By Bitcoin Magazine - 7 months ago - Reading Time: 3 minutes
Bloomberg rele kesyone sou Chainalysis 'kanpay fwomaj', poze kesyon sou entegrite medya yo
Journalism has been getting an ill rep. A sondaj held by the communications firm Edelmann has found that trust in the media in the UK was at 35% and 37% in 2021 and 2022, while trust in the media in the US was only a few basis points ahead, with 39% and 43%, respectively.
The problem of eroding trust in the media seems to arise increasingly where corporate and state interests cross the free press. The media jwe a key role in combating corruption, yet it seems the days of publishers rele lajistis governments over press freedom are largely over. As reporting made way for 'content' and authors turned into 'influencers', the stage has been set to foster media corruption: Thou shalt not piss on the foot that kicks its scraps towards thy.
A recent example of the free press representing corporate (and intelligence) interests can be found in Bloomberg’s coverage of the Bitcoin Fog trial; and the problem begins as early as the headline.
nan "Wall Street-Backed Crypto Tracer Faces ‘Junk Science’ Attack”, we can firstly find the allegation that the definition of non-scientifically proven software as ‘Junk Science’ is some sort of newly found conspiracy – when the US based innocence project, which has dedicated itself to criminal justice reform, frequently uses the term to describe flawed forensics methods.
Junk science describes the use of non-scientific methods to prove (or disprove) a hypothesis. In legal contexts, scientific accuracy is determined via the Daubert standard, which defines the following methodologies which cannot be met by Chainalysis Inc. as uncovered in the Bitcoin Fog case: whether the method has a known error rate, whether the method has been subjected to peer review and publication, and whether the method applied is generally accepted by the scientific community.
Temwayaj ekspè nan chèf envestigasyon Chainalysis Elizabeth Bisbee ak ajan espesyal FBI Luke Scholl ki ateste mank de prèv syantifik pou lojisyèl Reactor Chainalysis, souvan defini kòm 'Junk Science'. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.232431/gov.uscourts.dcd.232431.164.0_1.pdf“Chainalysis is looking into the potential of trying to collect and record any potential false positives and margin of error, but such a collection does not currently exist,” li an official Chainalysis statement addressing the case.
Blockchain Forensics expert Jonelle Still of the chain surveillance firm Ciphertrace has described the use of Chainalysis’ heuristics as “reckless'' in an rapò ekspè issued in the Sterlingov case, stating that “Law enforcement and other customers of Chainalysis have approached CipherTrace on this topic and have expressed frustration related to the errors they experience using Chainalysis Reactor.” According to Still, “Chainalysis attribution data should not be used in court for this case nor any other case: it has not been audited, the model has not been validated, nor has the collection trail been identified.”
Instead, however, Bloomberg chose to cite a September 11th ranpli, which alleges that “the FBI validates Chainalysis’ clustering every day, and it is ‘generally reliable and conservative.’” “Prosecutors said Chainalysis information is “frequently validated and found to be reliable” in supporting subpoenas and search warrants,” writes Bloomberg, apparently taking the state’s and Chainalysis’ word at face value – no questions asked – because what else would a journalist do.
What Bloomberg conveniently forgot to highlight is that the Department of Justice, too, has found blockchain forensics to be “highly imperfect”, specifically citing Chainalysis software in a rapòte published in the Journal of Federal Law and Practice – ironically written by C. Alden Pelker, an expert in computer crime, who currently serves as co-counsel to Sterlingov’s prosecution.
Deskripsyon yon lojisyèl ki pa satisfè nòm syantifik yo se pa yon 'atak' men pito yon deskripsyon egzat nan siyifikasyon tèm nan nan limyè de reyalite yo nan men yo - yo tout yo te inyore pa Bloomberg - ke nou ka swa. atribiye nan jounalis ekstrèmman move, oswa kareman pwopagann antrepriz.
Circling back to Bloomberg’s headline, this author would like to note that Chainalysis is not just backed by Wall Street, but also backed by In-Q-Tel, resevwa over $1.6 Million from the Central Intelligence Agency’s ‘non-profit’ venture capital fund. How fortunate that this fact, too, appears to have escaped the Bloomberg author's research capabilities.
TLDR: Jounalis antrepriz te kaka kabann laprès lib la yon lòt fwa ankò, epi se moun yo ki kontinye oblije kouche ladan l. Auld Lang Syne.
Sous orijinal: Bitcoin Magazine