Since the article is already based on a leak (or something that is presented as one), one would expect that if this was the case, there would at least be an anonymous source claiming so.
Given that all the article is mentioning is "they're selling blockchain analysis software", it's very plausible that that's what they're selling. When the feds want specific info on a specific address/account, they're going to get a subpoena and get KYC data and logs anyways.
This is how disinformation is spread; not through some conspiratorial plot to confuse, but from fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
I'm curious, however, why did you not make a similar post to the parent comment...in that the parent comment has presented no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Coinbase is only using publicly-available information, and therefore by your own reasoning the parent poster should not make the claim.
Because both the parent comment and I have read the article, so we both have evidence to support the claim that Coinbase is only using publicly-available information, as that's how Coinbase Tracer, the license to which was reported as sold to ICE for $29,000, works.
If your standard of proof is “somebody wrote something online,” then GP provided you with proof that it’s possible that Coinbase lied.
I literally cannot parse this sentence, can you rephrase?
The topic of this sentence is “the definition of proof.”
All we have here is evidence, which is fundamentally different.
Those are words online! That’s evidence! You cannot refute that someone wrote those words. I know that those are words online because I wrote them! Now you have evidence and testimony.
The funny part about all this is that nobody is claiming that they know that Coinbase is lying about this contract. It’s all been entirely hypothetical (hence the word “maybe.”)
What evidence or proof have you seen that there exists no possibility of a corporation lying about their relationship with a controversial government agency?
Are you familiar with the concept of parallel construction? It's a tactic LEOs use when they don't want to reveal how they actually obtained information. For instance, if they obtain information using method A, but want to conceal method A, they state that they actually obtained the information using method B (because the information actually is, after the fact, obtainable via method B as well, once you know what to look for).
In Coinbase's case the way this would work is Coinbase sources data from their internal databases (method A), and then after the fact they do let's say a Google search or some other public search for the names or whatever they found in their internal databases, and state that all data is sourced from online, publicly available data (method B).