Are there any recorded cases of someone recovering stolen BTC?
Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
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Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#12I 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?
Outside of the asymmetrical reporting angle (which I would say doesn't exist, unless your question is why normal thefts aren't on the front page of HN?), large value thefts are very uncommon in traditional commerce. There was one recent one where an international ring with many participants stole from ATMs using skimmed cards, yielding $45 million, but that has been international news repeatedly for quite some time.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#13I 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?
My understanding, in the US, is if you have a personal account the bank eats the loss. If you have a business account its gone.
This actually is very common. All it requires is enough mule bank accounts to wire amounts below suspicion and spyware on the user's machine (snatches RSA authentication key at entry if two factor verification is used.) The banks don't want the event to be publicized and the company/small business doesn't want it publicized either.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#14Bitcoin is making hacking seriously profitable.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#15Expect organized crime to take an interest in bitcoins. Shady operators and little oversight makes it an easy target.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#16You 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…
I'm not so sure. Where this Bitcoin is spent can now be tracked, right?
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#17You 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…
I'm not so sure. Where this Bitcoin is spent can now be tracked, right?
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#18Expect organized crime to take an interest in bitcoins. Shady operators and little oversight makes it an easy target.
They already have. CryptoLocker is raking in tens of millions of Bitcoins as ransom payments.
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#19Rumors are that SMP was a scam and that it wasn't hacked, but that those operating the site stole money mainly from the vendors. There is also a page about this:
Re: Bitcoins stolen from the users of Sheep Market Place?
#20Seems a little premature to point at the blockchain and say "STOLEN!". Most people won't be able to make much sense of that. The whole situation is complicated.
More info: http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rpy1t/i_w... http://www.sheepmarketscam.com/
tl;dr: For a week or so, many users have been unable to withdraw BTC from Sheep. Admins have been claiming technical problems as they try and implement an automatic tumbler (money laundry to obfuscate transactions) - which (conveniently) could be claimed as a legit reason for all the huge transfer activity seen in the blockchain. They implemented a countdown timer for withdrawals, which for many users and vendors has now counted down to 0, yet withdrawals still aren't happening. They've set a minimum withdrawal amount of 1BTC, which given the insane price of BTC right now seems really outrageous.
Most damning, several vendors who are admins, moderators, or closely affiliated with admins, are reported to have suddenly started doing something which is very frequently seen in drug market cons: Offering far larger quantities than they ever have before, at unusually low prices (50% or less than their previous pricing), and requiring FE (immediate and upfront release of funds to them rather than going through escrow). Frequently done to rope in the maximum amount of hopeful suckers before bailing with the money.
The market is still up and running right now, although their forums are down with this message: "We are enabling a spam filter for the forums, as the number of posts had got out of control. We will be enabling the forum once this is in place. Please try to stay calm. This is a temporary measure, and we will keep everybody updated when we have further information".