COW: Countering privacy-enhancing challenges of cryptocurrencies, OSINT and wireless

Criminal networks increasingly misuse privacy enhancing technologies to protect
their illegal operations against law enforcement agencies and legal consequences
- particularly in organised crime and related areas.

These networks leverage illicit online marketplaces to coordinate activities such
as drug production, trafficking, cybercrime, and crime-as-a-service. To evade
prosecution, they use end-to-end encrypted communication using platforms /
networks like Tor, Telegram, and Signal, while privacy-enhancing
cryptocurrencies, i.e., Monero and Zcash, and advanced wallets, e.g., Trezor,
Ledger, Samourai or Wasabi, facilitate the anonymous transfer of value. When it
comes to physical security and smart technology, wireless and IoT devices are
employed to support and secure their operations, e.g., to monitor drug production
or deploying wireless surveillance systems at target sites.

The project Countering Privacy-Enhancing Challenges of Cryptocurrencies, OSINT,
and Wireless (COW) aims to develop mission-ready methods and tools to support law
enforcement and digital forensic teams in investigating and countering the
criminal use of secure communications, privacy-enhancing cryptocurrencies, and
smart IoT/wireless devices. The project will also design and deliver specialized
training and curricula for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and judicial
authorities, equipping them with the knowledge and skills needed to process and
interpret evidence collected through these advanced tools.

COW's methodology mirrors the different stages of investigations in cyber-enabled
crime: combining physical and digital traces, adding valuable insights from
network analysis and monitoring cryptocurrency flows, proceeding with OSINT
investigations, and supporting a new methods for gathering digital evidence from
covert, in-field operations.