Whistleblower Edward Snowden Says The NSA Has Been Spying and Tracking Down Bitcoin Users

One of the greatest advantages of digital currencies is its decentralized mode of operation that allows investors to control their money and keep it private without any intervention from third-party institutions. However, after the latest report by popular whistleblower Edward Snowden, you’ll be certainly be asking yourself that do the benefits of decentralization hold true anymore?

As reported by The Intercept , Edward Snowden papers show that the U.S National Security Agency (NSA) has been keeping a track on Bitcoin users and monitoring their activities. The media outlet obtained the classified documents from the U.S whistleblower which shows that that surveillance of the Bitcoin network has been a top priority for the spy agency.

The report also suggests that the NSA has been using a specialized code-program called Oakstar that was created with the motive to monitor the flow of funds to terrorist organizations. More specifically, the NSA made use of an Oakstar sub-program called MONKEYROCKET which has been advertised on the web as a “non-Western Internet anonymization service.”

Using this sub-program the NSA is said to have targeted users across the Middle East, Europe and Asia. The program tricked the users making them think that they are getting more enhanced level of anonymity but on the contrary, it helped NSA to fetch out user information and their browsing history.

IT is being said that the NSA was successful in getting users private and personal details like password, media access control addresses and user sessions. This allowed them to further penetrate into user information billing details and IP addresses. Using all the information, the NSA was working on finding any connection between their data and the “Bitcoin targets.”

Soon after the news broke out, several experts have voiced their concern about NSA involvement into spying on Bitcoin users. Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, called NSA’s actions as “pernicious” and further added that: “[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].”

On the other hand, Emin Gun Sirer, associate professor and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts at Cornell University, told The Intercept that that financial privacy remains as the thing of utmost importance for users of the Bitcoin network. After the revelation of NSA’s operations and privacy-conscious investors are expected to shift towards other privacy-oriented coins.