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

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

#301

Post by throwawayboise »

akersten wrote: post #289
lhorie wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I think you've answered your own question - a true crypto believer does not agree with that. If the smart contract says the Ethereum is mine because you wrote it poorly and I called the transfer money function in the right way ("exploited it"), a true believer would…

But that's not the way real contracts work. Contracts are an agreement between parties. If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.

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

#302

Post by rogers18445 »

paulpauper wrote: post #148
kodah wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keys are conspicuously easy to hide. My PGP master key that I've been using for some time is hidden on two devices which would be difficult to identify much less locate and are encrypted as well.

strong passwords. aes256 with even just 7 word password chosen from a 1000-word dictionary cannot be cracked with existing tech

You are pushing it. 1000 words is 10 bits of entropy per randomly chosen word. 70 bits of entropy is probably crackable by a government agency.

Edit: I checked and unless I mixed some zeroes somewhere it looks like the current bitcoin hash rate of 200 million TH/s can crack 92 bits within a year. log (200,000,000,000,000,000,000*3600*24*365) / log 2 = 92.35

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

#303

Post by akersten »

throwawayboise wrote: post #301
akersten wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think you've answered your own question - a true crypto believer does not agree with that. If the smart contract says the Ethereum is mine because you wrote it poorly and I called the transfer money function in the right way ("exploited it"), a true believer would…

But that's not the way real contracts work. Contracts are an agreement between parties. If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.

I think Ethereum is silly too. But you have to realize that their argument is "we'll make our own contracts, and what the computer says is the absolute truth - no judges or kings."

In that world, there is no such thing as stealing. If the crypto transfered, it was allowed to transfer by the contract.

The part that "true believers" are meant to hate is that now, someone on one side of the contract is grasping back to Money 1.0 concepts of conceptual ownership and meeting-of-the-minds type contracts. This enforcement action shows that the government thinks of Ethereum et al in this way too. And therefore the crypto paradise dream is dead.

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

#304

Post by throw8383833jj »

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".

no. this is quite bullish for bitcoin. they're showing that bitcoin can't be used for criminal activity, whatever the government decides that should be (usually in favor of the general public). this helps to legitimize bitcoin. Protecting consumers of bitcoin is bullish for bitcoin. helping to prevent fraud in bitcoin is also bullish for bitcoin. All these things increase confidence in bitcoin as a legitimate way of storing wealth.

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

#307

Post by grumple »

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.

The federal government has a ridiculously high conviction rate: 99.96% [1]. They basically only bring the case if they have everything they need to convict.

1. https://www.bhlawfirm.com/blog/2021/05/the-federal-convictio....

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

#308

Post by parineum »

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.

For non-high profile investigations (investigations that were not in the media before charges), announcing charges typically has a large body of evidence and a lot of confidence in the accusation.

Of course innocent until proven guilty applies but the justice department knows that and still brought charges. At the very least, they believe they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt.

High profile cases with public pressure change the equation a bit and can cause charges to be brought on people who normally would not. I suspect this is a way to pass the buck to the courts when the person eventually gets off due to lack of evidence.

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

#309

Post by 0xFreebie »

dcist wrote: post #251
paulpauper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

il on May 15, 2013

>As the anarchists and idealists on HN will soon learn, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin won't make a difference if anyone transmitting it is in violation of federal law.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714963

Did he change his mind?

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

#310

Post by algorade »

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".

The cryptographic keys were stored on a cloud storage device. Law enforcement agencies gained access to these keys while executing a search warrant and used them move the funds. So by this logic, the government is now the rightful owner of these funds.
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