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Gavin Andresen's commit access to Bitcoin revoked, hacking suspected
- jbmorgado 11y agoBitcoin is just a soap opera that keeps on giving... it's fantastic how much credibility something can keep loosing and loosing.
- spiderfarmer 11y agoNowadays it's hard to trust any monetary system with all the hacking, skimming and fraud that takes place.
- jbmorgado 11y agoWell, you can be pretty well sure that unless western civilization fails and your money is worthless anyway, that you can trust having your money in USD/EUR in a bank up to a certain amount (100K in the EU, not sure how much in the USA), even if they get hacked, skim and commit fraud. Same can't be said for Bitcoin and we keep being reminded of it.
- ianpurton 11y agoThe 100K is against bank default. If your account is hacked from your side, you might have trouble getting the bank to pay you. It would be on you to prove you were hacked.
- s_q_b 11y agoIn the US at least, the semi-governmental FDIC automatically publicly insures accounts, not banks, up to $250,000. In addition most banks are privately insured against fraud. I've dealt with an 8k fraudulent charge on my card before. The bank investigated, sent over a sworn affidavit to sign, and they refunded my money in less than 24 hours.
- raddad 11y ago>refunded my money in less than 24 hours. I had a $20 error charge on my card and it took a month for the refund. This is with the vendor stating in writing it was their error. I no longer bank there.
- danielweber 11y agoThis is factually incorrect. If you didn't authorize the transfer, the bank is legally required to make you whole. This only applies to personal accounts, not business accounts. There is a reason why scammers work so hard to find someone to "cash checks" or "withdraw funds" or do that kind of nonsense. Electronically stealing funds is easy. Keeping those funds is hard.
- mtgx 11y ago> Well, you can be pretty well sure that unless western civilization fails and your money is worthless anyway, that you can trust having your money in USD/EUR in a bank up to a certain amount (100K in the EU, not sure how much in the USA), Eh. Tell that to the Greeks. And it happened for much less than "civilization failing".
- Lazare 11y agoReally? I don't find it particularly hard. > all the hacking, skimming and fraud Sure, I was impacted by that. A while back, I noticed some movie tickets charged to my card in Australia. I called my bank, disputed the charges, they reversed them and sent me a new credit card. Took...maybe 20 minutes of my time? Max? And from this I'm meant to learn I can't trust the current system? Honest question: Why?
- VMG 11y agoThe people who lose credibility here are * The Economist * BBC * Gavin Andresen (unless he was hacked)
- jbmorgado 11y agoWell, Gavin Andresen is a bitcoin core dev that according to this very news just got hacked. It's logical to think that when a core dev of something as sensible as bitcoin get's hacked and you can't trust the code anymore, it takes a really big chunk of credibility from bitcoin.
- VMG 11y agoIt's not clear if Gavin's Blog, Twitter or commit-access machine was hacked, if at all. Gavin is one of many core devs, and Bitcoin good enough security procedures to survive a dev's machine being hacked.
- sspiff 11y agoI think you mean to say sensitive, not sensible. Sensible means "makes sense".
- jakub_g 11y agoThat's a common mistake, and BTW, in Spanish and French "sensible" is the word for "sensitive" (I infer from the name the parent could be of Spanish-speaking origin)
- wolfgke 11y agoThis is a typical German-English false friend: sensible (en) - vernünftig (de) sensitive (en) - sensibel (de)
- thevibesman 11y agoAlso in French: sensible (en) - raisonnable (fr) sensitive (en) - sensible (fr)
- the_mitsuhiko 11y agoWhy is this thing so popular? An our or two ago there were 7 stories about bitcoin on the frontpage :-/
- skocznymroczny 11y agoLots of people who spent a lot of cash on bitcoins and now need to bring more people in to raise its value so that they can cash out.
- mvanvoorden 11y agoThat explains why Steam now accepts bitcoins. Because nobody uses it to actually buy stuff... /s In The Netherlands, you can order takeaway food at practically any restaurant with bitcoin. Overnight, this was the biggest expansion in the acceptance of Bitcoin to date. Whatever your opinion is about bitcoin, it absolutely does not reflect the current reality, where Bitcoin is seen more and more as a serious alternative for payments.
- ethanbond 11y agoBecause a) it's a seriously fascinating system from a technical standpoint, b) it has immense potential to solve a lot of problems — especially for those in areas with underdeveloped financial systems, and c) a lot of people are heavily invested in its success. Regardless of whether or not you think it's overhyped, it's a really really cool experiment in economics and cryptography.
- unlinker 11y agoIn my case I have always liked and followed the Bitcoin scene because everybody in his right mind knew it would turn into a shitshow. I mean you have the combination of an open source community, libertarians, and a shitload of money. The outcome is pretty obvious.
- smokeyj 11y agoI like to imagine Krugman and co pacing around their offices wondering why Bitcoin hasn't completely crashed - with the occasional murmur of "deflationary" and "libertarians" and "no it can't be".
- wcummings 11y agoThey'd probably be more upset about losing credibility.
- orblivion 11y agoWhy laugh at someone's failure? They're trying to pull off a very different power structure. It has political issues they clearly haven't worked out, but how much time in the grand scheme have they had to do so compared to the standard ones?
- danielweber 11y agoIt's always harder to do something than to sit around watching the people doing it. So I give you that. This is hard. However, every time someone has interacted with the Bitcoin community and dealt with the assholes telling them "you just don't get it! this is the new economy!", it makes that someone smile a little bit each time there's bad news.
- orblivion 11y agoYeah I'll give you that.
- Frondo 11y agoWell, because, frankly speaking, they're trying to pull off a very different power structure without getting buy-in from everyone involved. Green U.S. money? At least, at the end of the election cycle, I can cast a vote for someone who will appoint a Fed chair I like. There's some tenuous link from the decision-makers back to me, an American voter. The bitcoin people? They just said "here it is, oh and also we call all the shots, kthxbye". What if there's some feature of the new power structure I don't like? Where can I seek redress? Ask a bitcoin advocate, and what you get is crickets. A new power structure should be more inclusive of people's voices, not less. So, in this case, I welcome the failure.
- aianus 11y ago> At least, at the end of the election cycle, I can cast a vote for someone who will appoint a Fed chair I like. With Bitcoin, you can "cast your vote" for what software the network is running too; you buy a miner and contribute to a mining pool that agrees with your philosophies. Of course, unlike a federal election (or maybe not...), more capital => more votes. The core developers really don't have any power beyond that given to them by individual miners and mining investors.
- ok_craig 11y agoWouldn't you agree that a multi-billion dollar market cap, millions of daily tx volume, and a pretty decent price of $400, all of which keep growing in the face of so much "credibility losing", counter it rather nicely? Humans are folly but the technology speaks for itself.
- wyager 11y agoHow does the antics of some developers influence the credibility of a system they are one of many contributors to? You can claim that Bitcoin is going down the toilet all you like, but by all metrics relevant to its purpose (namely value and popularity) it's doing extremely well. Perhaps your mistake is that you only notice when something that could be construed as negative happens around Bitcoin. Such things are usually more entertaining than the relatively mundane improvements and victories that occur on a regular basis.
- satysin 11y agoSorry I have not been following what has been going on, can somebody catch me up with a TL;DR?
- VMG 11y agoAustralian dude publishes fake proof he's the famous inventor of bitcoin: * http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-significance/ http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-signif... * https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hflr3/craig_wrights_signature_is_worthless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hflr3/craig_wrigh... High-profile Bitcoin dev Gavin Andresen inexplicably supports the fraudster: http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi
- lumberjack 11y agoIt looks unlikely but is there any actual evidence that he is not Satoshi?
- VMG 11y agoIt's hard to prove a negative. All we know is that, at the moment, he is trying to convince that he is Satoshi but uses deceptive proofs.
- nadaviv 11y agoIs there any actual evidence that you aren't Satoshi? You can't prove a negative. There's absolutely no published evidence to support the claim that he is Satoshi, and there's no reason to believe that he is.
- mnem 11y agoIs there any actual evidence that I'm not dead? Well, yes, there is :)
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
- tveita 11y agoThis looks like a political statement, not like a serious security measure. "No sane person would say the things this guy is saying, so he must have been hacked." Like the Soviet Union where political opponents would be declared to be insane to silence them. What damage are they afraid he will do with commit access? Wouldn't it be better to wait for him to commit so they can see what the "hacker" is trying to accomplish?
- 9918291121 11y agoDid you read "Gavin's" original statement. It was full of BS language.
- petertodd 11y ago> What damage are they afraid he will do with commit access? A lot of people run Bitcoin Core directly from the github repo without checking the git commit signatures; someone who pushed a backdoored commit to that repo could easily steal funds.
- speedmax 11y agoYeah right, from someone who has been waiting to attack Gavin.
- forgotpwtomain 11y ago> A lot of people run Bitcoin Core directly from the github repo without checking the git commit signatures; someone who pushed a backdoored commit to that repo could easily steal funds. No one should be running Bitcoin Core from the repo without checking git commit signatures; not everyone whose account gets hacked will post on a blog rather than pushing underhanded but otherwise normal looking commits to the repo - the 'we can prevent damage by revoking access because we saw a weird looking blog post' is just a laughbly bad excuse for a security practice.
- kerkeslager 11y ago> A lot of people run Bitcoin Core directly from the github repo without checking the git commit signatures What? Why?
- coderdude 11y agoI like how Satoshi is a kind of genius God in some people's eyes. Explaining what he would do in a situation, as though it is written in gospel somewhere.
- ebbv 11y agoThat's because Bitcoin's value is entirely belief based (you can't do anything useful with a Bitcoin if nobody else believes it has value), so the whole thing is much closer to a religion than anything based on reason and logic.
- cmurf 11y agoWe're all working with fiat currencies you know.
- zymhan 11y agoI think that's the point GP is making.
- 1_player 11y agoHonestly, that applies to any kind of currency.
- hellbanner 11y agoWhat kind of currency do you accept for your work? Is it reason and logic based or a fiat "belief based" currency?
- BenoitP 11y agoI'll take a bite. A currency that is backed by a powerful and stable state. A state that enforces nearly constant but low inflation; a process by which money has to be invested and flow into an economic system in order to have a shot keeping the same value. I bought 7BTC in April-May 2011 when they were at 7EUR each, during one of the first press-coverage booms. Private key is currently in a cupboard on my old laptop; And precisely because Bitcoin has not inflation, they're staying there.
- zobby 11y ago"Truth is elsewhere ©" https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37pv74/gavin_andresen_moves_ahead_with_push_for_bigger/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37pv74/gavin_andre...
- Lazare 11y agoI'm as interested in the Satoshi/Wright drama as the next bored geek, but... ...come on, this is just getting silly. Nobody really thinks Gavin was hacked, do they?
- nxzero 11y agoAllowing any single person be able to push a commit to something as important at Bitcoin sounds dangerous.
- darkFunction 11y agoThe miners aren't forced to run the code that anyone commits.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ianpurton 11y agoThere's more to it than that. Bitcoin has many eyes watching the commits so a commit from a bad actor wouldn't get very far. Secondly the devs come to some form of consensus and Gitian build is created and signed. https://gitian.org/ https://gitian.org/. Thirdly, the miners decide whether to build the blockchain based on the newer version of the software.
- nxzero 11y agoDo you know how Bitcoin insures the code reviews are done and there's not bias in the review process?
- pas 11y agoIn theory they only do merges and everything has to go through a pull request. Probably with this required status checks feature: https://help.github.com/articles/enabling-required-status-checks/ https://help.github.com/articles/enabling-required-status-ch...
- uptown 11y agoFor those that do own or trade Bitcoin, how did you acquire them? Mining? Buy them out-right using a linked bank account on Coinbase (or some other marketplace)? Received them in-trade from someone?
- esoteric_nonces 11y agoA combination of the latter two. I have bought and sold items from/to individuals using bitcoin, bought and sold bitcoin from exchanges, received them in donation for programs I have produced, and sent them in donation for programs/services others have produced/rendered.
- empath75 11y agoI have a regular scheduled buy on coinbase. I just use it as a second savings account that has waaaaay better returns than my actual savings account over the past year.
- uptown 11y agoAnd do you trust them linking to your bank account to perform the withdrawal? I've never dealt with Coinbase before.
- lucb1e 11y agoAt least in Europe, fraudulent direct debit withdrawals are a lot more damaging to the company performing them than to the person whose money was taken -- the latter can undo the transaction and the former might lose the right to do any (legit or not) direct debits plus bad press.
- empath75 11y agoCoinbase is as legit as it gets. You can even check your balance through usaa now, if you bank there.
- bennyg 11y agoSame here. Seen about 40% returns on it, and I'm mostly just building a second retirement account instead of worrying about day-trading, etc.
- tlrobinson 11y agoIt's worth noting Gavin and Peter don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the future direction of Bitcoin. I sense a hint of glee in this tweet.
- comboy 11y agoFYI, turns out he was not hacked: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2plygg https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rhema 11y agoYou would think that Satoshi, who has been in hiding for so long, would have a fully planned reveal. He/she has had a long time to plan. As long as Satoshi is not outed unintentionally, I would think he/she would have a long list of lawyers and accountants. Roughly 1 million btc could be 400 million in assets. That's a heck of a lot of capital to be dealing with reporters directly.
- matt_wulfeck 11y agoHis interview with BBC suggests he was outed against his desires and before he had settled tax questions with the ATO.
- woliveirajr 11y agoHaving access to more critical data / keys / and so on, if he really planned to go out, there would be better ways.
- at-fates-hands 11y agoSo many possibilities really. . . - Satoshi died somewhere along the line and there will never be a reveal since he didn't pass the keys to someone else. - Satoshi enlisted Wright to take over for him if/when he would pass away. He did and now Wright is bungling the whole affair - Wright either knew Satoshi or was with him at the very beginning of BTC. This would explain his possession of very early block chain keys (#9 instead of #0. - Wright had been working with Satoshi since the beginning, and now Wright (who many have commented is crazy) had a falling out of some sorts and is rushing to take credit as BTC's creator. - Wright is simply a con man trying to flush Satoshi out by claiming he is BTC creator and then waiting for him to appear. Not sure what the end game would be in this scenario - Wright is crazy AND a con man and is trying to claim credit as BTC creator for several reasons, many of which are probably motivated by money. This could go several different ways, but for my money, it seems like Wright was probably around in the early days, and got in right away with a bunch of early keys to earlier block chains. From the outside it looks like his life as a fraud is starting to unravel and catch up with him. I feel like this is the last gasp to try and retain some respectability in the community. He already has a litany of legal problems his facing, and considering very few people believe he is Satoshi, this isn't going to end well for him.
- wfn 11y agoApparently the "verification" shell script that Craig supplied had a deliberate typo which made signature check step worthless: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2poy67 https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...
- jcoffland 11y agoWhat this means is still unclear but it's not looking good for Craig Wright being Satoshi.
- plingamp 11y agoThere are so many theories on what is happening, let me propose yet another. Satoshi Nakamoto is akin to the Dread Pirate Roberts. Who knows how many Satoshi's there have been? Some may have died, some may have lost interest, but the torch continues to burn, and must be passed on.
- typeforce 11y agoRelevant: http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as-nation-realizes-money-2912 http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as...
- jcoffland 11y agoThe Core devs have been waiting for a chance to cut off Gavin's commit access. This was just an excuse. I'm not defending Gavin. At this point it looks like he was fooled but taking away his commit access was a political move. Commits are public and reversible so there is no security emergency. Of anything this is a strike against the credibility of the Core devs.