Make No Mistake: MyBitcoin is NOT Back Up!

[FuzzyCoins]

Can I just ask what can be done about this legally ?

Depends. Did you have a legal contract with mybitcoin (or anyone for that matter) that said if you deposit the coins you would get them back? Or... Did you just send your coins to an unknown party and hope that they would be nice and reciprocate by returning your coins? If you don't have a legal contract, perhaps you just gifted your coins away.

If you are looking for legal remedy, you have to specify what laws or contracts were broken. I don't see any laws or contracts broken.

I realize that this might not be the moral answer, but it is probably the legal answer. I am not a lawyer so take it for what it is.

[the founder]

If the MyBitcoin posse has no ill intentions....  The ENTIRE COMMUNITY should DEMAND that they ( all of them ) appear live on my show via skype!

No one who cares about privacy and security is going to agree to use skype.

This isn't privacy.. this is hiding. 

[twobits]

If the MyBitcoin posse has no ill intentions....  The ENTIRE COMMUNITY should DEMAND that they ( all of them ) appear live on my show via skype!

No one who cares about privacy and security is going to agree to use skype.

This isn't privacy.. this is hiding. 

Semantics I guess, but to me not using a software that steals your resources,   refuses to allow a security audit and has been known to tap conversations is a privacy issue.  Much like i don't get how anyone would have put much into an online wallet, I don't get why anyone would use skype.

[RodeoX]

So if he is claiming they were lost to a hardware failure, where is the HD? Would he/they allow a forensic analysis?

Where abouts does it say that?

It may not. 
Excuse my ignorance if i'm wrong, but i thought people were saying mybitcoin "lost" their wallet. I assumed that meant a hard disc crash.

[Yuusha]

Semantics I guess, but to me not using a software that steals your resources,   refuses to allow a security audit and has been known to tap conversations is a privacy issue.  Much like i don't get how anyone would have put much into an online wallet, I don't get why anyone would use skype.

Yes, because it would be simply horrible if an interview that is going to be shown to the public anyway gets tapped!

[qwk]

Can I just ask what can be done about this legally ?

Depends. Did you have a legal contract with mybitcoin (or anyone for that matter) that said if you deposit the coins you would get them back? Or... Did you just send your coins to an unknown party and hope that they would be nice and reciprocate by returning your coins? If you don't have a legal contract, perhaps you just gifted your coins away.

If you are looking for legal remedy, you have to specify what laws or contracts were broken. I don't see any laws or contracts broken.

There's always good old "conduct implying an intent". So, basically, yes, you have a contract with mybitcoin if you deposit coins with them. No doubt about it. Not a very detailed one, and possibly not enforceable in its entirety, but a contract nonetheless.

[twobits]

Semantics I guess, but to me not using a software that steals your resources,   refuses to allow a security audit and has been known to tap conversations is a privacy issue.  Much like i don't get how anyone would have put much into an online wallet, I don't get why anyone would use skype.

Yes, because it would be simply horrible if an interview that is going to be shown to the public anyway gets tapped!

you miss the point, but enjoy your spyware.

[the founder]

Semantics I guess, but to me not using a software that steals your resources,   refuses to allow a security audit and has been known to tap conversations is a privacy issue.  Much like i don't get how anyone would have put much into an online wallet, I don't get why anyone would use skype.

Yes, because it would be simply horrible if an interview that is going to be shown to the public anyway gets tapped!

you miss the point, but enjoy your spyware.

I agree with you twobits,  but this isn't exactly normal circumstances....   I personally hate skype...  but at the same time I think that guy should man up and talk to people that lost their 1.3 million USD or so regarding it.

[Bruce Wagner]

If everyone who has used MyBitcoin and had the "Payment Notification" feature set to ON... could please do this:

(1)   Do a search for ALL emails in your email (or gmail) archives for messages with a SUBJECT containing:  "MyBitcoin Payment Notification"  .....or the FROM address containing,  "MyBitcoin Robot"     ......or  "nobody@mybitcoin.com"

(2)   If possible, Save all of these messages into a ZIP file and submit them for analysis..... so that the Community can be tracking those bitcoin addresses and watching for any movement of funds.      You can email them to  bruce@onlyonetv.com

Optionally...

(3)   If the notification says,  "You have received Bitcoins!"  ......then enter the TO bitcoin address into a spreadsheet, along with the Transaction number, the date and time, the amount, and your email address.

(4)   If the notification says,  "You have sent Bitcoins!"  ......then enter the FROM bitcoin address into a spreadsheet, along with the Transaction number, the date and time, the amount, and your email address.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone's bitcoins actually moved since the site went down?

[the founder]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone's bitcoins actually moved since the site went down?

from what I am hearing no....   that doesn't mean that they didn't in whole... but just from what I have been reading in the forums the people that knew their bitcoin address didn't move IE: no transactions since July 29th, which is a good sign.

[ShaggyB (BitCoinWorldMarket)]

The problem I have is this hurts the entire bitcoin community ...   it has far more widespread than just 25,000 coins here.. or a 100,000 or more coins there...    

It makes every bitcoin service look bad...  even if the other one is steller it appears to be crap in this new light.   He setback the entire bitcoin economy by at least a year or more.

Or this is the prime opportunity for someone to step forward and shine as a reputable service. Bitcoin needs some more grownup infrastructure. We need services that are going to make holding bitcoin more secure and easy.

I challenge the people posting here who are outraged about this to start something of your own. I'm sure we can all pool our heads together and come up with good ideas for services that can build the bitcoin community and move it forward.

Cheers
Jonathan

[westkybitcoins]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone's bitcoins actually moved since the site went down?

from what I am hearing no....   that doesn't mean that they didn't in whole... but just from what I have been reading in the forums the people that knew their bitcoin address didn't move IE: no transactions since July 29th, which is a good sign.

The radio talk show host (of Free Talk Live) who mentioned his bitcoin loss on-air seemed to think he had been having funds periodically siphoned from his donation address for some time.

But I don't know how Mybitcoin held a user's funds, so that might not even be relevant.

[7iain7]

i live and work in the U.K so calling the FBI is not really option.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

Latest update on MyBitcoin ------

ARCHIVED RELEASE FROM AUGUST 4 2011

PGP-SIGNED COPY OF THIS RELEASE

Friday, August 5th, 2011

From the desk of Tom Williams, operator of MyBitcoin.com

For immediate release.

SECURITY BREACH DISCLOSURE

After careful analysis of the intrusion we have concluded that the software that waited for Bitcoin confirmations was far too lenient. An unknown attacker was able to forge Bitcoin deposits via the Shopping Cart Interface (SCI) and withdraw confirmed/older Bitcoins. This led to a slow trickle of theft that went unnoticed for a few days. Luckily, we do keep a percentage of the holdings in cold storage so the attackers didn’t completely clean us out. Just to clarify, we weren’t “fully” hacked aka “rooted”. You can still trust our PGP, SSL, and Tor public keys.
It appears to be human error combined with a misunderstanding of how Bitcoin secures transactions into the next block. Our programmer was under the assumption that one block was good enough to secure a transaction. Two years ago when the software was written, this single confirm myth was a popular belief.
In hindsight we should have credited deposits after one confirmation so they would show up in the transaction history, and held the deposit until it reached at least 3 confirmations. Keeping track of two balances and displaying them in the login area would have been trivial.
CLAIM PROCESS DISCLOSURE

We are in the process of building a claim procedure for the remainder of the holdings now. We expect that we will have it online soon.

The claim process will consist of a online form where the claimant will be required to enter their MyBitcoin username and password. Their balance will be displayed along with the percentage of remaining Bitcoins that we still have in our holdings. That percentage will be paid to a Bitcoin address of their choosing. This percentage will be based on our current total liabilities vs. our existing assets. We will disclose these figures as soon as they have been totaled.

Each online claim will be written to a ledger and will be manually approved within 48 hours of being filed online. We have decided to have a manual claim approval process for better security. The last thing we all need right now is for someone to breach the claim form. We are confident clients will find this satisfactory.

RECEIVERSHIP

After some research and careful consideration regarding the appointment of a receiver we have concluded that it would be very costly and slow.

Also, finding a receiver that even understands what a Bitcoin is or how to handle the claim process online would be troublesome, and would only end up in increasing our costs. Receivers are typically paid from the remaining assets and we’d like to maximize the amount that we can disperse to our clients.

We have been trying to figure out a way to appoint a 3rd party to certify the asset/liability figures, but there are many risks involved. It would involve having us trust some unknown agent that could possibly just steal the rest of the holdings out from under us. Or, we could be accused of bribing the 3rd party to agree with our figures, and on and on. Trust is a real problem with an anonymous and irrevocable currency.

It is true that we could disclose all of the Bitcoin payment addresses we manage and let everyone look them up and track the lineage of the coins. This is also troublesome due to the way that we defragment small payments to keep the processing engine speedy. Also there are the moral implications of disclosing our client’s finances. We are sure that, unknowingly to us, that our processing system has been used for nefarious purposes.

A GIFT TO THE COMMUNITY

After the claims have all been filed and dealt with we will be releasing the entire MyBitcoin processing engine into the public domain. Our only hope is that the community can improve and adapt the software to all sorts of new and interesting Bitcoin-related things.



Tom Williams

[indicasteve]

Yesterday just emailed me.  It want's it's news back.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

   think my brains got a 24 hour satellite delay   
Bringing yesterdays news...... tomorrow 

[TiagoTiago]

Though, if he really is a BTC millionaire, why would he be stealing petty cash from commoners at the risk of plunging the value of what he already had?

[SomeoneWeird]

We have an ongoing investigation in #bitcoin-police on freenode, most of the information we have is being kept here. If you have any information that could be important please drop #bitcoin-police or message MrTiggr or myself on IRC (or PM me here).

[Bruce Wagner]

MyBitcoin.com USERS HAD BITCOIN STOLEN. They are returning a portion 49% of them to you: Not sure where to send them? CALL ME. 646-580-0022