Govt Should Have the Power to De-Anonymize Crypto Users: U.S. Congressman

U.S. Congressman Bill Foster, who also co-chairs the blockchain caucus, believes government should have access to a crypto backdoor to deal with crypto-related ransomware attacks as total anonymity would be very hard to sustain.

Govt Should Have Access to a Cryptographic Backdoor: Bill Foster

During a virtual event organized by Axios on June 29, U.S. Congressman Bill Foster says that the government should have a cryptographic backdoor to establish a type of pseudo-anonymity where only judicial powers would have access to certain information, saying:

“You have to be able to go to court to unmask participants under some circumstances. It does not have to be visible to the whole world.”

The necessity to unmask cryptocurrency users is so that the government can prevent future ransomware attacks by reversing transactions on the blockchain:

 “I’m not there yet, but there’s significant sentiment in congress that if you’re participating in an anonymous crypto transaction that you are a de facto participant in a criminal conspiracy.”

However, such a policy might sound close against the philosophy of Bitcoin proponents, as it undermines the very purpose of the cryptocurrency:

“There’s not a technological alternative that I am aware of. I think for most people, if they are going to have a big part of their net worth tied up in crypto assets they’re going to want to have that security blanket of a trusted third-party.”

 Ransomware Attacks Going to Be More Deadly

The U.S. Congressman particularly saw ransomware attacks as potentially deadly for the coming future.

On being asked whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s retrieval of bitcoin from the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attackers last month afforded a solution to the problem, he said that extracting funds would eventually become more difficult in the future:

“I have to speak very carefully here because our capabilities here are very classified. For a long time, we have had the ability to track bitcoin in a way that the bad guys didn’t fully appreciate. Obviously, that’s all changing.”

In other words, huge government investments into cryptocurrency forensics and analytics are still part of a race against increasingly tech-savvy cybercriminals.