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Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

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Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#241

Post by chatmasta »

joosters wrote: post #197
15155 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> install google authenticator on your own device. You sure can, but will you then have the requisite TOTP secrets?

No. iCloud backups don't contain keychains, where the Google authenticator stores its seeds.

Doesn't iOS keep keychain synced with iCloud keychain? Or at least, it's user configurable. I'm pretty sure I opted out of it.

Good news is according to apple [0], you can protect your icloud keychain with a six digit code required to move the keychain to a new device.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204085

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#242

Post by ringaroundthetx »

tomc1985 wrote: post #232
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are for a product or service, the limited issuances of the token gives them a speculative market based on future demand and future supply. the team and organization gets funded, the buyers are liquid, nobody makes ridiculous decisions counter to their dreams hoping for "an exit", because everyone already has one. we don't have consumer or investor protections here yet so sure it is ripe for abuse, so far people…

> the buyers are liquid, Are they? It's hard to imagine there being enough buyers to match sellers if/when a coin hits a high peak, let alone if there is a collapse of confidence in the coin or product or its promoters

There are ways to manage liquidity, even when your position is much greater than the posted or even average liquidity on the market.

I've held positions in tokens upwards of 10% of the entire issuance and have been able to move in and out within a few minutes, I usually aim for ~5% of the last spot price.

This is true of any market, just assume there is at least 1 rational actor in the market, what are they seeing that makes them so excited? Warren Buffet - before pivoting to the conservative investment baby boomer guru - bought illiquid discarded companies usually up to 51% of the equity and sold them on the public stock markets at mass profits. In 2017, the international crypto markets are way more liquid than the US equity markets were in the 1970s.

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#243

Post by ringaroundthetx »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #220
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, in startups, corporations are formed and the equity (shares) in the corporation are doled out as currency. Completely useless currency given to helpers under the idea that they'll get rich one day in very improbable scenarios. There is no legal way to sell the shares (hyperbole, but very many hurdles). And exchanging additional shares for cash investments only serves to make your non-sellable stake in the compa…

Isn't this a bit of a Chesterton's Fence situation? There must be reasons other than "VCs are greedy!" for employees not being able to sell off their stocks immediately. The most obvious way to abuse this would be to join or create a startup, go through the ICO process, then sell off your shares, and, well, exit. Leave the company. You're rich, now - why keep working to build the product you (or your boss) promised t…

> There must be reasons other than "VCs are greedy!" for employees not being able to sell off their stocks immediately.

Well thats not what I said, so I don't know where you got that from. Strawman much?

I said there are legal problems for selling stocks... of the privately held company variety if that wasn't clear. Those legal problems aren't stipulated by the VCs, well, at least one of them is, but it applies to them as well. The others are from the federal government. I'm not going to bother writing a dissertation on that.

VCs have many ways of getting their money back, and many of those ways are at the expense of employees even if they bought their options.

> The most obvious way to abuse this would be to join or create a startup, go through the ICO process, then sell off your shares, and, well, exit

What? Just to clarify, are you conflating ICO tokens with equity shares? Or saying something like "your share of the ICO"?

> You're rich, now - why keep working to build the product you (or your boss) promised to deliver?

This is where the consumer and investor protection concerns come from right now from various regulator perspectives. ICOs are much like Kickstarter, the answer is you don't have to deliver. Reality is also much like Kickstarter, people have a dream and want to deliver. People do deliver. People that have never touched millions of dollars in their life, go out and play business person until the money runs out.

Many technical dreams that wouldn't fit into a VCs portfolio are able to get funded now. Thats really all it comes down to.

People put their reputation on the line. That doesn't mean much to all people, and they have bad reputations now.

There are several advantages in the ways to mitigate these risks. First, these communities come with a big open source culture. If the team starts messing up, there are still ways to contribute or even carry on the project, a lot of the times. Most of the projects have a big decentralized component to them, which does enable others to carry the baton.

Secondly, the token obtained in the ICO has an exchange rate. You, the buyer, are able to exit your position while a market still exists. Most coins, even "dead" ones, have a market, or CAN have a market. Even if they have their own blockchain, they can be revived with the participation of just a few computers, and exchanges will list them.

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#244

Post by the_stc »

trhway wrote: post #240
the_stc wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're doing a blockchain IPO because the subject we deal with has significant legal issues in most countries (details in profile). We're operating as an extrajurisdictional company to get around these issues, with an anonymous founding and executive team.

without any intention of going into discussion of other aspects (personally i'm for legalization of drugs, sex, etc.), isn't investing and receiving dividends here would make one a kind of pimp?

A pimp takes a 100% cut and has an ownership-like relationship. We're going to take a reasonable service fee. We're against sexual trafficking and coercion of any kind. So no, I don't think reasonable people would consider our investors to be pimps.

But you're right that such law would be used to go after us. That's why we're encouraging people to use Monero to invest and receive dividends and are open to other ideas as well.

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#245

Post by dragonwriter »

trhway wrote: post #240
the_stc wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're doing a blockchain IPO because the subject we deal with has significant legal issues in most countries (details in profile). We're operating as an extrajurisdictional company to get around these issues, with an anonymous founding and executive team.

without any intention of going into discussion of other aspects (personally i'm for legalization of drugs, sex, etc.), isn't investing and receiving dividends here would make one a kind of pimp?

Legally speaking, what is proposed for the app directly would probably fall afoul of pimping/solicitation laws in most jurisdiction which have such laws. Whether it's the moral equivalent of what people think of as pimping or pimping as most commonly practiced is, well, ultimately subjective.

For an investor, it's probably detached enough that general conspiracy/organized crime laws are more applicable than pimping/solicitation.

IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and even if I was and it was, you probably shouldn't take legal advice from pseudonymous accounts on internet discussion forums.

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#246

Post by ringaroundthetx »

option wrote: post #72
CyberDildonics wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, but it just isn't true. All you have to do is match transactions with price. It can be done automatically.

A lot of things "can be done". And what is not true? Bitcoin IS considered an asset by the IRS

> Bitcoin IS considered an asset by the IRS

Yes, that is true and nobody was arguing that with you. Thats not controversial or interesting to anybody but you.

It simply makes other considerations necessary to use it practically. And software already exists to alleviate how it is used, when used as payment network rails.

In your attempt to imagine next week's death knell for bitcoin, in the US, you missed all the tax advantages the IRS has created for bitcoin by classifying it as property, such as the ability to like-kind exchange forever and never have a tax event (unless you buy something).

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#247

Post by ringaroundthetx »

EGreg wrote: post #111
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: Do an ICO like a kickstarter. It's not illegal. The tokens just need to not be financial instruments. You can say "Buy my tokens to fund my project."

Wait, what? Can lawyers please weigh in on this? There are the Howey test on the Federal level, and then there is also the Risk Capital Test in several states. Precedent can very easily go towards the direction that people have a reasonable expectation of the tokens going up in value, making them securities in the eyes of at least the Risk Capital Test. In fact club memberships became securities under this test! http…

Many people buy Nike shoes to go up in value. Nike Inc. purposefully limits the quantity.

Are Nike shoes therefore securities? It is an open ended question and yes where we are in this country a future court could rope something like that in too before Congress gets around to forcing regulatory clarity.

Tokens can be products. It is what you sell them for and how you sell them and how you interact with that market, and how others interact with that market, that determines if something is a security. But is isn't a single one of those factors in isolation that makes it a security.

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#248

Post by wsc981 »

justadeveloper2 wrote: post #120
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even knowledgeable people can fall victim to attacks like this.

Smart people are often the easiest to scam because they believe they can't be scammed.

I am not sure they are.

If we look at the Nigerian '419' scam, apparently the emails are written in bad English to filter out the smarter people that are unlikely to fall for the scam anyway. The reason is that handling the response on such an email is labor intensive and the people behind those scams prefer to only use labor when chance of success is high.

See: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...

Re: Hackers nab $500k as Enigma is compromised weeks before its ICO

#249

Post by jethro_tell »

nxsynonym wrote: post #216
jethro_tell wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also know a bunch of guys who sit around, smoke cigars and take side bets on the ICO Gambles they are taking. It's just straight gambling to some people.

As far as gambling goes it's probably one of the more fun ways to spend the money - instead of camping out at a blackjack table some would rather watch the 24 price changes. Which is fine if you have the money to spend (waste). But people are getting sold on it like a penny-stock scheme straight out of Wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah, that's the sad part. I have friends from my rural home town that are trying to get me to buy with them and then they link me articles by cheerleaders that are heavily invested in some company or another. Guys that tell me they've diverted their 401k to bitcoin because it's the new internet. When I remind them that everyone got smoked in the new internet the remind me that it's not the new internet and link me to another opinion piece from another cheerleader.
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