Should miners collude to steal funds from wallet confiscated by US government?

[niniyo]

Oh you've got to be kidding me.  25% of people think we should burn bitcoin to the ground.  What idiots.  If this ever got close to happening, say goodbye the value of bitcoin.  It would go from being a high quality, ground breaking currency to being "anarchist nerd credits", and the value would collapse.

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[niniyo]

Not only would this kill bitcoin, but it would set back the cryoto currency movement, perhaps beyond return.  You would be shitting all over Satoshi's vision.  You would have proved that crypto currency is just an impossible dream and decentralised money will always end up centralised.

[Amitabh S]

sorry, i did not even read all posts .
I think it is just funny.
At first, who said that money is still there?
It would be funny if after all huge work you will find empty wallet.
Money already somewhere else: in another wallet, or just converted to some that government can really use.
Really funny post.

Its right here.

http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX

What if during the organization of the "51% attack", they decide to move the money?

[malevolent]

If someone is to "steal it" (I'd use the word "retrieve") it only should be those to whom the bitcoins belong. I wish them good luck because so far the news are that the FBI wants to "liquidate them". Not the nicest thing to do considering the fact that not all products were of illegal nature and of those products that were illegal in US some of them were legal elsewhere (e.g. prescription medication).

So I think unless you were personally affected by the confiscation of the SR wallet or you're working on the behalf of and with consent of the victims, you shouldn't be playing Robin Hood because it can only give other bitcoiners a bad reputation.

[LightRider]

of course but we should use big magnets like in breaking bad

I support the big magnet approach.

[kokojie]

51% or hard fork maybe.  I'm sure it could be  done with the top three pools pretty easily.

51% or hard fork is not needed at all.

[darkmule]

Oh you've got to be kidding me.  25% of people think we should burn bitcoin to the ground.

Not really.  25% of the people who bothered to vote in a poll in the most moronic thread in Bitcoin history said that. 

The only "votes" that count in this are the votes of the mining pools, really.  And in this case, good.  The miners supporting this appear to be at about 0%.

[tkbx]

"In other news, a group of hackers, against all mathematical odds, stole over $1 billion worth of the online digital currency "Bitcoin" from the US government, proving once and for all that the only way your money is safe is in a federal bank."

[cp1]

"In other news, a group of hackers, against all mathematical odds, stole over $1 billion worth of the online digital currency "Bitcoin" from the US government, proving once and for all that the only way your money is safe is in a federal bank."

They were all later arrested and are now sitting in Guantanamo Bay.

[dhenson]

Not to mention the bitcoins you stole would be worthless.  If this were actually possible, bitcoin would be dead.

[Aseras]

ok, so just a question.

Lets say someone guessed the private key of the Silkroad BTC stash and cleaned it out. Is it theft?

How can that theft be proven in law today?

If someone were able to randomly guess/combine enough bits to create a h264 of the next blockbuster movie without access to the original film, is that copyright infringement?

[cp1]

ok, so just a question.

Lets say someone guessed the private key of the Silkroad BTC stash and cleaned it out. Is it theft?

How can that theft be proven in law today?

If someone were able to randomly guess/combine enough bits to create a h264 of the next blockbuster movie without access to the original film, is that copyright infringement?

If you're able to guess the combination to my safe and you take all my money is that theft?

What if you guess the password to my bank account?

If you guess my credit card number?

[Rassah]

Do you realize you are talking about tampering with evidence in a murder for hire trial?

Did you read my post? The evidence is in the blockchain, not in the address balance. And you can't tamper with the blockchain.

Do you realize that Silk Road was selling things that could easily kill someone if they used it wrong?

So do car manufacturers, alcohol and beer brewers, pharmaceutical companies, cleaning product manufacturers, etc. What's your point?

Do you realize he is accused of ordering the torture and murder of a Father of 3?

I heard the person wasn't even real. But regardless, what does that have to do with whether the money owned by his customers is in the FBI's hands? And what does it have to do with his customers' money?

Do you realize you will end up in jail if you hack into a federal computer to steal funds that belong to others and may have to be returned?

sure. But unlike stealing money, where the transaction is traceable, all you have to do to get Bitcoin out is steal the private key, and broadcast it from anywhere. Also, HAHAHAHAHA, when was the last time the FBI, or any government security agency, returned anything they seized? They themselves claimed that they will simply liquidate the money.

Do you realize you will probably be fired from your State of MD job once they find out you are advocating breaking into FBI computers to tamper with evidence in a serious prosecution?  

1, doubt it, as speech is not crime, and no one cares, and 2, again, I'm not advocating tampering with evidence. Do you seriously believe that if those bitcoins were moved elsewhere that DPR will go free due to a mistrial?  

If you ever see me at any Bitcoin event stay at least 100 feet from me at all times.

Since I don't know what you look like, and don't know whom to look out for, could you please stay away from every Bitcoin event instead?

[Aseras]

ok, so just a question.

Lets say someone guessed the private key of the Silkroad BTC stash and cleaned it out. Is it theft?

How can that theft be proven in law today?

If someone were able to randomly guess/combine enough bits to create a h264 of the next blockbuster movie without access to the original film, is that copyright infringement?

If you're able to guess the combination to my safe and you take all my money is that theft?

What if you guess the password to my bank account?

If you guess my credit card number?

How do you prove ownership of a bitcoin account number? ( insert wharrblgarbl about private key here )

It's not a tangible thing. There's no door to open, no physical goods to steal. It's intangible.

If you have the private key, you own the coins.

[Rassah]

But unlike stealing money, where the transaction is traceable, all you have to do to get Bitcoin out is steal the private key, and broadcast it from anywhere.

I would like to hear you give these explanations to a judge in federal court.

No need. Just find an example of a court case where seized money or things like cars and houses were presented in court as evidence of crime. I may be wrong, but that sounds ridiculous. At most, the prosecution might say, "We seized $10mil from suspect, which we suspected was drug money, and we have this other evidence to support that claim," but I don't think prosecutors have ever hauled millions of dollars into court to prove their point. Is stealing seized money from the FBI illegal? Of course! But I don't think they have a right to that money to begin with.

As for your job, you don't have to break the law to be fired and you are responsible for your off-duty conduct.  If it affects the job you are accountable.

Luckily, my private conduct doesn't affect my job. If they do let me go for whatever reason (and I really hate my job here), it won't bother me. Though I suspect my department will collapse...  

You don't seem to get it yet but people like you are going to be pushed aside as legitimate companies get involved in Bitcoin.  If you watch the videos of the venture capitalists they make that point time and time again.  

Ironically, I think it's the other way around: things like government and FBI will become more and more irrelevant as Bitcoin and business becomes more and more anonymous, and government services beck,e easier to replace. The venture capitalist videos I've seen typically complain a lot about government and regulatory abuse, and can't wait to not have to interface with the fiat and regulatory system any more.

[User705]

I think the coins should be stolen, but that it should be done using the good'ol method of simply stealing the private keys for that wallet. That may involve some more difficult work of actually hacking FBI's computers to find out where their keys are stored at. Miners and futzing with the blockchain should definitely be left out of it.

You can be sure the key is stored offline.

Why?  It's been reported that they used blockchain.info wallet.  Even if that's incorrect and it's simply a cold storage address how are they keeping the private key.  One place?  Maybe a few high level agents have it?  How much of a trip would it be if the coins get moved because someone lost the key or just decided they need a personal retirement fund.

[Loozik]

You're seriously advocating stealing millions of dollars from the FBI?

This sounds like an oxymoron: stealing from a thief  


I have an idea for a new type of crypto-asset:

The protocol of this new asset should envisage in cases when coins get stolen / extorted by people doing business as ''governments'':

a) a mechanism for tainting the stolen coins (if you are a moral human being you wouldn't deal with such tainted coins, you wouldn't buy them, their market price would be lower), or even
b) a mechanism for making the stolen coins unspendable (thus screwing the thieves - a crime should not pay!), or even
c) a mechanism for making the stolen coins retrievable by the victim of the theft / extortion (in case the human that was attacked gets freed in some point in future).

[Loozik]

Then you need judgement system to decide which coins are tainted.

The judgement system is not needed. In your client you would specify that if your name appears on Google with words like ''arrest, confiscation, etc.'' your coins get automatically tainted (unless you revoke it or something) or if you do not log into your client for more than 2 weeks then your co8ins get tainted or .... a mixture of user-specified conditions.

That's quite a difficult task to do in a decentralized currency.
Also what happens to coins that are tainted after they already left the thief's pocket?

There are a lot of brainiacs in this forum. They can figure out the problems and find ways to mitigate them

[theonewhowaskazu]

You're seriously advocating stealing millions of dollars from the FBI?

This sounds like an oxymoron: stealing from a thief  


I have an idea for a new type of crypto-asset:

The protocol of this new asset should envisage in cases when coins get stolen / extorted by people doing business as ''governments'':

a) a mechanism for tainting the stolen coins (if you are a moral human being you wouldn't deal with such tainted coins, you wouldn't buy them, their market price would be lower), or even
b) a mechanism for making the stolen coins unspendable (thus screwing the thieves - a crime should not pay!), or even
c) a mechanism for making the stolen coins retrievable by the victim of the theft / extortion (in case the human that was attacked gets freed in some point in future).

Sounds like a terrible idea. If coins aren't coins aren't coins, then what happens if I go to, I don't know, satoshidice, and get paid back with the goddamn tainted coins?

[Loozik]

Sounds like a terrible idea.

Why?

If coins aren't coins aren't coins

Coins are coins, except some of them are tainted (by the will of the person who was robbed). I wouldn't willingly accept a payment with tainted coins. I would pay more for non-tainted coins (to have a clean conscious).

then what happens if I go to, I don't know, satoshidice, and get paid back with the goddamn tainted coins?

It would take satoshidice's developers a few hours to build in their service an option for punters not to accept tainted coins. Some would accept tainted coins, some would not.