Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#31

Post by FRex » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:38 PM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #10

yAnonymous wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my edit. I'm assuming they can verify the allegations, due to the nature of BTC transactions. A warrant possibly means that they go out of business, because the servers are physically seized. If you tell me you'd risk that for a stranger who you can tell probably committed a crime, I don't believe you.

>A warrant possibly means that they go out of business, because the servers are physically seized Why would the police be interested in destroying a legitimate business just because they want data for 8 users? They can just as well get the warrant and then get the data the same way they did now.

Some police forces just don't give a shit about what they take, from whom and for how long, see my other comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14919912

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14836358

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#32

Post by naasking » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #2

I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone? Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down. edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the…

> but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway

Do you actually know though? Or is it really just an educated guess?

> why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone?

Because violating privacy isn't supposed to be easy. Those laws exist for a reason.

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#33

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:42 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #2

I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone? Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down. edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the…

> when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway

If it's that easy to get a warrant, why didn't they just go ahead and get the warrant?

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#34

Post by r1ch » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:46 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #21

ilovefood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can go and ask/seize since it's on German territory. Encrypt the shit out of it. My servers are in Amsterdam/Paris.

> Encrypt the shit out of it. My servers are in Amsterdam/Paris. Is this meant to imply that the legal situation is very different in the Netherlands/France, or that you encrypt everything because it's the same as in Germany?

Regardless of the risk of seizure from law enforcement, I feel you should fully encrypt any remotely hosted servers. There are plenty of examples of datacenter techs being socially engineered to install backdoors, affecting both colo and dedicated. Had it happen to myself with an old server - they called up with some excuse and were able to completely bypass the 2FA in the control panel I thought I was secure with and have the techs disable pubkey authentication and reset the root password.

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#35

Post by FRex » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:51 PM UTC

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #4

yAnonymous wrote: post #2

I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone? Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down. edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the…

But should we allow the police to threaten people with overbroad warrants? "Gives us the data on these 8 people, or we'll get a warrant for it." vs. "Gives us the data on these 8 people, or we'll get a warrant to confiscate all your servers, computers, laptops, and phones." And getting a warrant is not as large a barrier as people like to believe: https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liber...

It might also be an indication that the police doesn't risk wasting the judge's time and get shitted on if they don't have rock solid reasons for suspecting someone.

Is a bit over 20k drug related warrants over 10 years really that much for the country the size of USA with such a drug problem and such an axe to grind with drugs users (war on drugs, private prisons, blacks with crack and teens with weed being juicy targets to boost statistics, etc.)?

Or 1300 warrants and 600 extensions in one fiscal year for a 'black bag job search' across all circuits?

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#36

Post by lightedman » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #2

I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone? Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down. edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the…

"why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone?" Because the law in Germany EXPLICTLY forbids this - Bundesdatenschutzgesetz is the name of the law.

Which means bitcoin.de doesn't care about following the law in the first place.

Not a surprise for a company trying to make money off of a pyramid scheme currency.

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#37

Post by INTPenis » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 3:05 PM UTC

I'd think most of them would cooperate with the police.

We've already seen local cops in Sweden and Denmark track drug dealers through bitcoin. They must have had the cooperation of exchanges and banks to make that happen.

So I expect exchanges to cooperate on the same level that banks cooperate with police.

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#38

Post by SilasX » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

skrause wrote: post #5

yAnonymous wrote: post #2

I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone? Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down. edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the…

Because if you make it too easy for the police they'll just ask for too much all the time, even for things where they wouldn't get a warrant. This is happening in Germany all the time when a provider wants to be nice to the police. If they say "we'll get a warrant anyway", just response "okay, so get the warrant and come back and I'll give you the data". Then at least it's up to a judge to decide where giving out dat…

Also, doesn't Germany have unusually strong privacy laws that prevent them from even cooperating with the police if they aren't obligated to? My immediate reaction was, "If you got a German service to hand over user data, you must have done something really bad."

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#39

Post by d0lph » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 7:41 PM UTC

benedictp wrote: post #28

They released on Facebook a statement to this article: https://www.facebook.com/bitcoin.de/posts/1621138617927372 > The protection of our unscrupulous customers and their bitcoins is more important to us than the protection of the data of offenders. Another interesseting thing: > We only issue data from customers to investigating authorities if they can inquire in writing in specific cases and can demonstrate a legit…

Not necessarily, might just have been their policy.

Re: Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

#40

Post by rurban » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 8:32 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #21

ilovefood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can go and ask/seize since it's on German territory. Encrypt the shit out of it. My servers are in Amsterdam/Paris.

> Encrypt the shit out of it. My servers are in Amsterdam/Paris. Is this meant to imply that the legal situation is very different in the Netherlands/France, or that you encrypt everything because it's the same as in Germany?

Yes, the situation is very different. Germany has the strongest privacy laws, Netherlands is practically a police state like the UK, and the French are at war like the US, with special police powers.