MyBitcoin.com - hosting provider: leaseweb.com

[toddbethell]

1000btc frozen, lost or stolen by MyBitcoin?

By Todd Bethell

On 12 July 2011, 1000btc MtGox to MyBitcoin.
On 28 July 2011, 1000btc MyBitcoin to MtGox.

28 June 2011, payment notification was received. 8hrs later (the site was still up) visual verification was done in account history of the transaction and correct address.
48 hrs later still no coins.

This is where I need a block explorer expert.
21 minutes after MyBitcoin received the btc block explorer shows the coins from that wallet being split and transmitted hundreds of times all the way down to 1 Satoshi.
Question:
1.   Is this normal or a sign of fraud making it impossible to track?
2.   Are all wallets effectively used as ‘pool wallets’ for payouts?
3.   While I am not accusing MyBitcoin of theft, itn’t plosible that

Block 135867 (2011-07-12 07:06:54)   1000   Received: Address   •   1DeAkzL1MBriA37pHS46Nu1xcCzJ5sPupH
1000

Block 135870 (2011-07-12 07:27:05)   1000   Sent: Address   •   17e8zfFzVkKtx4ofdeoYHhdvu1cTKCpv2r
•   1NgjsaazumvjaR3WZuLqqKEed79RneQy2Q
0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
MyBitcoin Payment Notification
MyBitcoin Robot [nobody@mybitcoin.com]
toddbethell@fastscanning.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hello,

This is a payment notification from MyBitcoin.

You have sent Bitcoins!

Transaction Number: 245107
Transaction Date/Time: 2011-07-28 22:30:02
To: 18jsFKuKZ4w8mhdTYy9bZKKHmkZNSZrRUC
From: 19vKB489Lx1rxqS366f63mKDLXp6q3v3Ct
Amount: -1000.00
Payment Note: MtGox businessaccount1

Thank you.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MBC v1.0

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r9D6GXVPo5A4jXzgjtXTs2Rj2WmbLnsm2I8vc+fQFvniUiZT3nSbixVAU9wPm0w6
cTD8gNvEe+P9aNttZqGxa9xnCOVkE4ypF+n4jEmE/e3H5yh6Ix0oCI50luIeQZir
e0/5sF7ZbWDWhNta9+A6yvWYEI7KLZK+zke8EbLmB3YIDZ+EpaegrT74H6s7fHRR
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=EFK8
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Approximately 8hrs later the coins had not been credited to my MtGox account. MyBitcoin was still up. My account history showed the coins had been sent and the sent to address was verified correct.
Security Note: The instant before clicking the send button (perhaps when my mouse hovered over it) I notice a screen blink or something changed, but it was too late to avoid clicking the button.

Q1. Has my computer been compromised such that the send address was swapped at the last instant?
Q2. If this is so, how could the correct address be recorded in the MyBitcoin data base?
Q3. Is it coincidence that the MyBitcoin service has gone down for 48hrs with nary a peep from its owner? A person who was very proactive and vocal during the MtGox incident.
Q4. I’m hard pressed to think of a technical reason how or why a transaction confirmation bot would send confirmation of btc transmission before such a transmission had actually occurred. Let alone consciously programmed in this way. It would seem that the bot was part of the book keeping data base and not confirming actual transmission from a ‘hot’ wallet.
Q5. It seems that the way MyBitcoins was using the wallets of its members (pooling them as a matter of operational efficiency or draining them as a scam??) this makes it impossible to track coins or analyze if they are insolvent?
Q6. Was my 1000btc withdrawal lower to water level in his 'hot wallet' enough to show Tom was swimming without a suit? In other words, for whatever reason, he was operating insolvent?

I would not normally keep so many coins in an on-line wallet but this was in preparation for a business transaction that was delayed.

I am preparing a blog and forum post or lessons learned and recommendations going forward:

If anyone has further information please post it here and send to my email also, or give me a call.
Skype:  toddbethell
Email:  toddbethell@fastscanning.com
Cell:  1-949-394-5932

-----------------------------------------
Action taken:
Phone: +6499518329  (always busy)
Emailed: enquiries were sent to abuse@mybitcoin.com
It is well know that Tom… only replys to ‘in-mail’ on his site.

Tom Williams
Main Street
PO Box 556
Charlestown, Nevis, KN

[1715113338]

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[1715113338]

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[Departure]

"The Founder" No offence but we don't need you advertising your shit up on this thread, Alot of people may have lost there coins, including myself which I had a large amount on there. So yeah im pretty pissed off at the moment, I am 100% sure the "mybitcoin" owner/owners are reading this thread, and I have a feeling the more fuss we make about mybitcoin stealing our coins the more likely he will do a runner with our coins, I know if its not back up by the end of next week I will be looking at legal advice to retrieve my coins back, Saying that it could be unforeseen problems on his side and hopefully brings the once trusted site back

[mazmorbid]

"The Founder" No offence but we don't need you advertising your shit up on this thread, Alot of people may have lost there coins, including myself which I had a large amount on there. So yeah im pretty pissed off at the moment, I am 100% sure the "mybitcoin" owner/owners are reading this thread, and I have a feeling the more fuss we make about mybitcoin stealing our coins the more likely he will do a runner with our coins, I know if its not back up by the end of next week I will be looking at legal advice to retrieve my coins back, Saying that it could be unforeseen problems on his side and hopefully brings the once trusted site back

Totally agree with you mate, poor form by "The Founder", also agree about all the fuss being made, like many of us reading or following this thread (and other threads) we have bitcoins at stake here, so if there is a genuine reason why mybitcoins is down atm and all this negativity is read by the owner of mybitcoins (probably unlikely) it could just very well give him an incentive to run off with our bitcoins .. 

[xcooling]

bullcrap..

If they were an honest company.. a simple notice would be put up..

We are experiencing technical difficulties, or we are busy upgrading our service or.. something.

To just take a service off-line without any form of notice is madness...  even if it does come back online, trust and confidence would of been lost.

[kiba]

bullcrap..

If they were an honest company.. a simple notice would be put up..

We are experiencing technical difficulties, or we are busy upgrading our service or.. something.

To just take a service off-line without any form of notice is madness...  even if it does come back online, trust and confidence would of been lost.

Mybitcoin is just damn incompetent. Doesn't matter if they are the most honest to god trustworthy do the right things people in the world. They never thought a communication channel is important and now they are paying for it in reputations. That's fine with me. I will move my business elsewhere.

People who are in the bitcoin economy are very incompetent to a fatal fault, including me.

"I should have backed up. I should not relies on a single online wallet service. I should..."

We are in the early stage of growing in the bitcoin economy where things are going to be crazy and loss unimaginable. We will all lose and win based on our competency. That mean everyone in the economy. The exchanges, you, me, other bitcoiners. Sometime we dodge bullets and sometime we don't.

I would be surprised if most of us in this era will retain our wealth and our bitcoin. If anything, the few lucky bastards who survive and become billionaires are the most lucky and perhaps the most competent.

Remember, there is no gubernment that take care of us when we fail. It would be bad if the government bailout the exchanges and the business that fail because that reward incompetency.

Either we become competent....or we don't.

[BioMike]

Amen, and doing it properly IS hard!

[EconomicOracle]

They should change the site name from mybitcoin.com to NOTmybitcoin.cum!!!!!! HEE HEE HEE!!!!!!!

[plutocracy]

"The Founder" No offence but we don't need you advertising your shit up on this thread, Alot of people may have lost there coins, including myself which I had a large amount on there.

He was replying directly to a concern regarding competing services, as he has been in all of these similar threads. He's not threadjacking; if someone asks if there's any other ewallet sites, he answers. In my opinion he's approached the entire situation gracefully, and I won't fault him for providing an alternative to the community.

yeah im pretty pissed off at the moment

We all are and it shows.

[Littleshop]

This really sucks. 

My store is down due to this problem though no funds lost.  We do need a mybitcoin replacement, or someone to take over the site, charge something for the services and do it properly.  I as a merchant do not mind paying a fee of 1% to have this type of service.  Offering this service and not charging is going to lead to little or no customer support as no one is being paid to take care of the site or the hosting. 

I hope they come up tomorrow, but I will tell you if too much pressure is put on the hosting company (constant phone calls, potential police action though unlikely) the owner of mybitcoin might not be able to come back up on the same hosting company further delaying its return. 

I am not saying don't try to get your money back, I am just pointing out that if this is a simple server outage, it could be turned into a bigger problem by forcing leaseweb.com to not allow mybitcoin to come back up on their servers due to all of the complaints. 

With no real customer support it is impossible to tell what is going on. 

[Bruce Wagner]

We have a lot of bitcoin there..... ( as has already been reported in the press )...    Many -- perhaps most -- non-technical people... and businesses, I know and associate with,....  rely on MyBitcoin.com     

Most of my friends and family and associates.... all have all their bitcoin there too.

I hope it is back up tomorrow.

[BitcoinBug]

We have a lot of bitcoin there..... ( as has already been reported in the press )...    Many -- perhaps most -- non-technical people... and businesses, I know and associate with,....  rely on MyBitcoin.com     

Most of my friends and family and associates.... all have all their bitcoin there too.

I hope it is back up tomorrow.

I think it's time to get in action, hire a detective or something, ASAP!

[dvide]

We have a lot of bitcoin there..... ( as has already been reported in the press )...    Many -- perhaps most -- non-technical people... and businesses, I know and associate with,....  rely on MyBitcoin.com     

Most of my friends and family and associates.... all have all their bitcoin there too.

I hope it is back up tomorrow.

This is depressing So sorry Bruce. I hope the guy turns out to just be on holiday or something, but I doubt it.

[rabit]

On topic, the UABB is launching a full investigation into mybitcoin.com. At the moment we are only being funded very lightly by the UABCI as this has a very low possibility of return, but if members of the community are willing to donate BTC to the efforts, you can do so to the UABB (United Association of Bitcoin Businesses). All expenses and activities will be publicly viewable through the UABCI project management site, and will undoubtedly include the fees for a private investigator.

If you feel you may have been defrauded by mybitcoin, please post your statement, including how much was lost, approximate date, blockexplorer address (if possible) and any evidence that can link your account to you for proof in a court of law. You may post your statements on the UABB project page through the UABCI site at http://uabci.org/redmine/issues/5

Perhaps you should wait some time before shouting scam and trying to destroy someones life.
There was a bug in MB before it went down, so its more likely that he put the site down to fix it.  MB was down for service updates/fixes in the past and always came back, so no reason to spread so much hate after only 1 day.
Also if he would be a scammer, he wouldnt take the site down, he would continue to operate it and just disable withdraw in some way.

[lettucebee]

Perhaps you should wait some time before shouting scam and trying to destroy someones life.
There was a bug in MB before it went down, so its more likely that he put the site down to fix it.  MB was down for service updates/fixes in the past and always came back, so no reason to spread so much hate after only 1 day.
Also if he would be a scammer, he wouldnt take the site down, he would continue to operate it and just disable withdraw in some way.

Dude, did you just emerge from Plato's cave? I was having trouble with mybitcoin for a couple of weeks before I went public about mybitcoin on July 5th.  I can't see any scenario where Pirate "Tom Williams" is unaware that his site is stealing people's money.  We've all been had.

Oh, yes and Mybitcoin.com is a scam!

[dikidera]

And can anyone tell me what happened to the guy mentioned in bruce wagner's podcast who had 25k coins in mybitcoin?

[FractalUniverse]

I have been away for 2 days and when i return i find out that my couple of coins at mybitcoin are probably lost.. this sucks and i trusted the service.

even if they return back online with all the BTCs it will be hard to gain the users' trust back.. Now Im thinking about using ruxum, tradehill or even gox as my web wallets..

[tvbcof]

I have been away for 2 days and when i return i find out that my couple of coins at mybitcoin are probably lost.. this sucks and i trusted the service.

even if they return back online with all the BTCs it will be hard to gain the users' trust back.. Now Im thinking about using ruxum, tradehill or even gox as my web wallets..

I cannot see that working very well at Tradehill, but could be missing something.  It takes a fair amount of time to get my BTC out of Tradehill.  (Getting money in via US domestic wire and trading is faster than getting my BTC out in my experience.)   I don't think they are optimized for this, and have probably been being extra careful for the last several weeks at least to watch for scammers (doing Dwolla's job for them.)

OTOH, at bitmarket.eu, I do have immediate control over an address there (so it seems.)  I can transfer any part of the BTC balance to anywhere I want (so it seems.)

I personally feel most secure when I have my own coins in my own wallet.dat files in my own places with my own encryption.  Unfortunately, arranging this is a modestly technical operation and I've fallen back on skills and understandings gained in the process of getting paid to work on computer systems for a while.

[FractalUniverse]

I cannot see that working very well at Tradehill, but could be missing something.  It takes a fair amount of time to get my BTC out of Tradehill.  (Getting money in via US domestic wire and trading is faster than getting my BTC out in my experience.)   I don't think they are optimized for this, and have probably been being extra careful for the last several weeks at least to watch for scammers (doing Dwolla's job for them.)

OTOH, at bitmarket.eu, I do have immediate control over an address there (so it seems.)  I can transfer any part of the BTC balance to anywhere I want (so it seems.)

I personally feel most secure when I have my own coins in my own wallet.dat files in my own places with my own encryption.  Unfortunately, arranging this is a modestly technical operation and I've fallen back on skills and understandings gained in the process of getting paid to work on computer systems for a while.

hi you are probably right about tradehil. i can see up to 12 hours for btc withdrawal on their site (it took me much less though, but one can't rely on it if fast transaction is needed)
ruxum seems better for this purpose (immediate transfer between 2 accounts+fast withdrawals out of the exchange, but they are still beta and may introduce some transfer fees later)
bitmarket- sounds good i can try but there may be some bug in their system (see the thread: Unauthorized BTC Withdrawals from Bitmarket.eu Account)

wallet .dat - i don't feel much secure with this either (will have to learn more about how to do encryption..)

[xcooling]

If it were an honest service.. there would be a notice or something..

closing down.. and keep quiet is no way to run a company.

problem with bitcoin is the majority of the services have no standards or any kind of proper business knowledge. Honest opinion its very mickey mouse.

[julz]

If it were an honest service.. there would be a notice or something..

closing down.. and keep quiet is no way to run a company.

problem with bitcoin is the majority of the services have no standards or any kind of proper business knowledge. Honest opinion its very mickey mouse.

That's exactly the reason behind starting the United Association of Bitcoin Businesses (uabb.org). Check it out.

Hows this for a standard.
The *first* thing you should do - is have a proper 'about us' page which actually contains contact details.
Not just a contact form - phone numbers and a physical address.

UABB has no such info.
Put that up *FIRST* - then give us your spiel.

http://uabb.org/about.php -  is empty as at 2011-08-01

Seriously. You should be educating consumers to look for this information first - so you need to have it yourself.
Who started it, and who administers it is important information.

I see also " Our professional escrow services stop fraud before it starts."

Oh.. so UBB itself has *business* operations?
A faceless business without contact details - dishing out 'ratings' for other businesses.. some of whom might compete???
 FFS.  

Ok - so I have a feeling that you're actually acting in good faith - and this is just an oversight.
My point is - this is just the sort of 'oversight' that should raise red flags for consumers and that UBB should use to give a *lower* rating on!
Don't give me  "oh.. we're getting round to that" .. that just legitimizes this excuse for other operators who might actually be shady.

RULE *1*: Site goes live - must have contact details, preferably including registered business/association number in some jurisdiction.

Given the shenanigans going on in the bitcoin world... do I really ask too much??


(EDIT: btw - obviously I have no idea who the 'you' is in this case! For all I know Matthew - you're just mentioning a site you found, though you do seem to be rocking a signature-pimp-logo for them)