Okay, I'm going to go out on a branch and throw up a strange hypothesis. I don't have any stake in the Bitcoin or drug dealing games, apart from generalized anarchistic tendancy:
Silk Road 2 was a project set-up by some government agency or gangsters.
The overall plan is to eliminate competition and sow uncertainty around both Bitcoin and Silk Road type unregulated markets with anonymous owners.
The "transaction malleability" issue is totally unrelated to this event - it's not an exploit that can be used to 'steal' Bitcoins, only to corrupt the blockchain and/or mess with transactions (eg. cause them to fail or end up in limbo).
"We were planning on re-launching the new auto-finalize and Dispute Center this past weekend, and our projections of order finalization volume indicated that we would need the community’s full balance in hot storage." - a silly excuse for such an obvious mistake. No imaginable system would require the entire balance of the community to be stored in such a way, no reasonable systems architect would do this.
"The details we have on the hacker are below. Stop at nothing to bring this person to your own definition of justice.
We normally do not doxx anyone, and hold user information sacred. But this is an extreme situation affecting our entire community, and all three users who have exploited this vulnerability are very much at risk until they approach us directly to assist with any information.
Do not reveal any details of the attack. This will jeopardize your reward. Contact us directly.
If anyone has purchased or sold to these usernames, expect generous bounties for any information you can contribute which leads to identification." - hold on, where's the evidence? What is he going to do with any information provided by his internet personal army? Why should others do his work for him in tracking these supposed hackers down?
"Few hours before the announcement we at DeepDotWeb received a mail saying: 'SilkRoad hacked, 150 BTC stolen, you heard it first from me' this was sent to us by a reddit user who claimed since yesterday he was going to hack SR and steal the sites money" - Wouldn't that just be the perfect cover? Get some small-timers to grab a little and point the finger at them while he makes off with the much larger remainder. Besides, didn't this guy just say that he needs help tracking the attackers down? How does he then know enough to attach addresses to particular handles and countries? I admit some unfamiliarity with both Bitcoin and Silk Road/2 here so I hope somebody else can fill me in on this.
"It takes the integrity of all of us to push this movement forward. Whoever you are, you still have a chance to act in the interest of helping this community. Keep a percentage, return the rest. Don’t walk away with your fellow freedom fighters’ coins." - An attempt to insinuate that the 'thief' is a member of the Bitcoin in-group, alongside the author. An appeal to those already attached to the in-group to 'join' the author in 'solidarity' and painting this event as an battle to defend Bitcoin itself. One that was already 'lost', I note.
"Multi-signature transactions are the only way this community will be protected long-term." - oh yes, if ditching anonymity by tying identities and transactions together in an easily auditable fashion is 'protection' in this business.
"I should have taken MtGox and Bitstamp’s lead and disabled withdrawals as soon as the malleability issue was reported. I was slow to respond and too skeptical of the possible issue at hand." - I believe this to be a stretch of the truth, weren't the MtGox and Bitstamp shutdowns totally unrelated to this 'exploit'?
"If this financial hardship places you at risk of physical harm, contact me directly and I will do my best to help you with my remaining personal funds." - Give us all your information and I promise I'll send you some money!
"Hindsight is already suggesting dozens of ways this could have been prevented, but we must march onward." - Translation: I just lost a lot of your money, trust me so I can do it again or lose faith in Bitcoin entirely.
"In retrospect this was incredibly foolish, and I take full responsibility for this decision. I have failed you as a leader, and am completely devastated by today’s discoveries." - Awesome, an anonymous guy with nothing to lose takes full responsibility.
I'd love to hear some thoughts on these comments and if anybody is thinking along the same lines? Alternatively, I'd also love to hear good arguments against this position.
