
Drug dealer loses codes for €53.6m Bitcoin accounts - tapmap
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/drug-dealer-loses-codes-for-53-6m-bitcoin-accounts-1.4180182
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_frkl

      Garda officers said they were hopeful advances in technology would one day enable them to access the bitcoin so it could be sold.
    

At which point Bitcoins value would be approximately zero... :-)

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aedron
Well, if the police was asking for the private keys that protected my million-
euro stash of drug money... I would have 'lost' them too. In that vein, I
wonder if they keep an eye on the wallets, and for how long.

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londons_explore
If I were in their position, I would sign up for one of those services that
alert you when coins move. I run one [1].

I'd then set the alert to go to coldcases@police.ie saying "new evidence on
case number xxxx". That way even if the current staff retire, it'll be
followed up on.

[1]: [https://serverthiefbait.com](https://serverthiefbait.com)

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RL_Quine
The chance that some random service run in the Bitcoin space exists in even a
years time is vanishingly small.

Yes, even yours.

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BubRoss
It is plausible to run a service on a $5 VPS. Pay $120 ahead of time and you
have it for two years. I don't know why you think it would be so fragile. It
wouldn't be difficult to run locally either.

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antsar
Until it gets owned by an unpatched CVE, anyway.

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londons_explore
Pretty hard to own a VPS which has no external ports open, even if the
software on it is years out of date. In fact, updating software is probably a
bigger security risk than not doing so, because you never know when someone
manages to package a malicious bit of code into a common debian package.

Also, if it did get owned, I'd just have to spend a few hours rebuilding it -
no bitcoin wallets or anything to steal on there.

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antsar
Fair point about updates being a mixed bag. But “no ports open” doesn’t always
mean safe. Maybe someone can pass some evil bits inside transaction metadata?
(Disclaimer: no idea what I’m talking about w/r/t transactions, or how much
parsing you’re doing)

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BubRoss
If that were possible it would be exploited on every instance of the insecure
software. Luckily what you are saying is far fetched. Why is it that you think
a VPS is some fragile thing that is sure to be exploited? There are literally
millions of instances chugging away, serving up files. Let's use our best
judgement.

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Melting_Harps
Sparing himself from the old '$5 Wrench attack,' I see... well, goes to show
you that Bitcoin does in fact work after all: it proves to be capable of
averting confiscation, even if it means giving up (perceived?) ownership.

I'd like to believe people who amassed this much wealth in Bitcoin would have
backups of backups etc... but I've heard too many goxxing like stories about
people losing millions, and other similar exchange exit scams over the years.

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James87211
Is there anything preventing them from brute-forcing the wallets from now
until the end of time?

They might get lucky in a millennial or two.

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smachiz
I'm sure IBM has a Quantum Watson for this.

~~~
ta999999171
........

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FreekNortier
Imagine how many lives were destroyed with drugs worth €53.6m.

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austhrow743
Oh no, anything but the devil's lettuce. Wont somebody think of the children!

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hadtodoit
Don't make light of cannabis, it is a drug and like all drugs has side
effects. Even moderate use can seriously retard and arrest brain development
in teenagers and it can accelerate the onset of schizophrenia in those who are
at risk. It's also been associated with lack of motivation, focus, bipolar
disorder, depression, and anxiety among a host of other issues later in life.

Fully grown adults should be able to choose to do what they want but people
who peddle drugs to children deserve nothing short of the death penalty.

