4 ms·

I'm not too worried about this since you can be pretty sure the aggrieved will probably be able to track down the thief by examining the block chain. That is on

by minimax 13y ago

I'm not too worried about this since you can be pretty sure the aggrieved will probably be able to track down the thief by examining the block chain. That is one nice thing about bit coin: it exists outside financial regulation and so penalties for transgressions like this can be handled extrajudicially. My paycheck comes today and I'm really upset I have to pay rent and not just invest the whole thing in more bit coins.

gizmo 13y ago
> transgressions like this can be handled extrajudicially Is this code for vigilante justice?
- this_user 13y ago
  Well, those SMP people stole money from drug dealers some of which may be part of or at least have ties to organised crime. I believe people like that have ways of dealing with something like this if know names and addresses.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- minimax 13y ago
  What I mean is why let the innovation stop at the financial system when we can reinvent/streamline the judicial system as well!
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - danielweber 13y ago
    I upvoted you because I presumed your comment was satire.
    - judk 13y ago
      Please don't do that. Sarcasm is a cancer on written discourse, making it harder to extract meaning.
      - ufdhigdfh 13y ago
        I upvoted your comment because I was unable to determine if it was satire.
        ChristianMarks 13y ago
        I'm upvoting all of these comments because irony is cheaper than advice.
- timje1 13y ago
  Yes, perhaps we could pay these killers in bitcoins. It worked excellently for the DPR, after all!
watty 13y ago
Unless I'm missing something, just because you can look at the block chain doesn't mean you can track down the individual. Can you explain?
- josu 13y ago
  He is probably referring to something like this [0] [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_just_chased_him_through_a_bitcoin_tumbler_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_j...
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Cause trusting random people on Reddit has been sooo trustworthy as of late... http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/business/la-fi-tn-reddit-apologizes-boston-bombings-witch-hunt-20130422 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/business/la-fi-tn-re...
brubaker 13y ago
"so penalties for transgressions like this can be handled extrajudicially" Do you actually believe that? Because you might want to seek professional help if you do, that is delusional at best.
gst 13y ago
I'm not sure if it's that easy. There are dozens of sites that allow you to mix your coins - so that it's harder to track them back. In theory, all it needs is one single non-cooperating gambling or dice site: 1) Split your illegal income up into 10 different addresses 2) Use each address for gambling with a 10 percent chance of winning and 1000% return in case of winning 3) Repeat a couple of times.
- andyhmltn 13y ago
  (I don't know a lot about bitcoin) That's what the thief done. But a user on reddit seemed to track it all the way through the tumbler[1] [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_just_chased_him_through_a_bitcoin_tumbler_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_j...
  - gst 13y ago
    So the user got lucky once. The thief can repeat that process as often as he likes. He only needs to succeed a single time. And even if he doesn't succeed the evidence is pretty thin and might not be enough for a prosecution.
    - gwern 13y ago
      He can repeat it all he likes, he's just making the operator of Bitcoin Fog a millionaire. You cannot launder 96k btc without getting 96k btc from somewhere else, by definition; if you 'launder' without >96kbtc of other people's money, you just get your own coins sent to a new address, and you could've done that yourself for free. Now, maybe he could manage the full 96k btc if he used multiple laundries over many months, but that is time he does not have.
ye 13y ago
That's a huge myth that you can track the money just because the transactions are public. I saw this simple example: Imagine wallets A,B,F,X,Z. A contains your money. B contains somebody else's money. Move the money as follows, 1BTC in each transaction: A -> F B -> F F -> X F -> Z Now you have 1BTC in X and in Z, but there's absolutely no way of telling where they came from. All you can say is they came from F. From now on X and Z are anonymous. And then, you can simply sell bitcoins for cash on localbitcoins. It's pretty untraceable.
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  Exactly, unless they are dumb enough to dump the coins in a major exchange which can 'freeze' the funds nobody will ever be able to trace them. As for the owners being doxxed they already failed opsec day they opened with czech css comments giving away the obscure framework they used. I'm sure they git cloned directly to their boxes on clearnet too.
- rprospero 13y ago
  That system only works as long as all parties agree to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". If one party is willing to take the stance of "guilty until proven innocent", the entire scheme falls apart. For instance, let's say that A wants to send bitcoins stolen from G to X and B wants to send other bitcoins to Z. G simply approaches F and says "You stole my bitcoins. As punishment, I'm going to chain you to a mattress in a 6x6 cell until you confess." That leaves F two choices. F can stand for his principles, keep quiet, and serve as an object lesson to all other potential anonymizers. However, if F doesn't want to slowly go mad from a lack of mental stimulation, then F would probably keep detailed accounting records of each transaction and pass them on to G. G might feel gracious and upgrade F to a 10x10 cell with a window. Granted, most of these options are available with cash, but you don't have the transaction record which shows you who F is. In this way, bitcoin is easier to trace than cash.
  - ye 13y ago
    Well that was just a simple example with round numbers. In reality you will have thousands and thousands of such transactions all going to seemingly random wallets with random amounts, and then to ten thousand different ones, back and forth. They will look like real transactions too. You can't possibly track something like that. Most wallets don't have any names attached to them. And even in this simple example you don't know who F, X and Z are and how to find them. They are just wallet numbers.

by minimax 13y ago

gizmo 13y ago

> transgressions like this can be handled extrajudicially Is this code for vigilante justice?

this_user 13y ago
Well, those SMP people stole money from drug dealers some of which may be part of or at least have ties to organised crime. I believe people like that have ways of dealing with something like this if know names and addresses.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
minimax 13y ago
What I mean is why let the innovation stop at the financial system when we can reinvent/streamline the judicial system as well!
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- danielweber 13y ago
  I upvoted you because I presumed your comment was satire.
  - judk 13y ago
    Please don't do that. Sarcasm is a cancer on written discourse, making it harder to extract meaning.
    - ufdhigdfh 13y ago
      I upvoted your comment because I was unable to determine if it was satire.
      - ChristianMarks 13y ago
        I'm upvoting all of these comments because irony is cheaper than advice.
timje1 13y ago
Yes, perhaps we could pay these killers in bitcoins. It worked excellently for the DPR, after all!

watty 13y ago

Unless I'm missing something, just because you can look at the block chain doesn't mean you can track down the individual. Can you explain?

josu 13y ago
He is probably referring to something like this [0] [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_just_chased_him_through_a_bitcoin_tumbler_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_j...
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Cause trusting random people on Reddit has been sooo trustworthy as of late... http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/business/la-fi-tn-reddit-apologizes-boston-bombings-witch-hunt-20130422 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/business/la-fi-tn-re...

brubaker 13y ago

"so penalties for transgressions like this can be handled extrajudicially" Do you actually believe that? Because you might want to seek professional help if you do, that is delusional at best.

gst 13y ago

I'm not sure if it's that easy. There are dozens of sites that allow you to mix your coins - so that it's harder to track them back. In theory, all it needs is one single non-cooperating gambling or dice site: 1) Split your illegal income up into 10 different addresses 2) Use each address for gambling with a 10 percent chance of winning and 1000% return in case of winning 3) Repeat a couple of times.

andyhmltn 13y ago
(I don't know a lot about bitcoin) That's what the thief done. But a user on reddit seemed to track it all the way through the tumbler[1] [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_just_chased_him_through_a_bitcoin_tumbler_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rvlft/i_j...
- gst 13y ago
  So the user got lucky once. The thief can repeat that process as often as he likes. He only needs to succeed a single time. And even if he doesn't succeed the evidence is pretty thin and might not be enough for a prosecution.
  - gwern 13y ago
    He can repeat it all he likes, he's just making the operator of Bitcoin Fog a millionaire. You cannot launder 96k btc without getting 96k btc from somewhere else, by definition; if you 'launder' without >96kbtc of other people's money, you just get your own coins sent to a new address, and you could've done that yourself for free. Now, maybe he could manage the full 96k btc if he used multiple laundries over many months, but that is time he does not have.

ye 13y ago

That's a huge myth that you can track the money just because the transactions are public. I saw this simple example: Imagine wallets A,B,F,X,Z. A contains your money. B contains somebody else's money. Move the money as follows, 1BTC in each transaction: A -> F B -> F F -> X F -> Z Now you have 1BTC in X and in Z, but there's absolutely no way of telling where they came from. All you can say is they came from F. From now on X and Z are anonymous. And then, you can simply sell bitcoins for cash on localbitcoins. It's pretty untraceable.

dobbsbob 13y ago
Exactly, unless they are dumb enough to dump the coins in a major exchange which can 'freeze' the funds nobody will ever be able to trace them. As for the owners being doxxed they already failed opsec day they opened with czech css comments giving away the obscure framework they used. I'm sure they git cloned directly to their boxes on clearnet too.
rprospero 13y ago
That system only works as long as all parties agree to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". If one party is willing to take the stance of "guilty until proven innocent", the entire scheme falls apart. For instance, let's say that A wants to send bitcoins stolen from G to X and B wants to send other bitcoins to Z. G simply approaches F and says "You stole my bitcoins. As punishment, I'm going to chain you to a mattress in a 6x6 cell until you confess." That leaves F two choices. F can stand for his principles, keep quiet, and serve as an object lesson to all other potential anonymizers. However, if F doesn't want to slowly go mad from a lack of mental stimulation, then F would probably keep detailed accounting records of each transaction and pass them on to G. G might feel gracious and upgrade F to a 10x10 cell with a window. Granted, most of these options are available with cash, but you don't have the transaction record which shows you who F is. In this way, bitcoin is easier to trace than cash.
- ye 13y ago
  Well that was just a simple example with round numbers. In reality you will have thousands and thousands of such transactions all going to seemingly random wallets with random amounts, and then to ten thousand different ones, back and forth. They will look like real transactions too. You can't possibly track something like that. Most wallets don't have any names attached to them. And even in this simple example you don't know who F, X and Z are and how to find them. They are just wallet numbers.