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Evidence & LegalThe Risk of Public Attribution

The Risk of Public Attribution

caution

Core idea

Publicly naming someone as a bad actor before the attribution is confirmed can cause real harm and create legal exposure, because you rarely hold every piece of the puzzle. People are impersonated, and a single missing fact can invert your conclusion. Keep cases private with the client or hand them to lawyers or law enforcement rather than broadcasting names.

When to use

Before publishing or sharing any claim that ties an identity to wrongdoing, especially from a personal account.

Example

A full report to the FBI concluded a well-known Ethereum developer was behind a 3.2 million dollar theft. The FBI revealed he had been convincingly impersonated, in fact by a DPRK (North Korean) IT worker. Publishing the original conclusion would have wrongly accused an innocent person.

Never Trust a Single Source of Attribution, Confirmation Bias and Misleading On-Chain Data, Handover Reports Must Be Replicable

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