Bitcoin Forum

I think the relevance here is obvious

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Citigroup acknowledged that a hack attack last month stole millions of dollars from customers' credit card accounts.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) told CNN that about $2.7 million was stolen from about 3,400 accounts on May 10.


The hackers actually accessed a much larger number of accounts: 360,083. Fewer than 1% of the hacked accounts had money removed from them, according to Citigroup.

The bank reiterated that customers will not be responsible from financial losses stemming from the attacks.

"Customers are not liable for any fraud on the accounts and are 100% protected," the bank said.


http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/27/technology/citi_credit_card/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

Great find.

of course, Citi gets $2.7M from the FDIC.

and then each customer has to prove that they had a loss due to that event.

place your bets... how much of the $2.7M will be disbursed to individuals vs. how much will Citi keep for themselves?

Quick, sell all your dollars! Dollar is doomed! Dollar is insecure!

why should they get even a cent from FDIC?  what is your source?

About as much as Paypal keeps from not executing seller/buyer insurance protection they acquire with the fee's they collect from each transaction.

I'm suspecting banks get their money stolen a lot more frequently than reported.  They have a vested interest to keep everything mum unless it's absolutely necessarily to go public, i.e. an internal leak

I have noticed a trend. Hackers are really starting to get their own if you know what I mean. Hackers are usually pretty intelligent individuals, are you guys curious as to what these people will do will all this money?

they're gonna invest it in bitcoin

-> RALLY

All signs do point to a massive rally.

The FDIC only insures against insolvency.  Fraud and Theft are specifically excluded.

great find! Can we collect these articles into a sticky please? I would like to see a list of events in the traditional economy that show how traditional systems are just as vulnerable to cyber attack as bitcoin systems.

Maybe the bitcoin economy needs some insurance services. I think that a system like the cooperative one used in merchant shipping (can't remember the name now) could work well.

So is this the higher security standard that people are saying Gox needs to be held to?  A major financial institution being hacked and losing 2.7M?

No one is immune from penetration (especially not your mother!)

Wish I had more cash to invest in Coin right now.

The way post-Gox the market is still pretty stable to me means something positive will happen, because if it hasn't gone down after all that and the trusted forms of money are fucking up.

BUY BUY BUY

What is the relevance, exactly? 

(1) Everyone gets hacked, so no special problem for bitcoins?

or

(2) In Citi, your accounts are 100% guaranteed if you are hacked and they eat the loss, whereas in BTC, your only guarantee is being flogged in the forums if you admit what happened?

1.) Yeah, pretty much. Most users on the internet are barely able to breathe and digest properly - much less maintain a system effectively against incursions.

2.) If you have BTC taken from you, and the FIRST thing you do is post here --- I have to ask, are these users completely retarded? Who the hell does that? Drama queens? Liars? Fix the problem and move on, you know, like an adult. Don't come whining here expecting a big forum-hug.

Hookers and blow?

(1) is true: everybody gets hacked.  But the risk distribution between traditional banking and bitcoin are totally different.

In traditional banking, when accounts are compromised, hackers win, banks lose, standard consumers don't win or lose anything: they remain as before and don't have to worry about it.

In the bitcoin economy, when accounts are compromised, hackers win, standard consumers / users lose, and banks are unchanged.

To me, that is the story.  The average Citi customer doesn't have to fight off the global collective IQ of the hacker community.  Citi bears that risk for them.  But they do have that job if they use bitcoins.

The gratuitous insults from the Aspy-types here are just icing on the cake.  Thankfully, not eveyone here is so callous.

(Full disclosure: I have yet to lose any BTC, but I do empathize with the posters here who've lost absurd sums of money to hackers.)

Probably, though I didn't know escort services were in BTC yet.

Do you think we'll see a concentration of bitcoin wealth in the hands of hackers?

Darwinian analysis. As theft grows more widespread, at some point the average BTC is held not by an early adopter, but by a hacker who stole it from a late adopter.  What does this mean?  That BTC contracts are not between idealists, but thieves, making you much more likely to be ripped off if doing business in BTC than dollars because, as we all know, "there is no honor among thieves".

buy Bitcoin?

In the days of yesteryear, pirates (skilled navigators and seaman) roamed the ocean shipping lanes (a new frontier) and accosted any ships they came across and stole goods while in transit.

Piracy on the high seas is still a problem today. Estimates are 13 billion dollars in losses due to piracy worldwide.

Are the bitcoin "piracy" wars just beginning?

Ah, so it is okay and dandy that we print money to cover the loss, versus being anti-inflationary. Tell me why you use bitcoin again? Oh, and the average Citi customer doesn't fight off hackers, true -- they rely on Citi's IT department to do it for them. And when they fail....

It isn't an insult, its reality. I don't go into the bar after being mugged expecting people to buy me a drink and go "Awwwwww" when I've lost money. Maybe because I'm self-reliant and accept the responsibilities of my mistakes and actions. (Taking that dark alleyway shortcut when I should've known better.)

People who can't own up to the fact that they royally 'effed up, then come here for sympathy really don't deserve any.

Not escorts but there is a dominatrix here who will take BTC.  I can imagine hackers would be interested in that sort of service, perhaps seeking punishment for their wrongdoings.

That's nothing. Years ago the Russian mob got citibank for something like a million $/day for a month! I'm sure if you google it you will find that it is quite a story.

One of the great things about the bitcoin system is that it's my choice in the end to choose to stuff it under the digital mattress or leave it in someone elses hands.

High end security services for bitcoin will surely come about given time, just as banks have become more secure since the wild west. In the traditional economy my choices are between trusting a bank who are more of societal parasite than anything else these days, paying for some kind of insurance or buying a load of gold and hiding it somewhere locked up. The third option is not exactly what I would call a liquid asset.

Personally I like being able to use my own cryptography and backups.