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French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

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Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#91

Post by dboreham »

Scoundreller wrote: post #79
whatsupdog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and ip address does not give precise location (unless a third company, the ISP, is also compromised).

I've long dreamed about having "anonymous" internet through coaxial/DOCSIS because the modems should work anywhere on the same node (or maybe even beyond) as long as your connection point is physically connected. I could put down any name and nearby(ish) address I want...

As long as you never connect a phone to that modem (which will leak its GPS location to Google), or order anything from Amazon for delivery to the physical address.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#92

Post by dboreham »

kobalsky wrote: post #80
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #2

Crypto will not be ready for mainstream until effective game-theoretic countermeasures for this kind of thing are built into the protocols.

what do you mean? multisig with quorum has been supported by many hardware and software wallets for years. you cannot kidnap one of the signers and steal all the money. in this case most of the ransom has been blocked which isn't new. many of the major crypto heists ended with arrests due to traceability of the funds or unusable funds due to blacklists.

You don't need to kidnap all the signers, just enough such that all the signers feel compelled to sign the ransom payment transaction.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#95

Post by qqqult »

function_seven wrote: post #10

So the article says, “[authorities] have also not confirmed whether any payment was made” and also says they’re looking for the kidnappers. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that ransom was paid and that’s how they were able to locate the Ballands.

It's even more stupid. The ransom was paid in Ether (ETH) which the kidnappers then exchanged to Tether stablecoins (USDT). Tether is a centralized company that can freeze and block any blockchain address from using the stablecoin that they issue and that's exactly what they did, they froze the ransom.

We'll probably have more details about this in a few days just goes to show how you can't hide on public blockchain ledgers.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#96

Post by kmeisthax »

ripped_britches wrote: post #93

This is insane. So much disgust washed over me when I read about the finger. I can’t believe people are so evil. I don’t have any crypto but I’m worried about those who have it at scale.

My advice for people who own crypto is the same as my advice for people who own guns: You shouldn't own it, but if you do, shut the fuck up about it.

Guns and crypto both have unique properties: criminals want them, and they want there to not be a connection between their identity and the item they plan to do crime with. The obvious solution, for a criminal, is to steal someone else's guns or crypto, not for the value of the object itself but for the fact that it has your fingerprints on it and not theirs. It's a funny kind of identity theft.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#97

Post by justinclift »

galleywest200 wrote: post #46
function_seven wrote: post #10

So the article says, “[authorities] have also not confirmed whether any payment was made” and also says they’re looking for the kidnappers. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that ransom was paid and that’s how they were able to locate the Ballands.

This article claims part the ransom was paid but a majority of the sum frozen after: https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/david-balland-...

https://archive.md/peIe5

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#98

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

kobalsky wrote: post #80
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #2

Crypto will not be ready for mainstream until effective game-theoretic countermeasures for this kind of thing are built into the protocols.

what do you mean? multisig with quorum has been supported by many hardware and software wallets for years. you cannot kidnap one of the signers and steal all the money. in this case most of the ransom has been blocked which isn't new. many of the major crypto heists ended with arrests due to traceability of the funds or unusable funds due to blacklists.

Are you proposing that these measures have made crypto just as safe or safer for the average person to work with than fiat?

It's nice that there are tools available to prevent such things in theory, and it seems like there's some traction in the right direction, but what matters is whether it's safer in practice. I'd love it if that happened soon, but it doesn't seem likely.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#99

Post by qqqult »

roywiggins wrote: post #71
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #2

Crypto will not be ready for mainstream until effective game-theoretic countermeasures for this kind of thing are built into the protocols.

How does a game theoretic protocol stop someone extorting your friends into paying a ransom for your life? They weren't trying to get into his wallets, but getting his rich friends and relations to pay.

Transaction rollbacks. In this case the USDT ransom was blocked by Tether. Rollbacks for non-centralized tokens & networks goes against the goal of most protocols though, so it's unlikely to become the norm.

Re: French police free kidnapped Ledger executive

#100

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

throw101010 wrote: post #76
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd believe that necessary primitives are out there, but it's not really enough to have a solution in theory. A crypto project will have to stop such things in practice before they can legitimately claim to have obsoleted the banks.

If your intent is to lock funds for a specific number of blocks or a timestamp/block height you don't need more than these primitives (nLockTime, nSequenc, CLTV or CSV)... the first two are fields in any Bitcoin transactions, the others are scripting instructions. Some wallets allow to use these various flavors, from memory, both Bitcoin Core and Electrum offer some of these timelocks through their UI. The point was…

zooms out

Oh I see, and I agree with you. Sorry, my mistake.

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