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

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

#321

Post by jwatte » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

Solar19 wrote: post #190

HenryBemis wrote: post #125

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…

This would seem to be a private problem. If people choose to park their money with a non-transparent, unaudited random crypto startup, that's their decision and their problem. I'm not interested in paying for "regulators" in such cases.

For the "invisible hand of the market" to lead to optimal outcomes, decisions need to be made by "rational actors" using "perfect information." It's right there, in the original text!

We can't legislate about "rational actors," but we CAN and SHOULD legislate about "perfect information." Any information hiding is essentially fraud or theft from the rest of the market, because it creates an information asymmetry distortion.

We could for example say that registered companies don't get company benefits (protection of owners from bankruptcy and protection of board from personal liability and such) unless they continually and regularly publish the full (even unaudited) books, not just the occasional brief filings we require now. That would benefit everybody in the market, except those who thrive on fraud and information asymmetry.

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

#322

Post by basch » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

uberman wrote: 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)…

"A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that investigators cracked Cotten's laptop and discovered money was missing. In fact, they have possession of his laptop and identified money was missing through public blockchain records."

That will be a much less exciting scene in the movie. Itll be some dramatized "people around a computer watching traceroute"

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

#323

Post by ksec » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #220

evaru wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google for "fake death mafia" returns a bunch of articles that talk about this death, and conveniently have the phrase "in a region known for fake deaths". I don't understand how that becomes a reference point for any region being known for fake deaths. The search results in fact make it look like someone used his death to slander a whole region.

The region became known for fake deaths when the news started implying that it was known for fake deaths. That's how facts are born.

>That's how facts are born.

I mean WOW. In just a few words you manage to describe one of the biggest problem we have today. Luckily Most of the HN crowds are not interested in the "Answer", but why it is the answer. And whether the why was plausible.

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

#324

Post by ihattendorf » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

uberman wrote: post #140

TrevorJ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

didn't initially get in hits for that search term that were relevant, what am I looking for?

Google for "fake death mafia"

I didn't find much besides talk of the CEO, and your comment (which is the 4th result).

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

#325

Post by g45y45 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #180

thaumasiotes wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 # Eac…

The transaction sequence in your example is not possible. A transaction output can only be used once as an input. To me, the operation would rather look like these three transactions: 100 Satoshi from A1 2 Satoshi to A2 98 Satoshi to Ax 2 Satoshi from A2 1 Satoshi to A3 1 Satoshi to A4 1 Satoshi from A3 1 Satoshi from A4 2 Satoshi to A5 Edit: Sorry I referred to "wallets" in my previous comment. This allows a scenari…

Yeah, I will 'change' my position on this. Satoshis in a single UTXO that are split are fungible - in your scenario you cannot identify the specific sat: either a1->a3, or a1->a4. This is kind of like 'forward fungibility'. You can however trace the value in satoshi's back from A4 to their coinbase at birth. At best, we introduce a UTXO taint percentage from previous inputs. Its this taint from other, external inputs that break backwards fungibility (due to taint).

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

#326

Post by g45y45 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

ru999gol wrote: post #277

chelmzy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI/private companies have specialized tools for tracking Bitcoins throughout their lifespan. All the data is out in the open so there is no hiding unless he converted to Monero anonymously.

considering Monero could you or someone elaborate on this a bit more? Maybe clarify if I'm misunderstanding something: 1) My understanding is, every transaction in bitcoin is public knowledge forever as part of the forever growing block chain. That is, there is no way to ever remove a transfer. 2) The only anonymity built in bitcoin is to hide your identity with pseudonymity, nobody necessarily knows your bitcoin add…

1. correct; 2. correct; 3. Kinda but Not quite the only way -- you can convert the values in the coins into another chain, ideally something like monero in which 1. applies, but 2. does not. (Monero uses a different transaction format called RingCT, it hides the true inputs/outputs among decoys and signs the set with a ring sig. It also hides the true amount transacted via Confidential Transaction encoding using a commitment and a range proof). Its much easier to tumble the value when the source/destination and magnitude is obscured.

How feasible to do this with $130 million? Yesterdays trade volume for monero was 75 million (thus actual on chain tx's are much less). So it would take a while to do this without drawing attention. I don't have a lot of faith in pure bitcoin tumblers. Possibly scams or fraud. Im yet to see one that works as expected.

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

#327

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

magnamerc wrote: post #312

quickthrower2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And making blockchain to SQL Server migration consultants wealthy too.

Ah yes, because blockchain data structures are completely useless...

Extravagant is the word I’d use. You can store crypto sigs in a varchar(max)

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

#328

Post by Angostura » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

Arnavion wrote: post #271

Angostura wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So - and thank you for bearing with me on this - individual BTC don't have a unique identifier that allow one to trace its transaction history? I must admit, I always assumed that they were uniquely identifiable.

Yes. In the first place, BTC are divisible to eight decimal places, so there would be a lot of these IDs if they were to exist. And there's no reason the divisibility can't change in the future, so these IDs would have to be quite complicated. A (non-coinbase) transaction is valid if its inputs equal its outputs, and if its inputs come from the outputs of other transactions, which in turn are valid if their inputs co…

Thank you for taking the time to clear up my misapprehension.

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

#329

Post by hyperionos » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

evaru wrote: post #212

uberman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google for "fake death mafia". You can add in the name of the CEO if you like, but for me articles about his "death" are already the top hits

Google for "fake death mafia" returns a bunch of articles that talk about this death, and conveniently have the phrase "in a region known for fake deaths". I don't understand how that becomes a reference point for any region being known for fake deaths. The search results in fact make it look like someone used his death to slander a whole region.

Next step: Google "fake death philippines" - at least for me that brought up a telegraph article [1] which explains a bit more.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/philipp...

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

#330

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

qqqwerty wrote: post #228

908087 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "award" ceremony video is both surreal and ridiculously cringe-inducing at the same time. It wouldn't surprise me if he actually felt like he had "achieved" something when he gave himself that award, either. It was like you were watching his fantasy of what people would say about him if he was a productive member of society instead of a criminal and fraud.

FWIW, this is only marginally worse than your standard 'industry award' in that he had the nerve to give it to himself. Pretty much every industry has a boatload of meaningless awards. It is done largely for marketing and for 'social engineering'[1]. It is cheap (both in cost and tact) but effective. [1] Curries favor with the awardees, creates an 'in group' etc...

I see someone that listened to Hidden Brain last week!

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/697641324/better-than-cash-ho...