Years ago, there was a reddit user btcrobinhood, who saved 35 bitcoins:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/295las/35_of_my_btc_gone_pc_not_compromised/Though this account has been dormant for a while, I have been thinking about it a lot lately. The reaction to him/her saving 35 bitcoins was mixed. Some thought they were just a thief who did the right thing when provided with sufficient proof. Others hailed them as a hero.
It occured to me that a service that simply returned coins to the address from which coins were sent to a compromised private key might be a safe middle ground.
What do people think of this?
It would work as follows:
1) a large database D of compromised private keys would be compiled
2) the bitcoin network would be monitored for transactions that sent funds from any address A to an address B, where address B was generated from a private key contained in D
3) the system would attempt to intercept such funds before a thief could steal them, by signing a transaction that sends the same amount of coin that was sent from A to B back from B to A.
Thoughts?