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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

#771

Post by josefx »

hkt wrote: post #619
judge2020 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are there any exchanges that swap btc for monero or eth that don’t have KYC requirements? Seems like it’d need to be off-chain somewhat, unlike uniswap.

There are decentralised exchanges like bisq: https://bisq.wiki/Main_Page Presumably, this would do the trick.

As far as I understand buyer and seller still have exchange information for the transaction to happen. The moment the buyer tries to use the stolen bitcoin he will have the police knocking on his door to find out where he got them from. The seller basically ends up completely at the mercy of the buyers security, with the added bonus that bisq doesn't enforce a completed transaction, so the buyer might just disappear once the goods changed hands without ever paying.

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

#772

Post by bandrami »

lordnacho wrote: post #241
tiffanyh wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

He's saying that the law presumes innocence until proven guilty. They don't throw you in jail or take your money until the legal process reaches a judgement, and this is pretty normal and uncontroversial. But you don't have to keep going for drinks with a person who's just been arrested and let out on bail, you can make up your own opinion as you feel. You can say bad things about him before the judge does, you can d…

Actually they are happy to take your money before the legal process reaches a judgement. If you aren't familiar with the process of civil forfeiture you might want to look into it.

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

#773

Post by bostonsre »

spullara wrote: post #765
bostonsre wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$4B that you can't spend in the US (or any country that will allow for extradition) isn't nearly as good as $4B that you can.

It would have been tough, but I'm sure they could have survived.

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

#774

Post by bandrami »

pimbrah wrote: post #720
323 wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you would say that, because if you read the indictment, these people did actually deposit Monero on one exchange: > VCE 4 Account 2 was entirely funded by approximately 13,200 XMR via approximately 21 transactions that took place between in or around November 2017 and March 2019. > Another account at VCE 4 (“VCE 4 Account 3”) was created on or about November 20, 2017, and was registered in the name of another R…

But the accounts 1 and 2 on VCE 4 (the ones funded by Monero) weren't registered in either Morgan's or Lichtenstein's name. They were created with fake credentials. The feds were able to link them to the couple because bitcoins were moved from VCE 4 to other accounts that also had received bitcoins which were traceable to their alphabay accounts. If they had funneled everything through monero I can't say that they wo…

There isn't $3.6B worth of Monero, though.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/

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

#775

Post by bostonsre »

johntb86 wrote: post #535
markdown wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't need to apply for a Visa to visit most of the world. They just get one automatically on arrival. They could have just bought a Vanuatu passport with bitcoin (~$150k), then travelled there for a holiday. Leave the US with the US passport and arrive in Van with the Van passport. CHange their name in Vanuatu, then move to a 3rd country to settle permanently with a new name. Maybe change it one more time…

Once the spooks find you you'd need to be very careful to avoid flights in or near the airspace of countries friendly to the US.

Do the spooks care one way or the other about non-terrorists and non-nation state criminals?

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

#777

Post by bandrami »

tedivm wrote: post #246
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speculation You can do that by owning crypto. No need to use it. > Self-sovereignty Majority people use centralized exchanges, which regularly control transactions. > Ease of use/trade/leverage/exchange Fiat banking is much easier to use than crypto. It's also faster. Now everyone uses 1-tap payments. Crypto transactions are more complicated than that. They also take longer. Also are bad for the environment (not as…

Even the apps built off of the "blockchain" rarely touch the blockchain. Companies aren't looking up NFTs on the chain, they're just hitting OpenSea APIs.

I've been keeping my eye out for the inevitable attack that leverages that fact. The aftershocks would be epic.

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

#778

Post by BLKNSLVR »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #746
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human society is rapidly moving more and more "things" in the electronic realm. By necessity of technology (we're on HN for goodness sake!) the realm of property absolutely must expand into electronic representations. Ironically, Bitcoin enables ownership to be established (at least as far as knowing the private keys = proof of ownership), in addition to the transaction path the electronic bits and bytes took in orde…

What is a necessity of technology?

What I mean is "what's been made necessary as a result of the technology that drives much of the functioning of society".

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

#779

Post by grwgreg »

foxyv wrote: post #442
paulpauper wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't unless you chose something stupid like "correct horse battery staple" or "word + word + number". 7 words chosen from 1000 word dictionary password encrypted AES 256 cannot be cracked with existing technology, 8 words impossible with future tech.

This depends on the key derivation function used. PBKDF2 or BCrypt with strong enough difficulty factor makes even fairly short passwords difficult to crack. On the other hand, a straight SHA-256 hash method can be broken insanely quick with fairly long passwords.

>fairly long passwords

how long are we talking?

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

#780

Post by mekster »

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.

For the attacker, the problem isn't about protecting the crypto but to launder.

If gov got to you, it probably doesn't matter how well you got it protected.

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