Bitcoin Forum

Let's say you find an address which has funds on it. More precisely - of course - you find one of the private keys to that address.

case A)

You found that key by "brute force" aka lot's of effort and lots of luck. You seize the funds. Is it stealing?

case B)

Your wallet generates that address aka no effort and lots of lots of luck. The funds appear in your wallet balance. Is it stealing?

I'm asking, because a collision attack is considered infeasible. It seems not forbidden (because you can't forbid or effectively hinder this attack on a public ledger) - so is it illegal?

Let's assume two parties were known who made claims on the funds of a given address. One party X was the one who "really" put the funds in there, the other Y was the one who found the private key. If Y took the funds - would that legally be considered stealing?

I'm asking, because I have given this some thought while my computers are performing a Collision Attack feasibility study (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1555043.0) and in the meantime I had ... time.  8)

I found myself being legally quite bare in this matter. Especially regarding the question:

"Does one OWN a privkey/pubkey combination?" (I think no)
"Does one OWN the blockchain?" (obviously no)

But if one does own neither, how can he own the balance the blockchain defines as on that given address?
IMHO, the one OWNS the balance who owns the privkey/pubkey combination and that may very well be several persons.

And then? Can someone please bring at least some fundamental light into this matter for me?


Rico

Case A)
Since you are trying to bruteforce it then I think that it is pure stealing
Case B)
I think that you should be very lucky to generate the same address as someone's else, but in this case better is to generate a new address and leave it.

It's still stealing.  See theft by finding.
I don't know if it's a crime though.  It's a crime for things like wallet with money in it but for bitcoin I have no idea.

Yes, this would be cracking and then stealing. It is like breaking into a bank vault and then taking the money.

No, this would be chance and "finders keepers". It is like finding money in the street and you have choice on what to do.
Take or turn in. (If you take from a system that is governed by laws or regulations, "take" as above, will be theft.)


A provably purposeful collision attack, if successful, IMO is cracking and thus leads to theft, which is illegal.


Depends on how Y managed to get the privatekey. Every way, other than collision accident, is likely theft.


You can not OWN anything in Bitcoin, you can only CONTROL certain aspects, such as privatekeys.
OWNing something is applying certain rights to the thing. You have no rights within Bitcoin.
Bitcoin allows you to control your keys to secure your portion in the bitcoin blockchain, but
the bitcoin blockchain does not grant you OWNERSHIP over those bitcoins.

For example, paper money is OWNED by the governments and their treasuries/etc,
but they allow the banks and you to CONTROL it temporarily for use.
Bitcoin is the government, blockchain(bitcoin) is the treasury, and your privatekey is your use(control).


As stated above, you do not own anything in Bitcoin, including the balance in an address. You only control it.
In Bitcoin, there is no way to determine who rightfully controlled the keys first (unless ID message
signed upon first tx) so it is not actually possible within the protocol to prove who "owns" what, and thus,
issues of ownership can not exist within the system.

As a side note, if you transferred your bitcoins to a company or site, and that site gets hacked or etc
and your coins are stolen from the company, you only have a right for refund/return by that company
since they took on the liability and must conform to certain regulations and laws. Not only does Bitcoin
not accept any liability, but also does not conform to any regulations and laws, and thus, is the reasoning
that by using bitcoin and controlling your own privatekeys, they say: "Be your own bank".  You are
singularly responsible and (in theory of low probability of collision) control your keys.

Definition of stealing: Taking something that does not belong to you.

So if you worked for your money, then it's yours whether you decide to store it as bitcoins or as raw cash kept in a round pot and buried out in your yard. Fact still remains the money belongs to you.

If you did not work for the money and you "suddenly" find yourself in possession of money WITHOUT the consent of the owner, you should RETURN it. If you don't, then that's stealing.

That is not how Bitcoin works.

When you convert your money into bitcoin, you no longer own that money or claim rights to that money.
You now are participating within the Bitcoin system and that system does not provide rights of ownership.
So, you willingly decided to wave your ownership rights, to gain control rights within a non regulated financial system.

Whether you worked for the btc or not, is irrelevant in this type of legal theory.

In Bitcoin, if someone "stole" your btc out from your address, who do you go to for remedy?
The Bitcoin Devs? The Bitcoin miners? There is no one who is legally responsible.
Because there is no legal responsibility, there is no ownership, then there is no theft.
In addition, you can not appeal to the Bitcoin network itself to help return your stolen btc.

If there is no legally responsible supervising party, there can be no ownership.
Bitcoin was designed to not have such a party or to be such a system.

Its stealing from the moral point of view irrespective of how you want to paint it because the money didn't just appear there out of the blue someone put it there for his own use which in true fact, you've denied him/her of that purpose so from the moral point again its stealing no matter the circumstances that ledn to it... My 2 cents...

I think there is a lot more to it than that?
By the same logic you could steel my car and claim that I gave up any rights to it when I bought it. Bitcoin IS my property and the government (at least in the US) has an obligation to assist me if I was robbed. They took their taxes when they claimed it was mine, now they must act. Which is why they can tax me in the first place.  So while the police may not know what a bitcoin is, I have protection for my assets.

No, you don't understand what I am saying.
Your example does not work since a car (and other types of major property) has title ownership papers.
Bitcoin has no such proofs and that is intentional in this system. Your only proof is control of keys.

The US Government has no obligation in law in help get your btc back UNLESS it was secured,
such as with exchanges or businesses. As long as you deal with bitcoin within the Bitcoin Network,
there is no remedy. When you move your btc to something else, like Coinbase, then that is the only
time the US government would have ability by law and proceed with their investigation/processes.

Here are some questions:
1. If someone swept my btc from my address outside a regulated system, what is the mechanism and
protocols to legally and realistically help me get my btc back?
2. What are the proofs that are used to prove that I didn't transfer the btc myself and made a false claim?

I should probably add, that for me - from a moral perspective - it is stealing.

OTOH - also from a moral perspective  - I consider some performances of some employees as stealing the company funds, because they get something for nothing.  ;) Not sure if that would be considered stealing from a legal perspective.

And "Legal" this part of the forum has in its name.

I suppose the question cannot be answered in general, as it seems to depend at least on the jurisdiction. See another thread here, where the legal interpretation in Japan is pointed out. "Bitcoins cannot be owned". Most legislative constructs require ownership as prerequisite to theft.

In Germany you actually do OWN the paper Eur money, so you are even allowed to burn it if you like. Different story in US and completely different story in Thailand.

Given the fact, that in Japan Bitcoins cannot be owned, legally, if you went to Japan and performed there a collision attack or seizure of BTC funds, it would legally not be stealing. Now even when you left Japan, you probably would be the rightful owner of the seized bitcoins because you did not steal them. Of course only after you actually left the Japanese jurisdiction, because there you could not be "owner" of bitcoins.


Rico

Agreed, that from a moral point of view, if someone took someone else's coins without permission, it's theft.

The legal issue is that, the Bitcoin protocol can not classify it as that, since then every tx would be theft, since there
is no way to prove that the tx was not theft, other than from control of the keys. If the tx occurs, then that person
controls the keys and thus has provided the only proofs the Bitcoin network requires.

In comparison, in banks or other systems that we use each day, you could prove something by showing titles, deeds,
other paperwork, Personal IDs, passports, certain certifications, certain governmental ID numbers, tax ID numbers,
signed contracts, signed agreements, signed loan documents, and other things that could be used as evidence for you
to prove ownership, and thus, entitled to a recovery.



Agreed, that everything legal, is subject to the jurisdiction and their laws as it relates to Bitcoin/bitcoin, so my statements
may not apply to some jurisdictions where laws have been created to grant certain rights to btc, even when the Bitcoin Protocol
itself can not and shall not grant such rights or assurances.

It is stealing, but doesn't matter.  The odds of that happening are so small they are effectively literally zero.

If you know the owner of the address and still you are not going to give it back to him then it is defiantly stealing but if you don't know the person then you have to distribute the money in the needy people but have no right to keep it with yourself and to use it.

I checked with my insurer (I insure my coins) and he tells me that id stolen my BTC are absolutely something the police are legally obligated to investigate and that the thief is open to both civil and criminal prosecution.
However you are asking the right questions about how practical it is to recover lost bitcoin.  I have no idea how they would determine who the thief is in the absence of other clues, or how you could logically prove that you were robbed.  ??? Then again, this is true for a lawnmower also. I suppose the police would try their best in an investigation. My hunch is that they would be unsuccessful. That's why I prefer insurance.

but stealing is a sin either is is just a small amount or a big one. i think we should avoid stealing. and if you got some money from an address wrongly and you know the person or his address and still you are not returning his money it is also a type of stealing.

i think some one send it to you wrongly and you know him then it is stealing.

and what do you think about bitcoin, bitcoin is also a form of money may be more valuable than any other kind of currency, therefore if stealing of fiat curry is a sin and crime similarly stealing of bitcoin is also a sin. so if you know the person who send you the fund wrongly then it is really a sin and you should return it to him.

In case A you are acting as a thief or robber and struggling hard to get someone else money(bitcoin) through forbidden ways, so it is illegal and stealing, while in case B , it appeared only by chance ( i don't think that it will ever happen) and you know that these are from someone else, and it is sure that you if leave that address that the owner's bitcoins will be safe, so after that knowing that if you do not leave that address then it will also bestealing and will be forbidden for you.

Yes and Yes you are stealing.  This kind of situation gives Bitcoin a bad name and karma will always catch up.  It is not yours.

I think it is also stealing because you know that it is not your money and of someone else, so when you leave that address then the owner will get his/her money.

No matter what scenario you spin, they're not your coins, so yes, it's theft.

How about this for scenario, technically there are no coins.
The only thing that exists is the private key which proves right to control.

So... did someone steal your coins, or stole your right to control?

If two of more people have the same right to control, does the existence of having that = legal theft?
If two or more people have the same right to control, how do you prove who had that right first?
How can the law determine how theft occurred in a system where the only knowable is key control?
If the "theft" occurs within the Bitcoin network, how will the average "authorities" investigate it?
How will the "authorities" even know if your claim of "theft" is true, and not a (insurance or other) scam?

Stealing may be stealing, but can someone steal something that you never owned?

I think we can all agree(and everyone seems to have agreed) that morally/ethically it would be stealing. The issue is whether the law sees it as a crime, and this of course depends on the country and local laws. As others have said bitcoin in general is a tricky legal field, we're basically trying to apply centralized regulations and guidelines to a decentralized currency, so this presents a tricky challenge for legislators. Most countries have restricted laws on bitcoin to financial laws, IE, AML/KYC laws.

I wouldn't say it is.
It is their mistake and if you make a mistake you pay the consequences.

Yeah thats stealing bitcoin if you get the funds from the address you bruteforce and hack..
So we will say that its stealing and its one of the bad thing if you are in real life doing it in other people you can be arrested by police..

Yes, it's stealing and I will tell you why

Imagine that if your house door is closed and someone find key and opened it and take all money from it, what will you say, isn't it stealing? Yes, it's still stealing but thief isn't very guilty here.

I will say that whatever chance you have, you mustn't steal enything, even one cent because no one likes same action if he/she is victim.

I would say so because bruteforce hack is just as if they broke into a safe full of money with dynamite or plastic (the safe bomb material that they use in the movies. ;) ).
They should be fully charged to the extent of the law if that is the case.

if some one sent you funds accidentally, you are not responsible for that but if you know the person or address and still you are not returning his bitcoin then it can be consider as stealing,

for both case A and B, i think this is stealing. for case A, you are really stealing that funds. for case B, its stealing  because its belong to someone wallet address but not pure stealing because we only found the funds on the wallet address by an accidentally. its up to you, what you want to do with that funds. better you generate other wallet address if this is make you feel alright and not feel that you are stealing somebody funds.

well good for you if got its private key. well its stealing though, i just feel sorry to the one you stole the bitcoins. haha. well thats life, theres a hacker and theres someone who got hacked. then cycle again. but if its by accident or you receive funds on a random address. it luck! :D

it its luck if you got fund accidentally, but it will more good if you return the fund to the person who sent you the fund accidentally because he will not be feeling good, and will be in tensing for losing his money.

Anything you find by chance is not stealing unless you intent to return it to the original owner.In case you find an address that have funds,finding original owner is difficult so you can just abondon it.

if you know about the owner of the address then it can be consider it as stealing, but if you do not know about the owner of the address from where you get fund the it may not be consider as stealing.

if you got it accidentally then it is not stealing, stealing is some thing when you take something intentionally without getting permission from the owner of that thing, therefore to me we cannot consider it stealing if you found something accidentally,  but still it is your responsibility to return it to its owner.

I think it is not good morally to get someone else bitcoin address as in that there will be someone else bitcoins, and the other point is that that person will also have control on that address so he will also be able to get your coins.

Ans: Both.

The thief stole both your coins and your right to control. Even though you might not be able prove this in court, nemesis has a way of catching up with the culprit.

If you found a private key "by accident", you would still need to access the network to "get the funds", which equates to "take something intentionally," therefore it's a crime.

It's functionally no different than finding someones' credit or debit card on the ground with a sticker on it showing their PIN number.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

but you take intentionally from some one then ok it is theft but if you have got the amount accidentally then it is not stealing or theft, but still it is your responsibility to return the amount to the person who accidentally sent it to you.

On your stated cases, case a without a doubt is illegal and can be considered as stealing.  Since you exert more effort to find a bitxoin address with funds in it.  But the good thing is maybe you will not be punished.  The bad side is since you done that it is possible that everyones bitcoin addesses can be steal and were not safe.  Taken from you that you just make efforts in doing so.  In case b, it is just pure luck to have already bitcoins on that newly generated address.

Your case A is obviously stealing because of your evil intention. ;D  You do everything just to gain something even if you know that it is from the other person.  You exerted effort just to have bitcoins that is not yours.  In case B it is just pure luck.  You have not done anything wrong as it is already in that bitcoin wallet.  But would that happen?  I mean having already a fund with the wallet address that is newly generated?

Are you saying that not having evil intentions makes it not illegal?  If my family is starving and I rob a bank it isn't illegal because I am doing it for good?

Yes it is still stealing/theft.

If the postal service delivers a package to you by mistake, and you keep it, you get arrested if you dont give it back..

If someone accidentally deposits money in your bank account and you keep it, you get arrested if you dont pay it back.

If the tax service accidentally gives you a refund to large and you keep it, you get arrested if you dont pay it back.

You sound like a child with absolutely no adult life experience... or you're retarded.

I think it's not stealing for both cases because I think it wasn't a private property of some previous owner, it just happened he had the priv. keys, and now you also have. I tried to give a better explanation here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1598043.0

According to the idea that bitcoins exists in our "minds", what is happening is that you are able to communicate "to the air" and other people will hear that and they will arbitrarily decide to change their memory of the mental blockchain. So you can't be a theft just by saying some words to the air, while you're not taking any private property away from anyone. You are not more blamable than the people who decided to give their interpretation to your meaningless speech, and decided to ignore the (now) useless effort of the previous owner to re-spend his bitcoins.

Let's change the story: what if I'm walking in a mall, then I say something like "it's so could here", but some random guy hears me and thinks I said that I ordered him to go and kill random people. The interpretation he gives to what I said is his own business, I have nothing to do with his actions. But in the bitcoin case, the messages aren't "propositional" and there's not even private property aggression, anywhere. So in the bitcoin case I'm far more secure that it's not a wrong-doing.

Well, I think it's ok to think that way IF you consider that btc aren't priv. property. If not, if they are, then yes I would consider it a theft for both cases.

---

I very similar situation is when someone wrongly sends you some bitcoin, in a address you didn't expect any donation. Would you send it back? I mean, he could still just be donating random ppl some btc, but its very likely he is not. And if you consider it a donation, then (maybe) you can consider that everyone who participates on the blockchain are also donators to whoever have "their" private addresses.

but i think the band is not responsible for your family, bank is holding the people money and when you will robed it then who will pay to them and the second thing is that the state have the responsibility to provide basic necessity to the people free fo cost therefore you will not be doing right if you are going to robbed a band just for your family.

I agree with the first part of your statement but where do you get your logic for the statement i marked in bold?

I would say this is a form of stealing because if you find them and they are not yours then you should not touch them because someone left them there and they expect them to be there when they return to them.
It is no different from if it were something on the street or on a park bench.
Let the person have the chance to reclaim what they have left there.

if you got the fund accidentally then its ok and it is not stealing but if you still know the person who sent you the bitcoin accidentally and you are not returning his money then it is stealing,

if you are doing robbery in a bank for the reason to get food for you children, i think it is not good, because there are so many organization and charity center from where you can easily get help and cam give food to your children.

I guess that is stealing because the address that you find is not yours in the first place plus you get the funds inside that address. But i think your not going to jail because of it because you don't know the owner of that address and the owner of that address will not be able to know you because that's how Bitcoin works.

I would consider it stealing. Wait some time, if the funds aren't messed with for months or years then maybe you can leave with a fat wallet and a clean conscience.

So you guys want to tell me that if I post my private key here no one of you will swipe it if the account ballance is 150 BTC.


LOL.

I don't believe any of you! I think you will all steal it and your action is making your talking invalid!

if you found the address by chance or accidentally then it is not stealing but still it is your moral duty to return the funds to its owner and if you know abut the owner and still do not returning the fund to its owner then it is stealing.

yes you cannot believe on any one in such case, and you have to keep your key very safe if some one find i do no thing that any one will return it to you. therefore you should very careful about your key.

yes i also agree with you that you should be very careful about your security key, because if you lost your key and some one found it, he will not wast the time to take all of your money at once

no i do not think that it is stealing.

yes i think also that it is stealing, because you can return the fund easily to one who sent you accidentally and if you are not doing so, then its mean that you are really stealing the fund..

yes in fact it is stealing because you can return the bitcoin to the address from which you have receive accidentally and if you are not doing so then you are real doing wrong.

yes if you know the person or the address from where you get the fund then it is really stealing but if yo do  not know the person then it is not stealing but you have to not use it tell some time and if the owner not fount then you can use it.

yes i also agree with you that if you know about the person or address from where you get the balance ans still you are not returning it to him then it is really stealing, but if you do not know abut the address then it is not stealing.

if you got some fund from an unknown address accidentally its ok you not stolen the fund but you are going returning it from where you got then it is really stealing.

Well - it's not stealing in Germany and in Japan. That much I know now.

Rico

if you found the fun accidentally then it is not stealing if you found intentionally using some source then it is really stealing and it is morally and lawfully not good.

it is a case of morality,if you find some cash while you are walking down the aisle, would you take it ? ,i certainly will not ,but  here you are doing this on purpose and still claiming to be an innocent act and i wonder what your age is having these sort of doubts

I didn't even need to read your entire post.
Are you actually this "fundamentally" morally bankrupt?
If they were yours, and someone "found them", and didn't give them back: would that be stealing? Yes.

the case first i s totally a bug example of stealing but in the case second if you got the adress that is the same which is used by another then i will suggest you to leave that wallet because it may be possible that you deposit some amount of btc at that adress then the second person withdraw your btc then you will get loss , so never make things that is bad for someone .

Morality is irrelevant.
The majority of the Bitcoin Network is designed and functions on amoral behavior.
You seem to be pretty ignorant of this based on your response.

Depends on which country it happen. If it happened in the country where ownership of bitcoin is not honored then, even it is morally wrong, it is not a theft.  But if it happen to the country that impose a law and honor the ownership of bitcoin as asset or whatever, then it is stealing.  I think it is simple as that.  Morality is out of concept in bitcoin protocol.  Besides Government had already defeated the meaning of morality.

I guess the number one is clear stealing legally and ethically, Number two is a grey zone but I still guess it's stealing, However being able to track down someone using these methods is almost impossible, letting alone prosecuting them under the law almost anywhere in the world.

Ok

I was not trying to be rude, if I came off as such.

To clarify myself, can stealing truly exist in an purposefully created amoral system?
For a wacky example, assume in another dimension, humans can kill other humans for a form
of advancement and that is socially acceptable and the rules and laws in this dimension, now
the question is: can a person commit murder in this place?
I don't think so and I think the OPs question about stealing is like this example.
(But in our world it is murder, and outside the Bitcoin blockchain, it is theft.)

but here the case is a little different, it is right that you will not take the cash but if some one accidentally got fund then it is his moral duty to return it and if he is not returning it then it will be stealing, 

We don't need to be in another dimension: we call this war, and we do it every day, right here in this dimension for as long as recorded history. It doesn't make it ok, it simply makes it: the way things are.

The OP had a question, I stated my opinion, you disagreed with me and called me ignorant < that's your opinion and you are free to it ;-) keep it; it's probably "the truth".

But this is not:
"The majority of the Bitcoin Network is designed and functions on amoral behavior."

The network was meant to function without trust, it is a program, it requires no morality. We are not questioning the morality of the program.
It was a question posed by a person regarding an action they would carry out.

This isn't Plato's Republic, it's bitcoin talk.
And the question isn't a complicated moral conundrum.
Is it stealing? Yes. However which friggen way you would want to justify it.

No. War is actually a form of state sanctioned killing, as long as it falls within Geneva Conventions.
So war is not murder under the legal understanding. The question I was asking was in a world where
killing is acceptable on a daily basis, such as for parking spots and job promotions. My point was that
the bitcoin blockchain is not only a "trustless, program requiring no morality, and etc"., but legally it is
something much more. The Bitcoin blockchain is its own world with rules that are contradictory to our
current view of the world and its systems, and this is why the governments currently can not regulate it.
Theft, conspiracy, collusion, manipulation, and etc are illegal in normal regulated financial systems, but
in Bitcoin it is what allows it to function.




Bitcoin does not grant any users any legal rights or guarantees of or in the Bitcoin system.
Bitcoin has no central authority to determine ownership or rightful possession of any bitcoins.
The whole system is voluntary and only functions due to its ability to not conform to established laws.

Theft from a legal view is determined when a type of property is wrongfully or illegally taken by another.
In the bitcoin system, since no rights exist or are granted, theft does not exist except as a valid system
of conveyance of bitcoins. For example, the Bitcoin blockchain does not care who has stolen them, neither
do the devs or miners, and that the only users who do care are the legally regulated exchanges that will freeze
the stolen coins if they are deposited within their site since they are required to conform to money laws and rules.
If the coins never enter the exchanges, the thief will be allowed by the blockchain to continue its control and
movement of those coins. The bitcoin blockchain will not freeze those coins or make judgements of those coins.

Since Bitcoin itself is currently unregulated, theft is fully allowable, considered a realistic possibility, and ultimately
is considered acceptable when it occurs. If you pay attention to the forum posts of when actual coins are stolen from
someone, most of the responses to that user is that it was due to their own actions and not due to the thief breaking
some sort of code or rule or law. The user who lost their coins has no form of recourse or appeal to the system itself.

Because of all the foregoing and other undiscussd issues, bitcoin users actually do not legally own any bitcoins.
They have no rights to the coins or the system and most governments do not grant any rights or protections to it.
So "stealing" is really only a moral question and not a legal question with Bitcoin, and the OPs post was a legal question
in Legal section of this forum.

I am not trying to justify theft, I'm just explaining why I think certain legal standards may not exist in Bitcoin.
If a day comes when those standards are applied to Bitcoin within the network itself, Bitcoin is dead and over.

My guess is that it is obviously stealing in the case A, because the question is like, when I get the key from one's house and take the money from out there is it stealing? Yes, it is. Case B is not that easy. You might have recieved the money accidentally and then it would be better to return it. But somebody might have wanted to surprise you and send you money or it was a robot giving random tips for some actions. Case B is half-stealing, I think.