
Bitcoin thieves threaten real violence for virtual currencies - SirLJ
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/19/bitcoin-thieves-threaten-real-violence-for-virtual-currencies.html
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21
This is why I've always found the "be your own bank" rallying point crazy.

I don't want to be my own bank. There are many reasons why people stopped
keeping their liquid wealth under their mattress.

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ballenf
Most banks aren't even their own banks: very few branches keep anything close
the $1.8M mentioned in one of the heists.

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jashmenn
I've been following these sort of cases and I haven't found one article that
actually publishes the alleged transaction hashes of the event.

For better or for worse, there would be tons of vigilantes who would be happy
to track down the current location of these funds.

That is, until the robbers figure out they can require the hostage to convert
into Monero first.

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greggarious
Has anyone done a serious audit on Monero? I have a feeling people are
overconfident about it's anonymity.

Picture Tor. Now picture your browsing history is stored forever so if there's
ever a bug in the protocol, it all goes clear...

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acct1771
That's basically the current state of things with Tor, under the what I think
is very real assumption that all traffic is stored.

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greggarious
> That's basically the current state of things with Tor, under the what I
> think is very real assumption that all traffic is stored.

I mean, systems like Tempora[1] and the NSA's Utah data center[2] are known.
Tempora apparently stores data for 3 days and metadata for 30 days.

I'd concede they may store metadata, but I seriously doubt they're storing the
full traffic. That doesn't seem doable from a logistical standpoint.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

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acct1771
> That doesn't seem doable from a logistical standpoint.

Surely you're not going to cite budgetary constraint.

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bufferoverflow
Safety deposit boxes are quite cheap, around $20/year. It will probably become
a norm to store most of your coins in cold storage in a bank. Physical
security is expensive, and banks are good at it.

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aphextron
>Safety deposit boxes are quite cheap, around $20/year. It will probably
become a norm to store most of your coins in cold storage in a bank. Physical
security is expensive, and banks are good at it.

Still doesn't change the fact that I can kidnap your family and hold them
ransom until you go to your safety deposit box and get the bitcoin to send to
me. The problem is with the non-reversible nature of the payment system, and
the fact that it exists outside the realm of a justice system, not with
physical security.

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DennisP
They could do the same if you store physical gold in your safe deposit, but
rich people vault gold without any problems.

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bb88
Well... they're rich. So likely they're going to have cash, investments, real
estate, etc. It makes the loss of gold painful, but it's not the end of
everything.

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DennisP
That can be equally true of crypto.

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niij
Cryptocurrencies _

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woodpanel
As a crypto-outsider I wonder what would happen if the transaction hashes of
these robberies we're being flagged as robberies?

Doesn't the blockchain allow for tracking of any sufficient transactions and
thus allow for descendants of flagged transactions to be prohibited from ever
being converted into real currency again?

I guess, the "leverage" in this case would be that any platform/exchange/etc.
that wants to go "official" (eg. IPO, or paying capital gains taxes) will have
a problem if there are flagged funds in their books.

(Sorry, if this sounds ridiculously stupid for crypto guys)

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nokcha
The problem is that thieves will often quickly mix the stolen coins with
untainted coins. So, there will be a large number of descendants of "tainted"
transactions, the majority of which are held by completely innocent people. A
real-life analogy would be taking stolen gold nuggets to an unknowing
goldsmith who melts them together with gold nuggets from other customers and
gives back freshly minted gold pieces.

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saalweachter
That practice would stop immediately if there was some risk to the non-
criminals/other criminals, to lose there money by mixing it, wouldn't it?

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always_good
Can you pitch an example of this risk that wouldn't make the currency useless
(like too risky to have anyone else hold it or arbitrate it) or ridiculous
(KYC-style constraints)?

What is the mechanism of punishing the tainted the money going to be and the
mechanism for deciding which money is tainted?

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saalweachter
Oh, there's like twelve problems with trying to implement colored coins; I'm
just saying the existence of mixers isn't one of them.

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Theodores
Last week a lottery winner requested anonymity and has yet to claim the
millions as anonymity is not how it works.

I wonder if a PR company helped with this article as there are lots of
references to experts with products to sell.

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BoorishBears
That is how it works if done correctly. There was a process for her to get the
money through a trust that wouldn’t be linked directly to her, but she signed
for the winnings in a way that doesn’t allow that process anymore.

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anonova
Relevant comic: [https://xkcd.com/538/](https://xkcd.com/538/)

I'd really like to see zero-knowledge transactions as default in the future,
just to avoid the sendee seeing your wallet's balance.

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rajacombinator
Surprise - crypto does not solve physical violence. It’s meant to solve
virtual economic violence by governments.

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scblock
Well it certainly doesn't do that...

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tbihl
It certainly does, though not categorically. Nonetheless, I'm sure the people
who manage to regain a measure of control in their lives by using Bitcoin
welcome the opportunity.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/big-
in-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/big-in-
venezuela/534177/)

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bdcravens
Perhaps this classic XKCD should be updated for Bitcoin:

[https://xkcd.com/538/](https://xkcd.com/538/)

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walrus01
a fairly well defined threat: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-
hose_cryptanalysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis)

