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Investigate crimes involving cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologiesBitcoin has traditionally been the payment system of choice for a criminal trading on the Dark Web, and now many other blockchain cryptocurrencies are entering the mainstream as traders are accepting them from low-end investors putting their money into the market. Worse still, the blockchain can even be used to hide information and covert messaging, unknown to most investigators.Investigating Cryptocurrencies is the first book to help corporate, law enforcement, and other investigators understand the technical concepts and the techniques for investigating crimes utilizing the blockchain and related digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Understand blockchain and transaction technologies Set up and run cryptocurrency accounts Build information about specific addresses Access raw data on blockchain ledgers Identify users of cryptocurrencies Extracting cryptocurrency data from live and imaged computers Following the money With nearly $150 billion in cryptocurrency circulating and $3 billion changing hands daily, crimes committed with or paid for with digital cash are a serious business. Luckily, Investigating Cryptocurrencies Forensics shows you how to detect it and, more importantly, stop it in its tracks.
List of contents
Foreword xxi
Introduction xxiii
Part I Understanding the Technology 1
Chapter 1 What Is a Cryptocurrency? 3
A New Concept? 3
Leading Currencies in the Field 8
Is Blockchain Technology Just for Cryptocurrencies? 9
Setting Yourself Up as a Bitcoin User 10
Summary 14
Chapter 2 The Hard Bit 15
Hashing 16
Public/Private Key Encryption 21
RSA Cryptography 23
Elliptic Curve Cryptography 28
Building a Simple Cryptocurrency in the Lab 32
Summary 36
Chapter 3 Understanding the Blockchain 39
The Structure of a Block 40
The Block Header 42
Deconstructing Raw Blocks from Hex 47
Applying This to the Downloaded Hex 51
Number of Transactions 55
Block Height 57
Forks 58
The Ethereum Block 61
Summary 65
Chapter 4 Transactions 67
The Concept behind a Transaction 67
The Mechanics of a Transaction 69
Understanding the Mempool 76
Understanding the ScriptSig and ScriptPubKey 77
Interpreting Raw Transactions 79
Extracting JSON Data 81
Analyzing Address History 82
Creating Vanity Addresses 83
Interpreting Ethereum Transactions 85
Summary 86
Chapter 5 Mining 87
The Proof-of-Work Concept 89
The Proof-of-Stake Concept 90
Mining Pools 90
Mining Fraud 92
Summary 93
Chapter 6 Wallets 95
Wallet Types 96
Software Wallets 96
Hardware Wallets 97
Cold Wallets or Cold Storage 98
Why Is Recognizing Wallets Important? 99
Software Wallets 100
Hardware Wallets 100
Paper Wallets 100
The Wallet Import Format (WIF) 101
How Wallets Store Keys 102
Setting Up a Covert Wallet 105
Summary 107
Chapter 7 Contracts and Tokens 109
Contracts 109
Bitcoin 110
Ethereum 110
Tokens and Initial Coin Offerings 112
Summary 116
Part II Carrying Out Investigations 117
Chapter 8 Detecting the Use of Cryptocurrencies 119
The Premises Search 120
A New Category of Search Targets 121
Questioning 124
Searching Online 125
Extracting Private and Public Keys from Seized Computers 130
Commercial Tools 130
Extracting the Wallet File 131
Automating the Search for Bitcoin Addresses 135
Finding Data in a Memory Dump 136
Working on a Live Computer 137
Acquiring the Wallet File 138
Exporting Data from the Bitcoin Daemon 140
Extracting Wallet Data from Live Linux and OSX Systems 144
Summary 145
Chapter 9 Analysis of Recovered Addresses and Wallets 147
Finding Information on a Recovered Address 147
Extracting Raw Data from Ethereum 154
Searching for Information on a Specifi c Address 155
Analyzing a Recovered Wallet 161
Setting Up Your Investigation Environment 161
Importing a Private Key 166
Dealing with an Encrypted Wallet 167
Inferring Other Data 172
Summary 173
Chapter 10 Following the Money 175
Initial Hints and Tips 175
Transactions on Blockchain.info 176
Identifying Change Addresses 177
Another Simple Method to Identify Clusters 181
Moving from Transaction to Transaction 182
Putting the Techniques Toge
Report
"This book is smart, readable and scary too." (Irish Tech News, August 2018)
