I'm a BitCoin skeptic with the best of them. But this is breathtaking.
That's one thing about bitcoins. There's no FDIC or SIPC watching your back. It's the wild west with train robberies and stage coach heists in all.
Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
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Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#12Seems fairly inevitable: if I sat by the window of my house, talking to anyone who walked by about having a large cache of money, which it was clear was also in my house... well, I would probably want to do one or all of: (a) invest in some quality locks; (b) stop talking about it; (c) keep my money somewhere else
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#13http://blockexplorer.com/address/176LRX4WRWD5LWDMbhr94ptb2MW...
That's the account record of the address that supposedly stole the huge amount of bitcoin. The maximum balance I see it have is 400 blocks. Is it missing from the record or is a bitcoin block larger than 1 BTC?
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#14This reminds me of the "come from" statement. COMEFROM is a long-running joke, it's a flow control statement which is intentionally confusing. It works like a GOTO but backwards. There is no indication in the area being jumped from that flow control is about to go somewhere else in the program. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/COMEFROM
I think, when parts of your currency start to resemble any part of INTERCAL, you have a big problem :-)
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#15It's not really $500,000 though is it? As soon as you exchange a small amount of that into dollars you crash the exchange and the value drops significantly. I'd estimate it at about $30,000 worth.
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#16http://blockexplorer.com/address/176LRX4WRWD5LWDMbhr94ptb2MW... That's the account record of the address that supposedly stole the huge amount of bitcoin. The maximum balance I see it have is 400 blocks. Is it missing from the record or is a bitcoin block larger than 1 BTC?
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Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#17http://blockexplorer.com/address/176LRX4WRWD5LWDMbhr94ptb2MW... That's the account record of the address that supposedly stole the huge amount of bitcoin. The maximum balance I see it have is 400 blocks. Is it missing from the record or is a bitcoin block larger than 1 BTC?
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Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#18The worst part of this is how irreversible it is. With a bank you might be able to get it back, with cash nobody can just siphon the actual paper money remotely, but with bitcoin you're out of luck.
> With a bank you might be able to get it back Only if it hasn't been transferred elsewhere and laundered and whatnot. Then all the bank is doing is penalizing its other customers to make you whole.
There's some capacity for error or crime built into the numbers as they stand. This means that the bank is more-or-less insuring against those things. All customers reap the benefits of insurance, because the benefit is the security, not the restitution.
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#19Maybe there's value in creating a BitCoin bank that will hold money for people, just like real banks?
Re: Computer compromise leads to theft of bitcoins valued at $500,000 USD
#20I now understand that BitCoin is actually an experiment to teach people basic economics and why many of today's rules and institutions (e.g., banks) exist. Sorry for criticizing it. BitCoin is an awesome educational tool.