Playing With Blocks and Whipping Their Chains

I have a young friend who uses a particular messaging app because he believes it to be "secure". In reality it uses the same encryption that Apple uses for messages.More importantly, when the stakes are raised past a certain point, when too much money can flow invisibly between hands that are not immediately recognized, the obvious potential for such a system to be used for criminal transportation of money attracts specialized attention.If a supposedly secure messaging app begins to grow its own money, we should trust that insecurity will follow. We will learn that only when it becomes a fait accompli. A while back I began to follow Bruce Schneier's blog. He is a public-interest technologist, working at the intersection of security, technology, and people.I am no techie, but I have found interesting threads there, and come to understand how complexity leads to complacency, especially when a higher-up's permission is necessary in order to spend money in defense of data.Here is a tale of high level Bitcoin of law enforcement de-anonymization leading to disruption of a worldwide illegal porn operation.De-anonymizing Bitcoin