Given the possible recent leak of the Mt. Gox source code and database, what would the core developers and mining community think of locking the apparent large wallet balances belonging to Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, and Jeb McCaleb by changing the protocol for now?
To my knowledge there was a case of a mining pool operator who was robbed. The victim alarmed the community quickly (this is what a victim normally does when robbed) and the community could react also quickly and some portion of the stolen coins were retrieved.
Unfortunately for the goxed and fortunately for the ''thieves'', Mark Karpeles had allowed about a month before announcing that ''theft'' happened. He didn't even tell to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were sent. MtGox is under civil rehabilitation, meaning Karpeles will probably never reveal to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were withdrawn.
The idea would not be to accept any transactions spending these bitcoin until the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case is sorted out.
Only some portion of the ''stolen'' coins are in static addresses now. Majority was simply divided by
four, divided by
four, divided by
four*, then sent to an exchange, sold and or bought back. Most reasonable here is to look for the so called theives' names in exchanges' records - only in case you are absolutely 100% sure (you can't be 100% sure because Karpeles - unlike the robbed ones in the past - did not tell to which addresses the ''stolen'' coins were sent).
A committee, possibly appointed by the Bitcoin Foundation, could verify proper ownership before the coins are cleared for spending and a change back is made.
If what happened was a real theft TBF might do something. Nothing so far (Karapeles' bahaviour and other stuff) indicates this was a theft.
*EDIT: now they are being divided by
8,
18, etc.:
https://blockchain.info/address/12WFth5HabiVrcj5waHtDP1b7gXSQPuDPz still not sure if these are the ''disappeared'' / ''unaccounted for'' / ''stolen'' coins.