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Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

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Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#281

Post by EGreg »

tolmasky wrote: post #165
zedshaw wrote: post #133

This is seriously the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time. Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest who run an illegal website devoted to the pure greed of cashing in on contraband, and this is what they write: "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dis…

I think you have a deep misunderstanding of libertarianism (which is your right of course). Libertarians don't necessarily not believe in laws, they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers. This is kind of the whole point. Its clear that in your world view "justice" is somehow inexorably tied to government, but there others that disagree (which leads to your confusion in thinking that because som…

I believe I can make the gloating rant a bit more precise.

ANARCHO CAPITALISTS say that we don't need government for anything and the private market will provide it. True, with smart contracts the theft is infeasible, but it was not always so. These exchanges didn't use smart contracts. And there are other crimes than theft of bitcoins.

When crimes occur the question is, who considers them crimes? Appealing to the person to PUT THE COMMUNTY AHEAD OF THEIR SELF INTEREST kind of admits that the system failed a whole community which got screwed by an individual.

As for MINARCHISTS, they always have a copout that they want SOME government. But it's not clear how much or what it should do. Everyone has a different idea or no idea. And even minarchists and Objectivists tout the self reliance and the individual over the community. So why should this individual give stuff back? It was their fault for not securing their site properly. The individual can only be punished BY someone, and then it becomes communities hunting individuals.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#282

Post by MrZongle2 »

brnstz wrote: post #270
JohnBooty wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertari…

Mob justice is not law. For an illustration of this, check out the very first scene of the TV series Deadwood. There's a lynch mob outside the sheriff's office, and they want to kill the person in the jail. The sheriff fends them off so he can legally hang him instead. The creator originally wanted to do a series on ancient Rome, about the birthplace of civilization. The studio wanted a Western. He said, oh, perfect,…

Perhaps citing a television show is not the most credible evidence one can bring to a discussion?

Edit (since I cannot reply directly, apparently): why is it not credible?

Can I start citing the X-Files or Star Trek? How about a broadcast of the Nancy Grace show?

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#283

Post by beat »

weavejester wrote: post #230
beat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reversible transactions are a security mechanism. And not all mainstream financial transactions are reversible - short term bank to bank loans, which can run in the tens of millions of dollars over periods of mere minutes, are not reversible within the transaction process itself (set up another transaction to balance the books if necessary). Of course, this is hardly a realm for consumers! Only a rarified few that ha…

Sure, but the processes that make banking secure mostly rely on human interaction, insurance and centralisation, which are obviously difficult or impossible to apply to Bitcoin. The current batch of Bitcoin businesses are getting hard lessons in information security, whereas the mainline banking system can compensate for any deficiencies in their software with more traditional security processes. To me, one of the mo…

And fiat currency starts looking better all the time. The fact that the most powerful security mechanisms aren't even applicable to digital currency should be a huge red flag.

Short the exchange rate + significant DDOS attack on the exchanges = millions in free money. That's just a for example. It doesn't even require explicit crime on the bitcoins themselves, and can be done at a safe remove through multiple cutouts. (Historical point of comparison - shell companies were used to short airline stock just before 9/11, resulting in tremendous windfall profits for presumably close allies of the perpetrators)

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#284

Post by jrockway »

iguana wrote: post #247
zedshaw wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they believe someone should bring this guy to justice...and then do nothing to him. Then it's not justice. You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here.

zedshaw being an asshole. I'm shocked, shocked!

How is he being an asshole? He is exactly right.

Watching Bitcoin from a detached and neutral position is absolutely pure entertainment.

"Hey y'all, let's make a web page for transferring money and drugs!"

"But I'm not very good at programming."

"No worries, there's CRYPTO!!!!!"

"Oh excellent, we'll sure screw over our oppressive government now! Down with the rule of law!!"

"Uh boss, someone just untraceably and anonymously stole all of our untraceable and anonymous money!"

If you're not rolling on the floor laughing, you're missing out on life.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#285

Post by padseeker »

shawnz wrote: post #124
padseeker wrote: post #86

This is why bitcoin is a sham. The premise of perceived bitcoin value is based on the greater fool theory. What the hell were any of these people thinking? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

That has nothing to do with what has happened here and has been argued ad nauseam in other threads already. In short: the only aspect of bitcoin that may be considered an instance of the greater fool theory is the idea that it is a guarenteed investment. Obviously it is not, and this news has nothing to do with bitcoin as an investment vehicle anyway.

It has everything to do with this - the reason it was stolen is it is a crypto currency with no legitimacy or inherit value. It's not even a physical object, its more like a stock that is not regulated.

If this were real currency or a stock, then there might be some regulation and stealing would be hard to pull off.

This virtual currency's value is based on nothing. The whole hacked account thing has a lot in common with some of the stock scams that occurred pre-depression. You have phony stocks which people buy into, it gets pumped, value is inflated, then dumped only to find out there was no company or the books were cooked. For all we know the guy that created silk road 2 'hacked' it himself and pocketed the bitcoins. This has more in common with a bad stock deal than a real robbery. And bitcoin has about the same real value as one of the phony stocks peddled on the market in the 1920s.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#286

Post by tinco »

aaronem wrote: post #184
ewoodrich wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if some group decided I was a criminal by their standards (say if I insulted them on the street, or something), they could come to my home in the night and summarily execute me?

Your common or garden libertarian will construct all manner of complex arguments as to how that isn't so, but there's really nothing in the philosophy which forbids it.

.. so their answer to a single central government is a multitude of smaller governments? How is that better?

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#287

Post by shpxnvz »

brnstz wrote: post #270
JohnBooty wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertari…

Mob justice is not law. For an illustration of this, check out the very first scene of the TV series Deadwood. There's a lynch mob outside the sheriff's office, and they want to kill the person in the jail. The sheriff fends them off so he can legally hang him instead. The creator originally wanted to do a series on ancient Rome, about the birthplace of civilization. The studio wanted a Western. He said, oh, perfect,…

And yet mob justice is exactly what we have in US, though sometimes with a legislative session's worth of delay. A constitutional republic protects against mob justice through individual guarantees of property and liberty, and further through strict limitations on the state's power. Our government, of course, has long since managed to rid itself of most of these limitations.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#288

Post by crystaln »

The hatred for Mt Gox in the bitcoin community blinded them to the reality that the malleability bug is very serious. The way the bitcoin community responded was irresponsible.

Regardless of whether there are workarounds, it's a tragic security flaw in the protocol and should have been treated as such.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#289

Post by natmaster »

zedshaw wrote: post #133

This is seriously the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time. Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest who run an illegal website devoted to the pure greed of cashing in on contraband, and this is what they write: "I’ve included transaction logs at the bottom of this message. Review the vendor’s dis…

You're confusing Libertarianism with some variants of anarchism. Libertarians simply disagree about the ROLE of government - not whether it should exist.

Libertarians believe the government should enforce property rights. However, they don't believe the government should make person decisions like who to love or what to eat. Note that only you own yourself, so any harm someone does to someone else or their property is considered an offense requiring action.

Also, objectivism is not a prerequisite philosophy for libertarianism. All that is required is the non-aggression principal and voluntarism.

Re: Silk Road 2 Hacked, All Bitcoins Stolen

#290

Post by [deleted] »

zedshaw wrote: post #173
tolmasky wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a deep misunderstanding of libertarianism (which is your right of course). Libertarians don't necessarily not believe in laws, they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers. This is kind of the whole point. Its clear that in your world view "justice" is somehow inexorably tied to government, but there others that disagree (which leads to your confusion in thinking that because som…

"they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they believe someone should bring this guy to justice...and then do nothing to him. Then it's not justice. You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here.

[deleted]
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