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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

#371

Post by loceng »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #96
loceng wrote: post #14

I ask this every so often during threads regarding stolen cryptocurrency: Is there any solution yet to preventing stolen cryptocurrency funds from being spent? Isn't the only solution to have a central database and require laws to require every transaction to be pre-checked to see if it's stolen funds or not? And not only that, the centralized system will have to be constantly keeping track of wallet mixing to see wh…

what do you think about tornado.cash? It's apparently a very effective mixer. I wonder what law enforcement can do if someone ends up using tornado_cash. There is absolutely no way of knowing if the money is good or bad. If you consider every mixed_cash as bad, you would be forced to assume that the entire cryptocurrency is bad bec of how the money flows.

I don't understand all technicalities of cryptocurrencies, however you make it illegal to mix with known stolen cryptocurrencies - and then it won't get mixed; else yes, it's a problem if your ethics make you okay with rewarding criminal behaviour by allowing stolen money to be spent.

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

#373

Post by 0des »

Gasp0de wrote: post #229
jrav wrote: post #136

Probably stupid question: Why not just exchange it to zcash or monero or some other coin that hides transaction details? Then you can send it to a new wallet; theoretically 100% untraceably. Is this not a valid approach?

They did that apparently, it is mentioned in the article. There are still ways to trace it. For example, if they do it in a short timeframe or in just two transactions you can match the amounts. Not many people send 100k$ in zCash around.

Amounts are not public with Monero outputs created within the last few years.

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

#374

Post by sincerely »

systemsignal wrote: post #331
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". I really don't understand these arguments. The law still applies whether or not you use cryptocurrency. Using cryptocurrency doesn't free someone from the consequences of their actions. Illegal acts are st…

What makes hacking illegal? What if they acquired the Bitcoin without using illegal means Probably not possible in this case, but in DeFi where everything is ruled by smart contracts, what would make executing behavior allowed by those contracts illegal.

> What makes hacking illegal?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

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

#375

Post by mrkramer »

>Hackers Move $3.55B Worth of Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30162085

So government was moving bitcoins not hackers. Like I said in that thread it is easier to launder cash than bitcoins because bitcoins are on chain forever and cold cash can be laundered in numerous ways.

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

#376

Post by yucky »

grumple wrote: post #307
tiffanyh wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... .

Even your local circuit court probably has a 95%+ conviction rate. If you're innocent of a charge that carries 20 years and your attorney says you have 50/50 shot at trial of winning, or you can plea guilty and take probation what do you do?

Most people take it, and now they have a record. Any future fuck ups (guilty or not) and you're looking at real jail time.

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

#377

Post by everfree »

whatshisface wrote: post #337
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tornado.cash puts your crypto in a completely fresh account (using smart contracts). You can claim that you earned this crypto mining it back in 2010. You can definitely come up with a decent excuse for this. Then you can convert those crypto (in new account) into fiat money. Everyone will know you are lying, but they will never be able to prove it.

That sounds impossible, wouldn't people be able to see that the account didn't have those coins in 2010?

It's very common to use more than one account, and send money between them for various reasons.

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

#378

Post by mardifoufs »

smnrchrds wrote: post #342
mardifoufs wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why the criminal justice system operates like that though. The system has been designed like that because it turned that it is a very good idea not to go on witch hunts or to assume guilt if you want a functional society. I'm not defending the person involved here, but it's important to remember that the presumption of innocence isn't just an abstract legal concept instead of a very important part of…

Do you think it is wrong for a person to believe OJ was guilty of the murder he was accused of? If a person decides to keep their distance from their new neighbour OJ and not treat them with neighbourly kindness and open arms because of that murder, would you admonish them for treating OJ differently for something he was never found guilty of in the court of law?

No, because in the case of OJ we have more than just what the prosecution (in this case, the DoJ) accused him of doing. My point isn't that you can't make your own judgment or that only court decisions are valid source sources of truth. What I'm saying here is that any opinion/analysis we can make at this stage are basically entirely based on the prosecution, since we don't have any other facts to go by.

Unless you already knew the people involved or we have some third party sources, we are basically just believing the side that only has 1 goal; showing how guilty the people they prosecute are. How could that mean anything else but assuming guilt?

(And honestly I think that personal feelings towards a person are very often good enough to make a personal judgment on guilt, but we don't even have that here! I'd bet most of us never heard of them before today)

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

#379

Post by aeturnum »

bostonsre wrote: post #286
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 don't understand why he wouldn't move to somewhere that doesn't have an extradition policy with the US. If you go down that path, it seems like you should probably be willing to abandon your life. It's the same with Ross Ulbricht, seems like it would be terrifying living with that sword of damocles hanging over your head absolutely constantly.

The work of preparing to leave the country is necessarily public in a way that doing crypto stuff might not be. I suspect they were worried that preparing to leave the country would tip their hand - and they could have been caught earlier if they tried it. It just turns out they were caught anyway.

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

#380

Post by [deleted] »

rasz wrote: post #7

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