Bitcoin Forum

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/anonymous-group-allegedly-hacked-romney-tax-records-franklin-firm

While the claim of possessing Romney's tax records may well be bullshit, I'm guessing that any extortion threat towards a Presidential candidate is going to attract serious investigation - including an attempt to identify the owner of the Bitcoin address in question.

This could get interesting.

The September surprise! Gavin has some 'splaining to do.

If this person was really serious about getting paid he would ask for 50 or 100K, But they would only pay if he released a teaser like page 65-100 on year 2008 to prove that he has something of value.

I find it odd that this is the only paper to report this..

Hasn't there already been a tax return hoax already? Too bad they didn't just give the info to wikileaks without the ransom. This is the next evolution of journalism if this works.

I'm more interested in the extent to which there'll be an attempt to locate the owner of the Bitcoin addresses.  Y'all seem to take threats towards your presidential candidates pretty seriously over there and investigate everything which could be remotely construed as a threat.

I'm convinced that papers no longer go looking for stories but wait for people to send them leads to stuff found online (and then reprint it without any fact checking whatever was in the first report).

I've seen stories go national after first appearing on a messageboard and then getting picked up by local media, but how much this gets picked up will depend on how many people bring the pastebin to the attention of larger media outlets.

I assume those Bitcoin addresses have never been used for previous transactions (or that they belong to someone the hoaxer really hates).

Im sure Romney can sell one of his 20 houses to pay it.

This isn't a threat though. This is involuntary conformation to established campaign disclosure precedent.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this wasn't a Federal operation designed to target bitcoin just a little more as an excuse to put it under the jurisdiction of some Federal police force.

"We must use all available resources to defend against these threats against our fine upstanding citizens such as Mitt Romney by these dangerous hacker tools..." would be the general tone of the already pre-written communique sitting in some bureaucrats desk at Treasury, FBI or DHS.

I wonder if this is real too. But it's pretty smart. I doubt PW would pay anything here but the extortionist may just be hoping the rest of the public will contribute to getting info released. Either way he gets funds going into either address. Is this the first instance of mass public extortion? I mean telling the world they can see the tax records only if in total they pay out. I guess we'll see if this gets picked up by the mainstream media or if word has been put out to quash it, or if it turns out to be baloney.

They could have sent the private key to decrypt the files to the Romney campaign to prove that they have the tax returns.

Even the threat of extortion would probably be illegal wouldn't it, whether the person posting the message possesses the information referred to or not?

It could just be a ploy to get more attention for Bitcoin. The problem is that if Bitcoin is used for extortions like this, it would be a great excuse for the U.S. government to put pressure to shut down the Bitcoin exchanges and any business that accepts or uses Bitcoin. :(

Think how it looks if they throw all their resources at it and still cant get it shut down.   ;D

They can't even shutdown bit torrent. Bitcoin is a much harder fight.

Bitcoin itself won't get shut down, but the above ground markets that exchange or deal in Bitcoin could certainly be disrupted. The markets for Bitcoin could quickly become black markets.

That argument could be made when any sort of legal tender so I doubt that could be used as an argument to shut down above ground markets/traders.

Even assuming this is true... are they really expecting any payment? I mean, AFAIK, blackmail contracts are illegal and thus unenforceable (well, at least by conventional means). Even if Romney pays, what's to prevent the hacker from releasing the information nevertheless? "Alternative enforcement" is not really an option to Romney now that it got so public.

Plus, as they've disclosed the address publicly, the act of paying it would also be public. Everybody would know that Romney (or somebody trying to protect him) payed the blackmailer. I don't think that would be good for a politician.

I consider this the most likely scenario.  It's clear that whoever posted the pastebin doesn't care about whether the information they supposedly went to great trouble to obtain is released or not (why even explain how you supposedly obtained the information, if that's the case), but there's a chance that a story about Romney being "blackmailed" over his tax records will get mainstream media attention - something  Bitcoin hasn't managed to achieve yet (the technology sections of newspapers don't really count).  If you wanted Bitcoin to get mentioned in the 6pm news bulletin of major TV networks or the political section of major newspapers, this might be one way to make that happen - for better or worse.

As the story is already out, there is not point in paying the thieves. The fact that incriminating tax returns exist, paying the ransom would be as devastating politically, as having them published. The thieves know that and therefore the fact that they will never get paid. Further influencing politics through threats is an act of terrorism

so take it for what it is; a hoax some crazy kind of political attack designed to bring a crab load of hell to the Bitcoin community (if this is market manipulation it's really stupid). Someone please publish the the thieves payment address and be ready to track it when it goes on-line. further make some press statements to underline the seriousness of the situation. Write an open letter to the FBI offering cooperation in in tracking them and giving them technical support, Write befriended congressmen This is serious!!

I wouldn't get so overconfident. They control the banking system. If they shut off funds transfers to Mt. Gox, which would be trivially easy to do, your bitcoin holdings will become worthless overnight.

There are exchanges in other parts of the world that would pick up the slack, using alternative means of funding. It would drive up the cost of acquiring and trading btc, which would probably drive up the value.

Governments banning commodities in demand have a history of increasing value.

They already published the addresses in their announcement (http://pastebin.com/1j1yzQ9S).

I thought of sending a couple bitcents just to see if they get picked up, but I have no interest in the Secret Service tracking me down to "just ask me a couple questions."

80% of BTC exchanges are for USD. Source (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/volumepie/).

Bitcoin is still in its infancy. It would not survive a shutdown of USD-facing exchanges. It's too vulnerable.

How many Americans still play online poker? It can be done using VPNs, a foreign bank account and foreign mailing address, but nobody bothers because of the hassle.

Bitcoin could certainly survive a shutdown of USD facing exchanges. It can always be exchanged over the counter. Shutting down the USD based exchanges would certainly cause chaos in the pricing mechanism, but where there is chaos there is opportunity for clandestine arbitrage. Basically, pockets of price differences for BTC would create opportunities for arbitrage, which would once again provide a price mechanism. The Bitcoin economy can be damaged (even severely damaged), but it's not going away.

Many thought bitcoin wouldn't survive when it crashed last year. The value may drop as a result of your scenario, but it wouldn't be enough to kill the protocol. It has too much utility.

Someone sent .01 BTC to the address to stop the release! http://blockchain.info/tx/f94763d9ab91535a4d2cd2d241b3a5ab09132dd34839218ec858c4729002eb21/f94763d9ab91535a4d2cd2d241b3a5ab09132dd34839218ec858c4729002eb21

Relayed by ip   46.4.121.100 (whois)

Hmm. Can't seem to get blockchain.info at the moment. Is it overloaded by too many people checking... and a new term was born... hashdotted (instead of slashdotted).

Could take quite a while to reach $ 1 million at this rate.

Exactly. It is pretty fascinating to see the resilience of the censorship resistant Bitcoin economy.

If bitcoins are the blood (like USD, Euros, etc.) and Bitcoin the protocol is the veins (like banks, credit cards, etc.) then the Bitcoin economy is like a super-charged regenerating muscle system.

The Bitcoin economy has taken major damage many times (MyBitcoin, MtGox hack, Bitcoinica, Pirate, etc.) but then repairs itself and grows larger and stronger in the process.

However, unlike physical muscles in traditional organisms it seems that as the Bitcoin economy grows larger and stronger the recuperation period to recover from damage (http://youtu.be/AMvDySuhC0U?t=1m7s) actually decreases instead of increases.

Taking this a little further: The thieve's carefullness about explaining the 1M USD denomination on the 25'th shows that they anticipate the price plummeting as a consequence. So maybe it is us who are being extorted? Are they hoping for a community donation of 1.000.000 USD on the 25'th to take the heat off Bitcoin?

If that is the case, the stupidest thing to do would be to make such a fund; dropping prices could make this very expensive in bitcoins on the 25'th. A better thing to do, if people are compelled to part with some money to put this to rest and Romney in office, would be to fund a reward for revealing their identity. You guys found Pirate in 72 hours. How hard can this be?

how about a screenshot of the http://romneygirl.org/ video at 1'18 ? that would be a proof!

Most likley scenario this is a planted manufactured media anti Bitcoin campaign.

How come?

There are plenty of reasons to try and hurry to get rid of a world currency that does not go down in value
and is out of their control so they cant print money.

A currency that does not spy on people and force people to give their money to banks and dont spy on them-
Before people get to understand how good it is.



If there really are hackers having the information.
There is not a single reason for them to go in public with having the information.
If they wanted money.

Not a single one.
They simply would not go to a newspaper, they would go to
where the money is.


If hackers wanted to get payed in Bitcoin.
They would not go public to a newspaper with that info.

Since it would mean the value of Bitcoin could be negatively affected.

If real hackers wanted to get payed.
They would not publish the adress in public in a newspaper.

Because now he cant pay.
Since its public it would be like showing everyone he is guilty.

Thus it becomes impossible to pay.


The fact that its in a newspaper.
It specifically mentions Bitcoins as the payment method.
The adress is published so everyone can look at it.

And even tells everyone what it is they should look at.
Its a joke.

The first rule of a true extortion, to NOT reveal the info you want to get payed for.

But there are plenty of nice reasons to create such a fake campaign.

1. Fool Obama team to send Bitcoins to the adress. WIN

Get journalist a reason to show everyone that he did pay his taxes.
Make Mitt Romney appear as a hero. Who have nothing to hide. WIN

Make Bitcoin look like a bad payment system. WIN.
Buy cheap Bitcoin and get it regulated. Value goes up. Tripple WIN.

Or get a public consensus created a reason to crack down on Bitcoin. Tripple WIN.

So no obviously absolutly no reason to go to a small newspaper if this was real.
Plenty of reason to go to a small newspaper and "plant the made up story" if this was fake.


Another reason if its a fake.

2. Mitt Romney really is guilty. Publish it as something "hackers" found out. Mitt Romney is stuck. He cant pay so the documents will be released. Win. Make Bitcoin look like a bad payment system Win.
Buy cheap Bitcoin and get it regulated. Value goes up. Tripple win.

Or a created a reason to crack down on Bitcoin. Tripple WIN.


Its simply a campaign to connect Bitcoin with something bad.
The selected the tax info papers, because noone would get harmed and they ofcourse know that he had nothing to hide.

They made the misstake to publish the Bitcoin adress, so people would think it was something real.
Oh look, it even has a adress, it must be real by those hackers.


What really gives it away is that.
They didnt think of the fact that if it was real.
The adress would never hade been published and a newspaper never contacted.
Since it means he absolutly can not pay :D


Ofcourse they are not going to buy a lot of Bitcoins and send to a adress.
They just cant do that.

In short it screams a manufactured media campaign written all over it.


They want people to think they what they need is money that spy on them.
Their family, friends, mothers and fathers, politicians, judges etc.

Your Credit Card Is Spying on You
http://www.newser.com/story/85372/your-credit-card-is-spying-on-you.html

perhaps this is pirate's endgame?  ;D Sounds like potential market turmoil in the making, in a number of scenarios, whether pirating or not

http://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8
Activity on the address.

Romney cannot pay this. There will be easily another extortion again.

If I were a pissed admin/mod I won't doubt in injecting the published address in the Pirate signspace as a typical donation address. Just for the lulz.

probably trying to pass a message but looks like gibberish. not sure if because more than 1 person is spamming small amounts (thus ruining any meaning) or simply by inability to transcode binary

Did anyone decode the message yet? See binary amounts again...

Thats exactly what it is. Sad its come down to a 1040 hoax with these guys.

I used this service: http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp

This is the result:
https://i.imgur.com/5k6Rf.png

http://zxing.org/w/decode?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F5k6Rf.png&full=true
This is the result:
0110100001110100011101000111000000111010001011110010111101101001001011100110100 1011011010110011101110101011100100010111001100011011011110110110100101111011010 01

It mean: https://i.imgur.com/i
This is nothing :)

He is probably someone that is trying to make something funny but he's failing.

I expect now that a Romney supporting vigilante will put a $10M bitcoin ransom on the blackmailer's head. Problem solved QED.

Yep.

I didn't rob the bank, I just made an unauthorized withdrawal!

I decoded it and got something similar to: i.imgur.com/5k37g (I say similar because some chars were messed up and I replaced them with probable ones.) But the 5k37g was ok and this one does point to an image of some asian girl. I treated each trx as a byte and padded on left with zeros.

This girl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcLNteez3c4&feature=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcLNteez3c4&feature=relmfu)

Oh, that's hilarious but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean.
Well at least between this and the bitfloor hack we're getting some entertainment tonight.

You forgot to put hack in quotes~

Obviously someone is hoping that there's something blackmail worthy in the tax returns, and putting out the blackmail message for the 1% chance at a million dollars.  It costs them nothing to try.

Making a big deal about this would be great for the Romney campaign.  They refuse to pay, which sways public sentiment to not releasing tax returns, and no tax returns gets released because it's a bluff.

I have important information regarding Ron Pauls favorite icecream flavor, please send 1,000 bitcoins to this address
1LbkeXvcyi622UymtVmiieZF7XLNzFiMYy
or I will release the embarrassing icecream flavor choice to the public!

If this was real, they would have provided some kind of proof they possess these documents. Perhaps the information from a non-incriminating line, which would only be known by Romney or someone who has the documents. Kidnappers always send a photo of the kidnapped person holding today's newspaper to prove they have the person and they're alive.

Since no such evidence was shown, it is very probably a hoax.

Drudge is now linking this http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/anonymous-group-allegedly-hacked-romney-tax-records-franklin-firm

Further evidence that this whole thing is a psyop.

Story gone from drudge for now.  Reaches the tabloids

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/09/mitt-romney-tax-returns-allegedly-hacked-up-for-bids/

http://vector.cobalt-sky.com/pokerplayers/displaytables.aspx?tableid=0004&height=903&reportid=7&clear=true

according to this site any hows. There are many others. But since the US banks first starting to decline online poke deposits the US players have reamerged in fairly large numbers.
It would be interesting to see a comparison of the numbers before and after the banking changes.   

could just mean they knew where the firms office was and not much else. Also, unless they show the scan AND the scan contains the signature and part of the form showing what year and what document it is, i.e., 1040 then it could just be a copy of his signature from any where..

Not sure what they might be thinking on it. Mainly because I have not seen it where I could make a semi-informed opinion on their mindset.  Have you by chnace seen this sig scan?

This seems like a hoax.  Time to move on.

"Reference to avoid Fakes that only you will have.
1.all these considerations did not deter me from the path of duty
2.he moment I understood the will of my Heavenly Father"

I'm guessing this was included to prove to PwC that the theft was legit. I would imagine the lawsuit for allowing the data to be stolen will cost them far more than than $1M.

What does that mean... that was included somewhere?

They might be passwords :-)

http://pastebin.com/1j1yzQ9S
http://pastebin.com/zdU1TK40

he just got my  vote!!! ;D

They also give excerpts from the returns, I don't see how these could be in a tax return but evidently they are clear proof for somebody who has the documents:


A bigger problem with this in my view is that there's no proof the documents won't be released anyway even after 100k coins are TXed. 

You'd have to be a total fool to pay.. right? 

The simpler way is just share the encrypted file everywhere and send only to romney the key, then he will know that it's true :)

LOL looks like it's unfolding further...

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120905/WILLIAMSON/309050153/Romney-tax-return-claim-made-packages-left-Williamson-GOP-office?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7C%7Cp&nclick_check=1

If you look at the blockchain info for the two addresses given by the alleged extortionists, they have a number of very small transactions, all in amounts like 0.01 0.0011100101 BTC and so on, all in the last day or so.  If you trace those back to the last address in the list, it is generally a recently created account with no activity until recently.  If you go back five or six, though, occasionally you hit an address that actually has a substantial amount of money in it.  For example, one I can find has 326 transactions, the earliest 2-18-2012, and currently contains 191.31036195 BTC.

I'm not going to post the blockchain link here.  I'm not particularly interested in "solving" this thing, and you can all duplicate this same "feat" easily enough and post it here if you like.  

My guess would be the odd tiny transactions are binary code of some sort, perhaps adding up to a message like "lulz."  But whoever did this apparently does have some knowledge of the network and how to mask transactions to some extent.

My first belief was they were just completely throwaway accounts created never to be used.  Some people went to some trouble to put a small amount of money in them in oddly structured transactions, though.

Did you read the entire discussion? You should do it :)

Hmmm...starting to get from virtual to real.

LOL. "“A million dollars seemed kind of low,” Barwick said. “If you’re going to go for a million, why not go for $100 million.”"

A symptom of a society hooked on easy money.

Alright, we know who did it. It was Erik Vorhees! This is a man who wants to destroy democracy and popularize Bitcoin in order to get more gambling addicts to use his Satoshi Dice gambling site!  :o

Ha ha. Couldn't ask for $100 million with Bitcoin... but it does sound like this all took place more in private than it seemed earlier, which tends to make it sound more real than if it were announced publicly from the start.

This is going viral and being retweeted by news networks.  Brace for impact.

$100 million is feasible if you consider that such an enormous buy would raise BTC/USD. Hell, even $1 million would cause quite a spike. It raises the question - why denominate a bitcoin ransom in dollars? Does Romney send them $1 million in bitcoins as of before or after the purchase?

Seems like a hoax to me.

Romney should buy $20 million in BTC, pay the ransom, then sell everything left back off.

I agree on the hoax aspect.  It doesn't seem like whoever did this really thought through the mechanics of what getting "$1 million USD" of Bitcoins would entail, or more likely, didn't care, because they were never intending on getting it.

I just hope for the pranksters' sake they covered their tracks better than it looks like they did.  Even without the tax returns, demanding money in return for silence is generally going to be considered extortion, and for a change, they've picked on someone politically connected enough to demand the feds "do something."  

I call BS.

It's way too easy to catch this guy.  He thinks the Bitcoin anonymity will protect him/them.  BUT its all the other loopholes of the Technology world that will bust him.

You heard it here first.

It's not the first bitcoin extortion. I know at least of one more, a group of hackers in Poland is threatening hosting companies with DDoSes unless they decide to comply with their terms of paying 25 BTC monthly subscription (that was the amount in May, dunno if it changed).

Hehehehe I don't want to destroy democracy, why would you say that??  I just want to be able to opt-out, just like I've done with the Federal Reserve ;)

Damn it, where is the 'like' button...

It's probably people here leaving binary messages just for shit and giggles.  Just because whoever created the accounts intended them as throwaways doesn't mean that people can't send BTC to them for fun now that the addresses are public.

I say just pay the million then wait for the biggest redneck or teenager to suddenly start driving around town in a fancy new truck, decked out with new mud flaps and a cherry bomb muffler.

can u fix this link please, m8

EDIT; nm, working now. maybe it was gettting too many hits and timed out on me because of it. ;p

I wonder if that's a news typo or is verbatim...?

Quote was followed by (sic)

aye, thanks. I see it in the most recent linked article on it as well, where they pointed out a mispelling of the party name. ;p


Does anyone think it possible that Obama set this up and made sure to have it look like some random dofuses did it? So, they'll quickly track the dummies down but not before the info is either released or it can then be atleast used as ammunition to further imply Romney is hiding something by not releasing the returns?

/gold foil hat

The wording from the bottom:


“However, all these considerations did not deter me from the path of duty; the moment I understood the will of my Heavenly Father, I felt a determination to go at all hazards, believing that He would support me by His almighty power, and endow me with every qualification that I needed.” (In Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, 3d ed., Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967, pp. 103–4.)

The story has now gone mainstream: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48916562

https://www.google.com/news/story?cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=romney+bitcoin&ncl=dEDkjGvGclJRWqMtoJXK3Cv7kF_xM&cf=all&scoring=n (https://www.google.com/news/story?cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=romney+bitcoin&ncl=dEDkjGvGclJRWqMtoJXK3Cv7kF_xM&cf=all&scoring=n)
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f78/lapsedlawyer/popcorn.gif

By the time they setup a mt gox account to buy the bitcoins and went through AML to withdraw them the date would be long past  :D

I wonder if Magical Tux would expedite things if the secret service showed up at his house and demanded 1 million dollars worth of bitcoin  ;D

The feds could just use their super computers for a few hours to hash out the required amount...lol. Livermore and oakridge should do the trick, right?

$15 by this weekend then?

Are you serious? That would just make the difficulty jump. It would still take 100000 / (5 * 6 * 24) = 13.8 days assuming they have near-100% of the hashing strength.

If I am looking at the right number there are 9 Million Bitcoins in circulation at this moment, so at around 10 USD to 1 BTC that would be around 1% of all Bitcoins in circulation.  Of course, if both the release and do-not-release addresses are paid $1 Mil, then that would be 2% of all Bitcoins. 

It's highly unlikely you could buy up that many Bitcoins.  Just attempting it would cause the exchange rate to go far above $10 per Bitcoin.  Perhaps that is the extortionists plan all along though...

Either way though.. pass the popcorn, the media coverage of this will be fun to watch.

I suspect you could buy up 100,000 BTC over the counter if you really wanted to. 

Imagine someone hit an exchange and actually bought BTC100K.

Imagine the Secret Service fucking up the exchange's shit if they could make the most tenuous connection between the purchase and the extortion threat.

Satire my friend. I thought the LOL would make that evident.

The condition was that, at the end of the transfer, the amount would be worth US$ 1M. That would actually cost a lot less than one million if done in quick successive orders as it would drive the price to the sky.

wouldnt it make more sense to use the supercomputers to crack the encrypted romney info documents, which I assume are just encrypted images of goatse

I'm sure they will just keep using them for nuclear weapons simulations and other sciency stuff.

This looks like a job for John Goodman and Jeff Bridges.

LMAO. Jeff bridges is the name I give the cops when they stop me on my nightly jog and ask for ID.

hehe

I could imagine that if the president needed his people to get $1M to Gox's bank then a phone call from them would likely be enough to avoid the whole AMl process, beyond a fax or 2 between the banks involved.

Like others have said, they could likely buy up $500-750k BTC and have the acquired BTC be worth well over $1M when they were done. =)

I wonder if they would stick the excess in fort knox on a thumb drive  :D

Hey, atleast then there would be something in there to secure.  du dun da CHING.  :P

hmm, maybe he would stash it in the secret compartment in the resolute desk......

i'm paulie_w and i support this message.

They just need to paint it gold like the other stuff they have stored there.

You missed the point. They don't have any other gold stuff there.  

And, sadpandatech, a rim shot sounds like...
http://rlv.zcache.co.uk/ba_dum_tss_postcard-p239409341033870472baanr_400.jpg

I was referencing this -
http://www.prospectingjournal.com/fake-gold-detected-the-tungsten-gold-bar032612/ (http://www.prospectingjournal.com/fake-gold-detected-the-tungsten-gold-bar032612/)

This is right.  Bitcoin doesn't have to be technically destroyed, it just has to lose enough commercial mass to make it uninteresting as a payment system, and if the U.S. government makes it very difficult for money to reach exchanges, that's feasible.

There are other ways to sell besides exchanges. I suspect that if someone can make a dime off of it, they'll always figure out a way to sell.

Last year's crash should have killed bitcoin. I don't think it's going anywhere for awhile.

http://imgur.com/a/zOJK6#0

Take a look at the building the records were stolen from. This isn't Fort Knox, that is for certain.

I have a feeling that the SS is going to be knocking on some Texan's door, and this time the guy who answers it won't be able to get away with, "My account was compromised, officers. Do I look like I'm in the process of committing suicide?"

SS1: Just the same, we'll be taking all the computers in this home to make sure.
SS2: And what's the deal with that democratic-blue light in the upstairs bedroom?
SS1: Did you just try to bribe us?
SS3: Matt, take a look inside this box marked Woolong Device. Looks to me like this guy was set to do a mass mailing.

~Bruno~

I once worked for a financial services company - the physical security was incredible.  Even once you were in the building - which required your fingerprint and a security pass for entry - you had to swipe your pass and enter a security code to open doors (and there were multiple doors between sections) and enter lifts.  Your pass determined which doors you could open and what floors the lift would take you to - the security system pretty much knew where you were to within 10 feet whenever you were in the building and that was before you even got near the computers.  Getting someone's financial records from their accountant's computer system would be child's play by comparison, I would imagine.

I just browsed silk road and there's  numerous ways to buy bitcoins there.

The story has apparently hit the Fox News ticker  Don't know if Bitcoins are mentioned though.

You just know that the psycho, Romney lovin' news outlets will be sure to spin it as some undeserved attack against such an upstanding American..

I can just see someone reporting their bitcoins stolen and a cop mistakenly arresting them for blackmailing Romney (or terrorism)

Interesting! I think the SS should look into every major hack involving Bitcoin to make sure that the hackers are not planning on spending their loot as payola to release said documents. In case the SS reads this board, here's my short list: Tom Williams/MyBitCoin/Bruce Wagner; All those involved with Bitcoinica; The Intersango Crew; The hacker who broke into Bitfloor. And, for good measure, make sure the Woolong Device isn't being used to store said documents.

That should keep the SS busy for awhile, while us Bitcoiners continue developing Bitcoin to disrupt the global financial empire.

~Bruno~ (Newbie Bitcoiner who reclaims barn wood in Sandwich, IL)

Most interesting move might be for an enemy to pay for keeping the files secret. Heck, the person who wrote the whole thing might just pay himself!

Once the bounty for "secret" has been paid, Mr. Romney will have campaign trouble.

Politicians and their games. I prefer not to follow them or play them, it's all so nonsensical.

It'd have to be a PAC, but that'd be an interesting game to play.
Surely moving a million dollars through Gox would create too much of a paper-trail for most though  ;)

he's in japan. come at me, bro.

LOL.

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=636

you do realize that the deadline for the blackmail is BEFORE the election date, right?

and they still could very well be blocked, then released by the campaign after backlash.

https://twitter.com/maxkeiser/status/243466513967894528

"Mitt's Tax Returns: $1 mn. ranson fund (MITTS)"

http://www.piratemyfilm.com/projects/395

EDIT: 41% funded

not looking that good of an investment   ;D

I wonder how Mitt is going to get around that $1000 a day limit most exchanges have...or is that just for withdrawals?  In any case, if Mitt wants to send me a million dollars, I'll send be sure to send him his 100,000 bitcoins right away (wink wink nod).

I heard someone in here runs a dark pool service for such things, his name is pirate or something  ???

The most interesting thing is that this opens up for the whole world to send Bitcoins.

Hell even Putin could get some Bitcoins and affect the whole outcome of the American presidential election and thus the future of the world (somewhat.)

Amazing thought...

I don't get it. What's "No. PMF Fund Shares"?

Doesn't the pirate have $500,000 worth of bitcoins? He could easily do this and then get his bitcoins back ?

Not really.

Actually, one doesn't even need USD 1 million to pay this. Just buying bitcoins for $300,000 over the week before 28th or so would probably ignite such a rally that the price would shoot up considerably so that "1 million USD worth of bitcoin" might only be as much as was bought with the $300,000.

To be honest PMF is pretty confusing  ???

Did someone have the Bitcoin adresses?

The hackers did one misstake, should had posted a description to the adresses so that everyone in the world could followed the drama.

The addresses are quoted in one of the threads about this topic, anybody can follow it.

EDIT: Actually, it was farther up in this thread. http://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8 (http://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8), Total Received 0.3557789 BTC

http://nandbit.com/romney/

awesome, lol!

this^^ FTW! lol

Awesome.

The "release" address is winning, but at this rate neither address is going to make it to a million before the expiration date.

It doesn't make sense to send money to either address unless it is done all at once. If there is a race and one loses they will have wasted their money. Please send me your coins and I will escrow them until it reaches 1 million. If not I will send them back :D With 7% interest (sorry couldn't resist)...

So, Bitcoin is taxable after all?  ;D

It does not make sense for anyone to send any BTC anywhere.  The perp has no particular reason to do anything except what might strike his/her/their fancy no matter who send what BTC where.  That is unless he/she/they had more goodies and wanted to demonstrate the effectiveness of paying him/her/them off as a setup for the next go around.  If so, though, they should have signed the note, and I didn't notice that in the pastebin.

On a tangent, it sounds like Romney saved a LOT more than a messily million $$ by cheating on his taxes all these years.  If he's dumb enough to trust a criminal I would think that the thousand large would be well worth the lesson vis-a-vis whom to entrust with one's data.  (Not, say, PWC :))

My blockchain notification just triggered - a whole bunch more transactions on the blackmail address...

Uh, binary message, anyone cares to decode? I am on smartphone and it is not easy  :)

Yes! Perhaps we should show him this "bargain" oportunnity to do so!!!! Perhaps he is just being adviced by BTC manipulators about the best strattegy to follow ;-).

Please explain me this... didn´t they say that the would send the encrypted file everywere? Has it been done yet? Obviously it could contain only crap but...

1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8

https://i.imgur.com/BH5zK.jpg

http://www.sendspace.com/file/m6crjs

file:where.wav

Here I haven't audio , please can someone  transcribe.

Trojan?

Noise?

file where.wav
where.wav: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, stereo 22050 Hz

Another encoded message  ???

just a second it's a tinyurl in the spectum will post a pic

lol, and you figured that out by...

815 Brazos St Ste 500 Austin, TX 78701

I assume that's where the next clue is :)  I give up for now

The most obvious way to deal with it?

anyway here it is:
http://imgur.com/H6v28
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=815+Brazos+St+Ste+500+Austin,+TX+78701&ll=30.270319,-97.73987&spn=0.001369,0.002064&hnear=815+Brazos+St,+Austin,+Texas+78701,+United+States&gl=uk&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=30.27029,-97.739761&panoid=bYgP0ob-KEzxTfGAeHQnsw&cbp=12,219.68,,0,-1.17

anyway anybody wanna bother to find out what is written in the lower frequency band (if any)

Here it is for those of you that aren't nerds  :D

http://i45.tinypic.com/2wekndl.jpg

There is a UPS Store and a link to this shady business (along with the corresponding shitstorm) if you zoom in.

https://plus.google.com/110405659009430277048

Impressive  :o

09.10.12
08:30

 ??? ??? ;D

someone put a webcam there

I'll be there in 30 minutes.  ;D ;) :P

What does all that mean? A meeting? This is freak even for me

Well somebody would have to get up early and find out.

My take: it's trolling

The tinyurl linked to the uk version of google maps and the date notation is the European one while pointing to a spot in Austin/TX

http://imgur.com/H6v28

I think there is another line under the time - something like "All shall see" or "All shall lol"  :)

This is funnier than TV...  ;D

Maybe "All shall be"?

If European notation, it's October 9th.

http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx (http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx)

I meant the usage of points vs slashes...

Anyway I zoomed into the lower frequency it says
ALL SHALL BE
REVEALED

Ok, so it's a top freak trolling.
Back to my cave.

This is sure one way to divert attention from a bet that is about to expire :) I've totally changed channels from the MNW Bet show to the Romney extortion show. The Romney show is way way way more interesting!

If you wanna be a supah stah, this is how it's done!

Well,some free advertising for Bitinstant  ;D

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abegarver/2012/09/07/bitinstant-to-romney-camp-well-convert-1000000-usd-to-bitcoin-for-free/

Way to go Voorhees  8)

-That's interesting so at that location at 8:30 on Monday.
-That UPS seems to have no due diligence requirements for a post box which is very unusual (I downloaded the application form).
-It's two blocks away from the secretary of state building.
-I can't see a phone box outside which I would expect so they can call you using a crazy masked voice!

Could be a threat of some information implied by the location as well I suppose

Don't forget 9/10/12 08:30

We don't have to wait until the 28th to be disappointed!  

And you can bet there will be another interesting story to follow afterwards.

What over elaborate stages could we create to get to say an image of a bear making love to a chicken? the worlds watching this don't forget it's important to send out the right message.

As mentioned ealier, the building is also the registered business address of GPUMAX. someone trying to roast Pirate?

Are you sure according to who is information the registered address is

5100 Eldorado Pkwy
Mckinney, Texas 75070

Posted on previous page in this thread

first bitcoin lynchmob?

time for moar popcorn?

This is material for another "The Good Wife" episode.

Oh yeah sorry should have looked!

Very interesting, I'll stay tuned to see what it's about Monday!

How about this?

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/larry-flynt-offers-1m-reward-mitt-romney-tax-returns-143474

Bloody hell that's an interesting twist, If it's not fake he'll still have to pay by bitcoin and we're probably in for a rally!!

correction though. It is the 'Registered Agent' address for gpuMAx and like 5,000 other companies who were registered by the same company on behalf of their customers.

Interesting! https://ourcpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/servlet/cpa.app.coa.CoaGetTp?Pg=tpid&Search_Nm=GPUMAX%20TECHNOLOGIES%2C%20LLC%20&Button=search&Search_ID=32046504976


Note the Taxpayer #. Should be easy now to make this a federal case. FYI, the FBI has a tip line. I'm also sure the IRS will want their cut of the loot.

~Bruno~

I liked the Romney show better than the pirate show but... How exactly does someone with a very active company "dissapear" with $250,000 in this community's money? With that kind of money on the line why hasn't someone gone out to visit the cork socker?

I realize a lot of the people might need to borrow mom's car but certainly SOMEONE would have done this by now?

cause all the people that would take action if they got ripped off are also smart enough to have not gotten ripped off here. ;p

We now resume you're regularly scheduled, "Romney Smells Like Licorice"

I don't live very far from McKinney so it would be very easy for me to drive over there and investigate some of the addresses that have been floating around, but since I never put any money into his scheme I don't really have any reason to.

1060 W. Addison St. 

I just delivered barn wood to a new restaurant/bar less than two blocks from there a couple weeks ago. Do you have a GPS under my truck that I'm not aware of?

~Bruno~

Looks like the Larry Flynt angle is legit... http://www.mediaite.com/online/larry-flynt-is-offering-one-million-dollars-for-details-of-romneys-tax-returns/ (http://www.mediaite.com/online/larry-flynt-is-offering-one-million-dollars-for-details-of-romneys-tax-returns/)

This might get out of control fast lol

Have you ever seen Trendon in person :D

Tell me about it  :D

looks like the trade-matching engine isn't working. 1 mio bid and ask on same item should be matched.

It seems the good old NO YOU game.

The tax returns to have 1 mil dollar delivered first...
1 mil dollar to have the tax returns delivered first...

This way nobody gonna move, still plenty of publicity for everybody, and nobody has the inconvenience to be called up on their claim.

Yes, but there is a difference: most people would agree that demanding a million-dollar irreversible payment without any proof the goods exist is unreasonable. Larry demanding a small, free taster first, however, is quite reasonable.

The fact that hackers' demands are so unreasonable tells me that this whole story is a hoax.

"unless the Romney campaign wire transfers $1 million in Bitcoins." LOL Suckers at mediafire have no idea what Bitcoin is.

Breaking down yesterdays developments for the masses:

http://theclag.org/romney-return-release-update/

Wow, the rabbit hole just got deeper

who's is that Austin, Tx address?

GPUMAX  :o ;D

http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx (http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx)

Though they are not the only ones :

http://www.corporationwiki.com/Texas/Austin/815-Brazos-St-Ste-500-Austin-TX-78701-a17332777.aspx (http://www.corporationwiki.com/Texas/Austin/815-Brazos-St-Ste-500-Austin-TX-78701-a17332777.aspx)

BTW who did that analysis JDBound ?
First time I see info in a sound file, that's a really nice idea

EDIT : whoops, was some pages late

Its the company that registered Pirates business

that was cool.

Aphex Twin (band) actually did this a while ago.  I don't know if they pioneered it, but it is pretty cool:

http://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10

Did anyone analyze the where.wav further? I don't have the tools, but it is possible that there also is a LSB encoded message in the sound file, i.e. each 16 bit value in each channel has the LSB substituted to form a binary message? The spectrograms posted shows some random dots which might only be artifacts.

More binary showed up this morning.

http://x.co/nbvq
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4ruxz4

The password protected .rar file looks clean and contains:

2007.pdf
2008.pdf
2009.pdf
2010.pdf



I tried a few passwords but nothing. Don't have time to keep trying right now.

Are these the encrypted returns from 07-10 the hacker says he will release the password to?

It still doesn't prove anything :)

No, but if the romney camp know which years of tax returns got taken this will turn up the pressure on them  :D

My bet still is that we are being taken for a ride, but... What algorithm is used for rar encryption?  In this case we can assume we know certain things about the plain text (pdf file structure).

here's a distributed gpu-supporting parallel rar pw cracker: http://www.parallelrecovery.com/rar-password.html

there's probably free/opensource tools, too.

Hashcat is opensource linux. Runs on miner hardware also with underclocked ram. They have a good forum with a lot of tip's usable for optimising up your miner if you run linux also i.e. cmd line fan control, gpu temp etc.

A 6 gpu miner should crack an 8 character pw in 2.5 seconds if I remember right.

CLAG is now offering a 1.0 BTC bounty for the first person to brute force this and generate a valid password.

To contribute please send donations to the address in my sig.

I will keep a running total of the bounty in this post if it ends up taking a while.


TOTAL BOUNTY: 2.06833783 BTC

Contributors:
CLAG: 1.0 BTC
FLHippi: 1.06833783 BTC (bd032661079e57c9661e6fa6926030091a671f3d04c31126d0c0ad9bac71ebf0 & 87fca448bef6e8506a91107c9606d8e9bb31f29a164c6c2e862a09855ea442ca)

Bet you can do it for under $1mil  :D

I just donated 1/4 of the bounty. Are you raising the bounty on donations?

Yes, donations made and noted in this thread will be put towards the bounty until someone brute forces the password.

Bounty post updated.

Groovy,

   I sent another donation then. Lets get it cracked.

If someone cracks this and it looks like the files are what people suspect they are, you would be a smart guy not to brag about it and posting the files. Get it?

I'm no pro but it seems that 128 bit AES is not gonna be 3BTC easy. 

Funny, just checked on Wiki.  Cracking 128-bit AES would be greater news than whatever is in that file.

in this case, we're not cracking(breaking) the encryption. We are brute forcing the password by using the stored hash to compare against.


@Molecular that PCL is a good option and you can download the engine that they use and use it for free. There is a Cuda and a CL version. You would of course have to modify the source if you wanted to use it for parallel cracking.

It's command-line and likely not useful for anything longer than 6-7 characters unless you code your own using their engine.
http://www.crark.net/

edit; apparently they have a gui wrapper available there now. makes it much more windos friendly.

Sorry, you are right, meant a 128-AES password. something like 1.84 * 10^18 years. 100.000.000 times the age of the Universe. Worth more than 1M USD if done before 9.28.12.

given my lil 580 a workout with it. correction. spent 12 minutes to cover all 5 character combos of only lower case letters and numbers on a cuda core.


where are the bored miners at?

I'll help, let me know how and Ill crunch some numbers with my 6950 for a while when Im not playing games.

grab a copy of cRARk v. 3.41 with OpenCL support from http://www.crark.net
extract it all to a folder, minus the stupid crackme file.
toss a renamed copy of the tax.rar file in the same folder. get it from here; http://x.co/nbvq
rename english.def to password.def   You may also want to give a quick read through the .def file to uncomment some lines so you are searching more than just lowercase letters...
cmd line to your crark folder. type in crark   and it will give you a run down of the options, etc.
a basic test can be doing by using 'crark benchmark'  and will tell you how many passwords per second your card can run and let you know if it is accessing he gpu properly

alternatively you can try to use the GUI wrapper they have available; http://www.crark.net/download/crark_gui.zip
Ony my comp it did not work only because I needed to use an extra timing option for my vid card and was unable to do tht in the gui. It may work with the default vid settings for ATI.

Somehow I doubt that password was chosen short enough to make it brute-forceable.
Added to that I think the rar probably doesn't even contain the tax returns or any useful information for that matter - it's somebody jumping on the bandwagon, trolling you guys.

haha, that's my assumption as well. Likely some 20+ character bohemeth with random symbols and numbers in it.

can't hurt to try though. a 5870 should be able to pull 30k~ p/s  not sure how long that would take to get to 10 character passwords though.

Any math wizzies know how many password combos there are from 5 to 10 characters if we use upper/lower case letters, numbers and symbols in just a basic Latin set?


I'm inclined to agree also with your addition. But I have some hope as the sizes of the PDF files are compareable to a few corporate return PDFs I just checked here in our database...

I was hoping for some side-channel attack. Do we even know if rar uses AES? Even if it does, how is it implemented? Does it help that in this case we can assume certain things about the plain text (pdf format)? Come on, can't bitcoin community do better than brute-forcing and dictionary?

How many characters in total?

If it's 10 chars then I think it should be x^10 where x is the number of total number of characters used.
If it's only 0-9, a-z, A-Z, then the total amount of pwd permutations would be 62^10.
I don't know which other characters you're interested in, but in standard (ie. not extended) ASCII table there's 95 printable chars (0-9, A-z, symbols)

In that case it is 95^10
But I wouldn't worry about exluding short results, it takes very little time for the short ones.

Rock on, thanks for that.  I've run 95^5 and come up with nothing.  Correction, 37^5...  95^5 would take ~14k days @ 35kp/s    assuming I mathed right...

need no math wizzard for that, simple division and exponentiation:


7729 years assuming an alphabet of 36, pw-length 10, 30kp/s

(pw-length 5: 30 minutes)

sayeth the math wiz. ;p


And what about an alphabet of 95, pw-length 10, 30kp/s ?

lmgtfy (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=(95^10)/(30000*60*60*24*365)%3D)

Nice, I actually did not realize Google would be so kind as to do exponential maths for my lazy ass.

63286079 years I presume?

you interpreted the expression correctly.

I dunno, was this http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/09/hustler-publisher-larry-flynt-offers-1-million-for-romney-tax-returns/ (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/09/hustler-publisher-larry-flynt-offers-1-million-for-romney-tax-returns/) posted already ;)?

yep, thanks anyhow. The last major news about this was the bitinstant marketing gag 3 days ago... of course, since nothing's moving and all parties either want to keep things under the rug as much as possible or have already said all there is to say.

So, I suppose all was not revealed in Austin, TX this morning? Anyone with evidence to suggest otherwise?

Bounty still stands for brute forcing the .rar

Doing a little research this morning, there is a rar version which has a vulnerability in its encryption/password protection.

I think if the file were part of a troll, they would have used a dictionary password or they would have used the compromised version to make it easier on people who wanted to extract it and their troll more effective. It would be version 2.7. I don't know if it's all versions below 2.7 or just 2.7.

I don't have the tools do do this kind of thing myself. And I couldn't find anything for the mac which does it. I have a couple of dedicated linux miners but I don't trust any of the rar brute force source code or binaries that I found enough to put them on my miners or my macbook without worry of installing a trojan.

There are a bunch of high end windows applications but they cost money. More than the bounty.

This showed up a day prior to the latest binary.

http://pastebin.com/pfcqiKWX

Seems to be logically consistent with what has happened, although it's impossible to know if it's legitimate.

Has anyone tried downloading the files?

Edit: Ok, I just read more of the thread.  There are so many holes in this story.  For instance, the binary message that was created by sending transactions...anyone can do that, right?  It could be a hoax in a hoax in a hoax...

Anyone can create a binary message by sending coins to that address and make anything up.

Yep, I did but as they say it is encrypted and requires a password to see whats inside that .7z file.

Now would anybody with better computational power then me mind cracking that password pls?

"44.12. Did everyone find the binary message encoded into those transactions?
45.Yes, very cute. Sorry, we can't do that to ourselves."

The binary messages wre going IN TO the addresses and not SENT from the guys holding the tax returns hostage.

I think if the 2nd pastebin is the same person as the 1st pastebin, then it's fake.  

However, he did get bitcoin on CNN, for that I applaud him.

Even if it's a fake, they have succeeded at keeping the tax returns in the news.

I thought Larry Flynt was already ponying up the money for all this?

I'm sure he is waiting for some proof.

Interesting the files inside the archive have a modification date of 1/7/2012 8:18am. Why would they have been created so long ago?

There is still not much evidence that the Dr.evil has got the files.

There is still not much evidence that Dr. Evil does not have the files.

Really? You are going argue the same way religious nuts argue that their God exists?

SOB! I get to use the following quote in two back-to-back unrelated posts.

*sarcasms on*
Exactly; I would say lock him up, no phone call and no lawyers till he has proven otherwise ...
*sarcasms off*

That RAR file has the CRC32s of the PDFs when they are not encrypted. We could generate all the CRC32 collisions of valid PDFs with the exact number of bytes, hahaha. Probably not computationally feasible though :D We might as well try breaking AES ;)

So says the NDAA.

Well tomorrow is the 28th....
The thieves have collected a grand total of 3.794578789 BTC

I've been counting the days like a kid waiting for christmass. I want satisfaction.

Somehow I think we've already seen the last of this.

I will be returning donations for the above mentioned bounty if this is not cracked before the deadline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QyArMmOHaY

its here  Mitt Romney's 2008 Taxes  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QyArMmOHaY)

 :D

lol, wtf: income: 22 million USD, total tax: 412 USD.

where's this come from??? Tell me this is real  :D

Of course it's real, everything posted on the internets is real!  :P

Anyone see this: http://pastebin.com/N6RQ7TkC


 ???

Until Dr.evil provide any evidence that he has the file, he is presumed has nothing but bluffing.

FTFY.

it's absurd for anyone to presume a random stranger's words is true without any evidence.

well, it's already the deadline. we'll see what happened.

How did they get 9/10ths of a satoshi?

Not yet. The politician being ransomed here is from the United States and not from Kiribati and Dr. Evil has not been clear on which time zone applies.

He's probably busy feeding Mr.Bigglesworth

I think this is already over. Unfortunately.

which time zone does Dr. Evil use? UCT -2400000000 time zone?

is their no news about this on the TV?

http://s1167.photobucket.com/albums/q633/anonymous-bitcoin/

Guys.  This is from the 21st...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/21/romney-drops-his-tax-returns.html

ya thats  2011 tax returns

not 2008

Ah right.  That's a lot of money if it's not a forgery.  Not like it's hard to shop an e-form.

Sooo... i guess this was all just a big scam again with no actual hack and  no actual documents to reveal?

not sure.. some did release 2008 tax returns

But no forms to explain the millions of deductions.  LOL.

Did you know you too can "release" his taxes with nothing more than pdf software?

http://octsurprise.com/
https://twitter.com/OctSurprise

Related?

Looks like it is probably the same guy (based on his "preview" of "document 3").  Don't know how he thinks that he can prove that they are genuine...even I can photoshop a tax document and I have very little in photo editing skills.

http://politicker.com/2012/10/meet-two-of-the-developers-behind-the-internet-october-surprise/

My antivirus goes crazy about some JavaScript thing on that octsurprise page...

Turns out to be a giant RickRoll. I'm glad that the internet is getting to the point where we are almost consuming our culture almost as fast as it is being created, and investigating things until they're completely exposed.

Indeed - sad that they really couldn't come up with something better than a lame RickRoll.

The rickroll was predicted before it happened.

Did anyone notice that they have apparently found the person who tried to pull this fraud?

I just saw this on Cryptome:

http://cryptome.org/2012/11/romney-tax-plot.pdf


Search Warrant for Michael Mancil Brown. They want a DNA sample. They've got IP addresses from Pastebin and from some newspaper in Tennessee.

Check it.

-p

evidently it is this guy.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6825.0
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30632&sid=bc2ba1be6bb99fef8c9941ef67f4b5b3
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123591.0

Looks like this is a little nuts...


http://www.thedaily.com/article/2012/11/09/110912-news-romney-tax-raid/
http://mbdonationfund.com/

-p

I hope he backed up his 371,000BTC well before the secret service took it!!!!

EDIT -- oh wait, supposedly he donated it all to others?


That whole story sounds fishy, WTF.


-p

What I find interesting about this case is that the search warrant specifically identified Bitcoin and two specific Bitcoin addresses among the items to be seized. Is this a first?

If this guy has over 370,000 BTC why on earth is he asking for financial donations?

Too bad he's not taking bitcoin donations :)

This doesn't make much sense to me. I suspect we don't have all relevant information yet ;>

Wait till you get a look at his getaway vehicle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eNdU9QQZUk

He probably had the encrypted passwords saved on his computer that were seized.

BTW, I think this guy is 100% innocent.  The only fraudsters in bitcoin land use Bootstrap for website design, yet this guy used Joomla.

That sure is a pattern  :D