Contacted by FBI

fernando said:
A few weeks ago we have been contacted by the Virtual Currency Team at the NCIJTF, a task force of federal agencies led by the FBI. They said they routinely contact industry experts and actors to keep their knowledge up to date, wanted to know more about Dash and arrange a meeting. We have exchanged a few emails to learn more about their intentions and, after a lot of consideration, we have decided not to meet with them.

We understand that law enforcement has a very important role in society and the Dash Core team is committed to always respect the law anywhere it operates. In this case, it looks like they only want education and a contact point for future reference. That by itself is not necessarily bad, but we don't want to create a dynamic that could lead to uncomfortable situations for anyone in the project. Besides that, the only information that anyone in the team has is what is publicly available in the blockchain or our site. Anyone with a computer can provide as much information as the team, so there is no point in meeting. We have made that clear to them.

Dash is completely legal and that has always been the opinion of all lawyers we have consulted about it since the beginning of the project. Being contacted by authorities is only natural when a project reaches the size and notoriety that Dash has. We are sharing this information because we are committed to transparency with the community, not because there is any problem. However, if someone has any doubt or is contacted by law enforcement about Dash, please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you desire so. Obviously, if it is an urgent or grave matter, contact an attorney in your jurisdiction first.

In the next few days we will create a few pages in the website where we explain how there is no point for law enforcement to ask for information because there is no information that we can share.
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Any further developments on this story?
 
Any idea of how many masternodes are being run by FBI?

I think they will try to develop an analysis and deanonymization tool. For instance, based on potentially weak mixing and spending habits I described yesterday in Support.
 
dark_wanderer said:
Any idea of how many masternodes are being run by FBI?
I think they will try to develop an analysis and deanonymization tool. For instance, based on potentially weak mixing and spending habits I described yesterday in Support.
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How is it possible to know that? Do you think the agents will reveal themselves?
You can only understand whether someone is an agent, by the way he votes into the budget system.

I think you should try to develop an analysis tool for voting behavior, along with a proof of individuality (of course!). in order to spot (and marginalize) the agents.
 
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Slake said:
Dang, this really makes you paranoid.
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Well, not to push the paranoid lever too hard, but you don't have to be involved with Dash or other cryptocurrencies for our friends in law enforcement and other agencies to take an interest in your activities and monitor you in earnest.

Of course, everyone knows about Edward Snowden and his revelations. But few know about William Binney, who I think revealed even darker things. I give you....project Stellar Wind:

Short version:
Longer version:

TL/DR: they collect everything, on everybody, all the time.
 
Please accept my belated approval of your declining to meet with law enforcement officers (LEOs). A half-dozen primers are required reading in LEO academies. (The most entertaining is "Arresting Communication" by Jim Glennon.) All such courses teach that leading a target to self-incrimination is an efficient means of evidence-gathering. To this end, the LEO first asks the target to "help" or to "teach" the LEO. Only after establishing a friendly open teacher-learner relationship should the target then be led into making more and more self-incriminating statements.

Clearly, this is the approach that federal LEOs are taking with you. Make no mistake. LEOs do not initiate contact to "learn" or to "seek help". They do NOT get merit increases or promotions by making friends. Their careers depend SOLELY on their ability to collect evidence.
 
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In as much as, no country as Integrated cryptocurrency to the system but try to adopt it in a different way. For example Ecobank Ghana, Africa have digital platform like mobile banking app and Masterpass using the QR code system.

Dash Digital was also incepted before them. We have to integrate it with pubilicity and massive adoption. Get an office to serve as intermediate between the people and exchanges.

I tell you Government would start adopt dash digital to pay for projects as it is the best as compared to the traditional way where evaluation becomes difficult.
 
fernando said:
A few weeks ago we have been contacted by the Virtual Currency Team at the NCIJTF, a task force of federal agencies led by the FBI. They said they routinely contact industry experts and actors to keep their knowledge up to date, wanted to know more about Dash and arrange a meeting. We have exchanged a few emails to learn more about their intentions and, after a lot of consideration, we have decided not to meet with them.

We understand that law enforcement has a very important role in society and the Dash Core team is committed to always respect the law anywhere it operates. In this case, it looks like they only want education and a contact point for future reference. That by itself is not necessarily bad, but we don't want to create a dynamic that could lead to uncomfortable situations for anyone in the project. Besides that, the only information that anyone in the team has is what is publicly available in the blockchain or our site. Anyone with a computer can provide as much information as the team, so there is no point in meeting. We have made that clear to them.

Dash is completely legal and that has always been the opinion of all lawyers we have consulted about it since the beginning of the project. Being contacted by authorities is only natural when a project reaches the size and notoriety that Dash has. We are sharing this information because we are committed to transparency with the community, not because there is any problem. However, if someone has any doubt or is contacted by law enforcement about Dash, please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you desire so. Obviously, if it is an urgent or grave matter, contact an attorney in your jurisdiction first.

In the next few days we will create a few pages in the website where we explain how there is no point for law enforcement to ask for information because there is no information that we can share.
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Good Call. Very diplomatic way of handling this issue
 
Great to see this question asked in an appropriate thread. Out of curiosity, which other privacy-oriented crypto projects have warrant canaries? DNN claimed "almost all", but my brief research didn't turn up any. Our friend fluffy of the Monero project rejected the idea here, asking "What would a warrant canary actually prevent?". I would repeat that question to you.

To my knowledge, warrant canaries have never been tested in court, and likely would not stand up to scrutiny. They are already illegal in Australia. Taking down a notice that you haven't received a secret warrant and stating that you have received a secret warrant amount to the same thing, so the only thing to be tested in court is whether e.g. a FISA judge can compel you to lie. It only works once (the canary is dead after the first secret warrant) and it does not reveal any information about the nature of the request. Reddit had a warrant canary that was removed, and everybody pretty much just shrugged and realised it didn't help them in any way. Wouldn't it be a more efficient use of resources to have a talented legal team to fight the warrant?

Finally, Dash Core does not hold any information on users of Dash. The treasury system is transparent and the votes are on the blockchain. Transactions are transparent and on the blockchain. The source code is transparent on GitHub. I think the very nature of many crypto projects (and Bitcoin-derived projects with an MIT license) is that the very few centralised entities that may exist simply do not have access to any confidential information worthy of a secret warrant. Hence no need for a warrant canary - we should leave this fight to the EFF defending centralised institutions like Google that actually hold and have access to this sort of information.
 
strophy said:
Great to see this question asked in an appropriate thread. Out of curiosity, which other privacy-oriented crypto projects have warrant canaries? DNN claimed "almost all", but my brief research didn't turn up any. Our friend fluffy of the Monero project rejected the idea here, asking "What would a warrant canary actually prevent?". I would repeat that question to you.
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I dont know about cryptocurrencies, but many sites have warrant canaries. https://canarywatch.org/

A warrant canary is usefull for the masternode owners in order to protect themselves and keep their identity secret, especially in case the coin allows TOR network and true annonymity (this is not the DASH case of course, but other cryptos, like PIVX, allow TOR to its masternodes). Monero on the other hand is not a governed coin, has no masternodes, so the canary is not usefull for Monero. The few persons that govern monero, bitcoin, ethereum (or any other non governed coin) are probably already known to the agents.

A canary is certainly usefull for DASH, and usefull for whatever else cryptocurrency is governed by many people. Many people participate in the decisions, the decisions could be against the interests of the agents, so the agents would like to know the physical persons that took these decisions.

In that case, a canary is very-very usefull, NOT in front of a court (who cares about damned courts and lawyers anyway?), but just in order to inform the masternode owners that something bad is going on. So that they will sell their masternodes, leave the community, and thus protect themselves as individuals.

Of course, many people suspect that it is futile to hope that a court will support a canary case. We should expect that the canary may also be lying to us. Which means that the canary should be someone who the community trusts, an elected person. So let us elect the canary. Let us also pay the canary for its services. And then write a smart contract, and in case the canary is proved lying (a community vote may took place in order to confirm that), it will lose a vast amount (or even all) of his own money.
 
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The last several legal opinions I read suggested Warrant Canaries are likely illegal in the US, and may not do what you think they do. If they can compel you to not tell you have been served (and they can), they can also compel you to not remove your warrant canary. It is better to assume every website and every digital community is being monitored all the time.
 
solarguy said:
The last several legal opinions I read suggested Warrant Canaries are likely illegal in the US, and may not do what you think they do. If they can compel you to not tell you have been served (and they can), they can also compel you to not remove your warrant canary. It is better to assume every website and every digital community is being monitored all the time.
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Yet, you can still find places where warrant canaries are legal. Stop being so US centric. There are other places on earth, where a canary could live.

Nobody can compel you to talk.
The canary statement could be voice recorded.
And the recorded voice could be timestamped in the blockchain and biometricaly checked that it belongs to the elected canary-person. (I am against biometrics, but in the case of canary lets do an exception)
 
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demo said:
A warrant canary is usefull for the masternode owners in order to protect themselves and keep their identity secret
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Dash Core Group, Inc. has no knowledge of the identity of masternode owners. The rest of your arguments build on this false premise, and are therefore also invalid.
 
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