Bitcoin Forum

This is not very surprising/interesting, but I thought I'd mention that I received a subpoena for information related to Ross Ulbricht's alleged forum account altoid (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3905). I mostly just compiled some publicly-available information. The only non-public data I had to include were some deleted posts in the heroin store (https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=175.0) topic that were not written by DPR and probably won't be useful in the case.

You might be surprised to learn that this is the first subpoena I've received for the forum.

And just why the hell are you disclosing something of this nature?  Not that I condone or know what DPR did, but working in close proximity to lawyers for most of the day, I have a lay understanding that you probably shouldn't be openly disclosing this type of thing to anyone, let alone on the internet.

I'd say it sets a good precedent.  It's nice to know when justice is happening, even if we don't know why in this case.

Even though this is a private forum, it still has to obey laws.  I find that comforting.

Was the allegation of him attempting to hire a hitman ever substantiated?

I would assume so, considering you gave him negative rep for it (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=3905).

Becaus he can.  There was no gag order I assume...

What was the method of receiving the subpoena btw?

No one said that this was confidential. Why should it be? Everyone knows that Ulbricht is facing criminal charges, and his (alleged) altoid account and postings were mentioned in the initial FBI report.

It's interesting to note that altoid's most damning posts only exist as quotes. He deleted the posts before I changed the forum settings to archive all deleted posts. So I don't think that this evidence is very strong, though I'm sure that this is far from the only piece of evidence that will be presented against Ulbricht.


Email. I suppose I could have demanded a hardcopy, fought about the jurisdiction, etc., but this wouldn't have done anyone any good.

The most fascinating part of this post is that this is the first time that BitcoinTalk has ever been subpoenaed.

Thank you for going public with this, if you ever receive a subpoena for information relating to my post on this forum i would want to know about it.  :P
My guess is there probably looking for information on btc trades he may have done so they can get him on more back taxes, give hem more power to sell every coin he has.

I'd say interesting, but not very exciting. Did they ask for private messages or IPs or anything like that? Looks like his last post on the forums was trying to recruit someone to be what I assume was a dev of SR. Obviously one of his first mistakes.


I'm sure it wont be the last.

Very surprising.
But not as surprised as reading some of the comments in the heroin store thread.

I was under the impression that this was received well over a year ago.

Are you able to disclose specifically what was requested (e.g. a copy of the subpoena) and/or specifically what was provided (a copy of your response)?

EDIT: I think this person pretty much got what happened to SR1 spot on:

And I wonder if this post was what inspired Ross to start SR

This is an abominable precedent. When the subpoena arrives, the subpoena should go up. Not to mention that this thread was born well after the prosecution's discovery should have been submitted to the defense in the Ulbricht case.

Maybe this is the first time Theymos experienced a formal subpoena, but I have trouble believing that this is the first time he experienced a law enforcement inquiry. Especially considering the FBI and Treasury Department showed up at my front door because I used DBordello's BTCPak service way back in the day, Per: http://www.thedrinkingrecord.com/2014/08/25/a-law-enforcement-encounter-if-you-ran-a-bitcoin-related-service-before-the-thing-hit-100-you-prolly-ought-to-be-somewhat-concerned-andor-prepared/

Whatever DPR or Ulbricht or the Alleged suspect did, the rule of Just law is paramount and people in the position to disclose requests for this information ought to disclose these requests as they are received. Sure, running or patronizing a darknet drug market is one of the stupidest things a Bitcoin user could do, but it is also very shitty for a trusted member of the community running a venue to just go "Hey I got a subpoena" without offer its contents.

GPG signed version of this post: http://www.thedrinkingrecord.com/2014/12/03/for-posterity/ (http://www.thedrinkingrecord.com/2014/12/03/for-posterity/)

Don't leave us hanging, post it.

https://bitcointalk.org/docs/ulbricht.pdf

I won't post my response because it contains deleted posts which should remain private if at all possible. Probably my response will end up as part of public record, but I'm not going to speed up the process or make it easier for people to find. I already PMed the users affected by this.


This is the first government request/inquiry I've received related to Ulbricht's case. I have received a few other inquiries for other cases.

I always hate trying to answer things like this as if I'm staking my reputation on the data being "absolutely" correct. At best, even as a sysadmin, we can only know "to the best of our knowledge" that the data is accurate, though these subpeonas try to make it sound like it's cold hard facts and that the data could never have been tampered with. For example, the forums were compromised last year and even though you may not suspect anything was changed/deleted, it's hard to say that you *know for sure* nothing was, and even if you did know, it's always to the best of your knowledge, not an absolute.

When/if you show up in court, if the defense asks you stuff like this to try to put your reputation on the line, I'd caution against claiming absolutes. I'm confident you'll do fine, but I'd hate for them tear you apart and the prosecution to sacrifice you because they don't care. They might not even put you on the stand, though, hard to tell if this is even going to be a point of contention, they might not care to fight the case on this particular issue. If I was a lawyer though, I'd tear a sysadmin's word apart just because I know from being a sysadmin how uncertain things we believe to be true can sometimes be. Especially in troubleshooting.

Sorry to see you got dragged into this stuff, don't trust anyone but the judge if you're on the stand.

Does this mean that you'll need to be present (or at least, a representative) at NYC that time?

good to know. Thanks for sharing.

But I assume you have been arrested dozens of times?

J/K, thanks for sharing this info.

What do u mean ?

AFAIK only if the plaintiffs want to use his testimony and so has to be available for questions. Alternatively can do it pre-trial and prerecorded.

You should have at least called in to the DA's office to check it was a valid subpoena, there could be liability if you release information to a spoofed subpoena. Someone (with motive/connection or not) could have sent you that email spoofed to the DA's office about the credible case, without it being from the DA.

The subpoena says that a personal appearance is necessary.

I am certain that he would not be able to per-record his testimony as this would deprive Ross his right to face his accusers and to question theymos if he wanted to do so. In theory it could be done via skype or via some other video conferencing software, however this is generally rare.     

He is not being asked to testify regarding evidence, all he has to do is certify (at the penalty of contempt or worse) that what he has submitted is true and proper.


If he was being asked to testify, of course they can do it before hand. The plaintiffs do one deposition and submit the logs to the court and defendants, and then the defendants get to do a similar process and are free to cross examine anything that is said. I think you might have been watching too many films, but a lot of what happens in the court room is processing and reviewing evidence that has already been submitted in documents. It would be rarer that new evidence is freshly submitted in a court room as no one can do anything until both parties have had time to review the evidence and prepare a response.

Yea, I see that now. That was my mistake. I would say it could be possible that Ross could dispute the validity of what was submitted and ask him to testify, but I would find this somewhat unlikely (if theymos did have to testify, it might be about the integrity of the DB after various hacks/hack attempts of the forum).   
I am not entirely sure about this. My understanding of testimony is that it must be done in front of a Jury and that the defendant has the right to cross examine any testimony that a witness presents. Although I do not have a law degree and have very little experience in a courtroom so I may be wrong on this.   

Thanks for this post , any news about this case ?

Oh, I'm totally kidding. "j/k" was supposed to mean "just kidding".

I got this PM, I forget what I posted :D Interesting nevertheless.

Why don't you ask theymos for a copy of the post and then post it here (if it isn't too incriminating).

I think the Ross Ulbright case will certainly be the court case to watch it 2015, and will almost certainly be appealed to the supreme court (assuming he is found guilty, which I think he will be initially) 

My guess is this is what you posted:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175.msg57305#msg57305
Looks like it was your first ever post, great start!

I would be interested to know if everyone who posted in that thread got this PM, if so then many are getting them including Gavin Andresen and even the famous laszlo.

If you get a subpoena by email, that is borderline official, and it means nothing you have is secret and needs to be hidden from public. Please please please tell me you replied to it with a string of foul language. They are casting a gigantic net to see who falls for it. In fact are you sure it isn't simply a 'summons' you can ignore just as easily?

Why are you archiving posts for? Are you keeping ip logs too? This is the concerning part.

I'm guessing he archives deleted posts for things like scam accusations. Most server admins live by the motto of always have 1 copy of a file more than you think you need, so if you think you need 1 copy of something you really need 2, if you think you need 2 copies of something you need 3, and if you think you need 0 copies you need 1. Never delete anything.

And yes he keeps IP logs. Why wouldn't he?

I guess. I'm going to have to think about abandoning my account and going dark.

This is amazing hypocrisy. While investors were scammed all year long with scam after scam (Altcoins were turning scam >2 weekly in August, eg USBCoin) there was not a single fucking peep from anyone in the manner where it would be proactive in stopping that plague. The Altcoin scams were self-moderated and the only change was mining pool advertising. This is the same forum where a thread saying "I'm starting a Ponzi scheme, who's interested in getting on board?" (http://"https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=587305.new#new") doesn't cause anyone to bat an eyelid (let alone raise a mouse finger to lock/hide/delete the post).

But now the FBI sends you a letter, and you're suddenly able to be the good guy being proactive? If not before why now? Antruk will answer that...

Yep, hit the nail on the head. It does set a good precedent. A precedent where the admin and mods have clearly got the ability to stem the flow of bad actors but choose not to. Unless of course it plays into their favor; if the price of Bitcoin is affected or there's brownie points that need winning, well, that libertarian "right to free speech, privacy (and, oh, freedom) can be put aside to set good precedent. It makes my fucking skin crawl.

Why am I defending this scum, this drug kingpin? Because he's neither. Yet. (And no, I don't even drink or do weed)
DPR has not been proven to be Ross Ulbricht. He is innocent until proven guilty.\
The defence team has no chance; the FBI will do all it takes to convict Ross and do so with extreme prejudice. You're helping the FBI on what (in their words) "an open and shut case".

Do the right thing and offer every and any assistance to Ross' legal team.
Perhaps the good precedent to set can be that there's some type of selflessness at some stage.

This is very shady theymos, I was under the assumption there's no logs. Not Google type monitoring. This isn't Facebook. Do you store our PMs too?

I hope he stores everything.

A lot of commerce is done through this forum.  A lot of scams too.   :-\

Yah but that's never been used. We've gone along without it unless theymos has released data before on scams? Where's the neobee logs? Only theymos and now the fbi ever saw anything.

He keeps PM's too of course. Theymos used to release data public, but now he only releases it to law enforcement agencies who make reasonable requests and that it is obvious to him the person is doing something illegal and immoral.

This is just the first subpoena hes received, which means he is required by law to provide the requested data should he possess it or he could risk prosecution. Any other time he has helped LE it has been a friendly request from them that he agreed with.

Well said.

If LE contact theymos about the altcoins he'll likely give them the info they request. Maybe he already has. If you were scammed report it to the police and tell them to ask theymos for any releveant information he has on the scammers. The police probably won't do shit but if they do theymos will probably help them if its obvious a scam took place. It's possible theymos has nothing useful though.

The FBI have only asked theymos for public posts, I don't think there is much point wasting the forums money fighting this, even if the forum wins (which it won't) it likely won't stop the FBI from using the posts as evidence seeing as they are public anyway. The posts were in the old court documents already and weren't challenged in anyway by Ross' defense team.

PMs are stored and certain words (such as certain words that relate to theymos) automatically alert him.
That is just one of the nuggets of his code 'patches' to SMF.

I think Blazr is right, if the defence is not challening the post then no point wasting the forums money on it. I didn't see it mentioned that any was going to be spent anyway.

Well that would be very damaging. The part about logs is my concern as well. You do not realize the extend of the information (personal!) that go through PMs. If some government agency would get a hold on that, don't be surprised if some members start missing.
Luckily I've used PGP when I needed to.

So theymos, are you archiving PMs?

Yes, including ones deleted by both parties.

@theymos, http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/responding-subpoenas
I hope you will at least request a compensation for your plane ticket. That would be so unjust having to pay one's return ticket from Hawaii to New York.

I actually am. I'd imagine you've already worked with LEOs from a few different countries pertaining to this forum by now (I have). Kinda weird that 5 years in, and you finally get your first subpoena.

I'm glad you were open about it. It shows transparency. Imagine if a few months down the road someone with PACER noticed your name on a docket, and started posting it all over the forum causing a bunch of unnecessary hype. You nipped it in the butt quickly.

Thanks for your openness and transparency, really appreciated!

Edit:


::)

I don't have to appear personally in court. It briefly mentions that in the subpoena.


Why would you assume that? I've never implied that. I often say that I can see deleted/edited posts. For example:


PMs can end up in the daily database backups. You should assume that backups are saved forever, though in practice this is not actually the case. Encrypt sensitive PMs.

Logged IPs are logged forever, but IPs are only logged in certain circumstances (such as posting). Just logging in doesn't result in your IP being permanently logged.

I am willing to cooperate with police on real scams. Whenever someone asks me to release a scammer's IP, I tell them to have police email me from an official police address. I have received police requests a handful of times. Mostly the cases were real scams and I gave the police the requested info. In some cases I've rejected their requests. For example, I refused to give information to some foreign version of the SEC because securities laws are unjust. Of course, you should not trust that I will act in your best interest. If you want to be anonymous, then you must use Tor (or whatever).

Doesn't anyone worth their salt use PGP for sensitive information anyway? Why would you trust your personal security to anyone but yourself?

The stuff that they are asking you to sign off as true should be reviewed by a lawyer before you sign it. It's not really part of the request....it's like a subpoena plus your testimony...be careful, they are asking more of you than just to produce info.

I love the wording "WE COMMAND YOU"  - so pushy. They should just ask nicely and not sound like such dicks about it.

So in case anyone doesn't already know, and it seems like a lot do not, anything you do not own you do not have control of. If you sign-up to a forum, that forum most likely keeps everything. What good business doesn't?  People know that if you put something into google's system, they have it, but don't realize it happens everywhere? get off the internet.

Maybe for now, but the right to be forgotten is gaining legal ground http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

No!

It is all but certain it will not be. It is not an allegation in the current case (although there is a separate MD case that will be heard after the one in regards to him running silk road).

Additionally to be fair, no case has been heard yet and no evidence/testimony has actually been presented in court.

You forget that ANYTHING put on the internet lives forever. Right to be forgotten is a joke. The only time it could ever hope to work is when the entire internet is totally controlled, and that will never happen until someone takes it down and it needs to be rebuilt. Remember kids, the entire internet can be removed by getting to the correct 8 servers at one time and there are a few wandering around with a code to do it, but they built it and don't want to ruin it.

You don't need to be registered to see posts. The SEC case against Pirate involved forum posts, they had printouts of his thread from what I recall reading from the testimony, they would reference posts and ask if it was his post.

Well Shrem just got 2 years in prison.

how many NSA letters have you received?

Nice to see how you rolled over and took it up the ass from the US Attorney. Good job!

Do you fancy taking on the US Government for no apparent reason in a non personal battle which doesn't impact you at all? No? Okay then.

I have a weird feeling that wants me to believe that there could be a connection between this and theymos not accepting ads from bitmixer. Maybe after receiving a subpoena he's afraid to sell advertisment space to any website that could be considered a money launderer in any way. Because we all know that this is one of the main reasons people use bitcoin mixers and tumblers aside of anonimity.

Just curious, but is PMing users affected by this acceptable?
Wouldn't it be considered as tipping off people under investigation?

Why wouldn't it be (unless it specifically stated)? DPR is the one under investigation not everyone else.


But if that was the case then exchanges and gambling sites would likely also be disallowed. You can just as easily mix your coins by sending to a gambling site then launder your funds through an exchange (many of which are already illegal and against US laws for not complying with AML laws and other such restrictions etc). This is the problem with not clarifying as people are worrying and being paranoid and trying to put two and two together.

theymos is a freakin pussy and helping to put ulbricht in jail is what I'm saying.

Theymos needs to follow the rule of law. Like he said above he could have fought the subpoena on a technicality however they would have eventually compelled him to turn over the evidence that he turned over.

I speculate that you are against him complying with subpeonas because you do not want your identity potentially revealed or evidence against you revealed to law enforcement as you have stolen money from others on here before

Was'nt theymos based in Europe? If so then he could reply the e-mail with pseudorandom string of bad words and not give the required data. And destroy properly encrypt the requested data forever.

I have personal experience by not giving data from one of webpages around the time I was helping to improve it. The webpage owner was good guy to stand his ground and finally after more than 6 months the counterintelligence agency gave up. The standoff caused some resonance in society here but the story was quickly replaced by Kardashians buttocks. Modern ZOG controlled media...

Nah, he's in the midwest.

If he didn't respond and the U.S. atty wanted the material from forum, he'd get it.  Even if it means seizing forum servers to get the data (if the court order was to be ignored).
Not responding makes no sense.  Posts about doing otherwise are likely by underage members of forun who don't yet understand consequences.

Or think its possible to take on the government and win when it comes to internet matters.

You are right that outright responding would be stupid and no one would win with if theymos gave no response.

If he did not want to provide such information then a better response would have been to fight the subpoena in court. He could argue, among other things that the forum has been hacked a number of times and he cannot provide information they are looking for that he can reasonably testify if accurate

He has no obligation to commit perjury.

The forum was hacked.Theymos can probably speak to the integrity of the posts, PM's ect contained in the forum's DB (and backups) better then I can (as well as how the hacks affected such integrity. I would say there is a good chance that such integrity is not 100% for every post/PM. This is why a good security practice is to get (and verify) a signed PGP (or bitcoin) message from a key that you know belongs to the person you are dealing with in order to authenticate that you are dealing with who you think you are dealing with.

If I was personally in theymos's position (and decided to not fight the subpoena) then I would elect to make a personal appearance instead of sending that form to make a disclosure that the business records are not guaranteed to be authentic as well as the fact that many people have attempted to alter business records

Is there any update about what happened here ?

He received a subpoena, he replied to it. What is there to update?

What did the office smell like? What was everyone wearing?

Thats not what a subpoena is... You most often reply in writing against a sworn statement + information.

That's not very exciting I guess...

Actually I was interested that the forum has only recieved one subpoena so far thanks for sharing Theymos
I was expecting at least three this one with Ross
One for Evorhees, and one from Pirateat40

I would mention MP as well but well still banned lol.

Homero Josh Garza is next.

http://qntra.net/2015/01/theymos-claims-josh-garza-is-sending-him-legal-threats-to-have-content-removed/

Payback https://coinfire.cf/2015/01/19/sec-investigation-of-gaw-miners-underway/

Is that legit? I don't know why someone who was working on the case would leak such information to this coinfire site.


If true does that mean theymos will be recieving another subpoena?

Who knows if it is legit or not, however it would not be unheard of for someone in the media to receive this kind of leaked information.

It would probably not be theymos to receive such a subpoena, it would probably be the gaw forums (their hosts ect) to receive it as a lot more of the manipulation apparently took place there then on bitcoin talk (because of their lack of ability to censor information).

It already mentioned their own forum earlier in the quote but this seems to br another additional one which I can only assume is here.

It is possible that it is here. However there are a lot of other "forums" that could be much more easily manipulated then there (reddit). I would also doubt that receiving a subpoena is something that is unusual for theymos considering how much commerce takes place here and how many scams there are

From the op of this very thread:


Though I'm sure it'll be the first of many.

Pics of the 1000 page investigation file or it didn't happen.

.cf is a free domain, owned by the same guys as .tk: http://www.dot.cf/en/index.html?lang=en how are we supposed to take their word for it if they can't even afford a domain?

Does that include NSLs?
Or is that number confidential?