Ukrainians hijacks Russian Bitcoin, Donates it to Kyiv Charity

[Zilon]

Russian dark web where major drug dealers transacts using cryptocurrency got hacked by Ukrainians living in the US and they proceed was donated to Kyiv charity. A total of $25,000 worth of Bitcoin was moved from Solaris drug market’s master wallet and diverted to Ukrainian Humanitarian Charity.

The Ukrainian Cybersecurity expert Alex Holden who chose to play the dark web Robin Hood has refused to disclose how he did this. He only pointed that he was able to take full control of much of the internet infrastructure powering Solaris, an accountable percentage of administrator accounts been run on the illicit bazaar, the source code linked to the website as well as its users' database, including drop off locations for drug dealers. It is reported that for a period of time, his team took control of  Solaris' "master wallet." This happens to be the wallet buyers and dealers used for deposit and withdrawal of funds, which served as the exchange provider for this drug dealers

Holden showed Forbes multiple screenshots of access to Solaris admin accounts and the master wallet, and a Ukrainian cybersecurity expert confirmed the screenshots did indeed appear to show access to backend Solaris accounts.

With money quickly going in and out of the wallet, it rarely contained more than 3 bitcoin, worth $50,000, Holden said. That meant there wasn’t a huge amount for him to siphon off, though he did manage to grab 1.6 bitcoin, worth $25,000, and sent it to Enjoying Life. Hold Security is also making a separate donation of $8,000.

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[Majestic-milf]

I strongly applaud the actions of Alex. Personally thats a bold move from the Ukrainian born cyber security expert. The act of spooking the owners of Solaris to close down the site is in a way a smart political move to divert Putin's attention from the war to solving the issue of drug trades( from my standpoint).

 Indeed a dark web Robin hood as he not only carted away $25,000 worth of Bitcoin, but he has also managed to severe ties of one of Solaris' associates, Killnet, a crew tasked with taking down websites by flooding them with traffic known as DDos

[Die_empty]

I strongly applaud the actions of Alex. Personally thats a bold move from the Ukrainian born cyber security expert. The act of spooking the owners of Solaris to close down the site is in a way a smart political move to divert Putin's attention from the war to solving the issue of drug trades( from my standpoint).

 Indeed a dark web Robin hood as he not only carted away $25,000 worth of Bitcoin, but he has also managed to severe ties of one of Solaris' associates, Killnet, a crew tasked with taking down websites by flooding them with traffic known as Dados.

Hacking and stealing bitcoin is a criminal offense and should be condemned in strong terms. The OP wrote that it was hacked from a site that hosts drug dealings named the Russian dark web. He that comes to equity must come with clean hands. The dark web has no case because they cannot sue or persecute the hackers. Donating the illegal proceeds to charity will somehow reduce the hacker's punishment if I were a judge. Ukrainians are in great pain and suffering, and Russia is not reducing the rate of attacks. They need all the supports they can get.

[NeuroticFish]

Helping the Ukrainians is usually a very nice gesture. But this.... no...
Stolen money is stolen money, no matter it is (or not) from some Dark Web mostly used (or not) by Russians. And sending that (stolen) money to a certain charity has the potential to also taint the name of that charity.

War is awful. But if the "good side" too starts doing questionable actions.. it can end up to be seen as bad as the aggressors.

[Majestic-milf]

I strongly applaud the actions of Alex. Personally thats a bold move from the Ukrainian born cyber security expert. The act of spooking the owners of Solaris to close down the site is in a way a smart political move to divert Putin's attention from the war to solving the issue of drug trades( from my standpoint).

 Indeed a dark web Robin hood as he not only carted away $25,000 worth of Bitcoin, but he has also managed to severe ties of one of Solaris' associates, Killnet, a crew tasked with taking down websites by flooding them with traffic known as Dados.

Hacking and stealing bitcoin is a criminal offense and should be condemned in strong terms. The OP wrote that it was hacked from a site that hosts drug dealings named the Russian dark web.

I agree that his actions are somehow questionable but allow me digress a bit. If you observe the way Robin hood acted, you'd notice he stole from the rich and selfish and donated to the poor. And if you note, these guys use this fundings in their savings to buy more Cannabis and continue to help Killnet destroy websites of the US, Norway, Italy and others to mention a few.
 I think he in his way is helping to fight the war against the Russians.

[Argoo]

I strongly applaud the actions of Alex. Personally thats a bold move from the Ukrainian born cyber security expert. The act of spooking the owners of Solaris to close down the site is in a way a smart political move to divert Putin's attention from the war to solving the issue of drug trades( from my standpoint).

 Indeed a dark web Robin hood as he not only carted away $25,000 worth of Bitcoin, but he has also managed to severe ties of one of Solaris' associates, Killnet, a crew tasked with taking down websites by flooding them with traffic known as Dados.

Hacking and stealing bitcoin is a criminal offense and should be condemned in strong terms. The OP wrote that it was hacked from a site that hosts drug dealings named the Russian dark web. He that comes to equity must come with clean hands. The dark web has no case because they cannot sue or persecute the hackers. Donating the illegal proceeds to charity will somehow reduce the hacker's punishment if I were a judge. Ukrainians are in great pain and suffering, and Russia is not reducing the rate of attacks. They need all the supports they can get.

It must be taken into account that Ukraine is in a state of undeclared war with Russia, Ukrainians are defending their freedom and independence from Russian invaders. The Russians are now taking out absolutely everything that can be stolen from the occupied territories of Ukraine: equipment from medical and other institutions, agricultural machinery, grain, museum valuables, even scrap metal from industrial enterprises they bombed. Also, civilians of Ukraine and especially children are being massively forcibly deported to Russia. This is a horde that takes everything out of Ukrainian residential buildings, down to toilet bowls and worn linen. It is estimated that only the damage caused to the ecology of Ukraine by the Russians is at least $700 billion. The total damage to Ukraine will be measured in trillions of dollars.

Therefore, the usual rules of the civilized world do not apply to property belonging to the state of Russia and Russian citizens in Ukraine. In Ukraine, all Russian property is now being nationalized, whether it belongs to the Russian state or its citizens. Crimes must be paid for, and Russians are unlikely to voluntarily compensate for the damage caused. Therefore, there is no doubt that the Ukrainian hackers did the right thing. Moreover, we are talking about the money of Russian criminals.

[DrBeer]

The Russians thought that they could sit out, say "I'm out of politics", pretend that they are not aware of the crimes of their homeland .. BUT no. Support for a terrorist regime is not only a promo vote for Putin and his policies, it is also a tacit CONSENT and no resistance to this vile regime. This means that you will also have to answer for the passive role.
The expropriation of the assets of the Russian state, companies, and other structures that directly or indirectly support the economy / war / power / .... is a normal process. And this is just the beginning. Further, this process will become international, and in addition to Ukraine, many more countries will demand reparations from Russia, as the full legal successor of the USSR (which they themselves appointed). This will be Finland (for the attack in 1940, and the annexation of part of Finland), and Bessarabia, and Poland, and Latvia, and Lithuania, and Estonia, and Moldova, and Georgia, and Ichkeria and many other countries affected by the Soviet / Russian occupation .
ANY assets will be expropriated - industry, banking assets, real estate, natural resources, ... including cryptocurrencies, on accounts on exchanges owned by Russian citizens. No one will understand "you are a resident of Russia who supported terrorism or silently sat cowardly on the sidelines." This is called collective responsibility for the crime!

Hmm ... It's too late to run away from Russia - the iron curtain is almost lowered. Exit from Russia only through a "Special Military Operation" and death .....

And what we read from the title of the topic is the beginning of the process of forced withdrawal of reparations!

[Dickiy]

Helping the Ukrainians is usually a very nice gesture. But this.... no...
Stolen money is stolen money, no matter it is (or not) from some Dark Web mostly used (or not) by Russians. And sending that (stolen) money to a certain charity has the potential to also taint the name of that charity.

War is awful. But if the "good side" too starts doing questionable actions.. it can end up to be seen as bad as the aggressors.

I agree, There is no reason whatsoever to help others with loot. It may seem like Superman coming to help, but stealing is stealing is not a good action for it. It's true that charities will be the scapegoats in all of this, and it seems that negative views will be on them too even though charities are basically doing nothing.

I strongly applaud the actions of Alex. Personally thats a bold move from the Ukrainian born cyber security expert. The act of spooking the owners of Solaris to close down the site is in a way a smart political move to divert Putin's attention from the war to solving the issue of drug trades( from my standpoint).

I think why is Putin must paying attention to this? only $ 25000 for him is worthless, I think your view is too far-fetched, It will not affect anything in my opinion, because it is not about a threat to national security.

[hyudien]

Stealing is still stealing even under the pretext of helping clearly there are other alternatives that can be done. Hasn't the way of raising funds with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies been done and worked well in the past? even in this forum there are people who are trusted in making these donations, reinforced by the Ukrainian president who has received quite large Bitcoin donations from donors and that is going well. It would be nice if the good results were channeled into a good way anyway. Maybe they act like Robinhood, but I don't know what further to say.

[so98nn]

You guys are happy about this ?
Man stole the bitcoins from the master wallet. Are we even hearing this right? All the time we talk about bitcoin Privacy and how it is safe with the private keys, this tech that tech and we ar enig worried about how Alex did the job to steal money from wallet and that too embedded in the deep web? Wow, are we drifting away from the main principles of using bitcoin. Never thought we will also see such news and come to conclusion that everything was just illusion about the security of bitcoin.

[arallmuus]

You guys are happy about this ?
Man stole the bitcoins from the master wallet. Are we even hearing this right?

Its not the first time though and at this point, its just niche over all those stories about bitcoin being stolen from the wallet and these drug dealers site probably used some crappy non secure system or whatsoever.

Anyway, this feels like a personal sentiment to me because an Ukrainians cybersecurity expert choose to hack into Russian's dark web drug market and took 1.6 bitcoin instead of choosing to go over some other website so yeah

[Lucius]

It is not clear to me why someone promotes this kind of story if it is only $25 000, which is certainly not of great help to those who need help - by publishing it, they only did more harm than good. In addition, no Bitcoin was hacked, but the account with which the BTC was transferred - and that is a big difference, especially for those who after reading this may think that it is so easy to hack Bitcoin.

[BADecker]

Russian dark web where major drug dealers transacts using cryptocurrency got hacked by Ukrainians living in the US and they proceed was donated to Kyiv charity. A total of $25,000 worth of Bitcoin was moved from Solaris drug market’s master wallet and diverted to Ukrainian Humanitarian Charity.

...

The point being that Ukrainian crooks, living in US freedom, used that freedom to steal from a bunch of Russian crooks.

Anybody who thinks that Russians are bad, can see that the Ukrainians also have their share of crooks. Probably partially an inside job... a confederate in the Russian crook company.

[o48o]

You guys are happy about this ?
Man stole the bitcoins from the master wallet. Are we even hearing this right? All the time we talk about bitcoin Privacy and how it is safe with the private keys, this tech that tech and we ar enig worried about how Alex did the job to steal money from wallet and that too embedded in the deep web? Wow, are we drifting away from the main principles of using bitcoin. Never thought we will also see such news and come to conclusion that everything was just illusion about the security of bitcoin.

I am happy about this. But i don't get what you are saying. This doesn't in any way change the fundamentals of bitcoin. Weakest point of the security has always been and will always be the one one who is holding the privatekey. This isn't about security of bitcoin, this is about personal security.

[Merit.s]

Stealing other peoples funds for charity purpose is bad and this should not be encouraged in the society. If you feel that you are a generous person,you should use your hard earned money to give out for charity not doing good with other peoples funds. The Robin hood actor most have been monitoring the drug dealer transactions and gained access to the wallet. He can also hack anybody's wallet and steal their funds,so he is a dangerous hacker and should be dealt with. The war is now a medium for people to do so many atrocities without the government capacity to act.