Expect ransomware arrests soon, says bitcoin tracking firm Chainalysis

[Azael]

And i also take offense to your incessant comparisons to Bitcoin.
This offends my beliefs  

But you've said you don't hold any Bitcoin. So your faith isn't that strong? 

[Ayers]

if you create another wallet you can make your transaction more anonymous, and not have all the transaction linked to the only wallet you have, and anyway how can they know WHO was using that address?

[dinofelis]

if you create another wallet you can make your transaction more anonymous, and not have all the transaction linked to the only wallet you have, and anyway how can they know WHO was using that address?

Imagine you're a ransomware cracker.  You've sent a ransomware malware to Joe, who was so untidy not to have air-gapped backups, and he paid 10 bitcoin to address A (one of yours).  You did the same with Jack, who sent also 10 bitcoin to address B.  These addresses are known, of course, because Jack and Joe mentioned them when they put up a complaint.

As long as you are the happy owner of A and B, the chain will not teach you much.  The problem is, what are you going to do with A and B ?  You can transfer A to C and B to D.   And then C to E and D to F.  Great.  One can follow that on the chain.

Now, are you going to put F on an exchange ?  Exchanges want to know identities, especially if you want to get fiat.  Whenever a successor (a "colored coin") hits an exchange, it is interesting to find out who owns it, because that person has received coins from someone who has received coins from the cracker, and hence one has a real-world trace.
So it is interesting to go and ask some questions to whomever it was that put F on an exchange.  In this case, questions to the cracker himself.  Of course, that doesn't prove, in itself, that the cracker was the cracker, but at least, that he knows the cracker, or knows someone who knows the cracker.  So it is very easy: the first question is: "sir, from whom did you get the coins in address D ?".  It is going to be difficult to indicate just anybody, because that person will not have done any business with the cracker, or will never have owned those coins.  "an anonymous donation for my contributions on bitcointalk" is probably not going to cut it.  So even after having transacted with oneself many times, the coins remain colored, and will trigger a "real world contact" from the moment they hit an exchange. 

The same is true for any official store accepting bitcoins.  If you've sold shoes to the cracker, you will probably have some trace (say, a post address, an e-mail) of where you sent the shoes.  You will easily show that to law enforcement asking you about how you got those coins if ever YOU got them, and then you went to an exchange.

So it is very difficult for the cracker to get rid of his coins and not induce a real-world contact that may lead to him.

On top of that, it gets more difficult.  Suppose the cracker wants to buy something worth 15 bitcoin.  He will have to COMBINE both outputs, (10 + 10) and get 5 bitcoin in a return address G.  As such, the combination of E and F in a same transaction hints that E and F at that point, are still the cracker's possession (we know that A and B are his possession, and it would be strange that these two tracks get separated, just to be spend together again later...).  And we also know that address G is the cracker's.
 

[criptix]

All anon coins have one huge problem:

People cant buy and/or sell greater amounts of coins anonymously.
You have to use a third party service like an exchange or similar.

The only way would be to mine it and just buy on dark markets.

Monero ATMs doing cash to e-cash and vice versa might solve the entry problem. What do you think? Seems a step up from cash to e-cash transaction by meeting a person.

Look at already working bitcoin and altcoin atm.
They have the same problem.

[Spoetnik]

Azael my faith is not on trial here.
Your delusional assertions about Monero are.
You are the one posting weak analogies.

Clearly you believe in ANON coins and i don't see you being talked out of it.
So how many Monero coins are you bag holding i wonder ?

If you support ANON coins why are you not flogging DASH or other ANON types ?

[arielbit]

http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-malware-victims-should-pay-bitcoin-ransoms/

and now the arrests are coming 

[bbc.reporter]

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450302807/Expect-ransomware-arrests-soon-says-bitcoin-tracking-firm-Chainalysis

What are your thoughts on this? When you trade Bitcoin with someone you might be getting tainted coins that put you in danger.

You are putting too much thought in the issue. "Tainted coins" and "fungibility" are an overused concept and some people think it that it will affect the "value" of their bitcoins.

People put too little thought into this. Forget the block size debate if you don't even have a payment network where buyer and seller are safe.

It's not about the value of my Bitcoins I have since long considered them more like digital gold than currency anyway.

Take this example you buy some Bitcoins from X and the next thing you know the police wants to know where you got them who you bought it from who you are etc etc they want to dig into you like really waste your time and well whatever it is they do. Perhaps they make you give up the seller to prove your innocence who turns out to be some madman?

Now maybe this doesn't concern you but tell me for somebody wanting to use Bitcoin as a currency like actually buying goods outside DNMs why would you?
This design for a payment network is reckless and I wonder for somebody buying and selling actual goods for Bitcoin how many troubles they encounter over a year and how many times they worry over who is paying them Bitcoin and where it comes from.

Do you really think that the authorities will act in such a way without it becoming an issue too? That would be reckless on their part also. In what was the concept of protect and serve in the police system will now be thrown out the window. But how can you call this design as reckless? A public ledger made for all to see your transactions is not a reckless design. In fact it should be used by all the governments around the world so that its citizens will be aware where all their taxes are going. Transparency in bitcoin's design is not reckless. But the people enforcing the law will be.

Like say you buy Bitcoins that are unbeknownst to you tainted and you cash them out and the FBI track you down 2 years later. They'd get a search warrant for your property with ease, harass your family and embarrass you infront of your neighbors while treating you like a criminal. And it would likely take time before they know they're barking up the wrong tree. Your time and your distress for buying a tainted Bitcoin.

Ok. So kindly explain to me where bitcoin's design became reckless there. Because all I see is your FBI story that does not prove or show the recklessness of the design and it only shows how the FBI could harass and embarass you.

Already told you in the text you edited out

You mean this?

In the ideal world you describe this design is not reckless but it is not an ideal world so it is reckless.

It does not even say or prove anything. It only says bitcoin's design is reckless according to your statement and according to you. So what if the world is not ideal, it does not make it automatically mean that bitcoin's design is reckless.

If the world was ideal there wouldn't be any tainted coins nor any criminals. But it's not ideal and there are tainted coins and criminals.

You can read about these problems for others here https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4v28jl/how_have_fungiblity_problems_affected_you_in/

Ok. So kindly explain to me where bitcoin's design became reckless there. Because all I see is your FBI story that does not prove or show the recklessness of the design and it only shows how the FBI could harass and embarass you.

Let's say you have a crossroad with no stoplights. And for arguments sake it is the deadliest crossroad in the US where people collide on a monthly basis. Well you as an architect take no responsibility for this crossroad and insist that the design is not reckless and refuse stoplights.. it is always the drivers fault. And who can prove anything else it is not the absence of the stoplights that is killing them but another car! Right?

Come on man.

Your comment is short sighted and is coming from a closed mind. Let me ask you this, was the invention of the car reckless? They had no stop lights and safety measures for cars back then. Or was the invention of the airplane also reckless? Flying is going against our very nature as land based beings, a small mistake will kill you and the other people you crash into.

You speak as if the world does not evolve and change. Change is everywhere and it is happening everyday. Just because you think bitcoin's design is "reckless" does not mean everyone else is thinking the same as you. Many people very much smarter than you think its design is brilliant.

[bbc.reporter]

http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-malware-victims-should-pay-bitcoin-ransoms/

and now the arrests are coming 

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that. If a very massive attack was coordinated well that would affect 5 big banks at the same time then maybe it can cause a financial crisis of some sort.

[dinofelis]

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that.

Indeed, if you are panicked about ransomware, then you should rather thank the guys doing that for doing a wake-up call.  At least, with ransomware, there IS a means to get your data back: pay up.  If your data are so badly protected and so badly backed up that ransomware can put you into (reversible) difficulty, then you have created a situation where you can easily, by material or software failure, be put in the same, but this time irreversible, difficulty.
You should have backups, and you should have air-gapped backups of everything important.

That said, having to restore from backup is a pain, and you will lose recent work.  But it shouldn't be more nuisance than this.  If it is, the ransomware just indicated you've put yourself in deep potential risk.

[Snorek]

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that.

You are talking about corporate ransomware cases. But I assure you that anyone can be a victim here.
I am basically a nobody with no business and yet my secondary laptop which my mother use was infected with CryptoWall ransom ware..
I didn't backup any that files prior to that attack as it were mostly only family photos and movies.

[awesome31312]

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that.

You are talking about corporate ransomware cases. But I assure you that anyone can be a victim here.
I am basically a nobody with no business and yet my secondary laptop which my mother use was infected with CryptoWall ransom ware..
I didn't backup any that files prior to that attack as it were mostly only family photos and movies.

Damn that's sad. Did you ever get to recover your data?

[dinofelis]

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that.

You are talking about corporate ransomware cases. But I assure you that anyone can be a victim here.
I am basically a nobody with no business and yet my secondary laptop which my mother use was infected with CryptoWall ransom ware..
I didn't backup any that files prior to that attack as it were mostly only family photos and movies.

But that's the point !!
Suppose the disk died.  Not that this doesn't happen, right ?  So that means that you valued what was on that laptop less than the price of a hard disk and the pain of making a backup: less than, say, $100.  Then one could at most ask you 0.2 BTC as ransomware, no ?  You didn't care.  At least, with the ransomware, you can still pay, and get the files back.  If the disk scratches, or if someone by accident does a deep format, its gone forever.

Disks die all the time.  People make errors all the time.  Data is destroyed all the time.  But if it is "ransomware" then suddenly this is drama !   There's only one lesson: BACK UP or consider the data lost at any moment is not going to harm you.

I would even say that ransomware has a very good effect: it is (by paying) reversible in most cases.  Usually, people learn about data loss and the need for back ups the hard way: they don't consider it, until data is gone (computer stolen, disk scratched, human error, ...) for good.   Ransomware gives you a wake-up call with still the possibility to get your data back.

I would say that ransomware has only one extra problem: that is that you now also have to make air gapped backups.  Indeed, ransomware could encrypt everything that is easily network-mounted, like your online backup storage.  But then, human errors can ALSO format the backup disk.  So if your backup storage can be erased from the network, you should consider air-gapped copies of it too.  That's indeed a pain.  The other solution is to have a one-way backup storage, that can only ADD stuff to it.  This, you can leave on your network, as long as you make sure that that system is hardened (you don't use it for anything else).

[Spoetnik]

http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-malware-victims-should-pay-bitcoin-ransoms/

and now the arrests are coming 

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that. If a very massive attack was coordinated well that would affect 5 big banks at the same time then maybe it can cause a financial crisis of some sort.

Banks have been raped beyond comprehension last couple years by online hackers who cleaned them out.
Russian organized crime is lethal shit !

[bbc.reporter]

http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-malware-victims-should-pay-bitcoin-ransoms/

and now the arrests are coming  

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that. If a very massive attack was coordinated well that would affect 5 big banks at the same time then maybe it can cause a financial crisis of some sort.

Banks have been raped beyond comprehension last couple years by online hackers who cleaned them out.
Russian organized crime is lethal shit !

Banks do not get cleaned out. They do the cleaning out.

Do you seriously believe the "hackers" are winning? The reality of life is that the banks are winning they keep raking in the money "cleaning out" most of the population. If their angle fails and causes another financial crisis, no problem, let the tax payers bail them out again.

[Azael]

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450302807/Expect-ransomware-arrests-soon-says-bitcoin-tracking-firm-Chainalysis

What are your thoughts on this? When you trade Bitcoin with someone you might be getting tainted coins that put you in danger.

You are putting too much thought in the issue. "Tainted coins" and "fungibility" are an overused concept and some people think it that it will affect the "value" of their bitcoins. If it really does ok please sell me darknet coins for $300 per bitcoin. I will happily take them away from your hands.

Your comment is short sighted and is coming from a closed mind. Let me ask you this, was the invention of the car reckless? They had no stop lights and safety measures for cars back then. Or was the invention of the airplane also reckless? Flying is going against our very nature as land based beings, a small mistake will kill you and the other people you crash into.

You speak as if the world does not evolve and change. Change is everywhere and it is happening everyday. Just because you think bitcoin's design is "reckless" does not mean everyone else is thinking the same as you. Many people very much smarter than you think its design is brilliant.

Absolutely. Cars kill more people than guns. Both cars and airplanes pollute the earth like motherfuckers. They have been improved since inception by people who recognize and find solutions to these problems instead of pretending they don't exist.

[awesome31312]

Good luck chasing the thousands of addresses out there. I'm pretty sure the state has better things to do with their time

I bet it's a piece of cake. I mean Google keeps pretty good track of all their users.

I wasn't talking about acquiring the data, but chasing the physical addresses. Cops go for the bigger fish.