彭博社称对 Chainaanalysis 的质疑是“抹黑运动”

By Bitcoin 杂志 - 7 个月前 - 阅读时间：3 分钟
15 年 2023 月 7 日星期五下午 00:XNUMX

彭博社称对 Chainaanalysis 的质疑是“抹黑运动”

Journalism has been getting an ill rep. A 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 扮演 a key role in combating corruption, yet it seems the days of publishers 起诉 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.

在“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 无罪计划, 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.

“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,” 读 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 专家报告 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 备案, 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 报告 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.

因此，对不符合科学标准的软件的描述不是“攻击”，而是根据现有事实对该术语的含义进行的准确描述 - 所有这些都被彭博社忽略了 - 我们可以归咎于极其糟糕的新闻报道，或者彻头彻尾的企业宣传。

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, 接收 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：企业新闻再次玷污了自由媒体的床，而继续躺在上面的却是人民。 友谊地久天长。

原始来源： Bitcoin 杂志