https://i.imgur.com/6oZVa.jpg

To be honest, I'm sure all kinds of blackmail threats are made towards candidates every election year.  What's notable about this one - hoax or not - is that it became public.

Pretty much this.  Most Bitcoin start-ups are launched on the smell of an oily rag.  If they're moderately successful, any profits they're making are chewed up by rapid growth so they never have the money to invest in infrastructure unless they seek outside funds for that purpose.  Most people also probably grossly under-estimate the amount of fraud and intrusion attempts they'll have to deal with as well.

Users need to accept the inherent risk in leaving funds on exchanges, and especially those which are doing everything as cheaply as possible or making compromises for convenience because their business has grown and they can't afford to hire additional staff.

It's probably people here leaving binary messages just for shit and giggles.  Just because whoever created the accounts intended them as throwaways doesn't mean that people can't send BTC to them for fun now that the addresses are public.

Is this going to be yet another theft which doesn't get reported to the police?

I'd just contact ITSA for advice.  There's a toll-free number residents of some countries can use or you could email them if you want stuff in writing.

http://www.itsa.gov.au/dir228/itsaweb.nsf/docindex/contacts-%3Econtact%20us

I'm not convinced that the other directors of HNWP aren't just as liable as Andre, but that's only an issue if people are lodging lawsuits.  

Because he's still out there scamming people.  Newer people probably haven't even heard of him, so he gets to claim whatever he wants elsewhere until he's challenged.  He only got run off this forum because people elsewhere dug into his background and hit pay-dirt. Even if he's no longer promoting himself here, he's still a potential Bitcoin drama-bomb.

The story got picked up quickly by Arstechnica, C-Net et all.

Unless McDonalds has paid $25 million for the privilege of using Bitcoin and Bitcoin has secured over $200 million dollars in venture capital, that would be a bit of a "day late and a dollar short" announcement compared to Starbucks accepting Square.

Talking about them isn't the problem, it's the active promotion and solicitation.  If the "business" is happening elsewhere, then we won't have dozens of "where's my money" threads here whenever a business fails.  Look at reddit - they discuss the hacks and failures but the reason why we get dozens of threads about each failure here is because it's here where the schemes are launched and promoted and where the operators have solicited users.

If there's one way to unravel any semblance of professionalism you've built up for your business over many months, it's to have your spouse suddenly appear and start engaging in personal slanging matches with your detractors.

Could take quite a while to reach $ 1 million at this rate.

The 9th is nearly over in many parts of the world.   

I consider this the most likely scenario.  It's clear that whoever posted the pastebin doesn't care about whether the information they supposedly went to great trouble to obtain is released or not (why even explain how you supposedly obtained the information, if that's the case), but there's a chance that a story about Romney being "blackmailed" over his tax records will get mainstream media attention - something  Bitcoin hasn't managed to achieve yet (the technology sections of newspapers don't really count).  If you wanted Bitcoin to get mentioned in the 6pm news bulletin of major TV networks or the political section of major newspapers, this might be one way to make that happen - for better or worse.

Even the threat of extortion would probably be illegal wouldn't it, whether the person posting the message possesses the information referred to or not?

I'm convinced that papers no longer go looking for stories but wait for people to send them leads to stuff found online (and then reprint it without any fact checking whatever was in the first report).

I've seen stories go national after first appearing on a messageboard and then getting picked up by local media, but how much this gets picked up will depend on how many people bring the pastebin to the attention of larger media outlets.

I assume those Bitcoin addresses have never been used for previous transactions (or that they belong to someone the hoaxer really hates).

I'm more interested in the extent to which there'll be an attempt to locate the owner of the Bitcoin addresses.  Y'all seem to take threats towards your presidential candidates pretty seriously over there and investigate everything which could be remotely construed as a threat.

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/anonymous-group-allegedly-hacked-romney-tax-records-franklin-firm

While the claim of possessing Romney's tax records may well be bullshit, I'm guessing that any extortion threat towards a Presidential candidate is going to attract serious investigation - including an attempt to identify the owner of the Bitcoin address in question.

This could get interesting.

 
Better yet, he identifies your deposits by the amount of cents in your deposit instead of by a user reference number or a transaction number.  Nothing could possibly go wrong with that idea.

Wanna buy Bitcoins at USD 17.81 each?  He's your man.

http://buybitcoin.com/home/price/

But wait, there's more.


But...



See what he did there?  The list of "best payment methods" is significantly different to the list of payment methods he accepts - and he won't refund you if you send him payment by an "unapproved" method.

I just know that you'll want to check out his forum, too and learn about his other new business ventures.

http://brucewagner.com/forum/

Exchanges are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  People want the convenience of being able to do instant withdrawals and transfers without any of the risk.

Small Bitcoin services which hold large amounts of other people's BTC are hacker magnets and intruders know that such services are often one or two man operations without capital reserves to invest in infrastructure.  They're soft targets.  Security needs to be baked in from the day a service is created but many Bitcoin services are more concerned about rushing to market than they are about security (they probably tell themselves they'll invest in "proper" security once the profits are rolling in, not realising that a rapidly expanding business often makes little or no profit).

Until Bitcoin service providers lift their game security-wise, people should severely limit the amount of BTC they store on such services.   Bitcoins stored on a service are always at risk.  You accept the risk of them being lost or stolen by leaving them on deposit with a service.