Live data from Hacker News

Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

time.com

21–30 of 80 posts

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#21
post #20

How is it that this can't be prevented by the Bitcoin network? The network should be able to mark coins stolen and unusable...oh wait it can't. Because in order to do that you'd need a trusted third party to verify the coins were stolen defeating the purpose of a distributed ledger that doesn't require third party trust. Yet another shortcoming of trying to replicate cash.

If someone stoles cash from you, how do you mark that cash as stolen?

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#22

Can someone explain how is it possible to steal Bitcoin if every transaction is recorded in a public ledger? Does not every bitcoin have its own signature which allows you to track its movement? New to this.

You definitely can, but without cooperation of the rest of the network, they will still be able to spend the money. If you could identify where the person re-spent the stolen coins, and found cooperative courts, you could try to go after them that way, but it's an uphill battle.

In Ethereum's DAO hack, tokens were also stolen, but they got lucky and the money wasn't spendable for a while (because of how the transaction/contract was written), so they were actually able to convince the entire network[1] to agree to reverse that theft as part of the protocol and recover the tokens that way.

[1] Minus a fragment that became EthereumClassic.

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#23
post #20

How is it that this can't be prevented by the Bitcoin network? The network should be able to mark coins stolen and unusable...oh wait it can't. Because in order to do that you'd need a trusted third party to verify the coins were stolen defeating the purpose of a distributed ledger that doesn't require third party trust. Yet another shortcoming of trying to replicate cash.

> Yet another shortcoming

Really depends on your point of view. The entire use-case of Bitcoin is that no one can reach back in time and "undo" transactions. There is no point for it to exist otherwise.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#24
post #20

How is it that this can't be prevented by the Bitcoin network? The network should be able to mark coins stolen and unusable...oh wait it can't. Because in order to do that you'd need a trusted third party to verify the coins were stolen defeating the purpose of a distributed ledger that doesn't require third party trust. Yet another shortcoming of trying to replicate cash.

If someone stoles cash from you, how do you mark that cash as stolen?

I read GP the other way around - by mimicking some of the behavior of cash (inability to mark as stolen), Bitcoin runs into some problem (combating fraud).

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is possible to check the history of a Bitcoin and see that it has been stolen. Provided that you take the effort to do that. This is no different than when a bank is robbed and banknotes are stolen. The bank might have written down the numbers of the banknotes and those can be published. But most shops won't check those when somebody buys something.

With bitcoins, it is easier to track the notes, but it is also easier to get rid of the association if you find someone willing to clean them for you. Say I steal 10 bitcoins from you. I go to someone who cleans bitcoins for a cost of 10%. I send them 10 bitcoins, and they send 1 bitcoin to 9 different wallets (keeping the 10th as payment). That alone would allow you to still track it. But now add in thousands of oth…

Not doing business with mixers: wow, what an interesting way to stir up trouble! Someone should create a service to distinguish "legit" from "tainted" Bitcoin. Let's see if Gresham's law applies so 1 bitcoin is no longer 1 bitcoin. What would the other exchanges do if one of them started trading these separately?

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#26
post #20

How is it that this can't be prevented by the Bitcoin network? The network should be able to mark coins stolen and unusable...oh wait it can't. Because in order to do that you'd need a trusted third party to verify the coins were stolen defeating the purpose of a distributed ledger that doesn't require third party trust. Yet another shortcoming of trying to replicate cash.

Could the community as a whole black list a bitcoin address so they could at least not spend the money they stole? Are you able to track the history of who was a previous owner of the bitcoin?

Seems like a major issue. If these hacks keep happening thieves are going to own more bitcoin they the rest of the community.

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#27
post #20

How is it that this can't be prevented by the Bitcoin network? The network should be able to mark coins stolen and unusable...oh wait it can't. Because in order to do that you'd need a trusted third party to verify the coins were stolen defeating the purpose of a distributed ledger that doesn't require third party trust. Yet another shortcoming of trying to replicate cash.

Could the community as a whole black list a bitcoin address so they could at least not spend the money they stole? Are you able to track the history of who was a previous owner of the bitcoin? Seems like a major issue. If these hacks keep happening thieves are going to own more bitcoin they the rest of the community.

That would require appending to the consensus rules, which is effectively a hard fork.

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#28

What really pisses me off is how it got handled by NiceHash: Alex Zvyozdny: Many of you already know that the site reddit spread information about the alleged hacking of our service. We hasten to assure everyone that your bitcoins are safe and sound. And we are the largest pool in the CIS countries are not going to close, but rather increase our presence in the regions. In connection with the increased number of thos…

Sounds like it was written by a 12 year old

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could the community as a whole black list a bitcoin address so they could at least not spend the money they stole? Are you able to track the history of who was a previous owner of the bitcoin? Seems like a major issue. If these hacks keep happening thieves are going to own more bitcoin they the rest of the community.

That would require appending to the consensus rules, which is effectively a hard fork.

Tezos allows for blockchain consensus rule/s to evolve over time, which is a pretty cool idea, though the project seems to be struggling with management problems after having raised hundreds of millions in USD.

Re: Hackers Steal $70M in Bitcoin

#30
Maybe they were hacked, maybe the owners stole it, you'll never know. And no one really knows the wallet of the mined coins so they can't really be traced outside of the company.
Post reply on HN