[Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation

[BCB]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

[1713404724]

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[1713404724]

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[1713404724]

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[geebus]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

Maybe they're updating it to reflect that their security has only been compromised a few times, which seems to be on par for the bitcoin community. 

[Raoul Duke]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

No, it's not just you. Semms down to me also lol

[EskimoBob]

This evil bastard can transfer 345 BTC to: 1JQvAV1g9metgnpn5k3U5cW6PUjHrDCP3b  

[BCB]

Photo of Zhou

https://intersango.com/about-us.php

[muyuu]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

Maybe they're updating it to reflect that their security has only been compromised a few times, which seems to be on par for the bitcoin community. 

AFAIK they haven't been compromised, unless the mail server that was compromised was theirs.

[imsaguy]

Put something up on bitcoinica.com


Not everyone uses this message board and for those that don't, they're going to be wondering what is going on.

[Raoul Duke]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

Maybe they're updating it to reflect that their security has only been compromised a few times, which seems to be on par for the bitcoin community. 

AFAIK they haven't been compromised, unless the mail server that was compromised was theirs.

And despite the 2 weeks old Press Release saying they would manage and operate Bitcoinica going forward, it seems they were not doing it yet. Premature announcement, maybe?

[kokjo]

Put something up on bitcoinica.com


Not everyone uses this message board and for those that don't, they're going to be wondering what is going on.

https://www.google.dk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=bitcoinica+down%3F

[organofcorti]

This evil bastard can transfer  1.01000101
                                             2.01110011
                                             3.01101011
                                             4.01101001
                                             5.01101101
                                             6.01101111
                                             7.01000010
                                             8.01101111
                                             9.01100010
                                         and 299.90284533 BTC to: 1JQvAV1g9metgnpn5k3U5cW6PUjHrDCP3b  

FTFY

[imsaguy]

Put something up on bitcoinica.com


Not everyone uses this message board and for those that don't, they're going to be wondering what is going on.

https://www.google.dk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=bitcoinica+down%3F

What's so terrible about a status page?  It took all of 30 seconds to change the dns to point to meatspin, it'd take only a few seconds more to write something up and have it be on your website.

[M4v3R]

I don't get it. Not so long ago Bitcoinica lost 40k BTC due to Linode hack, and they could afford to fully reimburse the amount and continue normal site operations. Now they've lost "only" less than half of it, and they're closing down? What did change in the meantime?

[kokjo]

Put something up on bitcoinica.com


Not everyone uses this message board and for those that don't, they're going to be wondering what is going on.

https://www.google.dk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=bitcoinica+down%3F

What's so terrible about a status page?  It took all of 30 seconds to change the dns to point to meatspin, it'd take only a few seconds more to write something up and have it be on your website.

im not against putting something up on bitcoinica.com.
im against your reason for it: "people are too dumb to use google."

[organofcorti]

I don't get it. Not so long ago Bitcoinica lost 40k BTC due to Linode hack, and they could afford to fully reimburse the amount and continue normal site operations. Now they've lost "only" less than half of it, and they're closing down? What did change in the meantime?

Last time, they hadn't just lost 40k btc to a linode hack.

[kokjo]

What did change in the meantime?

they lost 40k? maybe? ran out of money?

[Raoul Duke]

I don't get it. Not so long ago Bitcoinica lost 40k BTC due to Linode hack, and they could afford to fully reimburse the amount and continue normal site operations. Now they've lost "only" less than half of it, and they're closing down? What did change in the meantime?

New owners don't wish to recoup money lost... Interesting, very interesting indeed.
"Let's just get a $100k hit and leave it at that."

[bitlane]

(sorry in advance if it was already mentioned)

but....

What is the total BTC that Bitcoinica has 'given away' throughout it's (2 or 3 ?) security breaches ?

[Wintermute]

They are on the move again.

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/5484758/c141115ff13ad9331e0d46776d850f06083a60fab88b15a2a2df35f2fdf565da

Seven 2600 btc transactions, and that one for 347.66367623 BTC goes to
http://blockchain.info/address/1EMLwAwseowTkDtKnEHRKrwQvzi4HShxSX  which then has splits into a bunch of smaller transactions. WTF? how do you follow this many splits?

found something strange while following the stolen coins.  Sent from the thief to many small accounts and one large one.
 http://blockchain.info/address/1EMLwAwseowTkDtKnEHRKrwQvzi4HShxSX

1.01100101 BTC  e 101
2.01111 BTC  15
3.0111 BTC
4.01100101 BTC
5.01100011 BTC
6.011101 BTC
7.001 BTC
116.4569963 BTC
8.01101101 BTC
9.01100001 BTC
10.01110011 BTC
11.01110011 BTC
12.001 BTC
13.011011 BTC
14.01100101 BTC
15.01100001 BTC
16.01101011 BTC
17.001 BTC
18.01110011 BTC
19.01101111 BTC
20.01101111 BTC
21.0110111 BTC

Why would they split it up like that?  are they trying to hide it by making it whole bunch of small transfers?

LOL, binary...

If I am not mistaken the message is (adding missing "0" at the end and converting to ASCII):

"expect mass leak soon"

[coinft]

You can beat up on Zhou all you want and he seem to be taking it pretty well considering his position but I'd like to know why we have not heard anything official from these guys.

https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

And is their site down or is it just me?

Maybe they're updating it to reflect that their security has only been compromised a few times, which seems to be on par for the bitcoin community. 

AFAIK they haven't been compromised, unless the mail server that was compromised was theirs.

If the mail server was not theirs, relying on a foreign mail server for root password resets is so stupid this counts as compromised**2.

-coinft.

[muyuu]

I don't get it. Not so long ago Bitcoinica lost 40k BTC due to Linode hack, and they could afford to fully reimburse the amount and continue normal site operations. Now they've lost "only" less than half of it, and they're closing down? What did change in the meantime?

Last word from Zhoutong is that they'll pony up.

- Likely we will either shut down the platform or re-develop entirely (which will take months instead of days).

Why would you need to re-develop for a compromised email server?

Maybe to use P2SH, Armory cold storage or some other secure means of transaction/storage from the ground up.

A good idea IMO, but if they don't reimburse users I don't think anyone would want to make business with them again. Trust is above tech in this business.

We will reimburse everyone in full. Bitcoinica is a limited partnership, not a teenager's experimental project.

Does that include BTC or is it just US$ as you seemed to imply before?

Everything. We will purchase BTC to return the funds if we don't have enough reserve.