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

washingtonpost.com

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

#251

Post by dcist »

paulpauper wrote: post #178
albroland wrote: post #6

fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/

This is just unreal. this guy was living a double life of being the greatest criminal ever. So among our community was a $4 billion hacker, just nonchalantly posting. I don't think he will be commenting anytime soon again if this really is him https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=il like your neighbor being a serial killer or something

I noticed both on twitter and his HN posts, there's a big gap between 2015 and 2019.

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

#252

Post by dcist »

tiffanyh wrote: post #186
albroland wrote: post #6

fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/

Let's be fair to these individuals and not presume guilt. In the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty". Media is so quick to assume the person is guilty just because of an allegation.

check out the affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1470186/downl...

yes, they're legally presumed innocent but they have a LOT of 'splaining to do.

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

#253

Post by [deleted] »

TTPrograms wrote: post #191
fxtentacle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".

Obvious no-true-scotsman. Believing that the goal of crypto is to circumvent laws regarding possession and theft is at most a fringe belief. The fact that this is at the top of HN demonstrates how devoid of merit crypto discussion here is.

[deleted]

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

#254

Post by hellomyguys »

tiffanyh wrote: post #234
d23 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the standard for our criminal justice system, not for us as individuals. It sounds from the release that the justice department has a boatload of compelling evidence against them.

> "It sounds from the release that the justice department has a boatload of compelling evidence against them." You'd hope that before someone is arrested, the prosecutor has ample evidence to prove guilt. I don't understand your point. These individuals have not been proven guilty yet. Why are you editorializing their presumed guilt in this matter. Note: I have no affiliation with these individuals nor case.

It's pretty normal for people to look at the evidence and be able to decide if someone was guilty or not.

If someone is on video shooting someone, it is a bit silly to say "Why are you editorializing their presumed guilt in this matter."

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

#255

Post by Severian »

So, hypothetically, if these guys were to completely cash out these coins somehow, and then pay tax to the IRS, would they be immune from tax fraud and IRS involvement? I know similar things happen with stolen property and illegal drugs (Sullivan v. United States).

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

#256

Post by pcthrowaway »

knownjorbist wrote: post #93
runeks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is only possible because it's centralized

A DAO could just as easily decide to do the same, but it'd need to be built into the smart contracts.

This works with the smart contracts with USDC, it's just that there's an authority which has permission to update the state to deny transfers from a specific address.

This is because USDC is a centralized stablecoin (as is USDT). There are decentralized stablecoins such as UST and MIM (and I believe DAI as well).

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

#257

Post by Firmwarrior »

xtracto wrote: post #219
notch656a wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you read the original DOJ filing, they actually did that. They used : > anonymity-enhanced virtual currency (AEC), in a practice known as “chain hopping”; and using U.S.-based business accounts to legitimize their banking activity. Their problem was that they "closed" the money circle by sending it to real bank accounts. That's how they caught their trace. It seems that laundering billions of dollars is not as eas…

Someone was saying they could have moved to South America and laundered $1000 at a time, but you'd think that the US government could've easily tracked that down as well.. "Hmm, it appears someone is living off this stolen 3 billion dollars in South America"

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

#258

Post by lhorie »

fxtentacle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".

What is a "true crypto believer" anyways? As a matter of practicality, everyone that interacts with financial assets of any sort are bound to laws imposed by some government. Equating "whoever has the keys" to ownership feels more or less equivalent to saying "finders keepers" is a valid justification for taking possession of a physical leather wallet. Or "We broke up, but I fed the dog, so it's mine". Or whatever.

A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what.

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

#259

Post by trhway »

colinmhayes wrote: post #5
danso wrote: post #3

The statement of facts is linked to from the press release, and describes generally how the Feds were able to trace the stolen funds (they found a file listing private keys, after gaining access to the suspect's cloud storage) https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1470186/downl... > The 2017 transfers notwithstanding, the majority of the stolen funds remained in Wallet 1CGA4s from August 2016 until January 3…

$4 billion has got to buy an awful lot of compute time, but still, how did they decrypt the file?

>how did they decrypt the file?

keyloggers for example.

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

#260

Post by avrionov »

colinmhayes wrote: post #5
danso wrote: post #3

The statement of facts is linked to from the press release, and describes generally how the Feds were able to trace the stolen funds (they found a file listing private keys, after gaining access to the suspect's cloud storage) https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1470186/downl... > The 2017 transfers notwithstanding, the majority of the stolen funds remained in Wallet 1CGA4s from August 2016 until January 3…

$4 billion has got to buy an awful lot of compute time, but still, how did they decrypt the file?

Here is the most likely approach: https://xkcd.com/538/
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