Hacked Linode & coins stolen to 1NRy8GbX56MymBhDYM...

[JoelKatz]

He is currently in possession of stolen Bitcoins from the Linode hack and any coins purchased from him will not be accepted by MtGox or anyone in the Bitcoin community.

I wasn't aware Mt. Gox retained the right to pick and choose which Bitcoins they'll accept. Where can I find their policy on this? What happens if I transfer them coins they choose not to accept? How can Bitcoins remain useful as a currency if people start picking and choosing which coins they'll accept? This increases everyone's risk when accepting Bitcoins to intolerable levels.

[1713871731]

1713871731

[1713871731]

1713871731

[1713871731]

1713871731

[kano]

...
I wasn't aware Mt. Gox retained the right to pick and choose which Bitcoins they'll accept. Where can I find their policy on this? What happens if I transfer them coins they choose not to accept? How can Bitcoins remain useful as a currency if people start picking and choosing which coins they'll accept? This increases everyone's risk when accepting Bitcoins to intolerable levels.

Yep as I mentioned a few pages back
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66916.msg777985#msg777985

[modrobert]

He is currently in possession of stolen Bitcoins from the Linode hack and any coins purchased from him will not be accepted by MtGox or anyone in the Bitcoin community.

I wasn't aware Mt. Gox retained the right to pick and choose which Bitcoins they'll accept. Where can I find their policy on this? What happens if I transfer them coins they choose not to accept? How can Bitcoins remain useful as a currency if people start picking and choosing which coins they'll accept? This increases everyone's risk when accepting Bitcoins to intolerable levels.

Members also agree that Mt. Gox may, in its sole discretion by giving notice, terminate Members' access to the Site and their Account, including without limitation: limit, suspend or terminate the service and Members' Accounts, prohibit access to the Site and its content, services and tools, delay or remove hosted content, and take technical and legal steps to keep Members off the Site if we think that they are creating problems or possible legal liabilities, infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties, or acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of these Terms. Additionally, we may, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, suspend or terminate Accounts of Members for any reason, including without limitation: (1) attempts to gain unauthorized access to the Site or another Member’s account or providing assistance to others' attempting to do so, (2) overcoming software security features limiting use of or protecting any content, (3) usage of the Platform to perform illegal activities such as money laundering, terrorism financing or other criminal activities, (4) violations of these Terms, (5) failure to pay or fraudulent payment for Transactions, (6) unexpected operational difficulties, or (7) requests by law enforcement or other government agencies.

This might be relevant as well.

Members acknowledge and agree that their Account may be suspended until they provide Mt. Gox with documents evidencing their identity and/or any other information that Mt. Gox deems necessary to secure the Accounts, the Transactions and/or the Platform.

Source: https://mtgox.com/terms_of_service

[Smoovious]

...we should ask them, really fucking nicely, to do all they can to make sure those coins don't get turned into cash on their xchange.  Tradehill too...

Just to point out, unless they changed their mind in the past few weeks, TradeHill isn't trading anymore, they ceased operations a few weeks ago.

-- Smoov

[Andrew Vorobyov]

Code:

Your request (#21728) has been marked as solved, pending closure. Should you believe that your request has not been adequately addressed and wish to postpone closure, or should you wish to review or comment upon your request, please follow the link below: 
http://support.mtgox.com/tickets/21728

Mt.Gox Support appreciates any feedback that you may wish to provide.


Mt.Gox Support, Mar 03 19:53 (JST):
Hello Andrew,

Thank you for your inquiry. If the coins are stolen from Bitcoinica, your account would be blocked for suspicious activity and investigation. Should you have any further queries, please feel to contact us again.

Thanks,

MtGox.com Team


Andrew Vorobyov, Mar 03 19:50 (JST):
What your actions will be if I will deposit coins that were stolen from Bitcoinica?

Ok.. it's clear now...

They follow their own rules and not Bitcoin rules....

[ThomasV]

Ok.. it's clear now...

They follow their own rules and not Bitcoin rules....

what "Bitcoin rules" were you expecting them to follow? your "Bitcoin rules"?

[Matthew N. Wright]

The definition of Anti-money laundering is exactly that-- blocks to prevent the laundering of money. Just because it was BTC stolen and not USD doesn't change anything. Don't shoot the messenger just because I was right.

[Andrew Vorobyov]

Ok.. I had some thinking about it during last 2 hours..

I think it's MTGOX's right not to accept stolen money...  the only thing they can NOT - is to expropriate it...

Imagine somebody was killed during this breach... they even can report that they saw somebody trying to deposit stolen money..

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

[SomeoneWeird]

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

...?

[Raoul Duke]

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

...?

Yeah, you guys act weirdly. I've seen it! 

[SomeoneWeird]

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

...?

Yeah, you guys act weirdly. I've seen it! 

lmao, we probably do, but we actually do a lot of stuff behind the scenes that not many people see.

[Raoul Duke]

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

...?

Yeah, you guys act weirdly. I've seen it! 

lmao, we probably do, but we actually do a lot of stuff behind the scenes that not many people see.

heh, that was just my weird sense of humour at work, not a statement of fact at all

[SomeoneWeird]

But God forbid them from acting like Bitcoin Police....

...?

Yeah, you guys act weirdly. I've seen it! 

lmao, we probably do, but we actually do a lot of stuff behind the scenes that not many people see.

heh, that was just my weird sense of humour at work, not a statement of fact at all

haha i figured, still.

[Andrew Vorobyov]

"bitcoin rules"
WTH hell are you talking about man ... time to lay off the vodka.

I'm talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

[molecular]

It looks that also user database has been compromised. Although passwords are stored in SHA1 with salt, I strongly recommend to change your password on the pool immediately.

I have been trying for a while now. I haven't gotten the email that page says will be sent to allow one to do that.

Are you sure you did enter your correct email-adress? Because, when entering an address that is not in the system, the page doesn't respond with an error, just reloads the same page again.

[triplehelix]

isn't there legal precedent for criminal charges taken against individuals who stole world of warcraft items?  even if the courts don't treat bitcoin as currency or a derivative, there seems to be a clear path for legal action against the theft of digital assets of value.

[muyuu]

isn't there legal precedent for criminal charges taken against individuals who stole world of warcraft items?  even if the courts don't treat bitcoin as currency or a derivative, there seems to be a clear path for legal action against the theft of digital assets of value.

It's the best we have IMO... if we ever get any solid evidence about who's the perp. The main difference is WoW's items being perfectly locatable so the legal dispute was just about the criminality of the act. Now, to get law enforcement to try to find out who was it, that's a different matter.

[kano]

"bitcoin rules"
WTH hell are you talking about man ... time to lay off the vodka.

I'm talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

Which relates directly to what I said 10 pages back

I'll be surprised if they offer to cover any losses ... imaginary money and all that hooey

Well that's easy to resolve.
Give them a new slush address and tell them transfer in the same imaginary money that was lost.

Which of course, if it did happen, would mean one (or a combination) of 2 things:
1) Linode got back the stolen bitcoins and gave them to slush et al who lost them
2) Linode went and bought $X00K worth of bitcoins and gave them to slush et al who lost them

There is of course the interesting effect of 2) ... and who would gain from that ...

[modrobert]

"bitcoin rules"
WTH hell are you talking about man ... time to lay off the vodka.

I'm talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

I think Andrew makes perfect sense, even before the wiki link.

After reading Mt. Gox terms of service over and over again, it is probably easier to just describe it like this:

"We do as we please with your account, but if you play nice we might send your held currencies to a bank account upon termination. We also reserve the right to change our mind at any time."

[JoelKatz]

After reading Mt. Gox terms of service over and over again, it is probably easier to just describe it like this:

"We do as we please with your account, but if you play nice we might send your held currencies to a bank account upon termination. We also reserve the right to change our mind at any time."

That's pretty typical of terms of service. That's why it's very important to distinguish what the terms of service say and what a company actually does. Mt. Gox's terms of service claim to allow them to steal someone's Bitcoins, but they certainly don't have a policy of doing that. (Nor could they actually get away with it if they tried.)

Quoting their ToS in response to a question of whether Mt. Gox actually has a policy of rejecting "tainted" Bitcoins is spectacularly unhelpful. The question is -- what would Mt. Gox actually do if someone deposited Bitcoins traceable to the Linode theft into their account. And my hope would be that they might notify authorities or notify the depositor, but they most certainly would process that deposit normally, absent some evidence the depositor was involved in the theft somehow.

Almost anything else destroys the usability of Bitcoins. If I have to worry that my Bitcoins might become unspendable in the future, how can I accept them as payment?