“Human flesh search” tool? Founder connected to CIA? Arkham accused of privacy breach.

Founder of "Human flesh search" tool linked to CIA. Arkham accused of privacy violation.

On July 10th, the once-obscure blockchain on-chain monitoring platform Arkham became well-known due to news of “Binance LaunchBlockingd to go online with Arkham”. Shortly thereafter, people began to find private messages sent by Arkham inviting them to use its product in their Twitter DMs, and various registration invitation links immediately flooded social media spaces.

Currently, Arkham still uses an invitation registration system, but it is also this invitation link that has put Arkham in the midst of public opinion.

Some netizens have discovered that Arkham’s referral links seem to leak user email addresses. Because Arkham uses Base-64 encoding to generate personalized referral links. Therefore, if you have a referral link, you can decode the Base-64 hash value and obtain any user’s email.

Arkham also states in its privacy policy statement at registration that they can use email for direct marketing, interest-based advertising, sharing with third-party platforms and social media networks.

• Exploring ZK/Optimistic Hybrid Rollup
• The Hidden Concerns of MakerDao, Not Just Exposures to RWA
• Ethereum 2023 Q2 Data Research: Gross Profit of $700 million, ETH Burn Rate Accelerates from 0.3% to 0.8%

Previously, a user named Matsumoto had privately messaged Arkham about this issue and received the response, “Yes, we know.”

In the western encrypted world where privacy leaks are considered taboo, a spark seems to have ignited greater anger, and more criticism has come.

Well-known crypto KOL Adam Cochran, who participated in SNX/YFI construction, angrily stated, “Arkham also sniffs and records its user data, including binding their wallet addresses, device IDs, locations, etc. Then they mix it with public data deleted from public sources like Twitter, if you share the link. It’s free, because you’re the product.”

On the relevant privacy details page, Arkham states that it will collect the following information: account and contact data; interests, usage and links; marketing data; communication data; transaction data; blockchain addresses; third-party information sources; device data; online activity information…

What does Arkham collect so much data for?

Everyone immediately thinks of Arkham’s upcoming on-chain intelligence trading platform, Arkham Intel Exchange, which allows users to anonymously buy and sell information about wallet address owners. Buyers can publish information requirements through rewards, and sellers can obtain rewards by submitting the requested information.

Many people have begun to speculate with a slight “conspiracy theory” that Arkham is to establish an anonymous human flesh market and track it from the chain to the chain.

Peeling is not limited to Arkham itself, and its founder Miguel Morel cannot escape, and it is linked to the CIA.

Angry netizens dug up a video of a show-off of wealth. The video was titled “How much did he spend?!!!” Miguel Morel was described as the “god of his f**king cryptocurrency” and spent 2,500 pounds to buy sunglasses.

In addition, people found on his LinkedIn homepage that Miguel Morel’s interest is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States.

At the same time, it is written in their company description that their investors include the founders of Blockinglantir and OpneAI.

Most people may not be familiar with Blockinglantir, which is hailed as the most mysterious big data analysis company in Silicon Valley, founded by BlockingyBlockingl founder Peter Thiel and Stanford University classmates Alex Karp and software engineer Stephen Cohen in 2004.

They hope to use the human-machine collaboration mode of the BlockingyBlockingl security certification system to identify criminals such as terrorists and financial fraud, and create a software company that helps people extract useful information from different sources of information. Such ideas coincide with the needs of the US government, so shortly after the establishment of Blockinglantir, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States became its first customer, and then expanded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.

Even netizens dug out that Arkham’s logo is similar to the Pentagon, and indeed don’t underestimate the association ability of angry netizens.

In June 2023, Miguel Morel published an article entitled “In fact, no one really cares whether cryptocurrency has privacy”, which can reveal his inner thoughts.

However, under numerous accusations and pressures, Arkham seems to have started to compromise.

Arkham CEO Miguel Morel responded on social media, stating: “The system was created at the beginning of the test version, with the aim of being able to track user recommendations via email, in order to reward users. In addition to communicating with users and tracking recommendations, we will not use them for any other purpose. All future referral links will include an encrypted version of the referrer’s email, so it cannot be reverse-engineered. This change has already taken effect.”

However, the seed of doubt has been sown, and fixing it is truly more difficult. Labels such as “free because you are the product” and “anonymous human flesh market” have made Arkham the target of criticism.

There is no denying that Arkham is indeed an excellent on-chain monitoring and analysis platform, but the value of “privacy” needs to be re-examined.

Someone commented, “Don’t look at everyone cursing Arkham now, but if they make money, they will turn around and call it daddy.”

So the question is, does blockchain need privacy? Or is it enough to just make money?

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!