Good news: Zhoutong will buy 40k bitcoins to return to his client

[Bro]

yeah.

maybe in the future, there will be a cryptocurrency that is legal and traceable like that. maybe Bitcoin itself.

and then there will be unofficial cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin today

[naima53]

I know you have good intentions, but think of the unintended consequences of this "self policing". I'll give you some to get the ball rolling.

What happens if the thief sends a token amount of Bitcoins to every public address he can find? Do we ban all of those addresses, even though they are normal people? Do we force those normal people to return the coins? How do we distinguish normal people from thieves if the thieves take care to cover their tracks?

What if the thief's motive isn't to steal Bitcoins, but to blacklist your address? He steals some coins, and then sends them ALL to you. Now your entire wallet is worthless. What if it was your kid's college fund? How do you prove you aren't the thief?

The correct response to Bitcoin theft is better security. If you leave gold coins lying out in your back yard, and wake up one day to find them all missing, you can't expect the community to protect you by refusing to accept gold coins as payment. What about the farmer who trades all his cattle for the coins, not realizing they were stolen. When he tries to spend them a few days later, he finds out that those specific coins are now blacklisted in town, leaving him with nothing. The cattle are gone, slaughtered and shipped away to sell as hamburger. Why should the farmer suffer for your lack of security?

After the allinvain theft, I was thinking blacklisting might be a great idea. But the more I thought about it, and considered some of the ways it could be abused, I quickly realized it would cause more harm than good.

1000% THIS^
the idea of ​​"ban the coin" is killing the principle idea of the project. It is necessary to catch the thief, to monitor transactions. Traditional money is also anonymous, is not "ban coin", the coin has an identifier number, a figure aid - catch the thief. cash I had in mind .. That's all.

[joulesbeef]

LOL


if I was the hacker.. and with no forethought besides for the time it took me to type this, I would just buy shit on silk road(shit you can buy dollar bills), slowly use the btc laundry services, buy as much as much shit as you can from all the different sites that let you sell shit.. Clean out the want to sell here on bitcoin talk.

you can move the coins and avoid the exchanges all day long. And then one of them silk road sellers or a guy who just shipped off his video card, will try to get cash from mtgox and find their coins are banned.


Then what starts to happen.... people will start to wonder... "HOW CAN I ACCEPT BITCOINS IF I DO NOT KNOW WHICH COINS ARE BANNED"

how could you sell on silkroad? is silk road going to have to take in deposits first verify the cons are legit bfore allowing the sale to go through?

what about people that sell in the forums?


One of the biggest problems BTC faces it , it is hard to near impossible to develop real trust.

The only think this ban will do is increase the level of distrust... yeah I get you want to slow him down, hobble his efforts to trade his coins to cash, but the only people you will hurt are people not involved. I wouldnt touch the exchanges with a ten foot pool and think he isnt reading these threads?

BAH!!!

WE cant afford knee jerk reactions to these things, we got to think consequences through. ANd frankly I think this idea is a bad one.

[rebuilder]

Coin taints would kill mixer services, I think. It takes time to notice a theft. In most cases, a thief will be able to pass stolen coins along before anyone notices, and the taint would actually just punish anyone unlucky enough to receive them before the theft is noticed.

Not to mention it gives the supposed victim a lot of power. Bitcoin transactions are supposed to be irreversible, this has been a big deal for many merchants, not to be at the mercy of their customers. Taints shift the balance of power towards the buyer. How do you prove a theft occurred in the first place? Would these taints also be used for claims of fraud?

I can see the need for protection measures. These need to be separate from the base system itself. Paypal - as much as it's a bad word here -  provides buyers security they wouldn't have with cash transactions. (not to mention convenience, but that's not as applicable here.)
The rest of the payment system provides security for the merchants too - payment processors handle the risks of theft, at a cost of course.Similar services can be provided for Bitcoins, and merchants can accept straight payments or payments through a processor of some sort, according to their own best judgement, pricing the costs into their fees or not.

[naima53]

I can see the need for protection measures.

And you trust the keys to expensive car - a stranger? Or sleep of a wooden door? Or do not carry a knife (gun, depends on the laws)? I truly understood that Zhou did not have its own dedicated server? Fuck, my neighbor, the owner of a small business, (4 ... 5K USD per month). Even he has a dedicated server! Safety - in the hands of everyone!

[stochastic]

LOL


if I was the hacker..

launder the money like normal bank robbers do.  Go to the casino.

[DeathAndTaxes]

There is no way to ban hacker's address.

Well, if the majority of miners refuse to process transactions originated by thiefs, then the address would effectively become banned. Think of it as a "51% defense" (homage to 51% attack).

That is not true.  If 51% of miners refuse your transaction and 49% don't then it will simply take twice as long to get confirmations.

[RaggedMonk]

The most likely action the thief will take will be to use the coins on SilkRoad. They don't need to cash out on any of the normal exchange.

Right now they're worth less than a clean bitcoin but still have value, and will be traded into oblivion in the black markets until they eventually seep out into the general economy.

You think the thief is going to buy $200k worth of drugs?

[racerguy]

on silkrd you can buy cash dollars, gold or silver.

[Raoul Duke]

The most likely action the thief will take will be to use the coins on SilkRoad. They don't need to cash out on any of the normal exchange.

Right now they're worth less than a clean bitcoin but still have value, and will be traded into oblivion in the black markets until they eventually seep out into the general economy.

You think the thief is going to buy $200k worth of drugs?

Yes he will, to himself, by being both the Seller and the Buyer, if for nothing else at least to use the Silk Road laundry to clean the coins for a measly 1.5% fee. Pretty cheap, no?
After that the real drug dealers will be left with the hot coins.

[LoupGaroux]

Hot Coins is an absurd concept. The coin cannot be "guilty", the coin is just the storage of a fluctuating value. That number was worth whatever the exchange was at when it was stolen, but immediately afterwards that value changes up and down. If the value increases is that portion "clean"? No. It is estimated that 95% of US $20 bills carry traces of cocaine on them, should those be "hot"? Cocaine is illegal. Saddam Hussein dumped an estimated 4 billion in counterfeit $100 bills into the world economy, should we ban $100 bills?

A far better solution would be to aggressively investigate Linode, and find out if there is any responsibility there, and prosecute accordingly. Imagine the positive buzz generated by accurately finding the guilty parties and then bringing them to justice! And then this little piece of garbage Leo needs to be held accountable. He is at the very least an accomplice to grand larceny, and is bragging about felony level involvement in this crime. Dox his sorry ass wide and far- how about the IRS? Think he has reported his sudden $200,000 in earnings? What about Homeland Security? Moving $200,000 in funds that are being laundered might interest them. This little piece of work needs to be brought to full accountability. I say cry havoc and let loose the dogs of justice on him. 

[disclaimer201]

Hot Coins is an absurd concept. The coin cannot be "guilty", the coin is just the storage of a fluctuating value. That number was worth whatever the exchange was at when it was stolen, but immediately afterwards that value changes up and down. If the value increases is that portion "clean"? No. It is estimated that 95% of US $20 bills carry traces of cocaine on them, should those be "hot"? Cocaine is illegal. Saddam Hussein dumped an estimated 4 billion in counterfeit $100 bills into the world economy, should we ban $100 bills?

A far better solution would be to aggressively investigate Linode, and find out if there is any responsibility there, and prosecute accordingly. Imagine the positive buzz generated by accurately finding the guilty parties and then bringing them to justice! And then this little piece of garbage Leo needs to be held accountable. He is at the very least an accomplice to grand larceny, and is bragging about felony level involvement in this crime. Dox his sorry ass wide and far- how about the IRS? Think he has reported his sudden $200,000 in earnings? What about Homeland Security? Moving $200,000 in funds that are being laundered might interest them. This little piece of work needs to be brought to full accountability. I say cry havoc and let loose the dogs of justice on him. 

...Except if homeland security, CIA or some other government organisation (even non US) is behind the hack. I know some people will scream "conspiracy" again, but if I was in a secret or not so secret service with a mission to protect the banking system and considered BTC a threat, I'd hire a team of excellent hackers/crackers to figure out a weakness in the system. Literally, with pools/providers/exchanges and metaphorically concerning Bitcoin as a whole.

Whether this was planned or not, there it is - a definite weakness, possibly powerful enough to blow up the community, splitting us up between those who are in favor of tainting coins and checking them, and those who believe this would be the end of Bitcoin for all reason stated in this thread above and other threads.

In any case, it may cause confusion and definetly hurt the bit of trust that was left after last year's incidents. We need to find a common ground on this and send a VERY clear and unambiguous message to the less tech-savy people out there that coins stolen or not, should never be declined at any exchange. Unless we do that, bitcoin is screwed. If MtGox freezes accounts with whatever percentage of taint - no, let me rephrase, if they freeze them for further investigation it's still acceptable but if they confiscate those coins, MtGox needs to be boycotted. What percentage of taint will make a bitcoin tainted? Who is to decide? MtGox? I'm afraid in any case, particularly because MtGox is the biggest and most important exchange boycotting Gox will become a mess. It's like an autoimmune reaction. Could someone have planned such a thing?

[stochastic]

We MtGox and competitor exchanges needs to find a common ground on this and send a VERY clear and unambiguous message to the less tech-savy people out there that coins stolen or not, should never be declined at any exchange. Unless we MtGox does that, bitcoin is screwed.

I have already switched to OTC transactions.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

That is not true.  If 51% of miners refuse your transaction and 49% don't then it will simply take twice as long to get confirmations.

You are correct if the "blocking" happens during the assembly of new blocks. If however it's integrated into the blockchain checking, then I'm right.

[codymanix]

I hardly believe that MtGox is really doing this. Why should they, it will make their income smaller, disgruntle custumers which are trying to sell previously stolen coins without knowing it.

But if, Bitcoin may be decentral and P2P, but MtGox isn't. They can do what they want.

It would also have interesting consequences. If stolen coins cannot be spent, they will effectively be lost from the system.

It could also be interesting that the victim of a robbery could say to the thief "I will let you spent my stolen money if you give me back at least x percent of it", some kind of out-of-court settlement if you want to see it this way.

[disclaimer201]

Well, my last post was 1 month ago. By now I think the reputation of MtGox has already suffered a bit, at least that's one reason why I think they have this half-price promotion campaign right now for their so called birthday. Now I think they won't get away with it and will unfreeze accounts (as they did I think). The attempt alone was a ridiculous thing to do. Today, I'm more worried about the MysteryMiner who mines empty blocks as a threat for Bitcoin.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well, my last post was 1 month ago. By now I think the reputation of MtGox has already suffered a bit, at least that's one reason why I think they have this half-price promotion campaign right now for their so called birthday. Now I think they won't get away with it and will unfreeze accounts (as they did I think). The attempt alone was a ridiculous thing to do. Today, I'm more worried about the MysteryMiner who mines empty blocks as a threat for Bitcoin.

There have only been 3 0 tx blocks in the last 120 and remember sometimes 0tx blocks occurs naturally.  "Mystery" was never a real threat.  Economic pressure would have eventually forced all miners (including mystery) to include paying tx.

[R-]

The most likely action the thief will take will be to use the coins on SilkRoad. They don't need to cash out on any of the normal exchange.

Right now they're worth less than a clean bitcoin but still have value, and will be traded into oblivion in the black markets until they eventually seep out into the general economy.

You think the thief is going to buy $200k worth of drugs?

I believe he means moneyPak codes, WU transfers and other forums of exchange.