Who is the thief?

[Blazr]

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?

[1714939885]

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[Xialla]

well I have to read it couple of times:)

anyway from my point of view it is just person A. is ok to "hack something" or find weakness but he spread this information to other 2 person (B and D). It all starts with A so consequences go also behind A..

[qwk]

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

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

[Lauda]

This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing.

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

No, it is not.
Read: hypothetical situation.

[Blazr]

Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17.

Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything.

[Blazr]

This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing.

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

No, it is not.
Read: hypothetical situation.

About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party.

All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information

And All D did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A).

[R2D221]

This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing.

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

No, it is not.
Read: hypothetical situation.

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.

[Stedsm]

Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17.

Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything.

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. It was his luck that he found it, and so that doesn't mean some kind of hack.
Don't know why your question relates me to one of the directories which revealed BTC private keys of lots of addresses.
Did you find anything?

[Xialla]

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance.

well but he did two things.)

1. found private key

2. distribute this to others

and simply point 2 is not so cool at all..

[Blazr]

Well in my example the private key was predictable as you can see. We are assuming for whatever reason someone is storing their Bitcoins in this unsecure private key, lets pretend they purposely did this. To make it kind of easier to understand, instead of specifying the private key in hex, well specify it as an integer, so we'll pretend the private key was the number 17.

Person A has not commited any unauthorized access to any computer or "hacked" anything, he simply calculated the Bitcoin address for the private key 0, then 1, 2 etc until he reached 17 where he found a 10BTC balance. Has he done anything wrong? I don't think so, he hasn't tried to steal anything.

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance. It was his luck that he found it, and so that doesn't mean some kind of hack.
Don't know why your question relates me to one of the directories which revealed BTC private keys of lots of addresses.
Did you find anything?

So I think what you are saying is if you "find" a private key then thats OK, if you steal it then thats illegal. But then this gets even more tricky, what if you "found" the private key due to a bug, for example lets pretned there is some crappy wallet out there and every 1 millionth address it generates is the private key for the number 17. To me, if you found a bug and exploited it thats theft, but I'm not so sure it's theft if you simply decide to calculate the private keys for 1 to 17.

[Blazr]

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance.

well but he did two things.)

1. found private key

2. distribute this to others

and simply point 2 is not so cool at all..

But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral?

[ebliever]

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance.

well but he did two things.)

1. found private key

2. distribute this to others

and simply point 2 is not so cool at all..

But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral?

When he did so knowing it could reasonably lead to the theft of valuable property from someone. It's like finding the key to someone's house, making copies and distributing them. That makes you culpable.

[Amph]

This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing.

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

No, it is not.
Read: hypothetical situation.

About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party.

All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information

And All C did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A).

then the only remaining possible thief is d, who is playing the most in this situation, and handled the private key and he still has it at the end, there is also the possibility that his sign is not authentic

[EcuaMobi]

This is quite simple. The thieves are B and D. Also that would include person C if he does not send the stolen funds back by request.
All A did was hack it. Hacking =/= stealing.

Simple. Noone.
You can brute force a key? Bitcoin is done.
Bitcoin being done, nothing of value has been stolen

No, it is not.
Read: hypothetical situation.

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.

Except here it was not hypothetically hacked here. It's just that the original/rightful owner of those 10BTC used the private key 17 instead of a safe random key.  

In a real life problem similar to this one people wouldn't just distribute a private key or create, sign or broadcast a random transaction just because. They would do that to steal those coins and that would make them thieves. So OP should give us the hypothetical intentions of every user here to receive a proper answer.

Regardless I'd consider user C to be a thief if he doesn't return the coins after being told what happened and if the original owner proves that with a signed message or by other means. The other users would be thieves if they did all that with the intention to steal the coins.

About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back?

Regarding this, it's not the same case. First you can't compare dust/1sat with real value like 10BTC. Also in this case the original owner was unaware of his funds being sent to user C. In your 1sat example it's clearly intentional because there are several transactions.

If someone receives 10BTC once against the will of the original owner then the only right thing to do is to return the coins (minus TX fees). If someone receives spam several times then of course he doesn't have to return it, he couldn't even cover the fees if he wanted to refund the coins.

[Blazr]

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

[Xialla]

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance.

well but he did two things.)

1. found private key

2. distribute this to others

and simply point 2 is not so cool at all..

But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral?

just number? mathematically said yes, but in reality it is key. real key is also just some metal..

[DannyHamilton]

. . . it really depends on what each persons intentions are,

Exactly.

If all the parties involved know exactly what is happening, then this is collusion and they are ALL thieves.

Consider the following example:

Albert discovers a key hidden under a rock next to a jewelry store.
Albert gives the location of the key to Dennis.
Albert gives the address of the store to Bob.
Bob asks Dennis to have someone get a necklace from the store and deliver it to Cathy
Dennis unlocks the door and tells Edward that he needs a necklace from the store delivered to Cathy

Which one is the thief if:

• Albert is the only one that knows anything nefarious is going on (he convinces Dennis and Bob that they've been hired as employees of the store, and convinces Dennis that he has the authorization to hire Edward)?
• All of them are cooperating in the theft?
• Cathy is aware that the necklace that has been delivered to her is stolen and she chooses not to return it?
• A different person delivers jewelry to Cathy every day, and she knows that at least some of it is stolen, and suspects that all of it is stolen, but stops returning it after receiving the first few pieces?

Finding a key isn't illegal, but knowingly using the key to perpetrate a theft is.
Using a key to unlock a door isn't illegal, but knowingly using the key to allow unauthorized entry and the removal or property is.
Asking someone to deliver jewelry isn't illegal, but knowingly asking someone to deliver stolen jewelry to someone other than the rightful owner is.
Delivering jewlery isn't illegal, but knowingly delivering stolen jewelry to someone other than the rightful owner is.
Receiving jewelry isn't illegal, but keeping it if you know that it is stolen is.

[Pathi]

I think A. He spread the private key.

[Lauda]

About Person C, so you are saying that if someone sends you money, you have to send it back or you are a thief? what if someone continually sends you 1 satoshi every day and asks for it back? if you stop giving them back then according to you that would be theft, so could he get the courts and law enforcement involved? I don't think that refusing to return stolen funds that were sent to you is necessarily theft, especially if they were sent to you as part of some transaction which you provided goods/services to another party.

All B did is craft an unsigned Bitcoin transaction using publicly available information

And All D did was sign a Bitcoin transaction which he did not know was a fraudulent trasaction (I should have mentioned the only person who knows anything nefarious is happening is person A).

Let's say robbers steal money from a bank, and leave it in front of your door and run. The cops show up asking for the money because they have witnesses that saw the robbers place it there.
What happens when you don't return it?
You become part of the theft. Good luck proving that the money being sent to you is a coincidence.

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.

[R2D221]

Person A didn't do anything wrong if he "found" that balance.

well but he did two things.)

1. found private key

2. distribute this to others

and simply point 2 is not so cool at all..

But it's just the number 17. When did distributing the number 17 become illegal or immoral?

Well, 17 is a prime number, so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

But seriously, though, it's not distributing “17” what's illegal, it's distributing “17 is the key to this address which contains 10BTC”.