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Police arrested Dutch man with Bitcoin mining farm for money laundering

41 points by jeroen94704 13y ago

pyalot2 13y ago
Can we lay it off with the aprils fools already?
- zackliscio 13y ago
  On a positive note, now I have a full year before online tech media wastes an entire day highlighting products that don't exist, and why they are so funny. They don't seem to have grasped that explaining a joke kills the humor...
  - celticninja 13y ago
    Explaining a joke is like disecting a frog, you understand it better but the frog is dead.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >now I have a full year before online tech media wastes an entire day highlighting products that don't exist One full year? That's too optimistic. We'll soon be flooded with reviews and articles wasted on programs that don't exist: Apple product rumors, half-baked Google non-products, Microsoft prototypes...
profquail 13y ago
I read an interesting paper not long ago that discussed exactly such a scenario (stealing electricity to mine Bitcoin). The paper is titled, "Bitcoin & Gresham's Law -- The Economic Inevitability of Collapse": http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/Bitcoin%20and%20Gresham%27s%20law%20-%20the%20economic%20inevitability%20of%20collapse%20-%20Ian%20Grigg.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/Bitcoin%20and%20Gres...
- etherael 13y ago
  This paper addresses the pre ASIC landscape. Stealing power from standard systems to mine bitcoin right now would be a complete waste of time, you would get almost nothing from the package with even a ridiculous amount of standard systems. All heavy duty mining nowadays is done by ASICs, even high end dedicated GPU farms can't compete, letalone the kind of machines likely to fall victim to a botnet. If someone did try to hijack those ASICs, you can bet the people running the mining business would notice, assuming it were even possible. It's interesting how this might apply to an altcoin that actually manages to crack the problem of CPU only mining that a few have tried, however. This particular niche will always have this as a potential problem going forward.
  - kanzure 13y ago
    > an altcoin that actually manages to crack the problem of CPU only mining You may be interested in: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf
    - wmf 13y ago
      I'm not sure I agree with this FAQ. Related discussion from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7512222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7512222
adaml_623 13y ago
By definition if you obtain any monetary benefit from a criminal act then it is Money Laundering. It encompasses a lot of different possible activities. Tax evasion is a crime but if you take that money and transfer it to an overseas account then that is money laundering. (posted this same comment in the other HN comment thread about this story)
- IgorPartola 13y ago
  Hold on. Isn't BTC property, not money? By that logic this is like stealing corn, making candy corn, then selling it. Still illegal, but not money laundering.
  - bjitty 13y ago
    This didn't happen in the US. Although maybe the Dutch government has declared it property as well. I'm not sure.
  - the_mitsuhiko 13y ago
    Only as far as the IRS i considered.
tinbad 13y ago
Actually the original title of the article (I speak Dutch) was: Illegal bitcoin producer gets caught (literal translation), then in the first paragraph the article goes on how the guy was 'making' fake bitcoins. It's also good to know that the newspaper in question is the 'Fox news' of the Netherlands. It's known for sensational, on the edge of fictional journalism. On top of everything they're obviously uneducated on many of the stories they publish.
- computer 13y ago
  For what it's worth, I think when this comment was made the submission linked to a different article-- Tweakers.net, the current source, is the most respected Dutch language tech news source.

41 points by jeroen94704 13y ago

pyalot2 13y ago

Can we lay it off with the aprils fools already?

zackliscio 13y ago
On a positive note, now I have a full year before online tech media wastes an entire day highlighting products that don't exist, and why they are so funny. They don't seem to have grasped that explaining a joke kills the humor...
- celticninja 13y ago
  Explaining a joke is like disecting a frog, you understand it better but the frog is dead.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >now I have a full year before online tech media wastes an entire day highlighting products that don't exist One full year? That's too optimistic. We'll soon be flooded with reviews and articles wasted on programs that don't exist: Apple product rumors, half-baked Google non-products, Microsoft prototypes...

profquail 13y ago

I read an interesting paper not long ago that discussed exactly such a scenario (stealing electricity to mine Bitcoin). The paper is titled, "Bitcoin & Gresham's Law -- The Economic Inevitability of Collapse": http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/Bitcoin%20and%20Gresham%27s%20law%20-%20the%20economic%20inevitability%20of%20collapse%20-%20Ian%20Grigg.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/Bitcoin%20and%20Gres...

etherael 13y ago
This paper addresses the pre ASIC landscape. Stealing power from standard systems to mine bitcoin right now would be a complete waste of time, you would get almost nothing from the package with even a ridiculous amount of standard systems. All heavy duty mining nowadays is done by ASICs, even high end dedicated GPU farms can't compete, letalone the kind of machines likely to fall victim to a botnet. If someone did try to hijack those ASICs, you can bet the people running the mining business would notice, assuming it were even possible. It's interesting how this might apply to an altcoin that actually manages to crack the problem of CPU only mining that a few have tried, however. This particular niche will always have this as a potential problem going forward.
- kanzure 13y ago
  > an altcoin that actually manages to crack the problem of CPU only mining You may be interested in: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf
  - wmf 13y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with this FAQ. Related discussion from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7512222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7512222

adaml_623 13y ago

By definition if you obtain any monetary benefit from a criminal act then it is Money Laundering. It encompasses a lot of different possible activities. Tax evasion is a crime but if you take that money and transfer it to an overseas account then that is money laundering. (posted this same comment in the other HN comment thread about this story)

IgorPartola 13y ago
Hold on. Isn't BTC property, not money? By that logic this is like stealing corn, making candy corn, then selling it. Still illegal, but not money laundering.
- bjitty 13y ago
  This didn't happen in the US. Although maybe the Dutch government has declared it property as well. I'm not sure.
- the_mitsuhiko 13y ago
  Only as far as the IRS i considered.

tinbad 13y ago

Actually the original title of the article (I speak Dutch) was: Illegal bitcoin producer gets caught (literal translation), then in the first paragraph the article goes on how the guy was 'making' fake bitcoins. It's also good to know that the newspaper in question is the 'Fox news' of the Netherlands. It's known for sensational, on the edge of fictional journalism. On top of everything they're obviously uneducated on many of the stories they publish.

computer 13y ago
For what it's worth, I think when this comment was made the submission linked to a different article-- Tweakers.net, the current source, is the most respected Dutch language tech news source.