81–90 of 319 posts
I don't see the problem with a rollback. Couldn't the legal users just redo all their transactions? It sounds to me, as the first commentator on bitcoin.org says, that someone would like to keep their fat booty.
The problems here with Bitcoin come across as the same problems with piracy: Bitcoin are just bits on a computer. Just like piracy, when we copy bits from one place to another, is it really "stealing"? Anyone that says "yes", better double-check their stance on software piracy as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is absolutely not how the Mt. Gox database works. I know because I have access to the source code of the site. You can't post a trade from 'all' accounts; if a large trade pushed the price down, then a large trade pushed the price down, and that trade was executed from a single account. Given Mark's statement that the logins which had been dormant for more than a few months were the easily rainbow-table attacked…
This is absolutely not how the Mt. Gox database works. I know because I have access to the source code of the site. All that source code you're looking at means nothing if the attacker gained arbitrary SQL execution on the database.
No investor with a sane mind would consider Bitcoins a solid investment decision. Unfortunately, ideas like this tend to attract both extremely savvy people as well as a bunch of lazy people who would otherwise be lapping up "Make 10,000 a week with Clickbank" e-books.
There will likely be many more stories in the same vein as this one.
In my mind, the wealth of this discussion isn't who is right and who is wrong, it's the fact that we're recognizing the current faults in a new and ambitious system, in the hopes that we can make a better one in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, reading the story that is what he says, but the fact that the also doesn't want to give back the 600BTC or so that he ended up getting out to me suggests that he isn't quite that honest. If the limit had been $10,000 -- I'm sure he would have gone for that.
Why? There is a perfectly legitimate argument for letting him keep the funds. They were put up for sale, and he bought them. It was MtGox's systems that executed the trade. If the sell order was invalid, it was MtGox's fault, or the seller account holder's, not the buyer's.
The right to sell something is predicated on owning the item in question.
A buyer of stolen goods is unable to take legal ownership, it doesn't matter if he doesn't know the item is stolen. (i.e. I steal a car, and sell it to you, you don't own the car even though you gave me money and you didn't know the car was stolen)
It does matter that the coins were not put up for sale by the owner.
What on earth is all this talk about "attacks" and "rolling back the market"? This is how currency works; we've just been witness to one of the darker parts. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not legitimate. Even if it's illegal to manipulate the US Dollar, it is most certainly legal to manipulate the BitCoin, whose express purpose was to be wholly unregulated!!!
Mt. Gox, however is fairly self-regulated; everyone who participates in it wants it to be.
The problems here with Bitcoin come across as the same problems with piracy: Bitcoin are just bits on a computer. Just like piracy, when we copy bits from one place to another, is it really "stealing"? Anyone that says "yes", better double-check their stance on software piracy as well.
If I copy your file and the file is the asset then I don't deny you free enjoyment of that file. If you own the right to prevent me copying that file and are not disclaiming it then an unlawful copyright infringement has occurred. You and I both get to use the file, this is essentially why the file is not "stolen".
If I copy your file and the file acts as a token for a real sum of money, and I acquire that sum of money (be it virtual or whatever), then I deny you free enjoyment of that file. Once used to extract the value it tokenises the file no longer has value and so I deny you the value inherent in the file by my use of it. This is stealing. It may also be a copyright infringement in this case.
Compare the second action to using a one-use credit card number. If you copy the details off my one-use credit card number then you've more than likely acted unlawfully. If you use your copy to spend the money that those details represent then you've stolen from me.
What on earth is all this talk about "attacks" and "rolling back the market"? This is how currency works; we've just been witness to one of the darker parts. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not legitimate. Even if it's illegal to manipulate the US Dollar, it is most certainly legal to manipulate the BitCoin, whose express purpose was to be wholly unregulated!!!
"Unlike stocks, futures or options, currency trading does not take place on a regulated exchange. It is not controlled by any central governing body, there are no clearing houses to guarantee the trades and there is no arbitration panel to adjudicate disputes. All members trade with each other based on credit agreements. Essentially, business in the largest, most liquid market in the world depends on nothing more than a metaphorical handshake." - 1
So basically, the method of bitcoin exchange isn't all that different from ForEx. What's happened here is that the trading house has taken a fall, but doesn't appear prepared to take it on the chin. I don't know much about Mt. Gox. Any guesses as to whether or not they're insured? If this turns out to be a case of Mt. Gox's systems being hacked, are they liable?
What's most interesting for me is the irony on display. Bitcoin, Mt. Gox, and the whole ecosystem were established on principles like lack of regulation, anonymity, and un-traceability, yet here they are, hoist by their own petard.
[1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/06/SevenFXFAQs.as...
A thief can't pass good title on stolen goods: If you buy a stolen item, it is not yours, it is still the original owner's. Doesn't matter if it's a bitcoin, a car, or a quarter. The sale was not legit, it should not stand. The rest of the rollback is fuzzier, but on this gentlemans coins, a seizure should occur. http://www.lexisnexis.com/community/corpsec/blogs/bus-law-an...
Bitcoins are just bits on a computer and aren't physically taken away like a car or a quarter...so I don't think you can call it "stealing"
Property law does not require physical property in order to be applicable.
(IANAL, TINLA)
> Two months ago we migrated from MD5 hashing to freeBSD MD5 salted hashing. The unsalted user accounts in the wild are ones that haven't been accessed in over 2 months and are considered idle. Once we are back up we will have implemented SHA-512 multi-iteration salted hashing and all users will be required to update to a new strong password. I'm quite surprised that a service with accounts holding millions of dollar…