Bad boys (and girls) are attracted to bright shiny objects, just as most of us are. They cannot resist the incredibly powerful magnetic pull of super shiny things, especially things that help them not get caught doing bad stuff.

So, let’s say you’re the NSA and you want to make it easier to identify “really” naughty people communicating with other naughty people, what might you do? Well, you might encourage the open source development of some provably unbreakable encryption like PGP that would be of great value to certain types of criminals.

Then perhaps with your NSA superpowers you might watch for “PGP Signals” travelling through cyberspace and pay a lot of attention to the coming and going of those signals, which you’re able to do because you’re already intercepting all telecommunications worldwide, bar none.

Or:

If you’re GCHQ you might come up with a badass “sounding” name (that sends the phonological loop into a frenzy) like “Satoshi Nakamoto” and strongly encourage the open source development of a provably secure honeypot currency called Bitcoin that comes with the big shiny bad boy magnetic “promise” of being capable of ** drum roll** “anonymity” **dun dun dun** — imagine that — it’s a bad boy’s wet dream come true.

So now what?

Let’s suppose you’re a criminal, you’re “all-in” with Bitcoin, you know it’s a honeypot, you know it’s a trap, you know the promise of anonymity is a lie and you know your hero Satoshi Nakamoto has betrayed you.. now what?

Well, human psychology says you‘ll ignore the fact that you can be caught (if authorities deem you worthy enough), and instead continue to be driven by the “belief of anonymity” that you’ve committed yourself to. You will continue to live in the most powerful honeypot ever invented and you will continue to enjoy the “thrill, excitement and danger” of it.

Of course, all of this is hypothetical right?

Please comment below, discussion is a good thing.

Article by:

Adam Sculthorpe, Co-Founder of PatrolX

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