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Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

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161–170 of 345 posts

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#161
post #3

For some reason this sounds like the plot of a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. CEO of Crypto Company... 1) Takes time off to build orphanage in region noted for fake deaths. 2) Subsequently dies unexpectedly. 3) Is immediately cremated. 4) Wife waits a month before saying "oh by the way he is dead" 5) Wife claims all keys on encrypted laptop 6) World watches as wallets mysteriously empty 7) Experts crack laptop 8)…

Love the "into the ether" pun

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#162
post #13
post #3

For some reason this sounds like the plot of a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. CEO of Crypto Company... 1) Takes time off to build orphanage in region noted for fake deaths. 2) Subsequently dies unexpectedly. 3) Is immediately cremated. 4) Wife waits a month before saying "oh by the way he is dead" 5) Wife claims all keys on encrypted laptop 6) World watches as wallets mysteriously empty 7) Experts crack laptop 8)…

DiCaprio? This whole affair has been at best a Weekend at Bernie's-level plot. The accounts were emptied 8 months before the death, and yet QCX pretended they were solvent the whole time so they could keep the party going.

DiCaprio? This whole affair has been at best a Weekend at Bernie's-level plot.

I think it would be best done with the production values of "Catch Me If You Can."

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#163
post #48

My take on this is that they probably were insolvent for a long time already due to previous hacks/theft. The CEO just decided to lie about the supposedly 137M in funds 'safely' stored on his laptop. This is also what happened at MtGox, except that at MtGox they 'lost' wel over a million BTC. Edit: relevant listening: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/9/

And this is the problem. These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. When we find out, it is always too late. Every "cryptocurrency bank" is a potential Enron. I fear both the involvement of Central Banks and at the same time the lack of it. If EY (or anyone else serious about this) 'follows the money' then that would be a very interesting report to rea…

These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. When we find out, it is always too late. Every "cryptocurrency bank" is a potential Enron.

I think Enron actually had more transparency, and did more good in the world than the failed cryptocurrency companies. I've worked on two pieces of software that originated in Enron, which I believe are still used in production today. I think Enron participated in the invention of weather derivatives.

(No, I have never worked for Enron.)

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the problem. These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. When we find out, it is always too late. Every "cryptocurrency bank" is a potential Enron. I fear both the involvement of Central Banks and at the same time the lack of it. If EY (or anyone else serious about this) 'follows the money' then that would be a very interesting report to rea…

If they published the wallets everyone would be able to audit how much they have in trust. Its a lot more detail than you'd ever have with your traditional broker.

[deleted]

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#165
post #159
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every satoshi can be traced from birth until unspent. There are most certainly individual satoshi. they live in UTXO's.

This is not true. Say I have a wallet with two Satoshi, and I transfer one each to two different wallets. Then I transfer two Satoshi from those wallets to a new wallet. Which way did each Satoshi take? You can't say!

It looks like it is true in a technical sense; a bitcoin transaction record specifies a prior transaction as its input, rather than specifying a source address. So as a purely formal matter, your example records will look like this in relevant part:

    T0885: 100 Satoshi from T0002 to address xxxxx0x # 1 wallet, 2 Satoshi
    T1001:   1 Satoshi from T0885 to address xxxxx1x
    T1104:   1 Satoshi from T0885 to address xxxxx2x # Each Satoshi moves to a separate new wallet
    T1300:   1 Satoshi from T1104 to address xxxxx3x
    T1400:   1 Satoshi from T1001 to address xxxxx3x # and then they recombine
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction

From that record, it's clear that one Satoshi moved from address 0x to address 3x by way of transaction 1001, and the other one did the same by way of transaction 1104.

However, there is no instrumental difference between an address's balance from one transaction and its balance from another transaction, as the behavior of the address is controlled by the private key associated with that address, and two balances belonging to the same address necessarily share the associated private key. I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#166
post #10
post #5

How did they crack the Laptop? Just Bruteforcing a bad password or 0Day-ing the Encryption?

Based on what I've read, the NSA and other white-hat organizations have access to 0-days or have discovered 0-days that can crack these things but they're not released to the public or if they are, they're released years later.

> the NSA and other white-hat organizations

First time I hear NSA grouped with white-hats. What definition would permit this categorization?

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#167
post #48

My take on this is that they probably were insolvent for a long time already due to previous hacks/theft. The CEO just decided to lie about the supposedly 137M in funds 'safely' stored on his laptop. This is also what happened at MtGox, except that at MtGox they 'lost' wel over a million BTC. Edit: relevant listening: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/9/

And this is the problem. These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. When we find out, it is always too late. Every "cryptocurrency bank" is a potential Enron. I fear both the involvement of Central Banks and at the same time the lack of it. If EY (or anyone else serious about this) 'follows the money' then that would be a very interesting report to rea…

Yup, crypto lesson in hard way

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the problem. These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. When we find out, it is always too late. Every "cryptocurrency bank" is a potential Enron. I fear both the involvement of Central Banks and at the same time the lack of it. If EY (or anyone else serious about this) 'follows the money' then that would be a very interesting report to rea…

> These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. But that's a feature, not a bug, at least according to the crypto people. But, so far, all they have managed to do is rediscover lessons about the need for regulation, oversight and accountability that the financial industry has learnt decades or even centuries ago.

Considering 2008, what's the point of those lessons? Might as well save a few tax dollars on "regulators".

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These guys are not regulated. There is no transparency. There are no external auditors. There is no control. But that's a feature, not a bug, at least according to the crypto people. But, so far, all they have managed to do is rediscover lessons about the need for regulation, oversight and accountability that the financial industry has learnt decades or even centuries ago.

Considering 2008, what's the point of those lessons? Might as well save a few tax dollars on "regulators".

how many depositors lost money in the financial crisis?
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