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North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

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111–120 of 203 posts

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crypto currency world is hyper focused on stopping this, considering it is one of the main avenues that statists attack crypto with now that the environmental nag is gone since the switch to Proof of Stake. I would say, conservatively, the traditional banking and real estate markets are 10,000x worse than crypto markets, but are un-policed because it's hidden, unlike the public blockchain networks. The few scams…

Did Bitcoin switch to proof of stake while I wasn't looking?

Eth did.

Bitcoin is slowly losing dominance - its legacy technology, and bitcoin maxis/satoshi purists refuse to recognise that tech must evolve over time.

Its fucking insane to me how "The White paper" has become a holy text among Bitcoiners. Its made it almost fucking impossible to make any improvements to the protocol - hence forks, altcoins, etc.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#113
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. They hack computers not code. Their normal plan is to steal keys by compromising users and computers. This is in contrast to the normal "hack" that works by finding and exploiting bugs in code. I'm just a 'regular security guy' but in that link you posted they detail that after the initial phishing compromise "The attacker managed to leverage that access to penetrate Sky Mavis IT infrastructure and gain access t…

The problem was ultimately in the bridge’s design and implementation. Even though it was sold as a decentralized system it was a multisig with very few signatories. A properly designed decentralized bridge would require the compromise of many validators, each with a different infrastructure setup. This is why you never hear about Ethereum itself getting hacked. Instead, the Axie bridge was a multisig, and as of that…

IIRC the 9 nodes where effectively controlled by 3 sets of keys so they only had to compromise 2 to take control. And they took weeks to discover it happened. The incompetence and brazenness astonishes. Team as well as investors.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#115
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 99% of Tor's volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, distributing CSAM, etc, should it be demonized as well? Easy answer: Yes! Although I think it would be hard to call it demonizing when something is already 99% demons.

Should any tech that conceals IP addresses be demonized? Or just Tor?

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Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principal, however if the vast majority of a given service's users are using it for criminal activity then maybe there's room for some added scrutiny.

Ok, so all you have to do is prove that the vast majority of a given service's users are using it for criminal activity, right?

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Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#117
post #81
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 99% of BTC mixers' volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, arms or human trafficking, it's not exactly hard to demonize mixing itself. I have no data to base this on, but I assume that privacy absolutists are a tiny, tiny drop in the pool of blood and crime.

Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto.

> Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/crypto-criminals-laundered-5...

Is $540M considered a tangible amount? I'll let you quibble over that but I'd think most criminals would be more than happy to be able to launder $540M.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#118
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why technology that provides a modicum of privacy must be demonized. It must be for money laundering and criminals. It can't have a legitimate use case. Is it used for nefarious activities? Of course, but not exclusively so.

GNU Taler[0] provides a "modicum of privacy" and isn't demonized. [0] https://taler.net

It may get demonized if it ever gets some users. Quite a Hurd(le)!

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#119
post #110

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The NSA called, they want their 0-day exploits back.

It's not that they don't exist, but the easiest way to gain access to a computer system is always going to be to ask for the password. https://xkcd.com/538/

I have no evidence for this, but my feeling was always that the highest-volume exploits were just having a bot run yesterday's Day-0 on every IP listening on a port. You can't get that kind of volume by calling people and asking for their password.

If you leave an unsecured mail server accessible to the internet, it'll start sending spam emails within 30 minutes.

On the other hand, phishing emails are also automated, and that's essentially asking for the password.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#120
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto.

> Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/crypto-criminals-laundered-5... Is $540M considered a tangible amount? I'll let you quibble over that but I'd think most criminals would be more than happy to be able to launder $540M.

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