fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/
Interesting that the hack occurred in 2016, and in the same year he left MixRank.
Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
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Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#312> One overlooked detail in the Razzlekahn arrest. Almost all the money went through AlphaBay, using it as a mixer. The feds were able to see through this because they seized AlphaBay. Its amazing how, even years after, darknet market seizures pay dividends to the feds.
Another fascinating detail.
Source: https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/1491118233973571585
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#313Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".
Obvious no-true-scotsman. Believing that the goal of crypto is to circumvent laws regarding possession and theft is at most a fringe belief. The fact that this is at the top of HN demonstrates how devoid of merit crypto discussion here is.
Circumventing property law has absolutely been a selling point of crypto, front and center, since its inception. The real no-true-Scotsman is saying, "Those who want an extra-governmental system of property aren't the real crypto fans." Yes, they are.
In reality, crypto's true purpose is a moving target, so it can never be criticized because that's not what crypto is really about.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#314fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/
Let's be fair to these individuals and not presume guilt. In the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty". Media is so quick to assume the person is guilty just because of an allegation.
There is what appears to be a rather amusing side-effect of this principle:
“The arrests today show that we will take a firm stand against those who allegedly try to use virtual currencies for criminal purposes.” - Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. [My emphasis.]
There's no reason for the Justice Dept. not to take a firm stand against those who try to use virtual currencies for criminal purposes, or say that they are doing so - and, in fact, that would be rather better than taking a firm stand against those who have merely been accused of doing so. I guess that 'allegedly' was inserted here in order to forestall a claim that this statement deprived the defendants in this case of due process, if or when it comes to trial.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if the police raid him (hypothetically), they cannot raid the houses of his family and friends at the same time ...why not? Police coordinate raids all the time.
How many raids? 1 on him, 5 on family, 20 on friends? Isn't that impractical? Also how were the police supposed to know that he used this system?
You really think the government would have trouble doing a handful of raids at once? They have enough officers to do a thousand raids at once. The FBI and Interpol did just that recently, coordinated across more than a dozen countries:
https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/800-...
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what. I think you've answered your own question - a true crypto believer does not agree with that. If the smart contract says the Ethereum is mine because you wrote it poorly and I called the transfer money function in the right way ("exploited it"), a true believer would…
But that's not the way real contracts work. Contracts are an agreement between parties. If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.
> If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.
Only because human language leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Computer output doesn't, or at the very least not nearly to the same extent. If your smart contract is itself legal (you are legally allowed to formalize those terms), and produced an output as a function of it's actual internal operation (and not a random, accidental bit flip) then it should stand even in front of a judge.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just unreal. this guy was living a double life of being the greatest criminal ever. So among our community was a $4 billion hacker, just nonchalantly posting. I don't think he will be commenting anytime soon again if this really is him https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=il like your neighbor being a serial killer or something
I don't understand why he wouldn't move to somewhere that doesn't have an extradition policy with the US. If you go down that path, it seems like you should probably be willing to abandon your life. It's the same with Ross Ulbricht, seems like it would be terrifying living with that sword of damocles hanging over your head absolutely constantly.
If he goes somewhere which doesn't have extradition, FED's will just call him and tell him they will go public that he has $4B bitcoin and ALL criminals will be hunting them after that.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#318The statement of facts is linked to from the press release, and describes generally how the Feds were able to trace the stolen funds (they found a file listing private keys, after gaining access to the suspect's cloud storage) https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1470186/downl... > The 2017 transfers notwithstanding, the majority of the stolen funds remained in Wallet 1CGA4s from August 2016 until January 3…
> they found a file listing private keys, after gaining access to the suspect's cloud storage That's backwards. It's how they wrapped it all up. The real trail is pretty clearly AlphaBay 2016/2017 transactions (under gov control around that timeframe), to KYC-flagged accounts at an exchange, with a web of accounts with real info linked together past there.
If he instead started to draw NFTs, and sell it from his KYC account to his dirty wallet, could he still be convicted? What if only one out of every 100 NFTs his dirty wallet purchased was from his KYC account?
Or what if he decided to create his own crypto-currency and it just so happened that his dirty wallet was an early investor of ETH to his fund.
Seems like he could have done more to distance himself.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand why he wouldn't move to somewhere that doesn't have an extradition policy with the US. If you go down that path, it seems like you should probably be willing to abandon your life. It's the same with Ross Ulbricht, seems like it would be terrifying living with that sword of damocles hanging over your head absolutely constantly.
If he goes somewhere which doesn't have extradition, FED's will just call him and tell him they will go public that he has $4B bitcoin and ALL criminals will be hunting them after that.
No post body was provided.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's be fair to these individuals and not presume guilt. In the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty". Media is so quick to assume the person is guilty just because of an allegation.
The federal government has a ridiculously high conviction rate: 99.96% [1]. They basically only bring the case if they have everything they need to convict. 1. https://www.bhlawfirm.com/blog/2021/05/the-federal-convictio... .
What portion of those convictions are plea bargains?
This article says 97%: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...
Why are people so eager to confess their guilt instead of challenging the government to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a unanimous jury?
The answer is simple and stark: They’re being coerced.