information
• Internet activity logs
• MAC addresses
• IP addresses
• Network ports
• Timestamps
• Billing information

Most disturbing was the program’s methodology - presenting itself as an “anonymization service” popular in Iran and China while actually funneling user data directly to NSA servers. This “full take” surveillance gave the agency unprecedented visibility into Bitcoin transactions and user behavior.

The operation was conducted under Executive Order 12333, giving law enforcement broad authority to use gathered intelligence. This raises serious questions about parallel construction - the practice of concealing surveillance-derived evidence by creating alternative explanations for its discovery.
The revelations vindicated long-held suspicions about government monitoring of cryptocurrency users. As cryptographer Matthew Green noted, this makes privacy features in cryptocurrencies “totally worthless” against state-level surveillance, since the NSA can monitor network connections themselves.

This exposure of the NSA’s Bitcoin surveillance program represents one of the most significant privacy breaches in #cryptocurrencies or #Bitcoin history, demonstrating the lengths to which state actors will go to undermine financial privacy in the digital age.

#Nostr