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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: sgravina on August 04, 2011, 10:18:08 AM



Title: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: sgravina on August 04, 2011, 10:18:08 AM
Has anyone contacted law enforcement about mybitcoin (https://www.mybitcoin.com)?

Is this the FBI's job?  If nobody gives a real answer then I will call them myself.

This is a major crime effecting many people for a lot of money.  It should be prosecuted.

Sam


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: Departure on August 04, 2011, 10:26:58 AM
+1

I agree, Its like nobody wants to even try because they know bitcoin is so secure and pointless to pursue, I would also contact the developers to get technical information to see if all the mybitcoin wallet addresses can be frozen, This way atleast it stops the coins from moving any further, I have already followed alot of my transactions to mybitcoin wallet to its final destination and there is large amounts of bitcoins on the final address and has not moved so far. I would try and see if these final wallet addresses could be frozen to stop anyone cashing them in. The one person/company who claimed to make an effort to find "Tom Williams" gave up. I dont think we should be pursing the owner as all attempts have failed, But instead finding out how we can reverse transactions made to the final mybitcoin wallet address(there are many of them). Just by following my own account I found there was atleast over a million bitcoins sitting in diffrent final wallet addresses, Something should be done...... I wish I knew how to purse this, but the truth is I wouldn't even know where to start looking or who to contact.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: BitcoinBug on August 04, 2011, 10:30:07 AM

FBI knows about the situation and has already talked to Bruce Wagner. If you have any usable information regarding mybitcoin.com, you should contact them.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: julz on August 04, 2011, 10:31:31 AM
Well people are trying to gather information.
e.g see this thread 'How to find "Tom Williams"'  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34225.0

I've emailed a cacert.org mailing list - as well as their support to see if the https certificate used by www.mybitcoin.com leads to any further info.

(mailing list referred me to support.  I'm awaiting a response.)



Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: julz on August 04, 2011, 10:43:48 AM
For what it's worth - I still think it's unlikely this was actually a scam.
More likely the operator died - or is off hiking in the wilderness.. or that there was some serious unresolvable technical problem.

Here is a snippet from one of the mybitcoin.com pages:

Quote
Price the goods and services on your website in any national currency, and have our SCI convert the prices into Bitcoins as each purchase is made.

Payment forwarding

You can have every single incoming payment forward to another Bitcoin address. Great for those who want to keep their coins on their desktop PC, or all in one place, but still want to use our shopping cart interface and merchant tools.

They had this system in place. If the entire aim was to encourage *storage* of as much BTC as possible on their systems so they could run - it seems unlikely they'd set up this immediate-forward aspect and promote it.

The operator was a serious security and privacy proponent for sure..  but it's far from obvious that the intention was bad.
Despite a few customer support issues - the mybitcoin brand alone was valuable as a legitimate operation.
It wouldn't make sense to cut and run at this point with a lot of bitcoin which can't easily be dumped on the market without tanking prices.
If profit was the motive - it was there to be had in bucketloads by running things legitimately and hanging in there as a well-known part of the bitcoin ecosystem.






Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: fastandfurious on August 04, 2011, 10:50:49 AM
+1

I agree, Its like nobody wants to even try because they know bitcoin is so secure and pointless to pursue, I would also contact the developers to get technical information to see if all the mybitcoin wallet addresses can be frozen, This way atleast it stops the coins from moving any further, I have already followed alot of my transactions to mybitcoin wallet to its final destination and there is large amounts of bitcoins on the final address and has not moved so far. I would try and see if these final wallet addresses could be frozen to stop anyone cashing them in. The one person/company who claimed to make an effort to find "Tom Williams" gave up. I dont think we should be pursing the owner as all attempts have failed, But instead finding out how we can reverse transactions made to the final mybitcoin wallet address(there are many of them). Just by following my own account I found there was atleast over a million bitcoins sitting in diffrent final wallet addresses, Something should be done...... I wish I knew how to purse this, but the truth is I wouldn't even know where to start looking or who to contact.

Departure, it seems that you have put a lot of effort to try to find those addresses. Could you share those to the Bitcoin community so that we also can follow the future flow of bitcoins transferred from those addresses.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: Departure on August 04, 2011, 11:15:05 AM
They go through multiple wallets before comming to a final address, I only count final addresses as recievers, Meaning they have only ever recieved bitcoins and never sent any bitcoins which would indicate they are mybitcoin storage addresses. Ofcause there is many more "Final Destination" wallet addresses than the ones I provided below, As these are only from my own mybitcoin wallet account.

http://blockexplorer.com/address/13c37f2r12KRgRuG7BS8FuB7NXjttHkQYF
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1A4peZ5YWExWgozUJudLWdo84Rj3hqqUff
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1CDxfXFBNSNQ18818skkVAFfuFotJy3q7L
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Lm22EAUJPhnjZCKxqgRpfDUXpsdU6BfKo
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Ju4Us56hi2kFz16bESy9Gkm4yCdCkixzD
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1EvpzhAhb6drEGmaTU3WmwE5oh8fPwrmZe
http://blockexplorer.com/address/15crYQvGBrQaeAAqviavhBkyFKLW4o6kJ8
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1bJTiQBvpeHhvDvjCfgANFyAQjZu5v7Er
http://blockexplorer.com/address/14qrKSNxTW7uZybgsibf7tAytH1aVnoc5p

These are just some addresses that im 100% sure belong to mybitcoin due to the fact multiple transactions ended up here and is always second wallet from my own mybitcoin wallet, Also these are final addresses meaning nothing has moved. There are many addresses with larger amounts but have sends, one of them held over 400,000 btc but I wont list it here due to it having some send transactions.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: BitcoinPorn on August 04, 2011, 11:31:35 AM
Has anyone contacted law enforcement about mybitcoin (https://www.mybitcoin.com)?

Is this the FBI's job?  If nobody gives a real answer then I will call them myself.

This is a major crime effecting many people for a lot of money.  It should be prosecuted.

Sam

Look what Bruce from OnlyOneTV is doing. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34211.0


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: twobits on August 04, 2011, 12:19:11 PM
Well people are trying to gather information.
e.g see this thread 'How to find "Tom Williams"'  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34225.0

I've emailed a cacert.org mailing list - as well as their support to see if the https certificate used by www.mybitcoin.com leads to any further info.

(mailing list referred me to support.  I'm awaiting a response.)



Having used cacert in the past,  they went off the domain registration info, so doubt you can get anything that the whois did not also give.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: julz on August 04, 2011, 12:29:47 PM
Well people are trying to gather information.
e.g see this thread 'How to find "Tom Williams"'  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34225.0

I've emailed a cacert.org mailing list - as well as their support to see if the https certificate used by www.mybitcoin.com leads to any further info.

(mailing list referred me to support.  I'm awaiting a response.)



Having used cacert in the past,  they went off the domain registration info, so doubt you can get anything that the whois did not also give.


I was worried that might be the case. The only other certificate based lead is that Tobias Lloyd signed the key that Tom Williams used for correspondence and for the mybitcoin.com automated emails. Hopefully he'll respond to emails and let us know if he actually verified any contact details.


EDIT: I've had a response from Tobias Lloyd. He only acted to sign a public key verifying that it was from mybitcoin.com.  He has no further info regarding who Tom Williams is.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: fastandfurious on August 04, 2011, 01:24:57 PM
They go through multiple wallets before comming to a final address, I only count final addresses as recievers, Meaning they have only ever recieved bitcoins and never sent any bitcoins which would indicate they are mybitcoin storage addresses. Ofcause there is many more "Final Destination" wallet addresses than the ones I provided below, As these are only from my own mybitcoin wallet account.

http://blockexplorer.com/address/13c37f2r12KRgRuG7BS8FuB7NXjttHkQYF
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1A4peZ5YWExWgozUJudLWdo84Rj3hqqUff
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1CDxfXFBNSNQ18818skkVAFfuFotJy3q7L
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Lm22EAUJPhnjZCKxqgRpfDUXpsdU6BfKo
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Ju4Us56hi2kFz16bESy9Gkm4yCdCkixzD
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1EvpzhAhb6drEGmaTU3WmwE5oh8fPwrmZe
http://blockexplorer.com/address/15crYQvGBrQaeAAqviavhBkyFKLW4o6kJ8
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1bJTiQBvpeHhvDvjCfgANFyAQjZu5v7Er
http://blockexplorer.com/address/14qrKSNxTW7uZybgsibf7tAytH1aVnoc5p

These are just some addresses that im 100% sure belong to mybitcoin due to the fact multiple transactions ended up here and is always second wallet from my own mybitcoin wallet, Also these are final addresses meaning nothing has moved. There are many addresses with larger amounts but have sends, one of them held over 400,000 btc but I wont list it here due to it having some send transactions.

It looks like your bitcoins have already been sent to Mt.Gox account. Just a thought.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: Departure on August 05, 2011, 12:15:11 AM
yeah it seems that way, but the dates dont add up, it seems they are sent to MT GOX straight away after transferring to mybitcoin.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: tvbcof on August 05, 2011, 01:11:19 AM
Has anyone contacted law enforcement about mybitcoin (https://www.mybitcoin.com)?

...


I personally hope not (but obviously am already to late.)  Here's why:

If law enforcement has to get involved with such scams, it will cost money.  That will create a lamentably legitimate argument that the government should be involved with implementation, regulation, transfer, etc, of Bitcoin.  I would have to buy that argument because it is patently unfair to ask anyone to clean up a pile of shit without any ability to regulate it in the first place or stop it from happening again.  Even the government(s).

I am sensitive to the argument that to some extent this is a general cyber crime, but Bitcoin is different in my mind.  When a kid goes to the emergency room with a hand full of bones and no fingers from trying to make a pipe bomb or playing with an M-80, I feel bad for him of course, but still believe that he (or his parents) should pay the doctor bills.  And Bitcoin is a gigantic pipe bomb imho.

Would I feel this way if I lost 100 BTC?  I'm sure I would.  25,000 BTC?  I honestly dunno.  It sucks all around, but my personal feeling is that people should just suck it up and/or participate in efforts to make the specific or general problem less painful going forward.

As always, I can certainly understand if people disagree.  And I would feel quite differently if the organization in question (mybitcoin.com) had obtained a business licence and played ball like some of the exchanges seem to be trying to do.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: kjj on August 05, 2011, 01:30:44 AM
yeah it seems that way, but the dates dont add up, it seems they are sent to MT GOX straight away after transferring to mybitcoin.

Can you post some of the direct addresses that you personally used to send your coins to mybitcoin?


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: cypherdoc on August 05, 2011, 04:00:20 AM
They go through multiple wallets before comming to a final address, I only count final addresses as recievers, Meaning they have only ever recieved bitcoins and never sent any bitcoins which would indicate they are mybitcoin storage addresses. Ofcause there is many more "Final Destination" wallet addresses than the ones I provided below, As these are only from my own mybitcoin wallet account.

http://blockexplorer.com/address/13c37f2r12KRgRuG7BS8FuB7NXjttHkQYF
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1A4peZ5YWExWgozUJudLWdo84Rj3hqqUff
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1CDxfXFBNSNQ18818skkVAFfuFotJy3q7L
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Lm22EAUJPhnjZCKxqgRpfDUXpsdU6BfKo
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Ju4Us56hi2kFz16bESy9Gkm4yCdCkixzD
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1EvpzhAhb6drEGmaTU3WmwE5oh8fPwrmZe
http://blockexplorer.com/address/15crYQvGBrQaeAAqviavhBkyFKLW4o6kJ8
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1bJTiQBvpeHhvDvjCfgANFyAQjZu5v7Er
http://blockexplorer.com/address/14qrKSNxTW7uZybgsibf7tAytH1aVnoc5p

These are just some addresses that im 100% sure belong to mybitcoin due to the fact multiple transactions ended up here and is always second wallet from my own mybitcoin wallet, Also these are final addresses meaning nothing has moved. There are many addresses with larger amounts but have sends, one of them held over 400,000 btc but I wont list it here due to it having some send transactions.

It looks like your bitcoins have already been sent to Mt.Gox account. Just a thought.

how can u tell they're mtgox accts?


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: repentance on August 05, 2011, 04:38:53 AM
There's a sticky at the top of the forum about Mybitcoin going into receivership, just in case anyone has missed it.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: tysat on August 05, 2011, 05:56:34 AM
There's a sticky at the top of the forum about Mybitcoin going into receivership, just in case anyone has missed it.

I'm wondering if it's actually legit.... a week is a long time to wait to post something about getting "hacked".  It could be in response to the starting FBI investigation (I think that's actually happening?).

We'll have to wait and see what's going on to be sure.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: bitbot on August 05, 2011, 12:26:16 PM
Has anyone contacted law enforcement about mybitcoin (https://www.mybitcoin.com)?

Is this the FBI's job?  If nobody gives a real answer then I will call them myself.

This is a major crime effecting many people for a lot of money.  It should be prosecuted.

Sam

there is an investigation being spearheaded by the UAABB and its' CEO, Matthew Ne Wright


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: mizerydearia on September 20, 2011, 01:55:44 PM
I didn't see any instances of "dalin owens" referenced on this forum, so I thought I'd place this here: http://bitcoin.crimeunit.net/wiki/index.php/MyBitcoin_Somerandomguy_irc_log


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: lettucebee on September 20, 2011, 04:36:04 PM
I didn't see any instances of "dalin owens" referenced on this forum, so I thought I'd place this here: http://bitcoin.crimeunit.net/wiki/index.php/MyBitcoin_Somerandomguy_irc_log

Well, well. That IS juicy.  This whole account has face validity.  Someone very technical was behind mybitcoin (certainly not the klutz Bruce).  That he would own the companies advertised on mybitcoin also makes sense.  And this Nanaimogold character has always struck me as suspicious. He seems to know a little too much and gets a little too angry when the conversation gets near him. The owner of mybitcoin was obviously skilled at anonymity which would make sense if an anonymity-loving company (nanaimogold) were a family business and if he were running a company where anonymity is the market niche (btc4cash). 

Makes perfect sense.  We need to find out more on dalin owens and shane smith.  Does anyone know if these guys are friends of Hiro White? 

(btw, hiro made a good point on his podcast that we really don't want the FBI to investigate this.  That would spill out the names and activities of the entire bitcoin community like a heap of smelly entrails.  Bitcoin is not the place for the failed State and its henchboys.  Better to pursue this ourselves.


Title: Re: Is there a leagal investigation into mybitcoin?
Post by: lettucebee on September 20, 2011, 05:18:25 PM
On page 12 of this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40750.220) appears nanaimogold. He obviously doesn't like people asking questions about "Tom Williams".