Different one.  They guy had quite a good password IMHO (but that did not stop people for berating him about it.)  Certainly it was much to good for a cold remote guess style attack.

MtGox dug up a log showing a login from somewhere.  And some other people dug up some (not too) old posts from the guy which seemed to show that he was not quite as much of a security guru as he seemed to have been presenting himself as.  This was long after the main MtGox hack where the password database was filtched...or at least the only such time I am aware of where this happened to MtGox.  I'm thinking 3 weeks or a month ago.

I remember a similar event a few weeks ago.  The user presented himself as a competent individual, but eventually MtGox looked at their logs and presented a pretty compelling argument that it was user error.  The dude probably got keystroke logged IIRC.

I'll sit on the fence until either 1) more similar events pop up, or 2) MtGox presents evidence from their logs which explains things.  It is easy for me to fence sit here though since I'm not an MtGox users

(Disclosure:  I've had some very low buys in in case MtGox crashes the train.  Been in for a long time and it has not happened yet.)

Actually I would find it rather odd that an attacker would target a developer (unless said happened to have a boatload of BTC available for appropriation.)  The ability to do significant development would likely be correlated with both a relatively high ability to understand and investigate the theft, and the ability to solicit a high degree of assistance in doing so.

If I were an attacker with a simple goal of enriching myself, I would certainly not be nailing a Bitcoin developer.  Or at least not on purpose.

Best of luck recovering your BTC, and thanks for the heads-up.

I did not question the official story for a few days after the event, but by a few weeks into it, as I recall, I had already crossed the 50% probability threashold toward thinking it was likely an 'inside job'.  At this point I am up into the 'near certainty' range given the mountains of evidence uncovered over the decade.

9/11, and the wars that it facilitated were, to me personally, a giant gift.  I started seeking alternatives to USD for mainly ethical reasons and stumbled into PM's.

Over the years I have come to the belief that 9/11 can indeed be considered a 'necessity' for the 'wellbeing' of our nation.  I suspect that without control of Iraq and the central Asian areas we have, the US monetary system very likely would have collapsed by now and the US people could not enjoy a quarter of the worlds resources.  One of my remaining beefs has to do with the distribution of the spoils amongst our population...not a lot of it, by percentage, goes to the bullet stopper class who does the heavy lifting (as was more the case after WW-II.)  We still have obesity problems amongst the lowest class however so it is not fair to say that we all do not benefit...for now at least.

The 'sacrifices' in blood on 9/11 were surprisingly minimal.  The pesky Enron investigation vanished in building 7, and Sliverstein did not have to worry about his asbestos problem and got quite an insurance settlement instead.  Nicely done!  Not sure what happened to the gold in the vaults under the place, but I'm sure it found a good home.  There were a great many winners from 9/11 and not to many losers.  The losers in follow-up wars can feel good about sacrificing with the name of God and Country.

But 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya (and likely soon, Iran) are just band-aids to buy some time.  Certainly not a whole 'New American Century's worth I don't believe, and I feel that Eastasia has a stronger hand when they decide to play it.  I'll expect more 9/11's and Osama's and so on and be positioning myself to graze in whatever pasture end up being the most green.
 

Jeez...I had to double-check that I did not write the above prose.

I had some 'absurd low' bids in that got taken out.  Put in a few more (and the number of BTC that I pick up if those get snagged is higher due to the much lower price.)

I could be slightly more impressed had your avatar not been replaced.  But only slightly, and not a whole lot more amused.  Ach...back to work.

Sweet one.  Nicely done!  I would have put up an avatar just to see what SA gave me had I thought that such a hack might take place.

I'm trying to decide whether to try to buy a used rig off someone for cheap now that the BTC/USD ratio is high, or buy some new cards (or continue to avoid mining.)

If I run a miner, I would do so where 1) power is cheap, and 2) I need the waste heat anyway, and I have such a place about 500 miles from where I normally am making maintenance a pain in the ass.  I assume that a lot of miners overclocked their cards to the n'th and are not really that knowledgeable about thermodynamics to start out with.   So a used system will likely have been strained.

Can anyone suggest how detrimental irresponsible overclocking is to various cards in actual practice?

Hi didn't?  I disagree.  He put the codebase under MIT licensing.  Just get a majority of users to switch and you can have anything you like.

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Parenthetically, I see this 'new rules by software upgrade' as one of the enormous advantages if Bitcoin.  If the system is abused beyond a certain level, there is a 'nuclear option' available to the community as a democratic institution.  This is _not_ an option with gold as a store of value.

Carrying on this thought a bit more, it seems to me that if a large mining pool somehow held together long enough to maliciously destroy the currency, _that_ would be enough to convince a majority of users to 'upgrade' their software to a version which would ignore a malicious block chain fork and 'recover' albeit with some collateral damage.

I know they say that history repeats itself, but 'this time is different' because we are so modern and responsible in the West (not including Argentina) in these unique times.  So your UFO mags must be wrong.


For my part, I am making an admittedly outside bet that if currency controls were enacted, I could potentially pop up in some other part of the world and be able to obtain enough value to get by for a while.  That is one of the draws of BTC to me.

I really don't see why BTC need have a particularly high 'value'.  The lower the value, the higher percentage of the currency available for captured by interested people.

USD work just fine for most of what I wish to do with currency at this point.  BTC is, to me, a hedge against that not always being the case.  If/when people are seeking an alternative to USD, EU, etc for whatever reason, I expect then that the value of BTC will increase significantly...for better or worse.

As long at BTC has enough utilization to stress-test the system, and in particular, enough interest from people who wish to exploit it, I am perfectly happy to have the value fall to quite low levels (measured in USD) and see no particular negatives.

If low BTC 'values' chases out miners, I'm fine with that.  I'll buy their equipment and mine BTC myself rather than buy on exchanges.

It's not about the money.  For the lulz of God dude don't be such a pansy

(Actually I have no idea how charge-backs work so I wouldn't probably do it either to be honest.)

Thanks for showing the badge of honor gem...if briefly.

You know what would be a hoot?  Issue a charge-back on you credit card!  You could make some case that you were scammed (all that little fine print and all.)

I'm calling BS.  Got any gems for proof?  Or are you thinking you'll slink back in someday (remember, they've got you credit card info.)

Wow!  What a geyser!

Did you pilfer any gems?

Pretty good post.  I'm curious about how you (and a handful of others here) would classify yourselfs?

I'd classify myself as mainly some parts:

 - 'greater good techie'
 - 'paranoid libertarian (who's actually more of a socialist)'
 - 'in want of (another) high-risk speculative play' since I have been kind of on a roll.

Bitcoin is a total wet-dream for me.

If you want something done but don't know how to do it, opensource is sometimes a decent way to accomplish the goal.  If your idea is totally great and solves a bunch of problems that you want solved, there is some chance that it will for others as well and it will be picked up and run with.  Then you get an awesome merchant friendly solution (rather than a lonely spot under your bridge.)  As a bonus, you will be know forever more as the father of the miracle of 'synapiccoin' and venture capital will probably be pounding down your door.  Win/win!

Lol, what?

I just mean, I can't even imagine what it's more difficult for you to buy with USD, unless you're talking about black market goods....
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Pick anything with the following properties:

 1) Not physically within my ability to hand USD to, and

 2) anything where I would prefer to remain anonymous and not linked to.

Since I value remaining as link-less as possible, that pool of potential transactions is quite large.

I caution people about the gas station near the rental car return of IAD.  But I cannot say for sure that that is where mine got nicked...the people who helpfully hold my USD form of money did not see fit to bless me with that kind of info.  I use greenbacks for shady deals (like buying gas) these days.

And I would use BTC for shady internet related stuff like SA.  Just because you nobody has poked you yet (to the best of your knowledge) does not mean that you have not dropped your trousers and assumed the position.