Oh wow. So will this $$ go back to bifinex and make tether solvent?
Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
651–660 of 901 posts
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#652> Here's how the fed caught them: > "The DOJ said it was able to seize the funds after an FBI search warrant of one of Lichtenstein's cloud storage accounts found a file containing cryptocurrency addresses and their corresponding private key that granted access to funds stored within." That makes sense, and of course storing them in cloud storage was a bad idea. However they could have only obtained the warrant /afte…
Given that these clowns were not exactly low profile about their wealth, I imagine their opsec was less than optimal.
That could be true, but it still doesn't really answer the question.
How did the FBI know, hey he's the guy, lets get a warrant
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#653Shouldn'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 ledger says whomever holds the keys owns the coins. The government now holds the keys. How is this something against the crypto ethos?
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not OP but I think the true Scotsman isn't that laws don't apply, it's that the ledger is infallible and authoritative.
Is the ledger wrong in this case? Does the entity holding the key have access to the coins?
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#655fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/
Heh... He has some comments on "Feds reveal the search warrant used to seize Mt. Gox account " in 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. -- This was inevitable. People can wax rhapsodic about the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, but once the feds freeze a few million dollars of a…
>As the anarchists and idealists on HN will soon learn
I don't know to whom this actually refers. I don't remember anything about enabling money laundering in Satoshi's white paper.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#656Shouldn'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".
As a crypto unbeliever I hate this too. Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property. It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers. Do we have this concept for other things? yes. But I'd rather like to contract the space of property rather than expand it.
> Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property. It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers.
Isn't this exactly how your access to digital content is mediated? A bunch of servers somewhere says that this user identifier is allowed to access this content.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#657> “After the execution of court-authorized search warrants of online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, special agents obtained access to files within an online account controlled by Lichtenstein,” the press release said. “Those files contained the private keys required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from Bitfinex, and allowed special agents to lawfully seize and rec…
You have to keep in mind that a lot of those highlighted "trivial" series of mistakes can be just the result of parallel construction, and what evidence really "did them in" can be completely different from what's stated by the prosecution. It is very easy to find tons of small mistakes once you already know what you have to look for thanks to an undisclosed huge exploit/honeypot/technically-illegal-seizures that you…
Tracking down Alex Cazes wasn’t shady at all.
Shortly after he committed suicide I pulled up the French language technical board where he had linked an alias to a real email address. Which mirrors the same mistake as the Silk Road operator.
When you dig deeper into these cases it’s clear that they aren’t properly washing the money. There’s no placement or layering. They go straight to laundering on a public ledger and cash out under their own names.
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
The famous Bitcoin family reportedly spread their hardware wallets across the globe. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/11/bitcoin-family-hides-bitcoin...
Wow. > Taihuttu has two hiding spots in Europe, another two in Asia, one in South America, and a sixth in Australia. > We aren’t talking buried treasure – none of the sites are below ground or on a remote island – but the family told CNBC the crypto stashes are hidden in different ways and in a variety of locations, ranging from rental apartments and friends’ homes to self-storage sites. I hope this is all a decoy or…
I would not want to be a friend to the sort of idiots who would say stuff like this. Having a target painted on my back as a decoy somehow makes it even worse.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 care…
> 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
...of a case the US DoJ wasn't involved in prosecuting, because it was prosecuted by a completely separate sovereignty.
Not sure how that's an example of DoJ prosecutorial decision-making.
(And that's even before considering if comparison of actual events in one case to the speakers own stated opinion of how a counterfactual hypothetical would turn out, rather than contrasting real events, is really good evidence of a comparative behavior difference.)
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#660Ilya Lichtenstein (YC S11) is the co-founder of YC-backed MixRank. Heather Morgan, his wife, is apparently a serial entrepreneur, investor, and "contributor" to Forbes.
She's also a rapper, and not a very good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIuPPmY9mw
"I have to say a lot of large companies have security holes" XD