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Hackers Hit Mt. Gox Exchange's CEO, Claim To Publish Evidence Of Fraud.

50 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

polemic 13y ago
A moot point by now, but publicly declaring a hack is a pretty good way of making it harder to actually prove fraud. Any potential defence will go along the lines of "hackers with malicious intent could have planted this evidence". At the minimum Gox should be considered criminally negligent, but "publishing evidence of fraud" via hacking them isn't going to help bring legal action. I realise, of course, that this might not be the aim here. :)
zacinbusiness 13y ago
“It’s time that MTGOX got the bitcoin communities wrath instead of [the] Bitcoin Community getting Goxed,” Called it! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7340567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7340567
- skorgu 13y ago
  Sadly Gox has been a punchline for a while: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/19eg9h/only_11am_et_and_coinbase_already_hit_buy_limit/c8nlrwf http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/19eg9h/only_11am_et...
  - zacinbusiness 13y ago
    Sadface
- baby 13y ago
  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=goxed http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=goxed
- jordsmi 13y ago
  Just a few years off
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Really with the down votes?
DrStalker 13y ago
How does the DB dump show fraud? I can see the DB shows they have half a million bitcoins, but if Gox's claims are true then the problem is the DB doesn't match reality; their DB will show they have coins but their wallet is empty. There are plenty of things to distrust about Mt Gox, but this isn't evidence of anything other than a security vulnerability that allows their DB to be stolen. (which is a big problem on it's own when you're in finance, but Mt Gox is past the point where being hacked again will hurt their reputation in any meaningful way)
nullc 13y ago
The "evidence of fraud" is that the sum of all bitcoin deposits minus the sum of withdraws is some 500k number, while the sum of balances is some 900k number. However, this is not evidence of fraud: The deposits and withdraws dump is missing data, some older transactions are not in it. The same older transactions appear differently in the from the export feature on the mtgox site: instead of deposit/withdraw those records show just "in" or "out". I assume those are records from some past version of the site software and are just stored in another table.
eliteraspberrie 13y ago
Go straight to the article: https://www.readability.com/articles/3bukomx5 https://www.readability.com/articles/3bukomx5
fragsworth 13y ago
> "a user on the BitcoinTalk forum posted a message–since deleted by the forum’s moderators–claiming to be offering for sale a 20 gigabyte stolen database from Mt. Gox, including the personal details of all its users and even scans of their passports." Incredibly unbelievable. It's not enough that they stole bitcoins from me. Their site made no mention of how I wouldn't be able to withdraw them for months without verification - it said "Your limit is 100BTC" and I was willing to take the risk of them holding my coins for a day or two so I could sell and buy back based on recent news. Only to find out by surprise that my risk extended for months while I was required to send them my private documents. But also, like a slap in the face, instead of turning their servers off once they declared bankruptcy, they now they let the hacker world have access to photocopies of my driver's license, passport, home address, and gas bill? I can't even begin to express the rage I have for this man and his lies and incompetence. I have never hated someone so much in my entire life.
- tsurantino 13y ago
  Can this imply that there should be some reasonable threshold for the kind of documents you give to someone in a certain context? Personally, I wouldn't give up my passport unless it was for the government or a government-certified service.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    > I wouldn't give up my passport unless it was for the government or a government-certified service. I wouldn't either, but Mt. Gox wouldn't send my bitcoins back without it, so I was forced to send it to them. And then they managed to lose my bitcoins and my documents.
    - brubaker 13y ago
      I have a bridge to sell. Would you be interested?
- iamshs 13y ago
  I feel for you. My cousin has also lost his money and driver's license copy. Incredible amount of incompetence. He said that it is ironic that he is saying he has lost money rather than bitcoins. Also, the people who leaked this database are unto more nefarious purposes, the DB dump contained a malware file, which if run searches for bitcoin wallets on the host computer. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibannebackofficeexe_executable_is_wallet/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibanneb...

50 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

A moot point by now, but publicly declaring a hack is a pretty good way of making it harder to actually prove fraud. Any potential defence will go along the lines of "hackers with malicious intent could have planted this evidence". At the minimum Gox should be considered criminally negligent, but "publishing evidence of fraud" via hacking them isn't going to help bring legal action. I realise, of course, that this might not be the aim here. :)

zacinbusiness 13y ago

“It’s time that MTGOX got the bitcoin communities wrath instead of [the] Bitcoin Community getting Goxed,” Called it! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7340567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7340567

skorgu 13y ago
Sadly Gox has been a punchline for a while: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/19eg9h/only_11am_et_and_coinbase_already_hit_buy_limit/c8nlrwf http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/19eg9h/only_11am_et...
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Sadface
baby 13y ago
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=goxed http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=goxed
jordsmi 13y ago
Just a few years off
zacinbusiness 13y ago
Really with the down votes?

DrStalker 13y ago

How does the DB dump show fraud? I can see the DB shows they have half a million bitcoins, but if Gox's claims are true then the problem is the DB doesn't match reality; their DB will show they have coins but their wallet is empty. There are plenty of things to distrust about Mt Gox, but this isn't evidence of anything other than a security vulnerability that allows their DB to be stolen. (which is a big problem on it's own when you're in finance, but Mt Gox is past the point where being hacked again will hurt their reputation in any meaningful way)

nullc 13y ago

The "evidence of fraud" is that the sum of all bitcoin deposits minus the sum of withdraws is some 500k number, while the sum of balances is some 900k number. However, this is not evidence of fraud: The deposits and withdraws dump is missing data, some older transactions are not in it. The same older transactions appear differently in the from the export feature on the mtgox site: instead of deposit/withdraw those records show just "in" or "out". I assume those are records from some past version of the site software and are just stored in another table.

eliteraspberrie 13y ago

Go straight to the article: https://www.readability.com/articles/3bukomx5 https://www.readability.com/articles/3bukomx5

fragsworth 13y ago

> "a user on the BitcoinTalk forum posted a message–since deleted by the forum’s moderators–claiming to be offering for sale a 20 gigabyte stolen database from Mt. Gox, including the personal details of all its users and even scans of their passports." Incredibly unbelievable. It's not enough that they stole bitcoins from me. Their site made no mention of how I wouldn't be able to withdraw them for months without verification - it said "Your limit is 100BTC" and I was willing to take the risk of them holding my coins for a day or two so I could sell and buy back based on recent news. Only to find out by surprise that my risk extended for months while I was required to send them my private documents. But also, like a slap in the face, instead of turning their servers off once they declared bankruptcy, they now they let the hacker world have access to photocopies of my driver's license, passport, home address, and gas bill? I can't even begin to express the rage I have for this man and his lies and incompetence. I have never hated someone so much in my entire life.

tsurantino 13y ago
Can this imply that there should be some reasonable threshold for the kind of documents you give to someone in a certain context? Personally, I wouldn't give up my passport unless it was for the government or a government-certified service.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  > I wouldn't give up my passport unless it was for the government or a government-certified service. I wouldn't either, but Mt. Gox wouldn't send my bitcoins back without it, so I was forced to send it to them. And then they managed to lose my bitcoins and my documents.
  - brubaker 13y ago
    I have a bridge to sell. Would you be interested?
iamshs 13y ago
I feel for you. My cousin has also lost his money and driver's license copy. Incredible amount of incompetence. He said that it is ironic that he is saying he has lost money rather than bitcoins. Also, the people who leaked this database are unto more nefarious purposes, the DB dump contained a malware file, which if run searches for bitcoin wallets on the host computer. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibannebackofficeexe_executable_is_wallet/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibanneb...