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Investigating Cryptocurrencies: Understanding, Extracting, and Analyzing Blockchain Evidence
Investigate crimes involving cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies
Bitcoin 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.
Bitcoin 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.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 10, 2018
27 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2024
By delving into the new world of cryptocurrencies I found this book well over my head but rather enlightening. Despite the fact that much of this was over my head, I was able to glean some very interesting understanding from it. After all, it was written by a digital forensic expert, Nick Furneaux. And even though any book is written over your understanding level, you can always glean something of use from it and expand your horizons. Excellently laid out and written. It was worth it for me to read it; although, it does not make me an expert in the field of crypto, but it does give me great information from which I can grow & make wise investments.
May 23, 2019
As a newcomer to the topic of Cryptocurrencies, although not of some of the underlying technologies, I found the easiest way to get to grips with the overall content of this book was to turn to the section at the back entitled “What you have learned”. There I found a concise summary of the main points covered and how each of the chapters relate to one another as well as the overall topic.
The book is essentially written in two parts, the first covers the technology surrounding Cryptocurrencies, while the second deals with the practical forensic aspects of how evidence can be best collected, analysed and investigated.
An excellent description of cryptocurrency is provided in Chapter 1 together with an explanation of the problem the amalgamation of the associated technologies is trying to solve i.e. decentralising transactions, replacing them with a secure distributed system, typically suited for payments associated with currency as well as contracts etc. The concept of block chain working is introduced in this chapter and the reader is given the necessary information and PC instructions on how to set themselves up as a Bitcoin user.
Following this straightforward introduction to the topic, the next few chapters provide a deep dive into the supporting technologies i.e. hashing, encryption (both public and private key). This is followed by a chapter on the various nuances of the Blockchain. I found this chapter hard going but ultimately worthwhile in order to grasp the supporting fundamentals of Cryptocurrency and the investigative topics following later in the book. The role of the technology in supporting transactions, mining and wallets as well as short description of contracts and tokens make up the chapters which follow.
Part 2 – the investigative side of the book starts with Chapter 8. This deals with the evidential side of the topic discussing how to go about detecting cryptocurrencies, from searching premises to online searches and examining live computer systems. It is important to note that the legality of what is discussed in this chapter is left to the reader to determine!
Analysis of the information gleaned using the methods proposed are then the subject of the following text, leading into chapters dealing with locating suspects and monitoring an identified bitcoin node on a network. The penultimate chapter deals with the topic of the seizure of assets from a technical, not legal standpoint.
The book concludes with a short chapter dealing with the criminality aspect of Bitcoin use from buying and selling illegal goods to kidnap and extorsion payments using Cryptocurrency to hide the perpetrators tracks.
The book is clearly aimed at technical and forensic investigators but would also be of use to technical consultants needing to know about the investigation of any aspects involving blockchain technology for example contracts, documents, communications etc. I award the book 10 out of 10 for its topic coverage and overall ease of readability of the subject.
Review by Jim McGhie MBA, CEng, MBCS, CITP
The book is essentially written in two parts, the first covers the technology surrounding Cryptocurrencies, while the second deals with the practical forensic aspects of how evidence can be best collected, analysed and investigated.
An excellent description of cryptocurrency is provided in Chapter 1 together with an explanation of the problem the amalgamation of the associated technologies is trying to solve i.e. decentralising transactions, replacing them with a secure distributed system, typically suited for payments associated with currency as well as contracts etc. The concept of block chain working is introduced in this chapter and the reader is given the necessary information and PC instructions on how to set themselves up as a Bitcoin user.
Following this straightforward introduction to the topic, the next few chapters provide a deep dive into the supporting technologies i.e. hashing, encryption (both public and private key). This is followed by a chapter on the various nuances of the Blockchain. I found this chapter hard going but ultimately worthwhile in order to grasp the supporting fundamentals of Cryptocurrency and the investigative topics following later in the book. The role of the technology in supporting transactions, mining and wallets as well as short description of contracts and tokens make up the chapters which follow.
Part 2 – the investigative side of the book starts with Chapter 8. This deals with the evidential side of the topic discussing how to go about detecting cryptocurrencies, from searching premises to online searches and examining live computer systems. It is important to note that the legality of what is discussed in this chapter is left to the reader to determine!
Analysis of the information gleaned using the methods proposed are then the subject of the following text, leading into chapters dealing with locating suspects and monitoring an identified bitcoin node on a network. The penultimate chapter deals with the topic of the seizure of assets from a technical, not legal standpoint.
The book concludes with a short chapter dealing with the criminality aspect of Bitcoin use from buying and selling illegal goods to kidnap and extorsion payments using Cryptocurrency to hide the perpetrators tracks.
The book is clearly aimed at technical and forensic investigators but would also be of use to technical consultants needing to know about the investigation of any aspects involving blockchain technology for example contracts, documents, communications etc. I award the book 10 out of 10 for its topic coverage and overall ease of readability of the subject.
Review by Jim McGhie MBA, CEng, MBCS, CITP
September 16, 2023
Overall a good and interesting overview of forensic techniques used in tracing Bitcoins, with some remarks on Ethereum as well. For other cryptocurrencies, the methodology might be applicable in a similar manner, but the tools discussed most likely cannot be used.
The book begins with a decent overview of the technology of Bitcoin, the structure of blocks, transactions and how the blockchain and wallets works. The cryptographic foundations are simplified to the point of being wrong, and encryption and authentication are generously lumped together. But this is not essential for this book.
The investigative part shows techniques to detect/follow Bitcoin traffic and identify suspects, though here I wish that some more powerful techniques used in investigations against the biggest dark web trading sites could have been included.
Still, this book provides you with an interesting toolkit for cryptocurrency forensics, and as of this date it is the only such book available.
The book begins with a decent overview of the technology of Bitcoin, the structure of blocks, transactions and how the blockchain and wallets works. The cryptographic foundations are simplified to the point of being wrong, and encryption and authentication are generously lumped together. But this is not essential for this book.
The investigative part shows techniques to detect/follow Bitcoin traffic and identify suspects, though here I wish that some more powerful techniques used in investigations against the biggest dark web trading sites could have been included.
Still, this book provides you with an interesting toolkit for cryptocurrency forensics, and as of this date it is the only such book available.
September 24, 2023
Overall an excellent book, which provides a great insight into crypto-asset investigations. 1 Star down for some outdated links & pieces of code. Still highly recommended!!
March 5, 2020
I find Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies endlessly fascinating. They hit a number of my personal interests, in particular low cryptography and level network protocols/data formats. I'm generally familiar with how blockchains work in general and have actually played a bit with demo implementations of the same technology. That being said, there are a lot of details on the business and variety between different technologies that I find less than knowledgeable about.
Hmm.
Hmmmmm.
Right. So this was not the book I thought it was. It was still fascinating. The first part gives a pretty solid perspective on a few common crytocurrencies, although I'm not sure if it would be as easy to understand if you hadn't already understood them decently already. And then the entire rest of the book is instead focused to help you investigate crimes involving cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies. Fascinating reading. Not something I'm currently interested in at the moment.
A solid enough book, probably more useful for someone other than me. So it goes.
Random aside:
Sounds like me. I bet if anyone looked at my setup, I would look guilty as hell...
The book will not help you build your own cryptocurrency.
The book is not a detailed technical deconstruction of the technologies behind cryptocurrencies, although I do cover them in sufficient detail for you to be able to understand the concepts and explain them to others.
Hmm.
You probably didn’t become an investigator because mathematics was your strong point or you wanted to spend your workdays enjoying the beauty of hashing algorithms and Elliptic Curve Cryptography schemes.
Hmmmmm.
Part II: Carrying Out Investigations
Right. So this was not the book I thought it was. It was still fascinating. The first part gives a pretty solid perspective on a few common crytocurrencies, although I'm not sure if it would be as easy to understand if you hadn't already understood them decently already. And then the entire rest of the book is instead focused to help you investigate crimes involving cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies. Fascinating reading. Not something I'm currently interested in at the moment.
A solid enough book, probably more useful for someone other than me. So it goes.
Random aside:
I often see this attitude amongst investigators when it comes to anything that obfuscates computer communication or hides data. When investigating a computer with a VPN client on it, if storage encryption is turned on, a Tor client is installed, or even if a browser cache has been recently purged, the assumption is that the owner “must have something to hide.” I regularly argue that many reasons exist why someone would have all or any of these software tools on their computer—they may have something to hide, but it's not actually illegal or they just value their right to privacy. Sadly, I'm usually wrong, and the computer owner generally does have something bad to hide—but it's nice to think the best of people, isn't it?
Sounds like me. I bet if anyone looked at my setup, I would look guilty as hell...
December 11, 2018
Although it is designed for forensic investigators tracing cryptocurrency evidence, this is book is something of an undiscovered gem.
It starts off by explaining extremely clearly the concepts behind the blockchain and giving numerous practical exercises to help you get familiar. The author has a gift for taking something fairly difficult and translating it into something easy to understand.
It then moves into further forensic investigation topics, recovery of evidence etc which I found interesting too and am currently still finishing.
Highly recommended, one of the most well thought-through and carefully written computer books I've read for a while.
It starts off by explaining extremely clearly the concepts behind the blockchain and giving numerous practical exercises to help you get familiar. The author has a gift for taking something fairly difficult and translating it into something easy to understand.
It then moves into further forensic investigation topics, recovery of evidence etc which I found interesting too and am currently still finishing.
Highly recommended, one of the most well thought-through and carefully written computer books I've read for a while.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews