Exchange accidentally sent 512 bitcoins after coding error

[defxor]

I think

Why did you post what you think when the law is clear?

[1713287547]

1713287547

[mikegogulski]

I'm curious about something.  A hypothetical situation.  If Ben was asleep while the coins were being sent to his wallet, which was stored in an encrypted file on his computer, and when he woke up, he couldn't remember the keys for decrypting that wallet file, would he still owe the sender the bitcoins?

No, and that isn't what we're talking about here. See you on YOSPOS.

[Gabi]

They are making a JUSTICE group 

[RandyFolds]

They are making a JUSTICE group 

I hope they hang all the brown people who dare become involved in bitcoin. Seriously, this is fucking retarded.

[Vladimir]

Mike, Thank You.

I do not really have aspiration to be a legal guy, judge or mediator, nor I have any formal legal training. (lots of informal though)

It is IMO worthwhile idea to have some kind of mediation service to resolve bitcoin disputes, particularly when seeing threads like this. At least over time it could build some kind of moral authority and possibly influence people who are not malicious but simply misguided and ignorant of law or who maybe have temporary deficit of common sense.

I could potentially participate in your project somehow, because I think it is interesting and useful for the community and if it is compensated somehow (yes I am that egoistical here). In any case it is better to discuss it in private.

At the same time, I have to tell you about what happens in UK if you send bank transfer by mistake to a wrong person/account. In such a case the bank will forward your letter asking to return the money to the owner of "bank error in your favour" account (or ask him on your behalf). If money are not returned promptly, a civil lawsuit can be filed against the "finder keeper" and it is almost certain that court will pass a judgement requiring "finder keeper" to pay back the money, legal costs, and potentially interest.

This is common practice. Usually, though people just return the money when asked first time and this rarely goes beyond first chat of the "finder keeper" with his legal council.

[MiningBuddy]

Mike, there is no thinking on this one. Ben is clearly in the wrong, hook line and sinker.
See this: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/164.html
And below quotes:

Again, can you explain how I am a thief, when I wake up and there are 511 BTC in my wallet?  Elaborate.  I do not see how that means theft.

Did you miss my post citing

164.065 Theft of lost, mislaid property. A person who comes into control of property of another that the person knows or has good reason to know to have been lost, mislaid or delivered under a mistake as to the nature or amount of the property or the identity of the recipient, commits theft if, with intent to deprive the owner thereof, the person fails to take reasonable measures to restore the property to the owner. [1971 c.743 §126]

from the OR laws I linked to earlier?

Let me translate that:

You are a person. You came into control of property of another that you know to have been delivered under a mistake. You have committed theft, if, with intent to deprive the owner thereof, you failed to take reasonable measures to restore that property to the owner.

What matters isn't you acting like badass on the internet, it's the law in your jurisdiction. And it puts you solidly in the wrong, regardless of any of your weak counterarguments.

[mikegogulski]

I think

Why did you post what you think when the law is clear?

Oh, geez, well, you got me there. Except:

- state law isn't clear at all, ever, anywhere
- state courts are typically shit, approaching justice when they do as likely by accident as by intent
- jurisdiction issues in this case, particularly since the sum involved is only ~US$5k would be more difficult to navigate than they're worth
- evil illuminati lawyers would skim 30% off this easy
- oh, right, and... we always have the opportunity to work our own law

But hey, who am I to argue with someone who might think that the reasoning a bunch of dead, wizened fucks who had fancy offices in Helsinki is pure gold?

[mikegogulski]

Mike, there is no thinking on this one. Ben is clearly in the wrong, hook line and sinker.
See this: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/164.html

Hey, Buddy... are you seriously asking me to not think here? And then asking me in the next breath to think about some law code from (where?) Oregon?

[defxor]

- oh, right, and... we always have the opportunity to work our own law

Let me know how that works out for you. It usually requires sovereign territory and lots of firepower.

[bitlane]

It's situations like this where the Community as a whole need to get involved and help the situation in a positive fasion any way they can.

1) All Mining Pool Operators should band together and maintain a SCAMMER IP BLACKLIST to keep people like this OUT of the Community and left mining Solo.

It's in situations like this that the IDIOTS appears.

Woah, ip black list, are you idiot or what? Study how ip work before telling us what to do. Do you know like dynamic IP? I start my router i have an ip. I restart it i have another one. I restart it again, i have another one.

Yes, me idiot. Are you Caveman typing broken English ?

I know like dynamic ip. Perhaps you study how dynamic ip lease work when start router have another and you restart it and have another. Unless you change MAC address each time you restart router or have ISP that use 1 minute lease time, you are wrong. If you need lesson, please tell me and I provide.

....wow...I'm glad that is over with, as I can go back to typing near-proper sentances that don't read like I just learned English last week.

LMAO.

[MiningBuddy]

Mike, there is no thinking on this one. Ben is clearly in the wrong, hook line and sinker.
See this: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/164.html

Hey, Buddy... are you seriously asking me to not think here? And then asking me in the next breath to think about some law code from (where?) Oregon?

Yes Mike, Ben (the theif) is located in Oregon hence the pasting of Oregon state law. I'm from the UK so I don't know how you guys handle things over there but from the information above it seems almost perfectly clear Ben has broken Oregon states law.

[Vladimir]

@bitlane: have you ever heard about tor or vpns?

[Gabi]

It's situations like this where the Community as a whole need to get involved and help the situation in a positive fasion any way they can.

1) All Mining Pool Operators should band together and maintain a SCAMMER IP BLACKLIST to keep people like this OUT of the Community and left mining Solo.

It's in situations like this that the IDIOTS appears.

Woah, ip black list, are you idiot or what? Study how ip work before telling us what to do. Do you know like dynamic IP? I start my router i have an ip. I restart it i have another one. I restart it again, i have another one.

Yes, me idiot. Are you Caveman typing broken English ?

I know like dynamic ip. Perhaps you study how dynamic ip lease work when start router have another and you restart it and have another. Unless you change MAC address each time you restart router or have ISP that use 1 minute lease time, you are wrong. If you need lesson, please tell me and I provide.

....wow...I'm glad that is over with, as I can go back to typing near-proper sentances that don't read like I just learned English last week.

LMAO.

How in the hell that is making your "scammer ip blacklist" work? Let me guess, it doesn't.

If i CHANGE my ip, then ta-dah, i am no more in the blacklist. Worse, someone else will end up using the blacklisted IP

And again, you never heard about tor, vpns, proxy?

As for my english, it's good enough to allow people understand what i want to tell.

[bitlane]

@bitlane: have you ever heard about tor or vpns?

Of course, but let's not get carried away with a simple suggestion to block idiots from the mining community by overshadowing the task at hand with technical debates......any blacklist will do. Perhaps next time I will generalize to help keep other people's panties from getting into a ruffle.....

[mikegogulski]

Mike, Thank You.

Nemáš za čo.

I do not really have aspiration to be a legal guy, judge or mediator, nor I have any formal legal training. (lots of informal though)

Law is a business like any other. The corruption we face is a society telling us constantly that only old men in fancy costumes with particular pieces of paper to their name can do it. (Little secret: in most English common law jurisdictions, being a lawyer is -not- a requirement for being a judge!)

It is IMO worthwhile idea to have some kind of mediation service to resolve bitcoin disputes, particularly when seeing threads like this. At least over time it could build some kind of moral authority and possibly influence people who are not malicious but simply misguided and ignorant of law or who maybe have temporary deficit of common sense.

Definitely, and you point up a dual value for the service. Dispute resolution on the one hand, public discouragement of bad behavior on the other. This is the kind of thing that can build infrastructure for a real community. And, despite people saying "the bitcoin community" a lot of times lately, we are really not yet a community. I'd like that to change, and I'll bet you and a bunch of others on this thread would like that to change as well.

I could potentially participate in your project somehow, because I think it is interesting and useful for the community and if it is compensated somehow (yes I am that egoistical here). In any case it is better to discuss it in private.

I'll catch you offline. Meanwhile, "justice" is already a for-profit operation all over the world, whether it be in terms of massive judge salaries or in terms of bribes to various court officials. It seems clear to me (despite my ecumenicalism above) that specialists are needed, but that the systems we have today tend more toward self-enrichment than toward really serving their communities.

At the same time, I have to tell you about what happens in UK if you send bank transfer by mistake to a wrong person/account. In such a case the bank will forward your letter asking to return the money to the owner of "bank error in your favour" account (or ask him on your behalf). If money are not returned promptly, a civil lawsuit can be filed against the "finder keeper" and it is almost certain that court will pass a judgement requiring "finder keeper" to pay back the money, legal costs, and potentially interest.

This is common practice. Usually, though people just return the money when asked first time and this rarely goes beyond first chat of the "finder keeper" with his legal council.

Yep. And I've been in that seat before, though not in the UK. People fat-finger stuff on keyboards and issue transfers for #million when they meant #thousand. Or #thousand when they meant #hundred. Or 512 when they meant 1. Whatever. It's definitely not okay to profit massively off the error, and I'm definitely not going to invite people who dash off, cackling, with their ill-gotten loot to my dinner party.

[Gabi]

@bitlane: have you ever heard about tor or vpns?

Of course, but let's not get carried away with a simple suggestion to block idiots from the mining community by overshadowing the task at hand with technical debates......any blacklist will do. Perhaps next time I will generalize to help keep other people's panties from getting into a ruffle.....

[mikegogulski]

Mike, there is no thinking on this one. Ben is clearly in the wrong, hook line and sinker.
See this: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/164.html

Hey, Buddy... are you seriously asking me to not think here? And then asking me in the next breath to think about some law code from (where?) Oregon?

Yes Mike, Ben (the theif) is located in Oregon hence the pasting of Oregon state law. I'm from the UK so I don't know how you guys handle things over there but from the information above it seems almost perfectly clear Ben has broken Oregon states law.

Ummm, dude, seriously. So, that's why we ALWAYS go flying off to file suit in defendant's jurisdiction, right?

Doesn't matter, I'm putting you down in my "irredemably dense" file until you can find yourself bothered to examine your request above that I not think.

[MiningBuddy]

Mike, there is no thinking on this one. Ben is clearly in the wrong, hook line and sinker.
See this: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/164.html

Hey, Buddy... are you seriously asking me to not think here? And then asking me in the next breath to think about some law code from (where?) Oregon?

Yes Mike, Ben (the theif) is located in Oregon hence the pasting of Oregon state law. I'm from the UK so I don't know how you guys handle things over there but from the information above it seems almost perfectly clear Ben has broken Oregon states law.

Ummm, dude, seriously. So, that's why we ALWAYS go flying off to file suit in defendant's jurisdiction, right?

Doesn't matter, I'm putting you down in my "irredemably dense" file until you can find yourself bothered to examine your request above that I not think.

Don't worry about it, something has obviously gotten lost in the interweb translation somewhere.
I didn't request you don't think about it, it was more of a "no-brainer" moment as you will, whereby from reading and examining the information provided on the Oregon State Legislature website it clearly defines Ben's actions as law breaking.
I'm no legal expert and I won't even pretend to know anything about law, but when facts are clearly shown to you that Ben has broken Oregon State law surely there must be repercussions of his actions and justice must be brought forward to compensate intersango?

[geebus]

Oregon State's definition of "Thief":

64.005 Definitions. As used in chapter 743, Oregon Laws 1971, unless the context requires otherwise:
      (1) “Appropriate property of another to oneself or a third person” or “appropriate” means to:
      (a) Exercise control over property of another, or to aid a third person to exercise control over property of another, permanently or for so extended a period or under such circumstances as to acquire the major portion of the economic value or benefit of such property; or
      (b) Dispose of the property of another for the benefit of oneself or a third person.
      (2) “Deprive another of property” or “deprive” means to:
      (a) Withhold property of another or cause property of another to be withheld from that person permanently or for so extended a period or under such circumstances that the major portion of its economic value or benefit is lost to that person; or
      (b) Dispose of the property in such manner or under such circumstances as to render it unlikely that an owner will recover such property.
      (3) “Obtain” includes, but is not limited to, the bringing about of a transfer or purported transfer of property or of a legal interest therein, whether to the obtainer or another.
      (4) “Owner of property taken, obtained or withheld” or “owner” means any person who has a right to possession thereof superior to that of the taker, obtainer or withholder.
      (5) “Property” means any article, substance or thing of value, including, but not limited to, money, tangible and intangible personal property, real property, choses-in-action, evidence of debt or of contract. [1971 c.743 §121]

Each line describes clearly that the "thief" must have taken an item owned by another individual, or withheld an item owned by another individual.

Here is the question and answer from the "How does Bitcoin work?" section of the Bitcoin FAQ, published on the Wiki linked from Bitcoin.org:

Q. How does Bitcoin work?
A. Bitcoin utilises public-key cryptography. A coin contains the owner's public key. When a coin is transferred from user A to user B, A adds B’s public key to the coin, and the coin is signed using A's private key. B now owns the coin and can transfer it further. A is prevented from transferring the already spent coin to other users because a public list of all previous transactions is collectively maintained by the network. Before each transaction the coin’s validity will be checked.

The relevant line here is indicated in red.

Ben, having been SENT the coins, whether mistakenly or not, now owns them. The network was informed of the transfer of ownership by phantomcircuit and then confirmed the transaction by including it's data in the blockchain.

Yes, what he did was morally wrong. Yes, what he did was ethically wrong. No, what he did was not illegal.

He's a dick. Plain and simple. But he is well within the bounds of legality in both Oregon State, and the United States of America, where he resides.

[defxor]

Ben, having been SENT the coins, whether mistakenly or not, now owns them.

Apply your reasoning to credit card chargebacks. An FAQ does not trump law, no matter the language used. The only deciding factor is whether the transaction was intended or not.