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

Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 118 posts

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#91

Post by bobwaycott »

consonants wrote: post #47
algorias wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be, depending on your definition, but the term "money laundering" has a distinctly criminal connotation. Bitcoin mixing is more analogous to paying for something with cash withdrawn from a bank account rather than making a bank transfer directly.

Money laundering is the process of concealing sources of money. If the IRS found out Western Union was trying to cover it's tracks of who sent/received money they would be investigated immediately. Laundering implies you have something to hide, most likely tax dollars or ill-received profits.

Money laundering is the process of concealing illegal sources of money.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#92

Post by bobwaycott »

gnaritas wrote: post #86
VMG wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except with Bitcoin, there are valid reasons to conceal the source and destination of money from the public besides criminal activity. The money being "laundered" isn't necessarily "dirty" to begin with. The same logic applies to encryption. People have a right to privacy.

It doesn't matter what the reasons are, or whether you have a right to it, if you're trying to conceal where money came from, it's money laundering.

Only if that money is the proceeds of a crime and you're attempting to conceal the source of the illegal funds.

The flippant and universalizing way several of the commenters here are referring to money laundering as "concealing where the money came from" cast far too wide a net.

The definition you're using here would include concealing where $500 came from that was donated by anonymous friends to give to another friend in need. Suddenly, by your metric, if any of the friends suspected of donating the cash to help someone don't fess up to the source of the cash, they're laundering money.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. But it fits your description. Money laundering requires the currency be earnings from criminal activity.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#93

Post by sillysaurus2 »

waps wrote: post #83
meowface wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely infeasible (without quantum computers anyway). However, in cases where the private key is generated from a hash of a passphrase, like brainwallets, then it is far more feasible. There are people running bruteforcers constantly looking for private keys corresponding to brainwallet passphrases; that's their form of "mining". To test it, if you make a brainwallet with a password of "password" and then se…

I don't think so. Brainwallets are generated as a hash. So if the input is secure, the output is secure. It's not possible to generate the input from the output. And frankly the connection between password -> private key and private key -> public key is very similar in brainwallets. To crack a brainwallet, given only the public key and sufficient bits in the password, is actually harder than directly attacking the pr…

To crack a brainwallet, given only the public key and sufficient bits in the password, is actually harder than directly attacking the private key.

It's incredible to see such misinformation on HN. I suggest you read this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/315/articles/A%20Large-S...

This is a 2007 study on web password habits. In it, they reveal the fact that fewer than 1% of passwords have bitstrength >= 90 bits: http://i.imgur.com/8vSrx2E.png

Achieving 128 bits of protection with a user selectable and memorable password is statistically unlikely (to put it mildly).

The fact that a brainwallet password is memorable means a computer can bruteforce it in far fewer operations, too. I.e. the bitstrength is mostly meaningless. Just ask the guy who runs http://www.cloudcracker.com

A memorable user-selectable password is incredibly unlikely to be as strong as 128 random bits.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#94

Post by PeterisP »

josephagoss wrote: post #7
cheez wrote: post #2

This is why I can't take Bitcoin seriously. The privacy implications are insane.

Please stop with the privacy scaremongering. A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising services that will largely stop this type of tracking. (coinjoin/zerocoin) A lot of us are investing with the expectation true anonymous transactions eventually happen, because when they do Bitcoin will become even more valuable.

Can any of the mixing/anonymising services hide the fact that a mixing/anonymising service was used?

It's trivial to work against them - simply forbid any legal business offering goods, services or bitcoin-currency transactions to accept such coins. In essence, the same way that they're fighting right now against laundered cash - you can do it, but not on large scale, and it's not accepted for most of assets you want to buy.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#95

Post by PeterisP »

mindcrime wrote: post #85
consonants wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the motivations behind money laundering are driven almost exclusively by crime. For purchases you wish to remain private, such as personally embarrassing products, there are 'anonymizing' but traceable services for you to save face with. There are very few legitimate reasons to be concealing where you money came from or is going from the IRS, and they well aware of the intent behind the actions.

There are very few legitimate reasons to be concealing where you money came from or is going from the IRS That's irrelevant. I don't need a reason for concealing where my money comes from. Oh sure, the IRS may disagree, but I have a really hard time giving a shit about what the IRS thinks.

Well, you may ignore IRS but it doesn't mean that IRS will ignore you; and it is perfectly able to take your stuff and liberty even if you don't give a shit about what they think.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#96

Post by PeterisP »

VMG wrote: post #67
hbags wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mixer's sole purpose in life is collect a fee for concealing sources of money. It's textbook money laundering.

Except with Bitcoin, there are valid reasons to conceal the source and destination of money from the public besides criminal activity. The money being "laundered" isn't necessarily "dirty" to begin with. The same logic applies to encryption. People have a right to privacy.

There can be (and are) regulations that may (in particular circumstances) make illegal to conceal the source and destination of money transfers even if the money is clean.

People don't have an absolute right of privacy - the laws can and do restrict that.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#97

Post by nl »

fexl wrote: post #39
gnaritas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising Call it what it is, money laundering.

The term "money laundering" originally referred to the practice of concealing the movement of funds involved in a crime. Now they've redefined it so that concealing the movement of funds is itself a crime, even if the funds are entirely legitimate and no other crime is involved.

Actually, it hasn't been redefined at all - at least legally.

To quote Wikipedia:

It is defined as knowingly engaging in a financial transaction with the proceeds of a crime for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property from governments.[1]

More specifically, money laundering is defined in Article 6.1.a.i and 6.1.a.ii of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime[2]. The PDF won't let me copy & paste the text, but it uses the language "proceeds of crime" in both subsections.

Some jurisdictions may have monetary reporting laws which are broken during transferring BTCs, but it isn't money laundering (under international law anyway).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Criminalizing_...

[2] http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNTOC/Publications/T...

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#98

Post by PeterisP »

bobwaycott wrote: post #92
gnaritas wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what the reasons are, or whether you have a right to it, if you're trying to conceal where money came from, it's money laundering.

Only if that money is the proceeds of a crime and you're attempting to conceal the source of the illegal funds . The flippant and universalizing way several of the commenters here are referring to money laundering as "concealing where the money came from" cast far too wide a net. The definition you're using here would include concealing where $500 came from that was donated by anonymous friends to give to another fri…

If you're running a coin mixing service that makes the coins anonymous to others then as soon as a single transaction is true money laundering (from criminal activity), then you're liable for that. If a single Fed sting operation on silkroad buys drugs for some bitcoin that afterwards gets to your service - you're going down.

Pretty much the only way to do so 'properly' would require you to make the coins anonymous to the public, but ID all of your customers and keep records on who actually gets which coins in the end.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#99

Post by exo762 »

superuser2 wrote: post #75
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are very few legitimate reasons to be concealing where you money came from or is going from the IRS, and they well aware of the intent behind the actions Nice circular reasoning. Because everything that the IRS would disapprove of is illegitimate? When did the IRS get ultimate moral authority?

IRS doesn't care what the money is from or for, only that Uncle Sam gets what he's owed. Income from criminal enterprises is not special: you have to pay taxes on it like everything else. The source of the income is kind of don't-ask-don't-tell. Spending on sex toys is not special, unless the national security apparatus (or more likely your competitor in the private sector) already has a reason to try to discredit yo…

> Spending on sex toys is not special, unless the national security apparatus (or more likely your competitor in the private sector) already has a reason to try to discredit you. Which is a valid concern for activists, but not most people.

Amazing.

Translation: "Rights are essential for small group of people, because everyone else is not exercising them anyway. So lets just take the rights away".

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#100

Post by hbags »

bobwaycott wrote: post #92
gnaritas wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what the reasons are, or whether you have a right to it, if you're trying to conceal where money came from, it's money laundering.

Only if that money is the proceeds of a crime and you're attempting to conceal the source of the illegal funds . The flippant and universalizing way several of the commenters here are referring to money laundering as "concealing where the money came from" cast far too wide a net. The definition you're using here would include concealing where $500 came from that was donated by anonymous friends to give to another fri…

Put your money where your mouth is. Openly run a mixer. Openly advertise that you are the person who operates it.

If you're right and I'm wrong, it'll be a lucrative business and you'll probably quickly dominate the mixer industry, as it'd be very easy for you to get press and build name recognition. You could do it as a very part-time job.

If I'm right and you're wrong, you'll be in prison.

Post reply on HN