Who is the thief?

[SpanishSoldier]

Morally everyone except C.

Legally, you have already stated...

Yeah I guess it really depends on what each persons intentions are,

[R2D221]

Hacking is one thing, but publishing your results from your hacks is another, which might be illegal in some places.

Also, if Bitcoin is hypothetically hacked, then it's hypothetically done. I don't see the problem there.

It might be illegal. This doesn't make him a thief, rather a criminal.
1 private key being hacked =/= Bitcoin hacked.

Sorry, this came from the assumption that Person A hypothetically found a vulnerability in Bitcoin itself and was actually exploiting it.

[Bitcoininspace]

I'd say A as well. Nice read though.

[dothebeats]

The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is. Also, someone who was the keeper of the stolen goods cannot be deemed the most guilty of them if he doesn't know where the goods come from in the first place. If everyone on the situation knows what they are doing, and if their intentions are inclined to "steal" then all of them could be considered as thieves.

[Xialla]

The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is.

Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key

dude, if you will find you how to hack bank, and you will tell to one of your friends how to do it and to second one you will provide all software and your laptop..guess who will be guilty..

[Soros Shorts]

Morally everyone except C.

Legally, you have already stated...

Yeah I guess it really depends on what each persons intentions are,

Person E is likely to be some random full node that person D happens to connect to in order to relay the transaction. How could E be morally guilty of anything?

[fdylstyx]

Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information?

I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them.

I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information).

A friend gives me the PIN to her credit card so I can shop for that friend while sick. I now "own" that information. I can even change the PIN and remove the friend's access to their own funds. I don't of course, as I'm a trusted friend.

While shopping I'm sloppy in hiding the PIN while entering from a shoulder surfer. Outside in the parking lot I'm hit from behind and the card is stolen while I am rushed to the hospital and held under induced coma for 6 months. My friend has onset dementia and can't remember all her cards and that I had one in my possession.

Thief takes expensive vacation and buys expensive items totalin $250K and ditches card. Bills from credit card company goes unpaid for 6 months. I recover but have no memory of robbery and recall of last few years is sketchy. Friend's condition has worsened and family members have set up P.O.A. and doctors have supported an assessment and judgement of non compos mentis on my friend.

P.o.A. refuses to pay card company because there is no card, no idea where it went and who spent the money. Card company investigates and has video of both me and thief of card. Thief is long gone. I, who's memory is sketchy because of brain injury during robbery, accused of theft of card and sued for accounts owing.

Cost of defense of something I can hardly recollect bankrupts me, ruining my credit rating, reputation but my lawyer prevails and I'm free to go on in my financially and mentally negatively impacted life.

Who are the morally/leagally innocent in all this and who are morally/legally guilty?

[ebliever]

Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information?

I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them.

I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information).

So you don't think anything bad happened with Mt. Gox? I think common sense says yes, information can hold value and can be owned and stolen. Information is stolen and otherwise misused in a criminal manner many times every day. Patent law, copyrights, stolen passwords and electronic funds theft (not just crypto but digital fiat as well) - this is all "just information" but people clearly value it as real property.

[Jeremycoin]

In my opinion, everyone is the thief except person C. Because he doesn't know anything about the stolen funds, so he is the victim here

[dothebeats]

The one who discovered a certain vulnerability cannot be deemed as a thief at all; the one who used the vulnerability and exploited it for his own gain is.

Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key

dude, if you will find you how to hack bank, and you will tell to one of your friends how to do it and to second one you will provide all software and your laptop..guess who will be guilty..

You will be charged of something but you will not be the most guilty. The one who used and applied the software to exploit the bank will be more likely to get imprisoned and the one who provided the software for exploitation would also be sent behind bars, though it would be a lighter charge because he somehow took part on the exploitation by providing the necessary software.

[nvaler]

Person A is my answer

[harkonnen]

Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation:

Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key
Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D.
Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E.
Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network.

Who is the thief?

Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key?
Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ?
Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds?
Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him?
Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction?

So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you?

All of them.
It's one criminal group working together.

One might argue Person A is not a thief. Hacking itself may not be treated as thief, but stolen good(private key) is passed to third party.

[nvaler]

it could be anything then...lol...can someone make a demonstration of this please? thanks.

[bitbaby]

Random thought. Take this hypothetical situation:

Person A finds out via brute force that the private key 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF 1111 contains 10BTC and tells person B the Bitcoin address and person D the private key
Person B crafts a Bitcoin transaction that sends the 10BTC to Person C and gives that transaction to person D.
Person D signs this transaction with the private key provided by person A and gives it to Person E.
Person E broadcasts this signed transaction to the Bitcoin network.

Who is the thief?

Was it person A, who simply discovered the weak private key?
Person B who crafted a Bitcoin transaction ?
Person C who unknowingly received the stolen funds?
Person D who signed a transaction he did not make with a private key A gave him?
Person E who simply relayed a Bitcoin transaction?

So legally and morally speaking, which person do you consider to be the thief? which of these acts is considered "theft" to you?

All of them.
It's one criminal group working together.

One might argue Person A is not a thief. Hacking itself may not be treated as thief, but stolen good(private key) is passed to third party.

Yeah I'd say the same. But A started the theft when he passed on the private key to D, if he was really brute forcing or whatever to find a vulnerability he shouldn't have given the key which contained 10 btc to D. Although, he himself didn't steal the coins but if he hadn't provided any keys to anyone, no theft would have occurred.

So morally they all did something which they shouldn't have and legally if they were found doing this all will be charged with stealing together as aiding and abetting a theft is also illegal.

[thebenjamincode]

i think its very hard to find a bitcoin address private key
that's why i also think its none

[Erza]

i think its very hard to find a bitcoin address private key
that's why i also think its none

I dont think that will be hard for a pro hacker. It will be like piece of cake for them to find out the address private key. My answer is A because he is a person that spread this rumour for the first time and ask other people to hacked it and C is not guilty because he doesnt know anything 

[johnyj]

In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address

So, either C return the bitcoin to the victim, or he enter the blacklist of police watch list, that's how it happens in reality. Law enforcement have no way to know any concrete information about A B D and E, in fact they can all be some lines of codes


A similar questionnaire:

Person A issued government bonds of 10 billion dollar and give them to person B
Person B bring those bonds to person C and Person C create 10 billion dollar and purchase those bonds from Person B
Person B then take those 10 billion dollar and give them to Person A
Person A then spend those 10 billion dollar and hand out salary to person D
Person D then pay 30% of those salary to person A, and person A use those money to pay bonds interest to person C
Person B is the stock holder of Person C

Who is the theif  

[R2D221]

In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address

If that is true, then the law is pretty stupid, in my opinion.

[ebliever]

Bitcoin, ultimately, is simply information. So, before we even have this conversation, we have to have this one: Can you "own" information?

I say, at best, you can control private keys by keeping them secret. If you fail to keep them secret at any step (from creation to storage), then you don't "own" the bitcoins associated with them.

I guess you could try to label a person "good" or "bad" by what they do with discovered information which was supposed to be kept a secret, but ultimately, I don't think you can label them a thief (nor punish them for how they use the information).

So you don't think anything bad happened with Mt. Gox? I think common sense says yes, information can hold value and can be owned and stolen. Information is stolen and otherwise misused in a criminal manner many times every day. Patent law, copyrights, stolen passwords and electronic funds theft (not just crypto but digital fiat as well) - this is all "just information" but people clearly value it as real property.

Yeah, something bad happened with MtGox, it's called fraud, but that has nothing to do with what is being discussed in this thread. MtGox customers didn't hold Bitcoin private keys, they held MtGox IOUs. MtGox customers had certain expectations of what kind of service MtGox was providing them. Those expectations were clearly not met.

I never said that information couldn't hold value, I suggested that you can't "own" it in the traditional sense of what we consider "ownership". As I said, you can control information in the sense that you can keep it secret. I also said that we could label someone "good" or "bad" if they do something with information which was supposed to be kept secret.

OK, we agree that the loss of funds at Mt. Gox was fraud. But did not the fraud consist of the misuse or abuse of information?  I agree that information "ownership" is a challenging concept that needs to be defined carefully (and is worth pondering if I get insomnia tonight. )  For one, information can be duplicated with minimal effort, compared to the duplication of matter/energy property. But ownership of information, or rights relating to a body of information (with limits on duplication and dissemination of such information), has long been recognized relating to copyright of intellectual works, patents and so forth.

[johnyj]

In reality, from money laundering law enforcement point of view, C is usually the one to blame, because the dirty money ends up at C's address

If that is true, then the law is pretty stupid, in my opinion.

C must find a way to prove that he does not aware of the illegal transaction, but that's very difficult

You can easily prove that you know something, but you can't easily prove that you don't know something