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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

#821

Post by nikanj »

Waterluvian wrote: post #704
capableweb wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a sad view, especially to hold in a generally curious place like HN. Another example is narcotics, yes we know that most narcotics usage is bad, but does that mean all usage of narcotics is bad? Obviously not, and we take those articles as they come, and discuss the angles each article has independently, in most cases at least. But somehow cryptocurrencies are so emotional for most people, that they hold…

We’ve spent years watching hundreds of obvious grifts and silly ideas. There has yet to be a single compelling, obvious use for this technology. At some point we need to stop wasting oxygen on obvious garbage. If this domain received 1/1000th as much attention and electricity I would be with you. But until then we could do with far less waste.

Fraud is a compelling, obvious use for this technology. Other forms of crime too, from selling drugs, to extracting ransomware payments.

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

#822

Post by ccalloway »

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" :)

We only know about the ones that get caught.

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

#823

Post by nikanj »

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.

You can't have crypto problems if you're dead.

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

#824

Post by classified »

cobookman wrote: post #318
tyrfing wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they found a file listing private keys, after gaining access to the suspect's cloud storage That's backwards. It's how they wrapped it all up. The real trail is pretty clearly AlphaBay 2016/2017 transactions (under gov control around that timeframe), to KYC-flagged accounts at an exchange, with a web of accounts with real info linked together past there.

If he instead started to draw NFTs, and sell it from his KYC account to his dirty wallet, could he still be convicted? What if only one out of every 100 NFTs his dirty wallet purchased was from his KYC account? Or what if he decided to create his own crypto-currency and it just so happened that his dirty wallet was an early investor of ETH to his fund. Seems like he could have done more to distance himself.

I'm not sure giving advice to strangers on the internet on how to commit a successful robbery is a good idea.

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

#825

Post by teddyh »

erehweb wrote: post #733
secondaryacct wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We disagree it was heinous and believe it's prescribed, thank you. Polanski is a French citizen and will not be given to the US, but if an american is demanded, we ll give him back on the double. It s what they seem not to explain in movies: we protect our brothers in citizenship against exaggerated foreign conviction, but not foreigners.

What do you mean by "prescribed" here?

He means that the statute of limitations (a.k.a. prescriptive period) has run out.

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

#826

Post by latexr »

afiori wrote: post #803
dragonelite wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah somehow those crypto expert on social media don't even think about it, when they shout bitcoin will fix this.

To be fair there are some cc* that try to address this. Apparently signal was forced to choose the relatively unknown MobileCoin exactly to avoid this problem. *cryptocurrency is too long

> cc*

That’s “credit card”. We’ve already lost “crypto”(graphy), let’s avoid deliberately giving away other common shorthands.

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

#827

Post by vmception »

seibelj wrote: post #768
vmception wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m still reading it They definitely had custody of the funds and felt obligated to try and launder it It seems like the government needs to figure out if they were the only ones with custody, which is proving a negative with private keys, but the government seems to feel like it’s needs a greater proof of the actual heist of bitfinex so they can pin the rest on this couple. Still reading though, this is just what I’…

I think pretty damning are accounts tied to their personal identities and emails to exchanges where they lied about the source of funds. How can they explain that away? Their email addresses were hacked? Funds moved to their personal bank accounts and used for expenses was unintentional? It seems like a big stretch.

okay I finished reading it, it is pretty damning and the report does say that it is just one agent investigating certain specific criminal charges that "doesn't reflect all of the investigations of the government"

Ilya had trouble figuring out how to launder it

Still the outstanding question is whether he is the only one with the encrypted files, or if he was a service provider. not that its a real question to me, its something the government has to prove for stronger charges like the CFAA to be levied and stick.

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

#828

Post by croon »

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.

You're still memorizing the seven locations around the world. It's the same thing with extra steps.

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

#830

Post by tim333 »

csmajorfive wrote: post #606
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.

I find it especially baffling considering he has Russian citizenship.

He probably didn't think he'd get caught. I mean it's not a large proportion of crypto thieves/fraudsters who are. Less than 1%?
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