What is DarkFi, the new crypto-threat that already scares governments
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“Law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to intercept communications with the authorization of a judge, but often there isn’t technically the ability to do so due to a fundamental shift in communications services and technologies. This problem is dragging us into darkness”. It was 2014 and, with these words, the former FBI chief James Comey denounced the risk (overestimated according to many experts) which has since become known, precisely, as “Going Dark”.
On the one hand, end-to-end encryption, which makes it much more complex to intercept communications that take place via messaging platforms; on the other, the possibility of making untraceable electronic transactions using cryptocurrencies (especially those specifically designed for this purpose such as Monero or ZCash).
A group of crypto-activists is working on the creation of DarkFi. What is it about
Provocatively reconnecting to the fears expressed by James Comey, a group of crypto-activists operating between Europe and the Middle East is planning an extremely ambitious platform dubbed DarkFi: a portmanteau between Going Dark and DeFi, decentralized finance based on blockchain.
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The goal is to create a blockchain system that not only allows you to carry out transactions anonymously, but which allows – also exploiting smart contracts for this purpose, contracts that automatically enter into execution when the agreements are satisfied – to carry out completely anonymously a much wider range of actions: founding an organization, raising funds, distributing resources, signing contracts and more.
Leveraging the blockchain to create “Anonymous Political Formations”
In short words, as stated on the site, the goal is to exploit the blockchain to create what are called “Autonomous Political Formations”, entities capable of organizing themselves on the net from every point of view – especially economic – without leaving any trace.
And so, while the broader cryptocurrency environment seeks to institutionalize itself and enter the world of finance that counts, some more radical realities aim instead to keep alive and evolve the anarchoid and anti-government spirit that had characterized the birth of bitcoins. “We are not a commercial startup”, they always explain on the site, but “an economic and democratic experiment, an operating system for society”.
From a technical point of view, this platform – still under construction – uses “zero knowledge” cryptography, invented in the 1980s and which makes it possible to verify the validity of encrypted information while maintaining a high level of secrecy. The Crypto Experts Interviewed by Politico, they confirmed the technical skills and ambitions of the programmers who are working on this platform, underlining however how, on a commercial level, even more technically advanced systems are being developed. In short, the technology exploited by the DarkFi project is characterized by the purposes for which it was designed rather than on a technical level.
A leverage for criminal activities or a project with democratic potential?
As always in these cases, DarkFi can also be observed from two points of view: on the one hand, one can think of a tool that makes it even easier for criminal organizations to coordinate from every point of view; on the other hand, the democratic potential of a platform can instead be underlined which, for example, could allow political dissidents subjected to repressive regimes to organize themselves with greater safety and efficacy; especially in cases where there is also the need to collect and distribute economic resources.
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It will still take a long time for such a project to materialize, at the same time it should be underlined how governments are becoming increasingly capable and organized towards crypto-threats, as evidenced by the fact that they are now often able to trace the identity of those who transact using bitcoin. DarkFi could therefore represent yet another chapter in an infinite saga: the one between technological guards and thieves.
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