EU Project to Develop and Implement Tools to Curtail Cryptocurrency Criminals and Attackers
(while some believe the title is more correct without the last three words)
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), has funded a new three years, €5 million project, called TITANIUM ((Tools for the Investigation of Transactions in Underground Markets) to "prevent criminal use of the dark web and virtual currencies". The tagline to the announcement claims that TITANIUM will “curtail criminals and attackers from using blockchain technology to avoid law detection, while at the same time respecting the privacy rights of legitimate users”. The project is led by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) with the participation of other 14 European partners -- most notably including Interpol and several national police departments. The announcement states that the project aims “to develop and implement tools to reveal common characteristics of criminal transactions, detect anomalies in their usage, and identify money-laundering techniques" and that "the researchers will also conduct training activities in order to develop skills and knowledge among EU law enforcement agencies.”
The European Commission has, over the past year, been constantly warning of further crackdowns on virtual currencies in hopes of cutting off financing to terrorists as part of the general EU push to monitor and/or regulate everyone’s online life and activities. Earlier this month, on June 4, UK Prime Minister Theresa May called for “international agreements to regulate cyberspace” and to deny violent extremists “safe spaces” online. Bitcoin Magazine, however, claims that while the stated intentions are to combat money laundering and terrorism, there is "scant evidence that cryptocurrencies play a prominent role in either".
AIT research scientist and TITANIUM project coordinator Ross King claims that it is necessary to develop efficient and effective forensics tools enabling the reasonable use of different types of data from different sources including virtual currency ledgers, online forums, peer-to-peer networks of underground markets, and seized devices. He also emphasized that the tools developed within the TITANIUM project will respect individual privacy and other fundamental rights saying “The consortium will analyze legal and ethical requirements and define guidelines for storing and processing data, information, and knowledge involved in criminal investigations without compromising citizen privacy.”
My personal guess is that the truly anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero will end up being banned in the next few years while the rest will be "tamed" by Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, taxed and mainstreamed.
Most on-line reaction, however, seems similar to that expressed by Giulio Prisco of CryptoInsider, "There’s nothing new here: there have been calls to regulate cyberspace since the authorities noticed (after everyone else) its existence. The arguments are always the same: online communications, privacy tools, and now virtual currencies, can be used by criminals and terrorists to do bad things." Prisco argues that "despite King’s pious assurance that citizen privacy will not be compromised, citizen privacy seems the only thing that can, and will, be compromised by these initiatives" since "Terrorists and criminals have, and always had, other means to move big money and secret communications around without anyone noticing. They don’t need to work around the traditional financial system, because they have perfectly good means to work within. Of course the bad guys use virtual currencies too, but if virtual currencies were to disappear the bad guys would just switch back to one of the many proven alternatives they have. On the other hand we, the little people, would lose our little means to do our little things with some privacy and without hassles. The European Commission’s TITANIUM would be strong and unforgiving against the little guys, but weak against the bad guys with money. Well, nothing new here either. Prisco claims that he is not too worried because he has no doubt that "the hackers will, once again, outsmart the 9-to-5 workers and find ways to melt TITANIUM."
Image courtesy of wikimedia.org
What an absolute disgrace, the criminal Rothschild Zionist EU are trying to stop other criminals? while In the process stopping cryptography and turning the west In to a communist society, oh I forgot It already Is a communist society with rigged elections.
Not sure how you interpreted the article but it mentioned nothing about the stuff you're talking about in your comment. Ideally shouldn't we want law enforcement to be better at focusing in on cryptocurrency criminals and not to waste their valuable time and resources on us?
If anything, we should do self regulation so that they'll be less necessary.
You're not getting whats actually going on, they're lying about going after criminals. What they're really trying to do Is shut people down from spreading Truth about the world we live In.
Steemit Is using cryptography, email encryption helps us send emails anonymously. Like Edward Snowden showed they CIA, which Is run by the bankers, Rothschild's, are tracking everyone's phones, listening to all phone conversations and recording them, reading everyone's email's, then using this Information to control and black mail judges, congressman etc. This Is how Obama passed bills and laws that were totally against the United States constitution.
They're clamping down on cryptography to control us and that's a fact. We are rapidly heading to a future where people will be arrested just for talking or spreading Information that Is against the lies that these people have constructed to enslave us. The EU Is as tyrannical as It gets, they are soon going to Introduce legislation where everybody's bio metric data Is stored form birth and there will be no privacy at all.
Hello, Mark-waser.
Can I translate your post to Korean with the link?
I want to share it with the Korean community.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you @mark-waser for your contribution and support!
This is actually good news. The more skilled and educated law enforcement is at catching actual criminals and attacks the less interference we legit users will have from law enforcement. We should want them to be better at their jobs not worse so that we aren't in the crosshairs.