Anyone know what happened to knightmb and his 371,000 BTC?

[molecular]

This is ridiculous.  I just made a thread about the security of BTC.  I know the government is going to do something about this...I just wonder what.  They are viewing this board and pinging every single person's IP address, I'm sure of it. 

Either way, if they link this person's actions with BTC they should be aware that it is still alive and strong, very strong.  It would be a hard task to shut down a crypto currency that generates it's own value according to a blockchain.  Especially when there are homeless people on the street begging for USD...Hmm.  I smell something bad, something is not being handled correctly. 

oh god, the governments are pinging us. SELL!

hehe, "court order: confiscate the blockchain"

[organofcorti]

...... looks like the next block chain should be dedicated to finding out just what happened to this fellow.

How would that work, exactly? Are you proposing a fork or an altcoin here? How would that help track someone down?

[crazy_rabbit]

So not only did he send a ransom letter to a presidential candidate he also donated a heap of bitcoins to an "enemy of the state" ...no wonder they kicked his door in.

I think people are forgetting the real reason why they went after him. HE SENT A RANSOM LETTER TO A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.

Bitcoin is just going to get swept up in the middle of this by association, but the crime was old fashion Blackmail.

[smoothie]

This is ridiculous.  I just made a thread about the security of BTC.  I know the government is going to do something about this...I just wonder what.  They are viewing this board and pinging every single person's IP address, I'm sure of it. 

Either way, if they link this person's actions with BTC they should be aware that it is still alive and strong, very strong.  It would be a hard task to shut down a crypto currency that generates it's own value according to a blockchain.  Especially when there are homeless people on the street begging for USD...Hmm.  I smell something bad, something is not being handled correctly. 

oh god, the governments are pinging us. SELL!

hehe, "court order: confiscate the blockchain"

Did I miss that part? Where is it?

[thoughtfan]

hehe, "court order: confiscate the blockchain"

Did I miss that part? Where is it?

http://mbdonationfund.com/images/documents/search_warrant.pdf

Page 6, (Attachment B, 1. n.)

Edit:  Sorry, I didn't spot the irony - but I'll leave my response here for anyone who had missed the bit about the warrant actually specifying Bitcoin addresses (possibly a first).

[cedivad]

I do not understand what is going on.
Could someone please doing a summary of this thing?

[molecular]

I do not understand what is going on.
Could someone please doing a summary of this thing?

[tarrant_01]

Did anyone notice the messages on the wallet addresses?

http://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8
The September 7th, 2012 receiving amounts reveal: "gnp.Kz5HB/moc.rugmi.i//:ptth"
Reversed gives the url: https://i.imgur.com/BH5zK.png
When scanned leads to: http://www.sendspace.com/file/m6crjs which leads to a file that has been deleted.

The September 9th, 2012 receiving amounts reveal: "tqvbn/oc.x//:ptth"
Reversed gives the url: http://x.co/nbvqt which just redirects to GoDaddy.com
Even "fixing" the url to be http://x.com/nbvqt leads to a page not found.

http://blockchain.info/address/12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB
The September 5th, 2012 receiving amounts simply reveal the message "prove it".

[deepceleron]

Did anyone notice the messages on the wallet addresses?

http://blockchain.info/address/1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8
The September 7th, 2012 receiving amounts reveal: "gnp.Kz5HB/moc.rugmi.i//:ptth"
Reversed gives the url: https://i.imgur.com/BH5zK.png
When scanned leads to: http://www.sendspace.com/file/m6crjs which leads to a file that has been deleted.

The September 9th, 2012 receiving amounts reveal: "tqvbn/oc.x//:ptth"
Reversed gives the url: http://x.co/nbvqt which just redirects to GoDaddy.com

x.co is a domain shortener. It was probably directing to a honeypot attempting to log people accessing that URL. Remember, these are payments sent to the extortioner's address.

I think the search warrant that states really ignorant stuff like they are kicking in the door looking for pastebins shows it is just as likely he was operating a TOR exit node and somebody government crank got his IP address instead of realizing that they will not find the anonymous perpetrator.

[phelix]

I do not understand what is going on.
Could someone please doing a summary of this thing?

US government thinks knightmb might be the guy who send the ransom note to romney/his tax company.

http://mbdonationfund.com/images/documents/search_warrant.pdf

> "use of the screen name KnightMB"
that of course is highly illegal!


Is knightMB poor or still rich? If he really tried to blackmail Romney maybe it is true and he gave away all his coins.

If they only hit him because he was running an exit node this is bad news.

[elux]

Did anyone notice the messages on the wallet addresses?

These are the "Stop Release" / "Promote Full Release" addresses from the infamous pastebin:

Bitcoin Address to Stop Release:
1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8

...

Bitcoin Address to Promote Full Release:
12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB

I really hope KnightMB doesn't happen to have the private keys to those addresses.


Found this especially interesting thread on the TimeKoin forums: (Only 4 posts total.)

Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins by koinmaster » Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:24 pm

Re: Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins
by KnightMB » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:51 am

This story seems to be everywhere. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is weird that the group wants to use bitcoins as payment. Are they really protected from the FBI tracking them down? I had to find these links on other sites, they seem to have been removed.

I looked around, seems to be two stories. One that says the group "Anonymous" has released them and another that some group got them from his tax office. I think the latter is true and the former was a news hoax. I did read a topic over at the bitcoin.org forum about this as well. They seem to think the FBI will track them down right away.

While I agree that no digital currency will make anyone 100% anonymous, it sure makes it very difficult to find them. To start, they can watch their account without any fear of being found because it's a global register (just like what Timekoin uses) so any transactions they make can be watched. The part where I disagree a little is finding them. If they spend the bitcoins around then it gets mixed in with all the other users. So if a user has 100 bitcoins and this group spends say 15 to that user. The user then spends 50 of the 115 bitcoins he/she has, how do you know which bitcoins were the original and which were from the group? It just doesn't mix that way, there is no way to make a distinction there as it's all math. Repeat this process enough times.

So unless this group with the bitcoins spends it all at say Amazon.com on a new flat-screen TV and has it delivered right to their home address, trying to track them down is going to be neigh impossible without arresting every single person along the way that the dirty bitcoins have touched. That in of itself is a rather impossible task unless there is a database somewhere with the real name connected to every bitcoin address in existence.  

Re: Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins
by KnightMB » Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:20 pm

So unless this group with the bitcoins spends it all at say Amazon.com on a new flat-screen TV and has it delivered right to their home address, trying to track them down is going to be neigh impossible without arresting every single person along the way that the dirty bitcoins have touched. That in of itself is a rather impossible task unless there is a database somewhere with the real name connected to every bitcoin address in existence.  

So unlike money which is physical, if a robber steals $100 from a bank and gives it to you. You already had $50 for example. You go spend on something and by using the "stolen" money, it's easy to trace back to the bank. But with digital currency, there is nothing that "marks" one transaction or another, it's just a number balance. So if you spend 1 koin or 5 koins, there is nothing that can tell if those koins are part of a stolen transaction or just from someone else's account? Am I understanding that right?

That's about right. When currency is transferred from one account to another, no information other than X transfer to Y exist. It's just math from that point, take 5 koins from one account, give it another account. The 5 koins are just that, the number 5 and nothing more.

It seems overwhelmingly likely that the Secret Service will want to have a look inside any safety deposit boxes that KnightMB might have,
that are known to contain COMPUTERS (well, usb sticks) that are known to contain Bitcoin wallet files.

This raises the question: What is likely to happen to evidence that is not related to the Romney investigation?

Would it be returned to the owner intact? Can seized evidence be kept indefinitely?
Can the Secret Service give KnightMB a blank USB stick and some unused CD-Rs as replacement?

What is the value of an USB stick containing (perhaps) the keys to (perhaps) 371K bitcoins? Around 20 dollars or around 4 million dollars?
If they give him 20 dollars and tell him to go buy a new stick, how can he argue otherwise? (Without getting into more trouble.)

[molecular]

What is the value of an USB stick containing (perhaps) the keys to (perhaps) 371K bitcoins? Around 20 dollars or around 4 million dollars?
If they give him 20 dollars and tell him to go buy a new stick, how can he to argue otherwise? (Without getting into more trouble.)

you'd have to take some precautions if you had obtained that many coins illegally or run the danger of being suspected of illegal activity. Easiest just to put them into a brainwallet and say that brainwallet address is probably the wikileaks donation address you got from wikileaks irc bot when questioned about the whereabout of the 371,076 BTC.

[thoughtfan]

This raises the question: What is likely to happen to evidence that is not related to the Romney investigation?

Would it be returned to the owner intact? Can seized evidence be kept indefinitely?

I know in the UK if property is seized as evidence then charges dropped you have a certain time within which you may reclaim them - otherwise they are destroyed.  With all the additional protections of freedoms provided by the US constitution I can't see that the rights of the wrongly accused in this respect would be less than here.

[bg002h]

It sounds like he is BTC broke or wants people to think he is...and really, what's the difference? Maybe the threat of one person unloading would be different if his stash were spread around many people....but that's about it. I'm inclined to forget about it all...other than the clever use of amazon...sometimes it's the simple ideas that really pay off!

We shall see how this alternate crypto currency goes...I was hoping he'd stick around and help Bitcoin grow...oh well. Souns like they've got an interesting solution to the transaction spam "problem." Maybe we can learn from that.

Addendum: missed a few posts. How do we know the search warrant is real?
Anyhow, I think something fishy is goin on.

[elux]

Video interview with KnightMB on the Romney case:

http://www.kpho.com/story/20006705/secret-service-investigate-franklin-man-in-romney-tax-return-theft?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=7924362

Warrant and a list of items seized: http://cryptome.org/2012/11/romney-tax-plot.pdf

[crazy_rabbit]

I have the feeling that more Bitcoins are being "lost" then perhaps Satoshi ever expected.

[repentance]

KnightMB didn't do himself any favours by posting that he'd been giving away large amounts of BTC just prior to the Romney tax thing happening.  That's something I'd definitely expect investigators to look at closely.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Here's a wild thought: the whole Romney blackmail hoax was a black-op with enough "clues" left around pointing toward knightMB to give probable cause for his arrest, detention and confiscation of 'evidence'.

If Secret Service wanted to investigate/discredit a major, public player of bitcoin sphere then the coincidence that they have happened to get exactly the right guy for both purposes seems slim ... imho.

[repentance]

Here's a wild thought: the whole Romney blackmail hoax was a black-op with enough "clues" left around pointing toward knightMB to give probable cause for his arrest, detention and confiscation of 'evidence'.

If Secret Service wanted to investigate/discredit a major, public player of bitcoin sphere then the coincidence that they have happened to get exactly the right guy for both purposes seems slim ... imho.

KnightMB has done questionable stuff in the past, both Bitcoin-related and not Bitcoin-related.  The fact that the questionable stuff he's done in the past is known suggests that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to avoiding consequences. 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long...: http://mbdonationfund.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=59

Q: Are you still involved in BitCoin?

A: Years ago I was, but not today. I am actually involved in a completely different project over at timekoin.org and have been for years.

Dude could easily get hired on over at Bitcoin Magazine or BFL.  

Name:   knightmb
Posts:   458
Position:   Sr. Member
Date Registered:   July 12, 2010, 10:54:43 AM
Last Active:   October 03, 2012, 07:26:20 AM

For years at Timekoin, ey?

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: TIMEKOIN.ORG
Created on: 25-May-11
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Last Updated on: 24-May-11

Registrant:
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Administrative Contact:
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Theymos, give this guy the scammer tag.