Good call!

Someone directly accused him of both committing and profiting from a felony, and said he had already involved the FBI.  I hope for Kevin's sake he's smart enough to be on the phone with an attorney right now.

Which is likely why MtGox's story given to him seemed suspicious at best, fraudulent at worse - and even perhaps is when he decided to hold off on sending the funds he did get out back?  If you worked in this field daily, you'd likely at least have suspicions of the same thing given the responses offered.  I know I did.  They were pathetic and easily immediately proven false.  Something didn't add up right, so the correct course of action was to pause and let information come to light to ensure the correct course of action was taken.  This information was not forthcoming.

The truth may or may not come out eventually, I really truly hope it does and simply proves incompetence.  Now not only for Bitcoin's, but Kevin's sake.  I feel rather bad for my part in helping convince him to post his story publicly, to try to elicit some form of reasonable level of transparency about the issue.  There was only downside for him, but I did my part in helping convince him the community benefits would outweigh the possible drawbacks on the personal side.  I was wrong.  It truly was, whether you believe it or not, an attempt to bring the spotlight on what he felt as a major accountability and transparency issue.  If this had been handled reasonably, the money would almost assuredly be back in the proper accounts and you wouldn't have heard about much other than a simple hack and a brief market crash.

It goes beyond a simple hack.  The fact he's blaming Kevin for the "hack" itself proves that in itself for me.  Note that only third parties have been blamed in all this.  Not once has MT taken any responsibility for this supposed "hack" - why is that?  

This may (or may not) be my last reply on this matter.  It is now a legal issue, unfortunately.  I'd like to point out Kevin made every attempt to avoid this and set things right.

I'd imagine Kevin may be scarce either now, or very soon as well.  Remember directly publicly accusing someone of a felony, generally causes them to lawyer up if they have any intelligence whatsoever.

MT - I used to think you were simply an amateur operating out of his depth.  Now I fear something far worse is afoot.

Hopefully the truth comes out soon.

Otherwise, good luck to everyone who has money riding on this - I hope you can afford to lose it  I know I'm likely out a thousand or so myself.

-Phil

Wow.  You really are a dbag.  You have specific personal knowledge given to you that Kevin is NOT involved with this, and you post this.  Very interesting.

He does?  What proof?  Why does everyone immediately jump to the conclusion that this was a hack?  What is the BTC address of the guy who got stolen from?  I'll help refund 650 btc myself - it's completely irrelevant to this discussion.

MT posts some random selective login (why?) logs, and you immediately believe him? hmm.

Sucks, I was really hoping on a future for bitcoin and had a good 10 grand or so invested in development of some new services offering both physical products (food! omg!) for bitcoin, as well as some security-related services that appear to be sorely needed.  This doesn't even include the mining op which I do for fun.

I've put those projects on hold for the time being, until this mess is resolved in a professional or community-responsible manner.  The previous issue that was NOT resolved professionally AT ALL that I was not aware of, made my mind up.  The fact I know Kevin personally and know he is not in any way involved beyond what he has posted, just is icing on the cake.  You forcing to get lawyers involved just to get any semblance of truth on the table is pathetic.

Hopefully Tradehill, or another competitor, will prove to be better stewards so I'll have a relatively stable market to build products for.  I'd like to not have to worry about being accused of criminal behavior by engaging in commerce on their terms, should I so happen to login at the wrong time.

Yeesh.

-Phil

Perfect.  I wish I could have articulated my point this well!  I tip my hat to you  The standards at which this site seems to be operated at, are far below that of even the most basic adult websites out there.  At least when they get owned due to poor investment in their security, they don't blame their customers and are generally rather contrite about it.

Good luck to all involved, and here is to moving past this!

Disappointing response.

I applaud the decision to go to the authorities.  This is good, however I do want the phone number of the "competent" authority you speak of, when it comes to computer crime

The "evidence" you posted is misleading at best.  You forgot to paste all the other (hundreds? thousands?) of logins that also by chance happened to have been made during the same timeframe.  I'd be willing to bet, if you keep logs, you'll see a lot of attempted trade requests by some of those logins as well for around the same price!

And, you are absolutely NOT safe, this is categorically proven by the uh... 500,000 bitcoins stored in a single location that were stolen.  That you would state such a thing is absolutely ridiculous, and shows your complete hubris.  I predict many lulz will be had while you're still in business, due to that epicly stupid and baiting statement.  You have thrown down the gauntlet, hopefully (for bitcoins sake!) you can back those words up!  I can only hope my prediction does not come true, as I see bitcoins value quickly dropping if it's major services are operated in such a manner.

I expected at least a bit of humility, I guess.  Keep stating it's a simple leaked password issue, and perhaps you can get everyone to believe you?

So you feel you have enough information at-hand to reasonably know what happened?  The rollback is a foregone conclusion to me.  It's everything else that matters.  Kevin obviously knows he's not a newly minted millionaire, and has made that clear in multiple posts.  Mtgox rolling back and covering up the extent of their apparent negligence is not "making it right" by my definition.

The problem begins where MtGox's story is fabricated, at least a portion of it which can be independently verified as a fact.  Perhaps this was due to the rush of getting information out ASAP while still uncovering things, etc.  I'd like to believe that vs. them lying directly to our faces?

It is very clear this was not a simple account password breach.  It goes deeper.  I want to know how deep, and I'd have thought the community as a whole would want to know as well.

Ah well, I tried

Haha, completely off topic here.  But for a winter here in Minneapolis, this was essentially the case.  For whatever reason, there was a huge rash of idiots leaving their cars running (while warming up, running in to get groceries, etc.).  It got to the point that the police refused to investigate any reports of stolen cars that were left running - they'd just take a report over the phone and that's that.

Alright.. so amdist all the wailing and gnashing of teeth I've yet to see anyone propose an actual solution to this problem, that is not outlandish and ridiculous (e.g. laywering up - no one wins here.)

So, I propose the following.  Full disclosure:  I personally know Kevin through mutual colleagues, and occassionally (2-3 times a year?) speak with him via AIM about various nerdy projects we're working on.  This is the extent of my personal relationship with him.  Oh, we at one point (5 years or so ago?) repaired a broken solenoid in a pinball machine together.


Kevin,

You say in your post that you are more concerned about the community and future growth of Bitcoin rather than your own pocketbook.  Many here obviously dispute this claim, and for good reason are unlikely to believe you.

Given this, would you agree to a panel of senior community members (chosen at large by the community as a whole) to become a panel for arbitration between yourself and MtGox?  Lets call it 5 senior well-respected members, who both MtGox, yourself, and the community can all trust.

Kevin will submit his story, which he pretty much already did it seems.  MtGox will tell their side, and provide confidential information needed to verify it to these 5 panel members.

These 5 members will decide the best course of action in relation to your specific situation with the following guidelines given to them:
* The primary consideration is what is best for the community as a whole
* Any solution will not bankrupt or otherwise substantially impact MtGox's operational capabilities

This would accomplish the following, based on your +/- system:
+ Gives the community some semblance of transparency for a MAJOR issue with the bitcoin market as a whole (as it exists today, at least)
+ Allows both sides to tell their story in relative confidence, thus protecting any major run on markets or mtgox due to new info being released that may be damaging.
+ Keeps this situation out of the court system, where it really has no business belonging and everyone is a loser
+ Quick resolution if MtGox agrees to this, I can't imagine it taking more than a few hours?
- Random panel of 5 "Internet Dudes" are deciding your fate
- You have a very substantial chance of being ordered to give back the BTC you withdrew, should the community members deem it appropriate

I believe this solution, with of course some tweaks to make both parties feel comfortable can accomplish everyone's *stated* goals here.  It will allow Kevin to know what happened, so he knows he's not being completely taken advantage of, it will allow the community to gain transparency and show to outsiders we can resolve problems in an expediant and reasonable manner.  Additionally MtGox will be able to end the rampant speculation as to their activities, and at least for me personally I'd regain a lot of confidence in their exchange.

Does someone have anything better?  Kevin, do you agree in principle to this?  MtGox?  Community feedback?

My personal goal is the longevity of Bitcoin.  Discussions with Kevin lead me to believe this is also his goal as well.  Is it MtGox's goal?  They have stated it is!  If so, step up!  If they do not, then I will have lost faith in their motives myself.  Others will make their own decisions.

All this talk of theft and zero evidence an actual theft took place.

The system should be rolled back (imo).  But the actual story needs to come out, someone already said it better than I could have - my belief based on all the evidence is this was MtGox's actual account, not a users.  It is really the only plausible scenario that makes logical sense, based on the evidence available to us.

Does this mean a rollback should not happen?  IMO no!  But it means we're being lied to.  Why?

And seriously, people actually care about the 700 coins taken out that are likely to be given back when this is all resolved?  Man you guys focus on the wrong stuff.

This keeps getting stated.  Who is this "poor guy" - zero evidence for said "poor guy" having actually ever existed has been posted/made available as far as I'm aware.

If it were this simple, it's an open and shut case.  Kevin's post shows it quite obviously is NOT this simple, unless you believe that a simple password compromised user account held 500,000 bitcoins in it.  I personally do not.  My opinion may change based on more evidence.

No one (well, I'm sure some do) wants to see MtGox fail - but I personally want to know wtf the actual truth is so I can make informed decisions.  Why is this so unreasonable all of a sudden?

I did not trade, I unfortunately (fortunately?) was out of town when this happened.  I was only being fed updates via telephone.

I guess if I had to summarize my points, they are as follows:

1) I agree the market fluctuation was due to abnormal/hacker/illegal/whatever activity.
2) I agree the market should be rolled back
3) I do not believe that an actual user account was hacked.  There is zero information to support this statement, and requests for this simple information have been strangely been ignored.
4) I believe that there is very likely some serious ass covering going on here, hiding a much larger problem with the system
5) I also believe that full disclosure is both appropriate and important here, now that the "cat is out of the bag" and the lack of it is both dissapointing and extremely concerning to me.

Shit happens.  All reasonable people know that.  I don't hate the creator of MtGox at *all* - I owe him many thanks.  However, it is quite apparent this was an amateur site that simply exploded in recent months, and they were simply unprepared for the reality of dealing with such a beast.  Simple things were missed - amateur coding on the trade engine side is apparent, etc.  No big deal at all, we all knew what we were getting into (I personally vuln tested mtgox and found a few glaring ridiculously common mistakes, but accepted that risk and modified my exposure accordingly).

However, once "shit happens" and it's obvious you are out of your depth - it's time to come clean and provide full disclosure IMO.  The fact this has not happened (and from my understanding the direct parties involved have been told it is NOT going to happen) is concerning to me, and signifies (to me, perhaps not to you) a much deeper/wider problem that would likely effect the Bitcoin market even more drastically.

This is ALL complete speculation and paranoia of course.  I have access to only slightly more information than everyone else here does.

Responding in between work tasks, so it may take awhile but I do appreciate the civil debate.  And yes, I am obviously playing devils advocate for the "other side" since it seems everyone here is just completely taking in the information fed to them as the absolute truth.

Edit: stupid spelling

If you completely believe the official MtGox story without any verification (to me, things do NOT add up, and extremely basic reasonable information being requested by the direct parties involved has NOT been forthcoming at all), then you are absolutely correct that a rollback is very likely the most reasonable and least-harmful action.

I'm saying I smell a rat.  And I do not believe it is Kevin at all.

Debate is good

No I did not, although I can see how my comment was interpreted that way.  My intent was to tell you to do some basic research on someone before you call them a criminal.  Words exist forever on the Internet.  If you did do research and came to this conclusion anyways, then I apologize.  You are welcome to your opinion.

And, I am in no way a close friend of Kevin's at all - I simply mostly know of him having worked in similar industries.  In certain circles he is well-regarded, thus, do some research and your opinion of him (and very likely the entire situation) may change a little was what I was getting at.

-Phil

Edit: formatting

Again I pose this question - has the actual existence of this person who got stolen from been confirmed?  Why is everyone assuming this to be the case?

A simple question.  Why has it not been answered?

As I have stated previously, no matter if mtgox or kevin does it, any stolen coins would be returned.  I know that's not a given to everyone here as it's an anonymous Internet message board, but assume that is the case for sake of this argument.

What about the *NOT* stolen legitimate trades?  I assume the community opinion is that these trades would not have happened had the panic of the errant sell order been placed, and thus a full market rollback is the appropriate response?

I'm not saying I disagree with that course of action at all, I'm saying I want some more very simple information which has been strangely non-forthcoming.

Or you could do some research.  Easier to flame on a message board I guess  To each his own.

You really don't know who kevin day is?  And you're speculating he's behind this?  I generally don't flame people on boards, but do some research and ask some folks who are "in the know" before you post idiotic statements.

How is me placing a buy order for a penny a few weeks (months?) ago logging into someone elses account and committing a felony?

Get a grip.

The problem here is *NOT* the "stolen" (no proof of this!) funds at all, those will be returned as it's simply the right thing to do.  However, why the lack of transparency (to ANY parties involved)?

What about all the people who panic'ed, and sold for a penny legitimately?  Should they be bailed out too?

My concern is with the above question, and I understand there is definitely room for reasonable minds to disagree on that point.