Exchange accidentally sent 512 bitcoins after coding error

[the joint]

You are in the wrong thread here. Here people are even discussing how to assassinate the CRIMINAL (they already decided he is a criminal)

Uhm he confessed to an act that is criminal in the territorial jurisdiction he resides in. He decided he was a criminal. Most happen to agree.

If I were Intersango and I wanted to scam 512 BTC, I would do it as follows.

1.)  Abuse a known bug and claim it was unknown.  This is unverifiable.
2.)  Act as both sender and receiver of BTC and play defense for both sides well.  This IS verifiable, so I'd hafta be good to make sure I don't eff it up.  I'd have 2 computers side by side, 1 using my regular IP address and the other connected to TOR.  I would go onto a chat and argue and accuse myself of lying, ignoring an error/stealing, and make it look like a genuine argument.
3.)  Cash out BTC for USD and profit.
4.)  Go onto the forum and continue the heated exchange for multiple purposes:  1.)  To realistically make it appear as though this is a legitimate issue that is worth the forum's attention  2.)  To create a false dichotmoy:  Either it was my stupid mistake, or some lucky receiver is a criminal   3.)  Gauge forum users' concerns and use their feedback to identify any holes in my plan that i missed  4.)  Buy time to fix these holes.
5.)  Laugh.

I don't understand. Step 3.) is not really profit since it's his own BTC he's exchanging for USD, so no profit.

What's to gain from such play?

Wouldn't it be technically be other users' Bitcoins?  Like, if Tradehill accidentally sent me 512 BTC rather than 1 BTC...it would come from other users, right?

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[Blackout]

psy is that a tesseract?

[Gerken]

The currency is NOT totally anonymous unless certain steps are taken you connect your reputation to an identify on almost all the current ways of trading bitcoin.  With certain tumblers and what not you can achieve almost total anonymity but not absolute because of the traceable nature of transactions.  It is you who are clueless if you think bitcoin is completely anon.



 

Oh, so you can track people through their wallet addresses?  You can find out who created a wallet address and when?  You can see how many addresses a person has and which belong to him?

[Raoul Duke]

psy is that a tesseract?

yes, performing a double rotation. dunno why, but the forum stretches the image.

The original can be seen here

[Stalin-chan]

It is other users bitcoins in a way. And the owner of the exchange is liable to replace all of them, its highly unlikely he will ever get his coins back though.

Morally I would suggest returning the coins, but Bitcoin as a system fully supported this transaction so the way I see it they are no longer the exchanges coins, nobody deceived the computer into making the transaction only the programmer told the computer to give out the wrong amount.

[Bebop]

Dude probably could have recovered a portion if he didn't try to strong-arm the guy infront of other people.

"Please"

"Finders Fee"

"How can we work this out"

I didn't see any of those approaches.

Edit: I did see a lot of

"Theif"

"Calling the Police"

"Felony charges".


When dude tried strong-arming infront of others, other dude naturally felt compelled not to appear 'weak'.

Couldn't agree with you more. No one knows for sure if diplomacy would have worked, but its a sure thing that opening with threats is not the way to affect a positive change in your adversary. Sadly its stereotypical of an IT computer programmer to know a lot about his specified field, but lack significantly in human social interactions.

Ideally I would absolutley like to see a satisfactory ending to this story, with your money returned -- just know that when it isn't returned, its no single person's fault. Conditioning and other factors play their roles in every social interaction and its both parties who share responsility in this case.

[Stalin-chan]

...its stereotypical of an IT computer programmer to know a lot about his specified field, but lack significantly in human social interactions...

Let's not be too assuming, if he didn't lack in his programming he wouldn't be in this situation.

[Vladimir]

nah... dude just does not know that he can run 2 different browsers, one via tor and one direct.

[Bebop]

@stalin-chan I stand corrected.

On separate matter: Poor BenDavis was forced into a situation where his moral character was put on the line. He has to choose to return the 511 BTC or keep it -- both of these decisions can lead to serious regrets -- give the BTC back, and regret spending it for being weak (nice guys finish last etc etc) -- or keep the money and lose your moral character to the ideal of becoming a thief. Being human, these are not easy decisions to make for all people. A happy compromise might have been to return most of it (two thirds for example), and keep the remainder as compensation for the heartache of deciding.

If you do read this Ben, I hope you are able to reconsider and give a portion back -- I get the feeling this chapter is closed though for now.

phantomcircuit I hope you can bounce back from this, and make your business more successful then even you hoped before.

[Gabi]

bebop wake up, this can very well be a scam, there can be NO bendavis and his 511btc

[Bebop]

bebop wake up, this can very well be a scam, there can be NO bendavis and his 511btc

If you want to explain something feel free, but your wake-up calls will be best served to the sleepy (yes its an impolite sentence opener). Since you (with 400+ posts) are in the newbie forum, please have some respect and impart your knowledge minus the negative connotations.

Now in proper English, please re-explain whatever it is you are trying to say.

There "can be NO bendavis" in effect has zero meaning. Do you mean to say that "there IS NO bendavis", or "there MIGHT NOT be a bendavis".

[Gabi]

Since english is my secondary language you can't expect proper english from me. And this thread happens to be in the newbies forum while it should be moved to another forum. Why this thread is still here? It has nothing related to "newbies"

And as it was already said before, this can very well be a scam of the exchange

[defxor]

And as it was already said before, this can very well be a scam of the exchange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor would disagree with you. The simplest explanation that fit all the known facts are for Intersango to have by mistake sent bitcoins to someone who ignorant of the law sold them and now has been told by his lawyer to shut up.

Any other explanation is a lot more complicated where the end benefit for anyone involved is much less likely - even doubtful.

[Gabi]

And? Make it look like an error, people believe it->go away with money.

After all we are in the bitcoin world

[Bebop]

Make it look like an error, people believe it->go away with money.

Skepticism always welcome. I like your train of thought, but the argument is still lacking. My argument against your idea so far is that:

[1] As a natural speaker of English, the IRC conversation looks *very* legitimate. The back and forth looks like it is genuinely two separate people (opinion only)
[2] If sango doesn't compensate the loss to his clients, will his business survive? Will the bad reputation caused by this incident kill the business? Is it worth to kill the business for 511BTC?
[3] As per defxor, Occam's razor would place the burden on you to convince otherwise. Until then, simplest explanation to fit with facts will be most believable. Maybe search for some more facts and you can make your claim seem more persuasive.

[bosschair]

And? Make it look like an error, people believe it->go away with money.

After all we are in the bitcoin world

Ok, a couple people have made this crazy-sounding claim, and it's a little sketchy.  How exactly does the exchange make money by pretending to have accidentally sent money to a fictitious person?

[Blackout]

Seems a bit much for a measly 512 coins.  If they were going to try and pull that scam might as well claim the whole exchange was lost.  Plus didn't he say they were covering the loss?

Does that not put this theory to rest?

[molecular]

The currency is NOT totally anonymous unless certain steps are taken you connect your reputation to an identify on almost all the current ways of trading bitcoin.  With certain tumblers and what not you can achieve almost total anonymity but not absolute because of the traceable nature of transactions.  It is you who are clueless if you think bitcoin is completely anon.

Oh, so you can track people through their wallet addresses?  You can find out who created a wallet address and when?  You can see how many addresses a person has and which belong to him?

relevant paper by fergal reid: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.4524v1, should answer these questions.

[the joint]

And as it was already said before, this can very well be a scam of the exchange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor would disagree with you. The simplest explanation that fit all the known facts are for Intersango to have by mistake sent bitcoins to someone who ignorant of the law sold them and now has been told by his lawyer to shut up.

Any other explanation is a lot more complicated where the end benefit for anyone involved is much less likely - even doubtful.

Dude, I like Occam's razor too.  Care to explain MyBitcoin in terms of Occam's Razor?

[molecular]

@stalin-chan I stand corrected.

On separate matter: Poor BenDavis was forced into a situation where his moral character was put on the line. He has to choose to return the 511 BTC or keep it -- both of these decisions can lead to serious regrets -- give the BTC back, and regret spending it for being weak (nice guys finish last etc etc) -- or keep the money and lose your moral character to the ideal of becoming a thief. Being human, these are not easy decisions to make for all people. A happy compromise might have been to return most of it (two thirds for example), and keep the remainder as compensation for the heartache of deciding.

If you do read this Ben, I hope you are able to reconsider and give a portion back -- I get the feeling this chapter is closed though for now.

phantomcircuit I hope you can bounce back from this, and make your business more successful then even you hoped before.

If he sold around $8, he could buy back now, give back 511 (or some percentage) and keep 50 or so he made on exchange.