4 ms·

I wonder how many people were already exploiting this by stealing $50 a day or something. With bitcoin it'd be nearly impossible to arrest them, right? So an un

by brhsiao 10y ago

I wonder how many people were already exploiting this by stealing $50 a day or something. With bitcoin it'd be nearly impossible to arrest them, right? So an unethical person would have tremendous incentive to abuse it?

problems 10y ago
It's perfectly possible to arrest them, it just may be harder to track them down... or easier, the blockchain does sometimes reveal a lot and unless the attacker is fairly clever they may easily compromise their identity (ie: depositing to an exchange account tied to their name and verified). If they're smart and ran the exploit via Tor -> VPN (as to not get caught by automatic Tor filters) and then took the coins through a few mixers and onto a russian exchange, they could then sweep them back into a wallet in near-complete safety. Laundering bitcoins is challenging and risky due to the nature of the ledger - all transactions since mining must be known for all time - if you were to look at something like Monero or ZCash, things get a lot easier and you get cryptographically unbreakable anonymity rather than socially and legally difficult-to-break complexity.
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- 3pt14159 10y ago
  If you have an offline wallet that has always been offline it is very, very, very easy to get away with criminal activity and take Bitcoin. After I read through the Satoshi paper and understood it completely I realized that Bitcoin was either going to be worth $0 in the future or $100k or more per coin, but it probably won't stay in between for the long term. The $0 case is the case where hostage taking starts to become mainstream. I'm actually shocked it isn't happening more in places like Brazil. Perhaps cyber criminals aren't smart to begin with and are (rightfully) wary of things like computers, but I expect that this will change over time. Once MPs in Canada start getting kidnapped and ransomed there will be public outrage to do something. The problem is that due to the decentralized nature the best you can hope for is to block it / make it illegal within the country. If every country does this it's value will go to 0 or just above. The other case is where Bitcoin solves the financial problem of our time: other Governments / financial institutions can't be trusted this provides (among other things) a way of transferring $100m securely for 0 cost. It also allows individuals to avoid exponential inflation. Just an unbelievably useful service that if you make illegal before other countries and it takes off leaves your economy in much worse shape since the appreciation of the coins has gone largely to other individuals. My pet conspiracy theory that I don't really believe, but I like to entertain, is that Bitcoin was an American intelligence operation to ensure currency dominance in an era of weakening US influence. Satoshi himself has quite a bit of Bitcoin (around 1M BTC / $100m USD) and it would be fairly easy for an NSA staffer to raise his hand in a meeting and say "Hey guys, we should mine this stuff because it will be useful for buying zero days from cyber criminals one day." But maybe I'm giving the NSA more credit than they deserve.
  - Buge 10y ago
    What do you mean by offline wallet? The only times I've heard of offline wallets is in the context of preventing your bitcoins from being stolen, not of avoiding being caught by police.
    - 3pt14159 10y ago
      You can generate a wallet on a computer that isn't connected to the internet and then get someone to send money to it. A wallet is just a bunch of fancy cryptographic tools, none of which need to be online. Once you are ready to spend your Bitcoins, then you'll need to communicate with the blockchain, but not before.
  - pyre 10y ago
    > If you have an offline wallet that has always been offline it is very, very, very easy to get away with criminal activity and take Bitcoin. Taking Bitcoin isn't the part that gets you caught, it's the spending it somewhere that does. This is often the same with real money.
  - problems 10y ago
    And what are you going to do once you have that bitcoin in your secure offline wallet? Anywhere you spend it can see it came from your address and you just kidnapped X person, so you'll have a hard time spending it in person especially if authorities are watching. You can try to spend it online, but if you spend it with anyone more easily accessible than you and provide any identifying information to convert funds to a local currency or ship yourself something, you're screwed. Like I said, the best you can do is mixing and similar, but you know what criminals actually primarily use? Cash. Cash is fungible and untraceable. If you're going to do some hostage taking, you may as well do it for cash rather than bitcoin, the only potential benefit of bitcoin would be verification might be easier than cash.
    - 3pt14159 10y ago
      Ransoms are not paid with clean cash. They are paid with marked bills. If you take a ransom and, after taking some precautions, wait a year then meet up with someone in another country it's pretty likely you'll get away with it. If you have someone you trust in a location that's out of reach for the authorities it's even easier. It isn't like the FBI is busting down the doors of the encrypted HD ransomers.

by brhsiao 10y ago

problems 10y ago

It's perfectly possible to arrest them, it just may be harder to track them down... or easier, the blockchain does sometimes reveal a lot and unless the attacker is fairly clever they may easily compromise their identity (ie: depositing to an exchange account tied to their name and verified). If they're smart and ran the exploit via Tor -> VPN (as to not get caught by automatic Tor filters) and then took the coins through a few mixers and onto a russian exchange, they could then sweep them back into a wallet in near-complete safety. Laundering bitcoins is challenging and risky due to the nature of the ledger - all transactions since mining must be known for all time - if you were to look at something like Monero or ZCash, things get a lot easier and you get cryptographically unbreakable anonymity rather than socially and legally difficult-to-break complexity.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
3pt14159 10y ago
If you have an offline wallet that has always been offline it is very, very, very easy to get away with criminal activity and take Bitcoin. After I read through the Satoshi paper and understood it completely I realized that Bitcoin was either going to be worth $0 in the future or $100k or more per coin, but it probably won't stay in between for the long term. The $0 case is the case where hostage taking starts to become mainstream. I'm actually shocked it isn't happening more in places like Brazil. Perhaps cyber criminals aren't smart to begin with and are (rightfully) wary of things like computers, but I expect that this will change over time. Once MPs in Canada start getting kidnapped and ransomed there will be public outrage to do something. The problem is that due to the decentralized nature the best you can hope for is to block it / make it illegal within the country. If every country does this it's value will go to 0 or just above. The other case is where Bitcoin solves the financial problem of our time: other Governments / financial institutions can't be trusted this provides (among other things) a way of transferring $100m securely for 0 cost. It also allows individuals to avoid exponential inflation. Just an unbelievably useful service that if you make illegal before other countries and it takes off leaves your economy in much worse shape since the appreciation of the coins has gone largely to other individuals. My pet conspiracy theory that I don't really believe, but I like to entertain, is that Bitcoin was an American intelligence operation to ensure currency dominance in an era of weakening US influence. Satoshi himself has quite a bit of Bitcoin (around 1M BTC / $100m USD) and it would be fairly easy for an NSA staffer to raise his hand in a meeting and say "Hey guys, we should mine this stuff because it will be useful for buying zero days from cyber criminals one day." But maybe I'm giving the NSA more credit than they deserve.
- Buge 10y ago
  What do you mean by offline wallet? The only times I've heard of offline wallets is in the context of preventing your bitcoins from being stolen, not of avoiding being caught by police.
  - 3pt14159 10y ago
    You can generate a wallet on a computer that isn't connected to the internet and then get someone to send money to it. A wallet is just a bunch of fancy cryptographic tools, none of which need to be online. Once you are ready to spend your Bitcoins, then you'll need to communicate with the blockchain, but not before.
- pyre 10y ago
  > If you have an offline wallet that has always been offline it is very, very, very easy to get away with criminal activity and take Bitcoin. Taking Bitcoin isn't the part that gets you caught, it's the spending it somewhere that does. This is often the same with real money.
- problems 10y ago
  And what are you going to do once you have that bitcoin in your secure offline wallet? Anywhere you spend it can see it came from your address and you just kidnapped X person, so you'll have a hard time spending it in person especially if authorities are watching. You can try to spend it online, but if you spend it with anyone more easily accessible than you and provide any identifying information to convert funds to a local currency or ship yourself something, you're screwed. Like I said, the best you can do is mixing and similar, but you know what criminals actually primarily use? Cash. Cash is fungible and untraceable. If you're going to do some hostage taking, you may as well do it for cash rather than bitcoin, the only potential benefit of bitcoin would be verification might be easier than cash.
  - 3pt14159 10y ago
    Ransoms are not paid with clean cash. They are paid with marked bills. If you take a ransom and, after taking some precautions, wait a year then meet up with someone in another country it's pretty likely you'll get away with it. If you have someone you trust in a location that's out of reach for the authorities it's even easier. It isn't like the FBI is busting down the doors of the encrypted HD ransomers.