https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/09/21/leaked-slides-show-how-chainalysis-flags-crypto-suspects-for-cops/Leaked Slides Show How Chainalysis Flags Crypto Suspects for Cops
Walletexplorer.com, a block explorer site secretly operated by Chainalysis, has provided law enforcement with “meaningful leads,” the documents say.
Another way Chainalysis captures Bitcoin user data is by running nodes that verify transactions, the documents confirm. This allows the company to capture data leaks on the publicly accessible internet, or clearnet, from users’ simplified payment verification (SPV) wallets. Those services were designed to prioritize easy storage over foolproof security (although to be fair they are arguably more secure than wallets that rely on APIs to verify transactions).
“The downside to this design is that when the user wallet connects to the network, a variety of information is revealed - the user’s IP address, the full set of addresses in the wallet (used and unused) and the version of the wallet software,” according to the slide deck. “Chainalysis runs a series of nodes on the Bitcoin network ... and if a user connects to one of our nodes, we receive the above information.”
The picture below that paragraph shows the word Electrum.
That Chainalysis runs its own data-capturing nodes would not come as a surprise to privacy-focused Bitcoiners; the community has long suspected as much.
“We’ve always known that they’re running nodes - it’s just a matter of which services they’re connected to,” said Colin Harper, the head of content at Luxor Tech, a bitcoin mining company.
We've know this, but now it's confirmed. Or leaked. Or whatever.
Time to run your own servers!
