List of physical attacks against Bitcoin owners

[hatshepsut93]

Jameson Lopp just published his gathered list of physical attacks against Bitcoin owners: https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks

He wants to show us how important is privacy to Bitcoin, anyone who loudly talks about coins that they own on social media are making themselves a target. Lopp himself became a victim of such attack and since then he took a lot of measures to become untraceable.

[1715607727]

1715607727

[o_e_l_e_o]

This guy sounds like an idiot.

According to the article, he had "long been obsessed with the value of privacy".

And yet, he has a very active twitter account with over 200,000 followers. He posts pictures and videos of himself on his twitter account. He has a onename page that links to his twitter, his Facebook, his LinkedIn, his Instagram. He has a car license plate that said "BITCOIN". He didn't even use a VPN. He is so desperate to live privately, that he gets a story about himself published in the New York Times.

If you actually want to be anonymous, this is not the way to do it.

[hatshepsut93]

This guy sounds like an idiot.

According to the article, he had "long been obsessed with the value of privacy".

And yet, he has a very active twitter account with over 200,000 followers. He posts pictures and videos of himself on his twitter account. He has a onename page that links to his twitter, his Facebook, his LinkedIn, his Instagram. He has a car license plate that said "BITCOIN". He didn't even use a VPN. He is so desperate to live privately, that he gets a story about himself published in the New York Times.

If you actually want to be anonymous, this is not the way to do it.

I think he himself realized his mistakes after he got swatted, but privacy and going of the grid completely are not the same thing. There are many public figures who live privately, we don't know anything about their personal life, because they are good at hiding it, so you totally can have social media pages with big following and still maintain privacy, it's just harder than hiding everything about yourself.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to discuss here, what I want to talk about is how dangerous physical attacks are, Bitcoin is one of the best assets to steal, it's easier to sell than gold or jewelry and leaves less traces. The list shows us that criminals are already aware of it, and in the future their awareness will only rise.

[mk4]

Weirded out by the car license plate and the publicity of his "vanishing" too. But Jameson Lopp is a pretty well known person in the bitcoin space as he's had appeared to a good number of events already, so a lot of people already knew him in the first place hence the Twitter followers. Also he has been using his popularity to promote Casa for a while now so he still probably needed his clout for monetary reasons.

[jake zyrus]

I think it's because when you showed the public of how much bitcoin you have, people can really get tempted to do bad things. Knowing you have a lot of bitcoin with you. There are things that should just be kept in private, to avoid this kind of happenings.

[joelsamuya]

Well, the thing is that we can be endanger ourselves whenever we broadcast our details on social media that is why privacy can be so important in our connected world. Good thing that I don't have that much cryptocurrency for now and by the time I have a hoard I will make sure that only a few close people to me know about it. To avoid being physically attack, we have to avoid going to place where such a thing can easily be done. We have to be security conscious at all times.

[Slow death]

I don't understand these people, they keep talking on the news that the price will come on the moon, they are saying they are fund managers with millions or billions of dollars in assets and they are crypto bulls ... let's be honest here: when they declare that they are millionaires they expect what? attract people's attention, right? With attracting people's attention, don't they think they're attracting the attention of thieves? what should they do in my opinion?

they must have security guards both with them and in their homes.

It is inevitable that exchange owners show their faces (in fact they must show their faces) and wallet owners, ICO owners. and these people should have security guards with them and in their homes

[KingScorpio]

Jameson Lopp just published his gathered list of physical attacks against Bitcoin owners: https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks

He wants to show us how important is privacy to Bitcoin, anyone who loudly talks about coins that they own on social media are making themselves a target. Lopp himself became a victim of such attack and since then he took a lot of measures to become untraceable.

well there is nothing bad with that, bitcoin is destroying state infrastructure and creates a lawless realm, you are outlaws with your so called "bitcoin's"

[13abyknight]

https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks

Don't quite understand the point behind posting a list of physical attacks that have happened to Bitcoin owners on Github. He could've written an article or even a blog post with respective links to each listed occurrence.

Coming down to the actual point, it kind of is the stupidity of an individual to publicly announce his/her cryptocurrency holdings no matter how big or small. Its just seen as an alternate currency to fiat and with physical crimes are at large in most parts of the globe, you never know when someone recognizes you in the crowd and the inevitable happens.

[jhonjhon]

Bitcoin may not be accepted in all places in the world but we know its very valuable thus if someone talks to it publicly or try to brag the coins he owned then he will be a target, a lot of people are after easy money so it is very important that if you have a big amount of bitcoin keep it a secret because it might cost you life. With this, it is very to invest in trusted exchanges that will secure not only your coins but your information as well.

[dimastegar]

Whatever the motive for the crime they committed. Neither physical or non-physical crime (hacking) should not be imitated. Therefore, always be careful and not too excessive in showing off our crypto assets. Even on social media. So, protect your privacy.

[malevolent]

I see the link doesn't list any people arrested by their governments (many countries), or who also had their miners stolen by secret police (Venezuela).

[pooya87]

This guy sounds like an idiot.

According to the article, he had "long been obsessed with the value of privacy".

And yet, he has a very active twitter account with over 200,000 followers. He posts pictures and videos of himself on his twitter account. He has a onename page that links to his twitter, his Facebook, his LinkedIn, his Instagram. He has a car license plate that said "BITCOIN". He didn't even use a VPN. He is so desperate to live privately, that he gets a story about himself published in the New York Times.

If you actually want to be anonymous, this is not the way to do it.

some people always have delusions like this. usually it is delusions of security that i see. for example they install an anti virus and think they are safe now. then they go ahead and download a malicious version of electrum from some random place and lose all their bitcoins!

[meanwords]

These types of attacks are inevitable especially now that the price of bitcoin is high, bitcoin holders shouldn’t be bragging their coins in social media because it can reach to other people who will target you. Your life is way valuable than bitcoin and you can’t have any other life so just keep is low and just enjoy the benefits of bitcoin with no worries.

That's true. Those who boast their wealth would really be an easy target. It's scary to think how easy it is to still Bitcoin and sell it without getting trace at all. That's why trading Bitcoin in person to person is a dangerous act even if you are to meet them in your local place.

[BlackFor3st]

Then it's best that you will only remain silent about your holdings especially if you are holding a huge amount of bitcoins so you will not be targeted easily by hackers or you will not be their main attraction for their future attacks.

Money is very attractive therefore it's best that you will hide your holding as much as you want in order to preserve your privacy and also it's best that you will create an extra layer of security so the hackers will have difficulties in stealing your hard earned money.

[Mehedi72]

I've read this article and I've found that, those indecents are so awful.  Of course privacy is the most important thing in our life and Those incidents teaches us, not to share about any news(like bitcoin) on social media that how much worth bitcoin or altcoin you have own.

[dothebeats]

This is funny, idiotic and highly ironic all at the same time. A person who really wants himself to become untraceable, anonymous and unseen in the public eye would take extra precautionary measures to ensure that he really does what he wanted, but this Jameson Lopp isn't that dude. Perhaps he's just wanting to feed his ego all along and gain some $$$ for promoting other brands and not really instill the word privacy on his followers which he wants to preach and get the word out. I'd rather keep a low profile and be bashed for not having anything than letting people know I have something and constantly brag about it.

[fiulpro]

Not only that I think it could be helpful in erasing our personal space from the public database , we should understand that in some countries they are telling that it's going to be jail term for people with bitcoins , even holding them could land you in the jail for 10 years .
I am thinking if using this privacy to actually erase out all the data , because selling bitcoins forcefully and they are actually taking away our jobs , if they don't have any better alternatives then instead of banning it they should regulate it.

[Ucy]

Yes, I remember he said months ago that he was attacked or swatted(I think). 
I think he shared his experience and posted that github link on Twitter

The bitcoin/crypto thieves may be moving long distance to attack their victims.
Seems as if the thieve just hate Bitcoin and want their victims dealt with for owning it -- they're probably some rogue nationalists or patriots?
They probably went a long way to obtain the victims precised locations/addresses. Or maybe the victims were just too careless with their private informations on the Internet

[jostorres]

All the reason why those people listed on that list was attacked was quite a funny one, and I don’t think it is associated to anonymity of bitcoin, what happened to them could happen to anyone eve outside bitcoin, there are people that has been subject to physical assort because they also boast of their riches in fiat ,even we have many people that has been attacked also because they boasted of their gold.

This is why people remain secretive about their wealth life and I for one don’t see any reason why you should even boast except you are looking for fame, and if the reason why they are boasting is for fame, then they have gotten what they want lol, they have been attacked and out on news, that is all that matters. Bitcoin is a tool, and has been useful for the main purpose for which it was created, it is also subject to each of us controls.