Stolen NXT Now On Bitcoin Blockchain...And Gone!?!As previously discussed here (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4656340#msg4656340 ), stolen NXT went on the move Jan 21 and Graviton said it was laundered thru Dgex by a "well known and reputable NXT community member". As radio commentator Paul Harvey used to say, here's "the rest of the story"...
First of all, my apologies for Graviton for rushing into print using the juicy shock-value phrase "well known and reputable NXT community member". Graviton didn't know I was going to do that, and I should not have. As graviton later wrote to me, "I don't want to make it look like I'm suspecting or even setting up XYZ by assuming the identity instantly so strong as it looked like. My position is neutral - the wording about the thief being a prominent community member was wrongly chosen in haste, not anticipated for public distribution." So...I'm sorry, Graviton.
A forensic investigation should deal solely with facts and purge emotion as much as possible. I fell short of that standard.
So here are the facts as gathered by Graviton on Dgex use in laundering the stolen NXT:
******** BEGIN GRAVITON PM TO OPTICALC, RICKYJAMES AND SALSACZ ***********************
I do not expect a reply from the NXT thief any more after 30+ hours have passed from my contact, so here is the data I have available. I trust you make of it what you can, if anything;
Account number: 9550
Account established: Jan 19th
IP Address: 188.132.251.194 (did not change)
Account holder email:
salsacz@outlook.com (is delivered to, but does not reply - not surprisingly)
Deposited 284634 NXT from 2647797480528736696 on Jan 19th
Quick sold everything after deposit confirmed 2014-01-20 09:23 to 2014-01-20 09:34
Withdrew through instant cashout when it came available 2014-01-20 11:37 to 2014-01-20 12:22 in 7 payments (max system limit 3 BTC at once) to bitcoin address 13BDBCHyd916pTAyAXK4hYyjViqSzCuRcH
---
I hope the information helps you some forward, although you were probably expecting more than this.
The content of this message is ok for public release.
Regards,
Graviton
******** END GRAVITON PM TO OPTICALC, RICKYJAMES AND SALSACZ ***********************
So, do I believe Salsacz distributed Trojan clients weeks ago and opened up a new Dgex account in his own name to launder stolen NXT? No, I do not. Way too obvious.
I believe this is a setup or frame job, a last twist-of-the-knife joke by somebody who is a reader of this forum. So in that sense, it is still an inside job.
I've checked a few other things and I'm pretty much at a dead end.
Epic Thomas has not been on Bitcointalk since Jan 16, so if he's watching all of this and laughing, he's not using his old username. Somehow I don't think he's that smart. So I personally don't think this is EpicThomas any more than I think it is Salsacz.
There are a few interesting things I've learned about 188.132.251.194. It's in Turkey, but it seems to be owned by a Czech company called Mars Global Datacenter Services located at Probrezni 118, Prauge, Czech Republic. This is where you would have to go for the server logs to determine who was behind the Turkish proxy on the day of the Dgex withdrawal...
It's curious to me that the computer used in the heist is owned by a company in the same city/country as the suspect it fingers. Even moreso that they would try to frame a white-hat with experience in catching hackers who has dealt with thousands of cheaters (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4322484#msg4322484 ).
My own personal opinion is that Salsacz has done WAY too much for the NXT community to rob others of their NXT. However, the way things sometimes work is that somebody around him could have seen Salsacz's enthusiasm for NXT and hatched a plot of their own. But that is just rank speculation on my part, I will never know.
So much for the getaway vehicle's license plate number. On to following the money.
Bitcoin address 13BDBCHyd916pTAyAXK4hYyjViqSzCuRcH is registered at Blockchain.info, which is one of the biggest online Bitcoin wallets. So the stolen NXT has been laundered into BTC, and here it sits, all $17,371.76 of it:
https://blockchain.info/address/13BDBCHyd916pTAyAXK4hYyjViqSzCuRcHSo I wrote Blockchain.info an email:
************ BEGIN RICKYJAMES EMAIL TO BLOCKCHAIN.INFO ***************
My name is Ricky X and I am a resident of X, X, USA. My
cell phone number is X.
I have been investigating the theft of large numbers of NXT coins through
use of a Trojan software package that was used by at least five users. On
Jan 20 the thief finally laundered the money through dgex.com to the
following Blockchain.info address:
https://blockchain.info/address/13BDBCHyd916pTAyAXK4hYyjViqSzCuRcH I formally request that you freeze all funds this account until you can
examine my chain of evidence and verify that I am telling you the truth.
Once you have done so, I ask that you release to me the email address and
cell number of the owner of this account.
Please let me know a direct email address to your security department and a
ticket number for this request and I will provide further details
immediately. Thanks for your help in investigating this theft.
-Ricky J. X
************ END RICKYJAMES EMAIL TO BLOCKCHAIN.INFO ***************
to which I got this response...
************ BEGIN BLOCKCHAIN.INFO EMAIL TO RICKYJAMES ***************
Ricky, Blockchain.info only deals in bitcoin, and no other altcoin. We also don't have any access to the funds in a user's wallet. This is due to the way our wallets work. A user controls his or her passwords and private keys, and Blockchain.info only stores the encrypted backups. We don't even know what public address are in a wallet, and a user doesn't even need to provide any type of personal information to setup a wallet. Sorry to hear of this, but Blockchain.info is unable to do any type of freeze on an account, especially since a user could easily import those private keys into any other wallet service available.
Mandrik | Blockchain.info Support
************ END BLOCKCHAIN.INFO EMAIL TO RICKYJAMES***************
As an aside, I never heard back from Bter.com.
So I am out of ideas and I think it is the end of the line for me. I gave it my best shot.
As salsacz has noted, (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4649481#msg4649481 ) I still haven't caught 1 thief or thief's Bitcointalk account or didn't find any new theft except of those who were found by others.
That's kinda like Yoda's "Do or do not, there is no try".
Sigh, sometimes the bad guys win.
A loss for us all, and a lesson to start from this point and do everything we can to strengthen NXT security, especially for new users that don't check SHA-256 of a client file or make a password longer than 11 characters.