bitstamp 18,000 bitcoins stolen? -confirmed

[dscotese]

It´s sitting there at blockchain.info marked

Bitstamp Hack

Unless that site is run by retarded people the funds must be frozen.

tell me how can that wallet be frozen? Just give it a time and you will see how those coins will be moved.

They can't be frozen, but any miner who solves a block can exclude expenditures from that address from the blocks they work on, if they have mining software that allows it.  I believe LukeJr created a bitcoin client that had such support.  This means the thief has to wait for a miner willing (or unawares) to confirm any transaction spending the loot.  Every attempt he makes to broadcast a transaction helps everyone pin down where his transaction is originating, and this may lead to his capture.

This would be a dream come true for me, probably severely tainted with government interference.

I would prefer that the thief find spending these coins to be so difficult that he will prefer to admit the theft and accept a small reward for giving himself up instead of frustrating ignominy, but that requires that everyone working on solving blocks who solves one to exclude his attempts to spend the loot.  Unfortunately, my willingness to forgive is quite rare.  The fact is, Bitstamp had a vulnerability.  It has been exploited.  The "evildoer" has proven this.  Bitstamp should offer him a reward, and the miners can help push the thief to accept this offer.  I propose that it go like this:

Dear Thief,

We have allocated 500 BTC as a reward.  Every miner who solves a block that excludes a transaction attempting to spend btc from the Bitstamp Hack address will receive 1% of the remaining award (they must sign the excluded transaction with the address to which the block reward goes) until you identify yourself and agree to create a transaction giving Bitstamp back all the bitcoin minus whatever amount of the reward is left.  At that time, miners will once again be more willing to confirm your transactions.

[1714746805]

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[1714746805]

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[1714746805]

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[megadeth]

It´s sitting there at blockchain.info marked

Bitstamp Hack

Unless that site is run by retarded people the funds must be frozen.

tell me how can that wallet be frozen? Just give it a time and you will see how those coins will be moved.

They can't be frozen, but any miner who solves a block can exclude expenditures from that address from the blocks they work on, if they have mining software that allows it.  I believe LukeJr created a bitcoin client that had such support.  This means the thief has to wait for a miner willing (or unawares) to confirm any transaction spending the loot.  Every attempt he makes to broadcast a transaction helps everyone pin down where his transaction is originating, and this may lead to his capture.

This would be a dream come true for me, probably severely tainted with government interference.

I would prefer that the thief find spending these coins to be so difficult that he will prefer to admit the theft and accept a small reward for giving himself up instead of frustrating ignominy, but that requires that everyone working on solving blocks who solves one to exclude his attempts to spend the loot.  Unfortunately, my willingness to forgive is quite rare.  The fact is, Bitstamp had a vulnerability.  It has been exploited.  The "evildoer" has proven this.  Bitstamp should offer him a reward, and the miners can help push the thief to accept this offer.  I propose that it go like this:

Dear Thief,

We have allocated 500 BTC as a reward.  Every miner who solves a block that excludes a transaction attempting to spend btc from the Bitstamp Hack address will receive 1% of the remaining award (they must sign the excluded transaction with the address to which the block reward goes) until you identify yourself and agree to create a transaction giving Bitstamp back all the bitcoin minus whatever amount of the reward is left.  At that time, miners will once again be more willing to confirm your transactions.

Fungibility of bitcoin will be forever tainted/questioned if this ever happens

[mullick]

If thieves can deposit loot in a wallet for all to see specially

marked LOOT and then calmly take their time withdrawing it

then bitcoin is doomed for sure

I think quite the opposite. Thats how bitcoin is intended to work. This instance is unfortunate yes. But it doesnt change anything to me. If they can NOT do that it is doomed in my mind.

EDIT:

There are ways the network can stop it But it would need to be the network deciding not the developers

[dscotese]

...

Fungibility of bitcoin will be forever tainted/questioned if this ever happens

Actually, the protocol allows any miner to exclude any transaction he wants.  There is neither a requirement that every valid transaction be included in a block, nor a punishment defined for someone who doesn't.  So the fungibility you cherish is already tainted/questionable.

Perhaps fungibility to you is worth more than the human cooperation that can make a decentralized system discourage theft?  It's an odd position to take, but I understand (and disagree with) it.  If that is the case, perhaps you should create your own alt-coin with valid-transaction-inclusion police to threaten miners into maintaining fungibility.  I don't think it will do very well.

[silverston]

I smell Gox 

[freebit13]

Why don't we just make a central organization that decides which transactions get approved or denied.... oh wait....

[sgk]

True. Stolen coins will be dumped immediately on Huobi, China and BTC-E within the next hours.

Wouldn't that give the hacker away? Do the exchanges apart from BTC-E require KYC documents? They might have to report big transactions like someone dumping thousands of bitcoins.

Most hackers use mixer services before sending those coins directly to exchanges.

Although there's no guarantee the hackers would use any reputed exchanges after mixing the coins. They may as well sell them offline.

Why don't we just make a central organization that decides which transactions get approved or denied.... oh wait....

      

[twister]

This is bad news, I didn't had anything there but I think the site will most probably be shut-down now, if it isn't already. And there is no way of really knowing whether it was really a loot or just another inside job.

[premium_domainer]

bitstamp is working on it and it will be recover soon (if possible)

[adaseb]

Honestly its crazy why they would hold so much bitcoins in their hot wallet.

Its reasons like this why BTC is in the dumps because everybody is a crooks and steals from one another.

[piramida]

If thieves can deposit loot in a wallet for all to see specially

marked LOOT and then calmly take their time withdrawing it

then bitcoin is doomed for sure

You really need to stop embarassing yourself here and go read an intro to what bitcoin is. If you still fail to understand why the funds can't and won't be "frozen", then go read again. And again. Then, when you understand at least something, come back to share your precious insight on whether or not bitcoin is doomed.

[adaseb]

No you are wrong. The money is traceable right now but if the person sends it to an exchange and changes it to DRK and then send the DRK to himself its completely untraceable.

[freebit13]

Honestly its crazy why they would hold so much bitcoins in their hot wallet.

Its reasons like this why BTC is in the dumps because everybody is a crooks and steals from one another.

Looks like they usually kept BTC2000 in that wallet for operations, but more was swept into it just before it was cleared.... which looks like a bigger problem than just losing control of the keys to that one wallet...

[sgk]

No you are wrong. The money is traceable right now but if the person sends it to an exchange and changes it to DRK and then send the DRK to himself its completely untraceable.

Or he can just use a Bitcoin mixing service?

And BTW, there is no way an exchange can have 18000 BTC volume for DARK. Nobody buys/sells that many Dark.

[Bizmark13]

Ouch. Well, it seems to be confirmed:

"Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us as prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full.

On January 4th, some of Bitstamp’s operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems while we fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials.

This breach represents a small fraction of Bitstamp’s total bitcoin reserves, the overwhelming majority of which are are held in secure offline cold storage systems. We would like to reassure all Bitstamp customers that their balances held prior to our temporary suspension of services will not be affected and will be honored in full.

We appreciate customers’ patience during this disruption of services. We are working to transfer a secure backup of the Bitstamp site onto a new safe environment and will be bringing this online in the coming days. Customers can stay informed via updates on our website, on Twitter (@Bitstamp) and through Bitstamp customer support at support@bitstamp.net."

Bitcoin is not hackable with the private key kept private.

Exchanges are hackable because of poor security and/or shitty passwords.

See where the weak link is?

When you send your stash to an exchange you risk losing it all. That is why Smart Contracts and Automated Transactions have been born. It will eliminate all exchanges once this goes mainstream.

Unfortunately, I think exchanges will continue to exist, whether we like it or not. Even if smart contracts and automated transactions are developed to the point where they can provide all of the functionality of centralized exchanges, there will always be the less technical people who prefer the simplicity and familiarity of centralized exchanges.

EDIT: Also, smart contracts and automated transactions won't solve the fiat problem too. As long as there are still people who want to buy bitcoins with fiat or sell bitcoins for fiat, some form of centralized exchange that deals with "real" money (e.g. dollars, pesos, yen, etc.) must exist.

If thieves can deposit loot in a wallet for all to see specially

marked LOOT and then calmly take their time withdrawing it

then bitcoin is doomed for sure

You really need to stop embarassing yourself here and go read an intro to what bitcoin is. If you still fail to understand why the funds can't and won't be "frozen", then go read again. And again. Then, when you understand at least something, come back to share your precious insight on whether or not bitcoin is doomed.

Technically, the funds can be "frozen". But doing so would require the cooperation of the devs and miners. Blacklisting of coins would also destroy the fungible nature of Bitcoin and most would agree that the repercussions of doing so would outweigh the benefits.

No you are wrong. The money is traceable right now but if the person sends it to an exchange and changes it to DRK and then send the DRK to himself its completely untraceable.

Only if it was a small amount. Definitely not the whole 18,000 BTC. In the past 24 hours, DRK has had about 120 BTC volume. Trying to buy 18,000 BTC worth of DRK would drive up the price of DRK to insanely high levels and you'd probably exhaust all of the DRK that's sitting on the exchanges as well.

No you are wrong. The money is traceable right now but if the person sends it to an exchange and changes it to DRK and then send the DRK to himself its completely untraceable.

Or he can just use a Bitcoin mixing service?

This would only work if the hacker mixed a tiny percentage of his funds. The more coins he tries to mix, the less effective it would be. Trying to mix the whole 18,000 BTC in one go would be impossible. 99.99 percent of the output would be tainted coins. The hacker would simply get his coins back mixed in with a tiny percentage of coins from others who were unlucky enough to use the same mixing service when he did.

[DoM P]

Only if it was a small amount. Definitely not the whole 18,000 BTC. In the past 24 hours, DRK has had about 120 BTC volume. Trying to buy 18,000 BTC worth of DRK would drive up the price of DRK to insanely high levels and you'd probably exhaust all of the DRK that's sitting on the exchanges as well.

Actually, there would be a way:
If the guy sends 10 btc to account A on an exchange
He then buys 10 btc Worth of DRK.
Next he sends those DRK to a DRK wallet, the moves around a bit.
From thew last DRK wallet he sent to DRK to, he sends them to account B on an exchange
And puts his DRK for sale.
Back to account A. He send 10 more btc, and buy his own DRK from account B
And all over again.
But:
It takes a lot of time.
He could be caught going through the exchange...

[mullick]

My dad works in the UK police departament where this guy owner of Bitstramp call an theft over 100$ so this mean that also cold wallet was stolen.

So confused 

[indiemax]

My dad works in the UK police departament where this guy owner of Bitstramp call an theft over 100$ so this mean that also cold wallet was stolen.

yeah right, he should bust you for taking drugs

[Zebrasko]

18k in a hot wallet is something to be ashamed off. No excuses for that. Terrible news for the image of Bitcoin as well. I read things from some guys like ‘they handled it professionally’. I have no idea what these guys are drinking every day, but it must be something bad.

I feel for the people that has money on that exchange, they must live in fear since the news of the hack started to spread out. When and if Stamp will be back online I suggest to all of them to withdraw all what they have from that exchange.

[redsn0w]

18k in a hot wallet is something to be ashamed off. No excuses for that. Terrible news for the image of Bitcoin as well. I read things from some guys like ‘they handled it professionally’. I have no idea what these guys are drinking every day, but it must be something bad.

I feel for the people that has money on that exchange, they must live in fear since the news of the hack started to spread out. When and if Stamp will be back online I suggest to all of them to withdraw all what they have from that exchange.

It is a terrible image to bitStamp , the bitcoin as protocol is very fine ... The error/mistake is from the negligence of bitStamp.