Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

Post by vmception » Tue, Feb 08, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #151

duxup wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about this. I would think the most obvious path would be to find some other criminals (now you've got new risks) who don't care about the provenance of the coins, will pay cash for some coins at a discount, and you somehow launder that cash.... Could at least get a couple bucks from it, possibly.

Or weaponize the coins. Take 10 BTC and give them to 100 groups/people you don't like. Investigators make their lives miserable for a while. For normal people, that'd be ridiculously expensive but since they didn't pay for the coins and have 100k+ more they can't use, it's "free."

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Feb 08, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #99

rjbwork wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not invested in crypto or really at all interested in it. That said, my mentor seems pretty excited about it and is pretty heavily invested as of the past few months. I advised him to do something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing and distribute it across a wide number of storage mechanisms, physical, digital, and custodial. For instance, in google drive, in drop box, in a bank safety dep…

I don't understand the math but I think I have seen that style of secret management where any 3 of say 10 secrets can access something but no 2 or any 1 secret can do it. It would seem to solve a lot of just organizational problems where "jan is out of the office today" and nobody can do the thing ... but if access is spread out among 10 people ... 3 probably are in the office when needed. Granted I've never seen it…

Post by vmception » Tue, Feb 08, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

shiado wrote: post #82

It never ceases to amaze me how incompetent some high profile criminals are. Encrypting a file is simply too difficult apparently. The entire purpose of crypto is that the exclusive holder of a private key cannot have funds seized. A 15 year old kid probably has better opsec with their crypto wallets than these people. Astonishing really.

Post by bastawhiz » Tue, Feb 08, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #159

mschuster91 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention, this threat could have been easily mitigated by keeping your funds in a multsig wallet, with the keys distributed in multiple redundant locations. And if you're released from prison and recover your Bitcoin, you will be arrested again for contempt of court or a similar charge.

Why anyone would use BTC and not some privacy coin for this kind of scenario escapes me.

Post by openknot » Tue, Feb 08, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

not2b wrote: post #149

gruez wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems so amateur to use a simple password that could be brute forced. Especially with so much on the line. There's selection bias going on because only dumb criminals get caught, so you only hear about the dumb opsec practices of those criminals. Conversely, you'll never hear about the opsec practices of that professional crew with perfect opsec that hacked an exchange/difi contract and disappeared into thin air.

Until the least bright member of the crew makes a mistake, gets caught, and turns in the rest. Being perfect is difficult to maintain forever, though it's possible in principle. It might require the thief to live like a grad student even though he has billions of dollars/euros worth of stolen wealth; being flashy attracts attention and if nothing else, the tax authorities.