[2020-07-15] Elon Musk and Bill Gates 'hacked' in apparent Bitcoin scam

[snipie]

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among several high-profile individuals targeted by hackers on Twitter in an apparent Bitcoin scam...
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822

That's awful, the hack but also the title of this BBC article! "apparent Bitcoin scam"...
I don't get what's the point of sending your scammed money to a Bitcoin address when everyone in this world is monitoring your wallet!
I mean there is other private cryptocurrencies... I find this stupid and triggering many questions... What's the point!

[bbc.reporter]

Those were not the only major twitter accounts that were hacked. Acconts of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Tron Foundation and another Chinese exchange were hacked and were seen tweeting about donating to a cryptoforheart scam.

[snipie]

Those were not the only major twitter accounts that were hacked. Acconts of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Tron Foundation and another Chinese exchange were hacked and were seen tweeting about donating to a cryptoforheart scam.

Yea read several news about it but dat BBC title pissed me off a little.. There wasn't a reason to include bitcoin in it, imagine it was send x USD amount and your credit card credentials so we will double what you sent, will they put "apparent USD scam"?
Tell your bosses about my complaint Mr reporter (/jk)

[amishmanish]

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among several high-profile individuals targeted by hackers on Twitter in an apparent Bitcoin scam...
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822

That's awful, the hack but also the title of this BBC article! "apparent Bitcoin scam"...

I guess they saw you complaning and took notice. So, it doesn't show as "Apparent Bitcoin scam" now. Its just "Major US twitter accounts hacked in Bitcoin Scam"..   Just like there are "public work scams", "defence procurement scams", this is indeed a bitcoin scam.

The surprising thing is that whoever did it, doesn't seem very smart. Looks like he just stumbled upon some insider access and tried to use it to earn some money. Imagine all the other things that could be done with such an access. He could have made Elon and Trump have a fake conversation. He could have posted so much funny shit from Trump's handle. Time wasn't on his side probably.

[Lucius]

All this is possible because Twitter has bad security measures, which they themselves admit " Twitter said it was a "co-ordinated" attack targeting its employees "with access to internal systems and tools". So Bitcoin is just a collateral victim here, not something responsible for hacking all these accounts. Also, this is not the first time celebrities have lost their accounts this way, Elon Musk Twitter account has been hacked several times over the last 2-3 years, which only shows that Twitter as a company is not up to bad guys, or that some bad guys work in their company so the matter is actually of an internal nature.

I don't get what's the point of sending your scammed money to a Bitcoin address when everyone in this world is monitoring your wallet!
I mean there is other private cryptocurrencies... I find this stupid and triggering many questions... What's the point!

There are methods to remain fairly anonymous even using BTC, and with a little effort and knowledge BTC can be easily sold for a fiat or exchanged for another cryptocurrency. The privacy of other cryptocurrencies is not in question, but how well known are they and how many people use them? If someone would run a scam like this, then it makes sense to use one of the popular cryptocurrencies, and what is better known and more popular than BTC.

[snipie]

There are methods to remain fairly anonymous even using BTC, and with a little effort and knowledge BTC can be easily sold for a fiat or exchanged for another cryptocurrency. The privacy of other cryptocurrencies is not in question, but how well known are they and how many people use them? If someone would run a scam like this, then it makes sense to use one of the popular cryptocurrencies, and what is better known and more popular than BTC.

Yeah I know but the bitcoin addresses used in this scam attempt will be flagged and monitored by FBI and other agencies. Exchanges, mixers and other services will be told to seize the funds once spent from those addresses or they will risk to be fined or charged with helping criminals. Such situation will be applicable in USA, UK, EU, even Russia and China maybe!

[Lucius]

Yeah I know but the bitcoin addresses used in this scam attempt will be flagged and monitored by FBI and other agencies.

But how long will it take for those addresses to be blacklisted, days, weeks or maybe months? Until that happens, the scammer can very easily hide funds either through a mixer or by purchasing some anonymous coins that are much harder to track than BTC. After all, addresses are disposable and anyone can generate as many as they want. In the end, if it's not a larger amount of money, no one will pay too much attention to such cases - criminal activities involving crypto transactions are actually quite insignificant compared to what is happening with fiat.

While this statement may appear correct at first glance, available statistics reveals that financial crimes enabled by crypto pale in comparison by those enabled by fiat. The ratio between the fiat:crypto money laundering statistics, at the time of writing is a staggering 800:1. Meaning that for every $1 of BTC spent on the darkweb, $800 is laundered.

[snipie]

Yeah I know but the bitcoin addresses used in this scam attempt will be flagged and monitored by FBI and other agencies.

But how long will it take for those addresses to be blacklisted, days, weeks or maybe months? Until that happens, the scammer can very easily hide funds either through a mixer or by purchasing some anonymous coins that are much harder to track than BTC. After all, addresses are disposable and anyone can generate as many as they want.
-snip-

True, it will take much time but I am pretty sure that every single transaction involving those addresses are being tracked and every service dealing with it will get a subpoena requesting information that may lead to the one behind this directly via KYC, which surely will not be used by the hackers, or by ip addresses and other informations that may or may not lead to them. Generate hundreds or thousands of bitcoin addresses, split the money to little amounts in each, hide behind TOR, convert them to private coins in small exchanges or those who don't require KYC for little amount, seems the only feasible option for them to use that money!

[Kakmakr]

BBC just can not wait to link Bitcoin with some kind of scam... right.    The media are always looking for some clickbait title to get people to visit their online sites and this is a typical example of that. Bitcoin was used as payment in a scam .... Bitcoin is not the scam.  

The real scandal is Twitter allowing these hackers to exploit their system and for these hackers to use high profile accounts to extort their followers. Twitter should pay damages to the victims of these scams and luckily the Blockchain have records of all transactions that was done, so it will be easy to find out who these people were. (The victims will have to show proof that they are the owner of those bitcoins)  

[snipie]

-snip-
Twitter should pay damages to the victims of these scams and luckily the Blockchain have records of all transactions that was done, so it will be easy to find out who these people were. (The victims will have to show proof that they are the owner of those bitcoins)  

I agree that twitter hold a responsibility about what happened but I don't agree that it should pay those greedy people for real. The smell of the scam is enormous, several accounts hacked, rush to send funds to an old scammy double money trick, bitcoin? There is many red flags, it is like download bitcoin "virus" app and start generating bitcoin...

[Mahanton]

-snip-
Twitter should pay damages to the victims of these scams and luckily the Blockchain have records of all transactions that was done, so it will be easy to find out who these people were. (The victims will have to show proof that they are the owner of those bitcoins)  

I agree that twitter hold a responsibility about what happened but I don't agree that it should pay those greedy people for real. The smell of the scam is enormous, several accounts hacked, rush to send funds to an old scammy double money trick, bitcoin? There is many red flags, it is like download bitcoin "virus" app and start generating bitcoin...

This proves out that theres still lots of greedy people out there that doesnt even know nor making themselves blind just because they do trust up that much on the said person or company.
All of these things should really be blamed on Twitters security and btc is just being dragged on which is somewhat anticipated due to nature of being anonymous and irreversible transactions.
I do able to read up Twitters response towards this but it doesnt matter at all since the damage had been done and they should at least compensate when it comes to damage had been done.

[bbc.reporter]

I speculate that all the mainstream news media and bitcoin news media reports about this major hack have not covered the agenda of this attack. This is not only a normal hack to scam bitcoin from Twitter users. This might be a political attack supported by an intelligence agency.

Blue check accounts of business CEOs, politicians, journalists, human rights supporters and many others were the targets. The data in the private messages of those accounts might be very valuable hehehe.

[Slow death]

I speculate that all the mainstream news media and bitcoin news media reports about this major hack have not covered the agenda of this attack. This is not only a normal hack to scam bitcoin from Twitter users.

as expected we already have very radical opinions:

Gold Bug Peter Schiff: 'Is the Twitter Hack a Harbinger for Bitcoin?'

Scott Melker on Twitter: ‘We Cannot Depend on Centralized Platforms’

This might be a political attack supported by an intelligence agency.

according to this news:

Who Owns the ‘CryptoForHealth’ Domain Behind the Twitter Hacks?

it looks like the intention of this hacker is to dirty bitcoin

But about your idea, it may be possible, maybe they used bitcoin as a distraction...

Blue check accounts of business CEOs, politicians, journalists, human rights supporters and many others were the targets. The data in the private messages of those accounts might be very valuable hehehe.

true, but also what politician uses twitter to talk about sensitive things?

[snipie]

true, but also what politician uses twitter to talk about sensitive things?

I will talk in general, sensitive things could be anything silly about the personal life of a person. A random hello, a love sign for a cute photo, see you soon message..could be cropped and a fake story will be built to ruin the reputation of that person unless he pays something...

it looks like the intention of this hacker is to dirty bitcoin

But about your idea, it may be possible, maybe they used bitcoin as a distraction...

I tend to agree with the last sentence rather than scamming others money, or both eventually.
I mean, this is a planned action, with an inside accomplice, before elections, targeting high profiles including Biden, which let me think that others and the silly scam attempt are just a camouflage. Maybe another person or a group is targeted or another account which info kept secret... Speculations

[hatshepsut93]

Yea read several news about it but dat BBC title pissed me off a little.. There wasn't a reason to include bitcoin in it, imagine it was send x USD amount and your credit card credentials so we will double what you sent, will they put "apparent USD scam"?
Tell your bosses about my complaint Mr reporter (/jk)

Unfortunately, most of the mainstream media used a similar title, so this incident is a net negative to Bitcoin. Some influencers are already saying that all crypto should be banned. This is worrying, because public perception is the only thing that stops governments from banning Bitcoin tomorrow. If majority of the population will be signalling that they will not use Bitcoin, and they don't like Bitcoin, it would be a no-brainer to ban it, because this move would be popular and will protect the establishment.

[bbc.reporter]

I speculate that all the mainstream news media and bitcoin news media reports about this major hack have not covered the agenda of this attack. This is not only a normal hack to scam bitcoin from Twitter users.

as expected we already have very radical opinions:

Gold Bug Peter Schiff: 'Is the Twitter Hack a Harbinger for Bitcoin?'

Scott Melker on Twitter: ‘We Cannot Depend on Centralized Platforms’

This might be a political attack supported by an intelligence agency.

according to this news:

Who Owns the ‘CryptoForHealth’ Domain Behind the Twitter Hacks?

it looks like the intention of this hacker is to dirty bitcoin

But about your idea, it may be possible, maybe they used bitcoin as a distraction...

Blue check accounts of business CEOs, politicians, journalists, human rights supporters and many others were the targets. The data in the private messages of those accounts might be very valuable hehehe.

true, but also what politician uses twitter to talk about sensitive things?

The cryptoforhealth scam might only be a false flag as mentioned in another thread. A major hack like this that bypassed 2FA and the hackers only wanted to scam Twitter users to get bitcoin? We should not be so naive.

[figmentofmyass]

worst take so far:

I wonder if this is a harbinger of Bitcoin itself being hacked?  Better to play it safe and just buy #gold. -peter schiff
https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1283530732984504322

Unfortunately, most of the mainstream media used a similar title, so this incident is a net negative to Bitcoin. Some influencers are already saying that all crypto should be banned. This is worrying, because public perception is the only thing that stops governments from banning Bitcoin tomorrow. If majority of the population will be signalling that they will not use Bitcoin, and they don't like Bitcoin, it would be a no-brainer to ban it, because this move would be popular and will protect the establishment.

the headlines were ugly but tbh the fallout doesn't seem that bad. what makes you think the majority of the population doesn't like bitcoin? do you actually expect adverse government action from this?

[hatshepsut93]

the headlines were ugly but tbh the fallout wasn't that bad. do you actually expect government action from this re bitcoin? what makes you think the majority of the population doesn't like bitcoin?

Ofc I don't think that there will be much action from governments, or that the public perception will suddenly shift, but it was a small drop in the bucket of negative view, and if this bucket will get full one day, we'll see some action. It might never happen, for example I believe that Bitcoin's volatility and big market movements distract the people from viewing it as criminal's tool and make them view it as just a market asset. It may be not precisely what we want (a store of value or revolutionary currency), but at least it's not negative. And maybe governments would be less likely to ban Bitcoin if institutional investors will be sufficiently exposed to it.

[blockman]

worst take so far:

I wonder if this is a harbinger of Bitcoin itself being hacked?  Better to play it safe and just buy #gold. -peter schiff
https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1283530732984504322

Here goes the gold advocate who's just asking about a poll related to bitcoin. I agree that's the worst opinion that someone can say about the incident.
The thing is about the accounts being hacked asked for bitcoin which is an actual money, an internet money, a cryptocurrency then he'll reiterate with that opinion. The hackers are the scam, not bitcoin, come on Peter, he's always like this.

[bbc.reporter]

worst take so far:

I wonder if this is a harbinger of Bitcoin itself being hacked?  Better to play it safe and just buy #gold. -peter schiff
https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1283530732984504322

Unfortunately, most of the mainstream media used a similar title, so this incident is a net negative to Bitcoin. Some influencers are already saying that all crypto should be banned. This is worrying, because public perception is the only thing that stops governments from banning Bitcoin tomorrow. If majority of the population will be signalling that they will not use Bitcoin, and they don't like Bitcoin, it would be a no-brainer to ban it, because this move would be popular and will protect the establishment.

the headlines were ugly but tbh the fallout doesn't seem that bad. what makes you think the majority of the population doesn't like bitcoin? do you actually expect adverse government action from this?

Everyone is considering this like it was a hack to scam for bitcoins implies that the hackers real plan is working. The hack might only be a message that the hackers control Twitter.