| No single technology is a magic bullet for privacy. In the article, there were many users with low technical competence interacting with a central criminal site that, itself, made some pretty glaring mistakes. The stupidity of all is what made them easy to catch. What if the central site had not left its IP out in plain sight? Its operators would still likely have been caught because many of the bitcoins they were cashing out could have been tracked due to mistakes made by the site's users. Then, once the site's servers were captured, it's data could have been used to track down users who had made fewer mistakes. Will future sites and users make the same mistakes? Probably less frequently, but they'll make new mistakes too. Law enforcement will adapt and come up with new ways to track criminals down. No system with users can ever be totally secure. On the other hand, you can do a lot better if you cut down the number of users. e.g. If criminals hack a company's servers and extract a ransom, the transaction will probably have a much higher standard of anonymity because the hackers are more security minded and can specify how their victim acquires cryptocurrency and transfers it. The crypto haters and maxis are both right and wrong at the same time. Bitcoin isn't private if you aren't careful and knowledgeable, but bitcoin absolutely can be used for crime if it's the right kind of crime. We're currently seeing a renaissance in ransomware attacks thanks to bitcoin. |