FBI Seizes DPR's personal coins! 144,000 coins!

[drawingthesun]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/12yfnk/cats_lead_feds_to_knightmb_worth_371kbtc_in/

So as a quick read, they suspected him of an unrelated crime and investigation created lots of grief to him and the family. Just enough hints that the real issue is that he is having too many bitcoins and/or being too vocal about them. Poor guy, but good to see that he is still active in the forum.

The same trick was played on me on 2008 (due to silver, which prior to bitcoin was the lynchpin of the monetary economy) and it actually worsened my mental condition a lot. The good side is that I made my fortune as a result because I got a LOT more credibility for my claim that the govt hates silver, and as a result you should buy some from me

I've actually had the Service Service to my home *twice* now on two unrelated occasions. I am still around, going strong! 

Knight, I was under the impression you lost all the coins.

If you still have over 300,000 that makes you contender for top 3 spots of the Bitcoin wealth list.

I reckon Satoshi is higher than you!

[1714742610]

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[1714742610]

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[1714742610]

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[TheButterZone]

Most Bitcoin users operate totally within the law.  So any thoughts on this subject would be purely academic.

Knightmb operated totally within the law.  He was still raided by the Secret Service*, solely for the crime of owning a lot of Bitcoins and being publicly identifiable.

*FYI the Secret Service is a division of the US Treasury.

It may be easier to imagine if you assume that the individual lives under a repressive regime.  You know.  One of those evil ones.

The US government loves to make press announcements, but never a public apology. I am still around, going strong! 

So 4 months and 2 days after your indictment, your trial is already over with a not guilty verdict? Amazing to see that clause of the 6th Amendment work!
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/June/13-crm-721.html

Last I think we all saw from you about the case was the copy-pasted blog post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6825.msg2792613#msg2792613

[Vigil]

Its amazing that we don't get any details as to how they got the Bitcoins... did they break encryption, etc.?

[drawingthesun]

Its amazing that we don't get any details as to how they got the Bitcoins... did they break encryption, etc.?

Pick your favorite:

• He gave them up.
• He had an easy password.
• His complex password was stored somewhere the FBI gained access too.
• He was key-logged.

Breaking the private key encryption is not listed for obvious reasons. (Even if the NSA was capable of breaking the key, they would not expose this ability to the FBI for a drugs case)

[kik1977]

why did they move them in 324btc chunks ?

Possible answer: try and have a look at your phone and see which letters are on the 3-2-4 keys...

...got it? FBI guys you have a funny sense of humour!

[NewLiberty]

why did they move them in 324btc chunks ?

Possible answer: try and have a look at your phone and see which letters are on the 3-2-4 keys...

...got it? FBI guys you have a funny sense of humour!

Well done.

[drawingthesun]

No they're morons. They think they're being smart and showing off their shiny new coins. But the smaller the transaction size the more transactions they have to create...which means they are paying more in transaction fees. The are literally re-distributing drug money to the people    

Its very easy to send a large transaction with no fee. Have a look on the blockchain, the FBI redistributed nothing.

No fees paid on moving $28,000,000. That has to be a new motto for Bitcoin!

[Melbustus]

No they're morons. They think they're being smart and showing off their shiny new coins. But the smaller the transaction size the more transactions they have to create...which means they are paying more in transaction fees. The are literally re-distributing drug money to the people    

Its very easy to send a large transaction with no fee. Have a look on the blockchain, the FBI redistributed nothing.

No fees paid on moving $28,000,000. That has to be a new motto for Bitcoin!

This whole affair is no doubt resulting in at least a few people at the FBI who are realizing how downright cool bitcoin is from a technological standpoint, at least.

[Vancityguy]

No they're morons. They think they're being smart and showing off their shiny new coins. But the smaller the transaction size the more transactions they have to create...which means they are paying more in transaction fees. The are literally re-distributing drug money to the people    

Its very easy to send a large transaction with no fee. Have a look on the blockchain, the FBI redistributed nothing.

No fees paid on moving $28,000,000. That has to be a new motto for Bitcoin!

That is pretty amazing.

[drawingthesun]

Interesting. The transactions seem to have been included without delay, does that suggest they might be running a mining operation?

EDIT: typo's

Not sure, I think the timestamps are based on received time by the node, so I imagine if the FBI sent out 324 btc every couple of seconds, as they hit one node they might propagate closer together or further apart as they travel through the network to a mined block. And the time being recorded is the moment blockchain.info picked up the transaction (before being included in a block)

So I think its all a bit random about the times, I doubt the timestamps are indicative of the exact moment the FBI sent the coins.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the timestamps show any evidence of mining. If anyone is mining it would be the NSA.

EDIT: I'm probably wrong about the timestamps. The FBI transactions match time for time on BlockChain.info and BlockExplorer.com, so maybe they were just really fast? You might be right Stan.

[drawingthesun]

I was wondering about the 324 coin transactions there, I'd guess it would be easier to ask for transactions of 324 coins to be included than to send every transaction id. Pure speculation but if I tried to send a shedload of transactions with zero fees I'd still be waiting for some to be included.

See my edit, I don't think the times are based on when the node received the transaction, but the time it was included in the block.

Also if you sent a shedload of massive transactions you will find they get included very quickly. The miners still accept large Bitcoin transactions with no fee very fast.

If your transactions are small then no fee means limbo

[kentrolla]

fbi confirmed