Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 901 posts

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

#561

Post by swarsh »

runeks wrote: post #56
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…

There is no solution because you would end up punishing innocent people. E.g. if a thief buys a car with their proceeds then it's not fair to punish the car dealership by confiscating the originally-stolen coins. This was decided in Scotland in 1749, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawfurd_v_The_Royal_Bank

That Scottish decision, while still the basis for bona fide acquisition of money in the UK and US, does not yet appear to apply for cryptocurrencies.

Your Wikipedia link cites a 2019 paper published in the Georgetown Technical Law Review whose analysis (https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/...) on page 415-6 says that 2016 US v 50.44 Bitcoins (https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-5044-bitcoins) determined "cryptocurrencies do not meet the UCC's definition of money" and thus bona fide acquisition is not sufficient to prevent the crypto from being legally seized from the possessor and returned to the original owner.

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

#563

Post by ahallock »

ryan_lane wrote: post #508
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was that people did not look at the evidence- they jumped to a conclusion.

Yeah, because if you happen to look at the evidence, the fact is that he took a gun across state lines, to "protect people's property" at a protest, and he ended up killing people, it would be pretty easy to come to the conclusion that he's guilty of at least manslaughter. Of course, he was charged with murder, and that's harder to prove. The fact that he was found not guilty doesn't mean he's innocent. It means he's…

You just proved the parent's point.

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

#564

Post by SirYandi »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #558
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…

Wow. Such hacking prowess. Such bad opsec. Weird. Ps not condoning the theft but I just find it strange that people with the skills to steal this much get caught using bog standard cloud storage. You'd think they could afford something better ;) Something along the lines of "you don't take notes on a criminal f** conspiracy" :)

The article mentioned they were not thought to have conducted the hack itself.

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

#565

Post by GekkePrutser »

pshc wrote: post #552
tevon wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it me or should he have literally just gotten a hardware wallet, transferred everything to that account, then burned the old key? Of course that txn would show up on-chain, but if you don't have possession of the private key for the first account, and no digital device has ever "seen" the hardware account then he would've been fine. This is assuming the key piece of evidence was his private key, and he wouldn't ha…

Yeah, a hardware wallet is good, although for a billion dollars, 100 hardware wallets would be better. Could even go so far as to split a private key into seven horcruxes using Shamir's Secret Sharing and bury them in locations around the world. Memorizing a seed phrase leaves you vulnerable to a $5 wrench attack, I wouldn't recommend it.

> Memorizing a seed phrase leaves you vulnerable to a $5 wrench attack, I wouldn't recommend it.

Of course the problem is the attacker may not know what method you used and resort to the $5 wrench attack anyway :)

Not stealing $3.6B might be an even safer bet.

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

#566

Post by zkldi »

capableweb wrote: post #460
gk1 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met Heather many years ago. It's a weird feeling to see a name you recognize in an announcement like this. We've lost touch long since so I have no comment.

> We've lost touch long since so I have no comment But felt it was important enough to state that you know her? I'm not sure what your comment is supposed to be.

jeez man, not every comment has to be a profound statement. I thought it was pretty interesting.

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

#567

Post by GekkePrutser »

SirYandi wrote: post #564
GekkePrutser wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Such hacking prowess. Such bad opsec. Weird. Ps not condoning the theft but I just find it strange that people with the skills to steal this much get caught using bog standard cloud storage. You'd think they could afford something better ;) Something along the lines of "you don't take notes on a criminal f** conspiracy" :)

The article mentioned they were not thought to have conducted the hack itself.

Ah ok sorry I checked the comments only. Should have read TFA sorry :)

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

#568

Post by manquer »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #444
majani wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One trip to Russia would have solved all their problems. Just saying

How or why is that? Why would it be easy to cash in or sale 4 billion dollar worth of crypto in Russia? Russia probably doesn't extradite a person to Americans (not sure about non citizens) but there are plenty of sharks who would want to get their hands on these coins if that came to public anyway.

They have not extradited Snowden. If it is politically favorable they would grant residency. There are other few other countries who who do the same, but only one or two like Russia could withstand U.S. pressure if they harbor such a high profile figure.

Of course Putin will take all the money anyway, so what is the point ? Getting the mob for support never ends well.

Also to note one of them is a dual Russian citizen so it more complex than the hypothetical

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

#569

Post by parineum »

dragonwriter wrote: post #496
parineum wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pub…

> 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. No, if following general DoJ policy, they believe that the evidence is sufficient that they will be able to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, but that's not the same as them already having proven that. > High pr…

> Usually, I think the opposite is the case: generally, the DoJ is more careful in high-profile cases, not more cavalier.

I'm not sure Rittenhouse would have been charged at all and, based on how the trial went and how weak the evidence was, he should have, at best, been charged with something much more minor. But that's just one example.

I somewhat agree with you, they are more careful but I think they are more careful in their own process. To make sure their ducks are all in a row. But, when it comes to actually pressing charges or agreeing to plea deals, I think they are much more likely to overcharge or not negotiate so that the case is no longer on their desk and they can say "I did my part".

To use the Rittenhouse example, I think the public expectations of charges impacted the charges because the ones bringing charges are often elected officials (or appointed by them) so there's an incentive to not look at what can be proven with the evidence and instead charge with what the public thinks is "right". The incentive for an elected official is to appease the public with charges, convictions be damned because that's someone else's problem. That's how Rittenhouse's case played out too. Outside of conservative media, there was a lot of attention paid to the judge and the lawyers not being able to prove their case rather than floating the idea that maybe a lesser charge and a conviction was the right thing to do.

On the other hand, I think you saw the same course of events with the George Floyd case but with a different result. The investigation was drawn out and meticulous and charges were brought. That resulted in a conviction but the implication I'm making is that those charges would have been brought regardless of evidence because of the public nature of the case.

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

#570

Post by frontman1988 »

zkldi wrote: post #566
capableweb wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've lost touch long since so I have no comment But felt it was important enough to state that you know her? I'm not sure what your comment is supposed to be.

jeez man, not every comment has to be a profound statement. I thought it was pretty interesting.

It's good to add some value with your comment though. You can talk about how she was as a person or some other interesting anecdote
Post reply on HN