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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

#571

Post by manquer »

kart23 wrote: post #414
gzer0 wrote: post #398

Here's how the fed caught them: "The DOJ said it was able to seize the funds after an FBI search warrant of one of Lichtenstein's cloud storage accounts found a file containing cryptocurrency addresses and their corresponding private key that granted access to funds stored within."

what the... no way they just kept an unencrypted private key on the cloud.

This should all be taken with a big grain of salt. The official story be just parallel construction to give cover to say zero day hacks or other covert espionage etc.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#572

Post by arcticbull »

fallingknife wrote: post #556
tablespoon wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If post sale it turns out the money was fraudulent, does the artist need to pay it back? Maybe? IIRC, if you unknowingly buy stolen property, and they trace it to you, I think you have to surrender it to its rightful owner (without compensation from the police).

I don't think that works with money, though. I can't imagine someone who sold a house to Bernie Madoff would have to give up the proceeds of the sale years later when he is found out to have been running a Ponzi scheme.

They actually did claw back a bunch of the disbursements from Madoff towards the end.

https://www.wilsonelser.com/files/repository/PHLY_Article_Cl...

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#573

Post by toss1 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #4

Shouldn'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".

>>which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".

So, crypto believers should be just fine with this.

They used to have the keys. Now the US Govt has the keys. The one who has the keys has the power. All is good

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#574

Post by thinkmassive »

rjbwork wrote: post #85
duxup wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you don't want to lose those keys ... there is a bit of a conundrum there (granted you don't have to do it the way they did either). As far as how exactly they got caught, there was a reward offered by the company it was stolen from. It may have been someone tipped the feds off for the reward.

I'm not invested in crypto or really at all interested in it. That said, my mentor seems pretty excited about it and is pretty heavily invested as of the past few months. I advised him to do something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing and distribute it across a wide number of storage mechanisms, physical, digital, and custodial. For instance, in google drive, in drop box, in a bank safety dep…

For Bitcoin specifically, multi-signature wallets are far superior to SSS: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#575

Post by fhood »

bostonsre wrote: post #286
paulpauper wrote: post #178

Earlier 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.

That requires that you did something that you are very sure the country you end up in won't just prosecute you for themselves. If your crime is massively embarrassing to the US govt you go to Russia, or heinous sexual assault of a 13yo, France. But I think most of the usual culprits in this case would just prosecute you.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#576

Post by rednerrus »

albroland wrote: post #6

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/

Andreessen roasting this guy all morning is making my day: https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1491150099518398466

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#577

Post by nobody9999 »

parineum wrote: post #551
nobody9999 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course innocent until proven guilty applies but the justice department knows that and still brought charges. At the very least, they believe they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt. It's a bit of a nitpick, but the Justice Department (DoJ) hasn't proven anything. The defendants in question have been charged (and arrested?), but no trial (or plea bargain) has been held. As such, presumably the DoJ has w…

I mean that they have proven it to themselves, I don't mean it in a legal sense.

> I mean that they have proven it to themselves, I don't mean it in a legal sense.

A fair point. And it's likely you're correct.

Although using the term 'prove' has specific legal meaning that many (myself included) folks would associate with the use of that term.

As I said, there's what you believe and what you can prove. Believing you can prove something may be well founded, but at least in the US nothing is actually "proven" until it has been adjudicated -- and even then contrary decisions (e.g., in an appeal) can "un-prove" stuff.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#578

Post by jessaustin »

markdown wrote: post #477
thebean11 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm what work is that? Getting a visa? With that much cash I'd leave first (on a tourist visa) and figure the rest out later..

Americans don't need to apply for a Visa to visit most of the world. They just get one automatically on arrival. They could have just bought a Vanuatu passport with bitcoin (~$150k), then travelled there for a holiday. Leave the US with the US passport and arrive in Van with the Van passport. CHange their name in Vanuatu, then move to a 3rd country to settle permanently with a new name. Maybe change it one more time…

...they'll wait until you get drunk (i.e. roofied) at a bar, then kidnap and torture you until you give them all your money. The "red" budget is even more fun than the black budget. Choosing to defy the state is choosing to defend oneself forever against the creepy-crawlies the state pays to notice such defiance.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#579

Post by manquer »

mittermayr wrote: post #135

Sometimes I wonder what the chances are that certain (highly privileged) staff at Google (or other similar data storage or e-mail companies) could run a query across Google Drive looking for a specific public key. Much like a malware scanner, just looking for "a key", just to see if there is an account matching. Unofficially, of course. A rogue employee perhaps. And, what if, in such a case, the employee (in the best…

The I/O cost would be more than any loot you find !.

Jokes apart, it is not easy even for Google in-house teams such a query scanning all their drive folders would be very, very expensive computationally.

Most files are stored as binary blobs, i.e. bin formats like PDF etc with some level of compression. Retrieval costs and file read costs for even most common formats can be expensive and slow

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#580

Post by raydev »

mritchie712 wrote: post #441
localhost wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's also a rapper, and not a very good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIuPPmY9mw

Her delivery reminds me of a CEO being forced by their HR department to "do a rap" in the 2000's to "relate" to their employees.

I got strong "Just 2 Guyz" vibes from it (which was intentionally funny): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt2OVAgkHBc
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