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Seems like the only logical conclusion is that Satoshi = Theymos.
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Looks like he sold/donated/lost most of it when the price was fairly low: Oh. Since there's some interest in this, again... I wrote an article intended for Bitcoin Magazine last year, but they apparently lost interest in it when ownership changed over (I wasn't paid, I'm assuming I retain ownership), so here it is: (Someone pick me up to write -- I'm bored out of my mind and could use some side-income) Two Secret Service Raids Later, Previous Holder of Over $4m in BTC in Good SpiritsOne man's world has been inarguably changed, for the better, and the worse, by Bitcoin. Through a shrewd and, what some have claimed dubious, business deal, Nashville, TN resident Michael Brown (known online as “Knightmb”) acquired 371,000 Bitcoins (then worth roughly $20,000 in a market which couldn't bear downward pressure) for $5,000. As of this writing, the 371,000 Bitcoins he purchased in 2011 are currently worth approximately $4m. Now, however, he may not only be Satoshi-less, but may also (again) be at risk of a stay in federal prison. Who Is Michael Brown?Brown lives in TN with his wife and child, working in just about everything technical. He provides wireless Internet service, designs hardware for other his company and other Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) to use, as well as software. Brown also works as network, email, and website administer for multiple SMBs. Brown is quite familiar with Bitcoin and within the earlier online community. Around 2010, Brown even wrote and published an abstract on “Timekoin,” a proposed Bitcoin alternative he still uses. Brown's BitcoinsAround the time of Bitcoin's birth, Brown collected money (the project had roughly $12,000 in total funding) and bought hashing power to accumulate Bitcoins. By the time the money had run out, the project owned approximately 371,000 Bitcoins. However, even while the price of Bitcoins were roughly $.06 each, there was only very weak market demand. According to Brown, “It is easy in hindsight to think of how foolish anyone would be to sell that large amount of bitcoins for such a small amount, but back then there were articles written all over the Internet about bitcoin being a pyramid scam or a fools investment. The people (investors) that originally got into it, thought they had made a huge investment mistake and just wanted to get out.” And get out they did, allowing Brown to buy the project and its 371,000 Bitcoins for “only” $5,000. However, while this collection of Bitcoin would be worth roughly $4,000,000 USD as of this writing, Brown states he did give away most of his holdings, including a large chunk to Wikileaks when they began accepting BTC donations, with Brown adding the quip “At the time though, I might as well have been sending power points from pokemon cards as far as what actual value they would get from it.“ Brown also gave much of his holdings away to those finding his contact information, with the remainder being sold once the Bitcoin market skyrocketed, allowing him to “make back my initial investment plus a lot of interest.“ There have been claims of foul play by Brown's previous partners, who were primarily members of electric bicycle forum Endless-Sphere. Bitcoin Magazine reached out to Justin, the current owner of the forum (Brown previously owned the forum while the Bitcoin accumulation project was ongoing). However, as of this writing, no evidence was brought up indicating Brown had done anything morally questionable. While there was “a three day mutiny” against Brown while he owned the forum, it appears this was solely related to the sale of the forum to another person (not Justin) who wanted the forum to be monetized. Tax Document TheftIn mid-2012, Mitt and Ann Romney's tax documents were stolen from their accounting firm, PWC. Later, PWC received a flash drive and ransom letter demanding $1m worth of Bitcoins to keep the documents private. These documents, as of today, were never released, though it would appear the Romneys never paid the ransom. BitInstant, for their part in grabbing the media's attention in this ordeal, offered the Romney campaign a free USD-to-BTC conversion should they be interested. The flash drive in the envelope sent to PWC did not just contain copies of the documents the ransomer was threatening to release, but also included two pictures of cats around furniture. The cat pictures were heavily scrutinized by the US Secret Service and considered to be the smoking gun of the case, which Brown says “has kind of turned into a running joke now among friends and family.” The Secret Service then decided, likely with evidence not yet presented to the public, to conduct a raid against Michael Brown and his family's home (again). Likely taken into consideration by the United States SS was Brown's previous acquaintance with SS agents during their last raid of his house, which occurred in 2009. At the time, Brown worked for an insurance company to help them neatly organize customers' personal information into a spreadsheet. Brown alleges that part of the information he was to organize were social security numbers, which he wasn't sure if was legal. Brown contacted the insurance company but wasn't given proper attention until he threatened to tell national media. Brown says, “They explained that no one should have access to any customer's social security number, but I was trying to show them it was wrong assumption. Soon afterward, instead of fixing the issue, they called the federal government and told them I had stolen their customer data which contained tens or hundreds of thousands of social security numbers.“ It was at this point Brown first experiences the joy of a federal raid, where only his workstation was seized (he would not be so lucky in the future). According to Brown, “After many months and many visits to the Secret Service office in Nashville, the case was finally closed for being a waste of time and resources for the Secret Service and my workstation was returned (damaged). No charges were ever filed and the case dropped.“ The 2012 RaidIt was September 14th, 2012 when Brown and his wife would again awake to bright flashlights being shone in their faces by Secret Service agents. This time, agents demanded answers about the pictures of cats written to the USB drive included with the ransom letter sent to the Romneys' tax firm. Unfortunately for the Secret Service, they soon found neither the cats nor the furniture pictured. This didn't prevent them from further interrogating Brown and his family, however. His daughter would later be able to identify the cats as being owned by one of Brown's former clients, Janine Bolin, whose computer he backed up for her while helping repair her system. The Secret Service left Brown's house after crawling around his attic and confiscating any electronics they could find. They then paid a visit to Bolin's house, where they'd again confiscate all electronic equipment in case it might have evidence. Brown states legal fees may be as high as $6,000, with other damages including what was done to his house (including the stereotypical broken doors), and says the situation the US Secret Service has created is similar to if “your local plumber has his entire truck taken, along with all the tools he uses for the trade.” Brown appears in good spirits, however, saying “if I ever do get any/all of my equipment back, I'm going to have a lot of extra of the same thing at least.” Brown ends responding to my questions with “Overall, the Federal government is made up of regular people like myself. The Federal government makes mistakes and bad things happen because of it. The most our family can do is pick up our life and move on. That is why we were reaching out for help. There have been many times when I've donated money or resources to help those in need, I guess it is time I ask the same in return of my fellow man.” Brown has created a site for donations at www.mbdonationfund.com. |
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Your rep thread is 3 days old and proves nothing. Your profile isn't much better. I don't see why anyone would send first to you, I suggest you consider using escrow. |
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I had my account hacked on 20 sept,actually had my computer hacked and lost a lot out of Cex.io whos 2FA did not work at login.when someone actually got me myself I told them I know nothing about it and took the advert down straight away.As for my account for sale I am more apt to dump it than sell it this forum has lost all its charm and credibility.The hacker is days away from being caught as Interpol are now involved as he tried to steal thousands from my account at Banx.io till Simon Dodds got the account frozen. I now live in a hospice and sometimes glad I am away from people who just assume anything on here,as for you writing bad trust I can see the point of the guy who thought he was being ripped off but WTF is VOD sticking his friggin nose into it for. Write as much red trust as you like I dont really give a shit I have more pressing matters in my life than worrying about that Apart from the guy who was selling a knife,in nearly 3 years you will find no one that says I tried to rip them off,I am more likely to give you something for nothing as steal from you Two of the emails between me and Police over Hack*********** As discussed on the phone, please send me the IP address that you believe has been accessing your internet account. Thanks, Nicola Detective Constable Nicola Crosbie Borders CID V Division Police Scotland Direct Dial Tel No. 01387 242277 Email: nicola.crosbie@scotland.pnn.police.ukWebsite: www.scotland.police.ukTwitter: @policescotland Facebook: www.facebook.com/policescotlandThanks Alan. I have passed the information to Action Fraud, who are an organisation who specialise in Fraud investigation on behalf of the English Police forces and they will then forward the details to the Met Police as the exchange is held in London. Action Fraud should email you with a reference soon. If you manage to obtain any further details then please contact me and I will update them. I won’t be back in until the 1st Oct but I will catch up with you then. Anything else, then please contact Borders CID in my absence, Nicola If you were hacked, why has your password not changed in the last 30 days? https://bitcointalk.org/seclog.php |
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Bought some keys, all good  |
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If you've modded other forums, as you say you have, you would know that asking like this doesn't work. In fact, I would say it lowers your chances.
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I suspect that Wardrick's account was compromised around May, though I'm not 100% sure. But I'm not hearing any evidence one way or another from anyone who previously owned the account, so I suppose the account will be locked for some time. Therefore, I removed Wardrick's recent sent trust ratings. He can rewrite them later if his account is ever restored.
Did you happen to keep a record of these ratings? They might be useful in determining who stole his account. I wouldn't be surprised if they left positive trust for themselves and/or negative trust for their enemies. I can't see why else someone would hack a DT account and keep it secret for so long, they knew any trust they left would be worthless if it came to light that the account had been hacked. Perhaps Wardrick hasn't come forward because he sold the account, I'm sure it would've been worth a fair amount. |
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Two weeks ago I made a thread selling one of my CS:GO knives for $185 in BTC. A week later I received this PM from coinmaster222 offering to buy my knife: Hello,
Would you be going first with me if I buy your knife?
If yes, I offer $175.
Note how he insists on going first. I offer to use escrow: I would be willing to use a trusted escrow, I'll pay any fees. Is Tomatocage agreeable?
He doesn't respond for a few days and I send him a PM asking if he's still interested. He responds with this: Sorry someone hacked my account I know nothing about it.
According to the seclog ( archive.is of the seclog after receiving this PM) and his profile, he has not changed his password in the past month. We first exchanged PMs a week ago, meaning he is lying about being hacked. I checked his trust and found that he recently put his account up for sale in this thread. His stats perfectly match those described in that thread, the Total Time Spent Online stat is a dead giveaway. Anyway, I believe this is enough evidence that he intended to scam me and anyone else who would send first to him. He lied about being hacked once he realized there was no way I would complete the deal without escrow. He clearly doesn't care about his reputation anymore and wants to get a quick buck out of his account before discarding it, whether that be by selling it or scamming someone. I have left negative trust and I urge others to do the same, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets someone to send first because the account is a hero. |
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I'll buy this from you if you're willing to use escrow.
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Doxing is fine, as long as it's not me  On a serious note, those who support doxing scammers need to understand that they can't have it both ways. With such a low standard for making a scam accusation nowadays, it isn't hard to dox an innocent person and harass/defame them for no good reason. I would change my vote to a no if doxing had some degree of moderation (ie. requiring actual evidence against the accused). |
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Ok i will risking to get -neg tagged myself but whatever
I recently saw that vod have or is contacting QS's employer about what he did, but i think that this is really to much he could maybe lose his job.
I not defend qs's actions but he got punished enough and i think what vod is doing now is not good at all.
What do you think!?
Hey, where is this publicly posted? I'm just getting back to reading all this, could someone link me to the exact posts for this? Thanks in advance. Email sent off to general mailbox asking for HR or IT security email. Hello, I am looking for an email address for your IT security or HR department. One of your employees, Cody Black (store 3806), has been committing fraud on our website for over six months now on your time and your equipment. Please advise who I can contact (EMAIL PLEASE) to have this resolved. Pretty much all in that thread. |
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So you never had anything to go on, but an anonymous tip[1]?
I'm not sure you could call it anonymous - Shadow_Runner - hero member almost two years old with 6,000 posts. You do realize that Shadow_Runner was quite obviously a recently sold account, right? It might as well have been a newbie with 3 posts. |
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I'm surprised people weren't more upset that TC left positive trust for the deal he self-escrowed. Despite leaving positive trust for the other escrows he used, Quickseller never left positive feedback for an account that he currently owned. Neither QS nor TC are scammers in my opinion. They're unethical, yes, but still safe to trade with. I find it pretty sad how fast reputable people turned against QS considering the lack of evidence against him. Tsp's "post analysis" was questionable to say the least. As you can see, QS mostly used Panthers to post in the Auctions and Goods sections, mainly buying and selling physical coins. I'm guessing Panthers52 would be a close match to many other physical coin traders, it just so happens Quickseller used to buy and sell coins from his main account as well. So why did he use his Panthers52 account in the first place? Was it to build up enough reputation to pull off the master scam of the century? Or was it to protect his real life identity from the dozens of enemies he had made over his past year of scam-busting? You must take Quickseller for a complete idiot if you think it's the former. Why would he waste 6 months building up Panther's rep when he had a plethora of high trust accounts to choose from during his time selling accounts. I think it's much more likely that he started using the Panthers account to trade physical coins with once he realized someone malicious might try to get his shipping info to dox him. This is exactly what Quickseller said here, but seems to have been overlooked by most, thanks to all the other crap posted in that thread. And he was completely right to try and protect his dox, just look at what has happened to him since it became semi-public. People have already contacted his place of employment, I'm sure he will be harassed in other ways as well. Should he have escrowed for himself? No, but I doubt it was done with malicious intent. He used a third party escrow for the first 6 months, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just sick of the transaction being slowed down by waiting for a third party. Once again, unethical behavior, but not necessarily scammy. If QS had just come out and admitted this from the very beginning, he would've had a chance of coming out of this with his reputation mostly intact like TC did. |
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So the BTC will be held in escrow until the 7 day trade restriction is up?
Whaat? Items bought from the steam marketplace aren't tradable for one week. Ouh gash. I`m selling wallet not only buy items. You put in market cheap item for high price and i will buy it. Sorry if my english is bad. Ah, that makes more sense. I might be interested in buying from you soon, especially since you said you'll cover steam fees. Yeah, pm me your steam profile  My wallet is almost full, I don't really need additional funds at the moment. I'll send you a PM if I do in the future. |
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So the BTC will be held in escrow until the 7 day trade restriction is up?
Whaat? Items bought from the steam marketplace aren't tradable for one week. Ouh gash. I`m selling wallet not only buy items. You put in market cheap item for high price and i will buy it. Sorry if my english is bad. Ah, that makes more sense. I might be interested in buying from you soon, especially since you said you'll cover steam fees. |
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So the BTC will be held in escrow until the 7 day trade restriction is up?
Whaat? Items bought from the steam marketplace aren't tradable for one week. |
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So the BTC will be held in escrow until the 7 day trade restriction is up?
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I've received a few PMs about this knife, I am still selling it for those who are wondering. The price seems decent for the amount of blue it has which is why it's above community market price.
Thanks for the vouch. |
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Why do you need someone's steam profile to sell them a steam wallet code?
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