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How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

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Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#241

Post by dreen »

burntsushi wrote: post #194
dreen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you demand compensation from your local authorities because they did not prevent you walking into a dark alley?

I'll re-quote the first sentence of my post: > I agree that MtGox shouldn't be doing any kind of refunding in this case. You didn't respond to my central point: blaming the victim.

Blaming the victim wasn't my central point, asking for compensation was. Obviously the real, criminal sort of responsibility is on the criminals who perpetrated this, and I very much pity him, just as much as I pity anyone who got mugged.

But I still think the victim here shares in the responsibility, because he wasn't careful enough. We're not living in a careless world and we never will.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#242

Post by burntsushi »

pseut wrote: post #234
burntsushi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be surprised if MtGox decides to refund you I agree that MtGox shouldn't be doing any kind of refunding in this case. > what happened is your own fault entirely You're blaming the victim. If I'm walking down a dark alley and someone pulls a gun on me and takes my wallet, is it my fault because I decided to walk down a dark alley? Not at all. The only person at fault here is the cracker who perpetrated the s…

I think it's more like leaving your wallet and laptop on the table at a cafe while you go to the bathroom, then getting upset that they're gone when you get back. In that case, yeah, it's absolutely your fault. Put it another way, if you lent your laptop to a friend, and they left it on the table like that and it was stolen, would you really find your friend blameless ? Would you lend them a laptop again?

> In that case, yeah, it's absolutely your fault.

No. It's not. It's the fault of the thief.

> Put it another way, if you lent your laptop to a friend, and they left it on the table like that and it was stolen, would you really find your friend blameless? Would you lend them a laptop again?

I wouldn't lend it to them again because they are careless and didn't take sensible precautions. I wouldn't find them at fault for the theft.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#243

Post by tobylane »

ritchiea wrote: post #164
RyanZAG wrote: post #76

Isn't this exactly what Bitcoin was created for - to allow unregulated access to currency? I guess people don't really realize what unregulated actually means - and nor do they realize why you really do want regulated currency. This kind of thing happens all the time with real banks, but with real banks, all transactions can be traced and reversed. Law enforcement can follow the required documentation to find the own…

Can't we just keep everything unregulated until it's inconvenient for me that it's unregulated?

Are you joking or being a nimby type fool?

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#244

Post by mikeash »

PostOnce wrote: post #236
mikeash wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is vulnerable to actual smash-and-grab attacks, wherein physical items are properly smashed and grabbed. People still use it extensively. The problem with bitcoin isn't necessarily that it's too much like cash, but that people don't treat it enough like they would treat cash. Few people would put their cash in a robot that would hand it over blindly to anyone with the right password, but that's effectively what…

The key problem with the "cash is also vulnerable to smash and grab" argument is that you can be in Romania and grab someone's bitcoins in Illinois, whereas with cash, you actually have to be physically present, which is easier to notice, easier to track afterwards, easier to verify, and harder to escape from. Also, bank vaults are guarded, you can't shoot a bot and you can't dye-pack bitcoins.

Yes, there are differences, but my point is that people treat bitcoins the way they'd never treat cash. Holding bitcoins in Mt.Gox without two-factor authentication is like having a safe outside in front of your house labeled "CASH" with nothing but a combination lock on it.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#245

Post by pseut »

burntsushi wrote: post #242
pseut wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more like leaving your wallet and laptop on the table at a cafe while you go to the bathroom, then getting upset that they're gone when you get back. In that case, yeah, it's absolutely your fault. Put it another way, if you lent your laptop to a friend, and they left it on the table like that and it was stolen, would you really find your friend blameless ? Would you lend them a laptop again?

> In that case, yeah, it's absolutely your fault. No. It's not . It's the fault of the thief . > Put it another way, if you lent your laptop to a friend, and they left it on the table like that and it was stolen, would you really find your friend blameless? Would you lend them a laptop again? I wouldn't lend it to them again because they are careless and didn't take sensible precautions. I wouldn't find them at fault…

Maybe we disagree on what "fault" means; I think (and I'm pretty sure this is common usage) that if a person takes an action and a predictable bad outcome ensues, that person's at fault. It doesn't make him or her a bad person.

One last example: if you leave the laptop on an open windowsill and it falls out and breaks, is it now gravity's fault? If I throw it up in the air and fail to catch it, am I at fault, or is gravity? If I throw it and want the laptop to break so I don't catch it? Does it really depend on whether I want the laptop to break or not? What if I'm unsure of my motivations?

edit: I hope it's obvious, but multiple people can be "at fault" and the person who stole the bitcoins is more "at fault" than the victim here.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#246

Post by brian_wendt »

RyanZAG wrote: post #76

Isn't this exactly what Bitcoin was created for - to allow unregulated access to currency? I guess people don't really realize what unregulated actually means - and nor do they realize why you really do want regulated currency. This kind of thing happens all the time with real banks, but with real banks, all transactions can be traced and reversed. Law enforcement can follow the required documentation to find the own…

Agreed, zero sympathy. Simply you cannot have the best of both worlds.

You don't really need the insurance of the bank and paper trails if you play it smart.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#247

Post by teraflop »

tomjen3 wrote: post #217
teraflop wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The applet itself is pretty straightforward: it downloads the real payload, called "AdobeUpdate-Setup1.84.exe", from g2f.nl/0lczsoo and then runs it. By default, applets don't have permission to access the local filesystem or start processes, but this one has a digital signature which means the user is prompted to give it elevated permissions.

It also means that we can find out who made it by looking at the signature. Unless there is somewhere you can buy a java signature with bitcoins.

The certificate is self-signed, which narrows it down to "somebody capable of downloading a copy of the JDK".

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#248

Post by tripzilch »

jerf wrote: post #136
tripzilch wrote: post #54

So, how about if you could have a Linux boot image onna stick, properly secured, no Java, several BitCoin apps preinstalled and optimized to boot extremely quickly into what would basically be a sort of BitCoin Wallet dashboard interface. You could plug in the USB, hibernate, flip the switch and be Bitcoin banking within seconds. Then unhibernate and get on with whatever you were doing on your day-to-day OS. That way…

"Also, I'm not 100% sure if that hibernation trick is actually possible, I've never really seen it on multi-boot systems and I wonder why, but from what I understand about hibernation (RAM gets saved to HD, restored next boot) the components are there?" It is possible, I've done it. If you're on a multi-boot system with Linux and Windows, you can freely hibernate either and boot into the other, as long as they comple…

That's really cool. Any particular software or packages you used to achieve this?

Also, while it may be a bit of a detour for your data, using DropBox you can at least work on the same files without too much hassle--although... you're going to get the "conflicted copy" stuff if you don't wait until everything is synced up. And if you have to wait, that defeats the purpose of having a seconds-quick OS-switch hibernating trick. How about if they share a local network drive?

> The biggest objection I'd have to your plan is mostly that you'd also need some sort of backup plan, I don't think USB sticks are generally designed to store thousands of dollars' worth of stuff on them.

Good point. How big is the "valuable" part of BCs data? As long as you don't need to work with it, you can store it anywhere, encrypted.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#249

Post by tripzilch »

steveklabnik wrote: post #173
tripzilch wrote: post #54

So, how about if you could have a Linux boot image onna stick, properly secured, no Java, several BitCoin apps preinstalled and optimized to boot extremely quickly into what would basically be a sort of BitCoin Wallet dashboard interface. You could plug in the USB, hibernate, flip the switch and be Bitcoin banking within seconds. Then unhibernate and get on with whatever you were doing on your day-to-day OS. That way…

> So, how about if you could have a Linux boot image onna stick, properly > secured, no Java, several BitCoin apps preinstalled and optimized to boot > extremely quickly into what would basically be a sort of BitCoin Wallet > dashboard interface. You could plug in the USB, hibernate, flip the switch > and be Bitcoin banking within seconds. Then unhibernate and get on with > whatever you were doing on your day-to-day…

> Bitcoin: a currency for regular, everyday exchange.

Heh. But now I wonder how our banks do it.

Over here, and this is different than the credit cards you use in the US, you can log on to your bank account, and transfer money to anyone (within the EU, afaik) with no transaction costs (at least within the country, afaik). The same mechanism goes for online shopping. It's safe because it uses 2-factor authentication (you log on with a password, but need to get an SMS text with a special code to make transactions) and somehow people manage to not fuck this up and get hacked out of $8000--oh I'm sure it happened, but nobody's dumb enough to blame the currency/exchange system, there.

Re: How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today

#250

Post by burntsushi »

pseut wrote: post #245
burntsushi wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that case, yeah, it's absolutely your fault. No. It's not . It's the fault of the thief . > Put it another way, if you lent your laptop to a friend, and they left it on the table like that and it was stolen, would you really find your friend blameless? Would you lend them a laptop again? I wouldn't lend it to them again because they are careless and didn't take sensible precautions. I wouldn't find them at fault…

Maybe we disagree on what "fault" means; I think (and I'm pretty sure this is common usage) that if a person takes an action and a predictable bad outcome ensues, that person's at fault. It doesn't make him or her a bad person. One last example: if you leave the laptop on an open windowsill and it falls out and breaks, is it now gravity's fault? If I throw it up in the air and fail to catch it, am I at fault, or is g…

> edit: I hope it's obvious, but multiple people can be "at fault" and the person who stole the bitcoins is more "at fault" than the victim here.

Of course. The initial point I was trying to rebuke was

> what happened is your own fault entirely

Which isn't just a slip of the tongue. It's an explicit declaration that the blame is 100% on the victim.

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