Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
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Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
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Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#2You are surprised that when you trust your coins to the anonymous operator of a drug marketplace that you get ripped off?
There's three separate reasons why you're screwed:
1) You have no recourse because you can't report the theft to police.
2) You have no recourse because you can't identify the operator, he's anonymous, which means he's also hidden from you.
3) You have no recourse because you can't undo your transaction.
As a good rule of thumb, only perform transactions in bitcoin doing legal things, that leave you at least with some recourse in case things do go wrong. And if you sat there, holding your coins, thinking "oh, I'm just gonna buy drugs with them, what could possibly go wrong", you seriously shouldn't have bitcoin, they're not good for you. Oh, and drugs are also not good for you, so please don't do them.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#3Doubtful. The balance was never 39,917BTC, it's been dropping funds in and out for almost a month now. If it was stolen, they took their time doing it.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#4You are surprised that when you trust your coins to the anonymous operator of a drug marketplace that you get ripped off? There's three separate reasons why you're screwed: 1) You have no recourse because you can't report the theft to police. 2) You have no recourse because you can't identify the operator, he's anonymous, which means he's also hidden from you. 3) You have no recourse because you can't undo your trans…
Even using bitcoins for legal things leaves you little recourse - this is the whole point of bitcoin. When you avoid government regulation and oversight you also avoid the protections it gives - this should hopefully be obvious to anyone.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#5I wonder why you don't see news articles stating 'bank robbers steal $ 123000 from users of [random-bank-branch]' ... could it be because if someone hacks or robs a bank or a legitimate payment service provider such as westernunion or paypal, they are required to eat the loss, not pass it on to users?
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#6You are surprised that when you trust your coins to the anonymous operator of a drug marketplace that you get ripped off? There's three separate reasons why you're screwed: 1) You have no recourse because you can't report the theft to police. 2) You have no recourse because you can't identify the operator, he's anonymous, which means he's also hidden from you. 3) You have no recourse because you can't undo your trans…
Even using bitcoins for legal things leaves you little recourse - this is the whole point of bitcoin. When you avoid government regulation and oversight you also avoid the protections it gives - this should hopefully be obvious to anyone.
If by recourse you only mean chargeback, sure. But that's not the whole story.
If you have a legal entity behind something, like say, bitpay or coinbase, you can take legal steps if they screw you over. You can take them to small-claims etc.
And if you don't trust some entity, you can use escrow with bitcoins, it's possible to setup a transaction where the escrow provider has no way to get at the funds, but can just release to either of two addresses (back to you or forward to the merchant). But of course, the escrow provider would also be a legal entity, otherwise you'd have no recourse against them if you feel they unfairly resolved a dispute against you.
Bottom line is, if you engage in legal business, with legal entities, and take appropriate precautions, you are no less protected than using national currency and chargebacks. If you don't, well, you've got nobody else to blame but yourself.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#7You are surprised that when you trust your coins to the anonymous operator of a drug marketplace that you get ripped off? There's three separate reasons why you're screwed: 1) You have no recourse because you can't report the theft to police. 2) You have no recourse because you can't identify the operator, he's anonymous, which means he's also hidden from you. 3) You have no recourse because you can't undo your trans…
There are plenty of drugs that are not legal and at least not bad for you, although I think the rest of your analysis is decent.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#8I wonder why you don't see news articles stating 'bank robbers steal $ 123000 from users of [random-bank-branch]' ... could it be because if someone hacks or robs a bank or a legitimate payment service provider such as westernunion or paypal, they are required to eat the loss, not pass it on to users?
Bank robbers typically walk away with a few grand if they're lucky, and it'll almost certainly have a dye pack and a tracker in it. Bank robbery is a fool's business.
39k BTC is what, $39 million worth? You're right, news articles cover that differently than a $123,000 loss that's covered by insurance.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even using bitcoins for legal things leaves you little recourse - this is the whole point of bitcoin. When you avoid government regulation and oversight you also avoid the protections it gives - this should hopefully be obvious to anyone.
If by recourse you only mean chargeback, sure. But that's not the whole story. If you have a legal entity behind something, like say, bitpay or coinbase, you can take legal steps if they screw you over. You can take them to small-claims etc. And if you don't trust some entity, you can use escrow with bitcoins, it's possible to setup a transaction where the escrow provider has no way to get at the funds, but can just…
You can do a perfectly seeming legal transactions with an entity that ends up being smoke and mirrors. In the case of real currency, the amount would need to be transferred through banks which can be investigated for crimes by authorities. In the case of BTC, once you send off that payment there is nothing law enforcement can do to help you if the entity who appeared legal was not so legal after all.
Feel free to talk to any fraud investigator and ask them just how common this kind of thing is. They spend their whole work day tracking these down, after all.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even using bitcoins for legal things leaves you little recourse - this is the whole point of bitcoin. When you avoid government regulation and oversight you also avoid the protections it gives - this should hopefully be obvious to anyone.
If by recourse you only mean chargeback, sure. But that's not the whole story. If you have a legal entity behind something, like say, bitpay or coinbase, you can take legal steps if they screw you over. You can take them to small-claims etc. And if you don't trust some entity, you can use escrow with bitcoins, it's possible to setup a transaction where the escrow provider has no way to get at the funds, but can just…
@RyanZAG
Please look into what escrow means. Of course you can do business with an entity you're not sure is legit. The assumption is that you trust the escrow provider, and the Escrow provider is trusted by the merchant. So, the critera of trust for the escrow provider, is quite a bit higher than a random online store.
If carefully select the escrow provider, check their business registration, make sure there's a legitimate entity behind them, this makes dealing with possibly fraudulent entities as safe as with fiat.