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Bitcoins - anyone else mining? (1 Viewer)

So this might help Dr.J and myself a little with regards to the "shadowy start" of BitCoin, looks like Satoshi Nakamoto has been doxxed/outed, and that that was his real name (since changed)

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions."I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."
Click to expand...
And apparently there was a lot of negative press about him being outed in the BC Community

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/03/06/the-outing-of-bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-is-brilliant-journalism/

 
People are ripping the reporter in the comments.

I thought this statement was interesting:

"Just after graduating college, Nakamoto went to work on defense and electronics communications for Hughes Aircraft in southern California. "That was just the beginning," says Arthur, who also worked at Hughes. "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."

 
Yah, I don't get the Bitcoin Community outrage about his outing. It's a legitimately impressive bit of journalism and he has no inherit right to remain anonymous, no matter his request.

 
johnnyrock62000 said:
People are ripping the reporter in the comments.

I thought this statement was interesting:

"Just after graduating college, Nakamoto went to work on defense and electronics communications for Hughes Aircraft in southern California. "That was just the beginning," says Arthur, who also worked at Hughes. "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
Can someone explain what "Bitcoins" are to me like I'm 5? Seriously, I've read some stuff about them, but what is a "cryptocurrency"? If I had 1m "bitcoins", first off where did I get them, and secondly what can I buy with them?

 
matttyl said:
Can someone explain what "Bitcoins" are to me like I'm 5? Seriously, I've read some stuff about them, but what is a "cryptocurrency"? If I had 1m "bitcoins", first off where did I get them, and secondly what can I buy with them?
Click to expand...
New age pogs

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If it’s the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key....

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from “classic” addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If it’s the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key....

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from “classic” addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.

 
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If it’s the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key....

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from “classic” addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.

 
Here is another article to check out: LINK

Looks like the Mt. Gox guys are spreading out the Bitcoins they stole before going under.

With all of this going on, it still amazes me that the prices haven't crashed. Then again, the people who own most of the Bitcoins do have a reason to keep the prices where they are and with no regulation, it is pretty easy to pump up prices and keep dumping them on people who you can then steal them from later.

 
stbugs said:
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If it’s the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key....

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from “classic” addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.
Click to expand...
I completely understand this is an issue with people choosing either poor passwords or poor places to store their Bitcoins, which then in turn makes poor choices in how they implement their storage security. Why do they need to talk about the blockchain to be credible? It's only because of the blockchain the person who wrote this was able to see these thefts, and yes, due to the blockchain it might be difficult for the person(s) responsible to cash out, but that doesn't really have much to do with the article.

But if you don't think that is a problem with Bitcoin in general, you are wrong. It directly affects the level of trust that the average person puts in Bitcoin. And believe it or not, the average person is eventually who Bitcoin has to convince, or it will always be a niche thing that most people don't have any desire to use, much less want to or know how to.

As I've posted in other places in this thread, the idea of Bitcoin appeals greatly to me. The technology underneath it is very cool.

edit: maybe I misread your post given the other post? Points still stand, but take "you" and replace it with people who are invested in backing Bitcoin

 
Last edited by a moderator:
How do you guys see the Diffusion of Innovation of Technology playing out here? With so few people holding the majority of the Bitcoins are we still in the Innovation phase? The Tipping Point (Chasm) seems a long way away especially given recent setbacks.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If its the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key.

...

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from classic addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.
Click to expand...
I completely understand this is an issue with people choosing either poor passwords or poor places to store their Bitcoins, which then in turn makes poor choices in how they implement their storage security. Why do they need to talk about the blockchain to be credible? It's only because of the blockchain the person who wrote this was able to see these thefts, and yes, due to the blockchain it might be difficult for the person(s) responsible to cash out, but that doesn't really have much to do with the article.

But if you don't think that is a problem with Bitcoin in general, you are wrong. It directly affects the level of trust that the average person puts in Bitcoin. And believe it or not, the average person is eventually who Bitcoin has to convince, or it will always be a niche thing that most people don't have any desire to use, much less want to or know how to.

As I've posted in other places in this thread, the idea of Bitcoin appeals greatly to me. The technology underneath it is very cool.

edit: maybe I misread your post given the other post? Points still stand, but take "you" and replace it with people who are invested in backing Bitcoin
Click to expand...
I was being 100% sarcastic. Just trying to fill the void.
 
stbugs said:
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If its the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key.

...

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from classic addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.
Click to expand...
I completely understand this is an issue with people choosing either poor passwords or poor places to store their Bitcoins, which then in turn makes poor choices in how they implement their storage security. Why do they need to talk about the blockchain to be credible? It's only because of the blockchain the person who wrote this was able to see these thefts, and yes, due to the blockchain it might be difficult for the person(s) responsible to cash out, but that doesn't really have much to do with the article.

But if you don't think that is a problem with Bitcoin in general, you are wrong. It directly affects the level of trust that the average person puts in Bitcoin. And believe it or not, the average person is eventually who Bitcoin has to convince, or it will always be a niche thing that most people don't have any desire to use, much less want to or know how to.

As I've posted in other places in this thread, the idea of Bitcoin appeals greatly to me. The technology underneath it is very cool.

edit: maybe I misread your post given the other post? Points still stand, but take "you" and replace it with people who are invested in backing Bitcoin
Click to expand...
I was being 100% sarcastic. Just trying to fill the void.
Click to expand...
Yah, I got that the second time I read it after reading the next post. I do think one of these crypto-currencies is going to succeed, and there is probably going to be some really cool things built off of the Bitcoin protocol. But that doesn't mean the Bitcoins themselves will end up having any value. We'll see though, the value is actually holding steady lately.

 
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If it’s the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key....

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from “classic” addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Yeah, this just kind of falls under random security hole. And there's certain to be quite a few more. I never really referenced any specific exploits outside of the fact that the entire system can literally be taken down by someone seizing the consensus (something that would have been possible during the ArtForz incident if Art were so inclined, absent Satoshi or whoever hitting the nuke it all button). Outside of glaring problems like this, and the scalability issues and things, you can't really reference them until people find and expose them. But the thing that is certain is that the more that's at stake the more motivated people will become to find them, and even as the bitcoin code matures the attacks will just become increasingly sophisticated. And someone can take the whole system down if they really want to - like when there's more than a few billion at play and it's a credible threat to the banking system (hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha)

 
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If its the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key.

...

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from classic addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.
Click to expand...
I completely understand this is an issue with people choosing either poor passwords or poor places to store their Bitcoins, which then in turn makes poor choices in how they implement their storage security. Why do they need to talk about the blockchain to be credible? It's only because of the blockchain the person who wrote this was able to see these thefts, and yes, due to the blockchain it might be difficult for the person(s) responsible to cash out, but that doesn't really have much to do with the article.

But if you don't think that is a problem with Bitcoin in general, you are wrong. It directly affects the level of trust that the average person puts in Bitcoin. And believe it or not, the average person is eventually who Bitcoin has to convince, or it will always be a niche thing that most people don't have any desire to use, much less want to or know how to.

As I've posted in other places in this thread, the idea of Bitcoin appeals greatly to me. The technology underneath it is very cool.

edit: maybe I misread your post given the other post? Points still stand, but take "you" and replace it with people who are invested in backing Bitcoin
Click to expand...
I was being 100% sarcastic. Just trying to fill the void.
Click to expand...
Yah, I got that the second time I read it after reading the next post. I do think one of these crypto-currencies is going to succeed, and there is probably going to be some really cool things built off of the Bitcoin protocol. But that doesn't mean the Bitcoins themselves will end up having any value. We'll see though, the value is actually holding steady lately.
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Outside of being an alternative for cash, It could be a really easy place to hide money for your impending divorce or something.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
DrJ said:
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Now if you're looking for another place to hide money for your impending divorce, this might be easier to hide...
Click to expand...
for drugs.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
cstu said:
DrJ said:
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Now if you're looking for another place to hide money for your impending divorce, this might be easier to hide...
Click to expand...
for drugs.
Click to expand...
On the internet. If you're grabbing them the old fashioned way, old fashioned cash seems like it leaves less of a trail.

 
DrJ said:
cstu said:
DrJ said:
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Now if you're looking for another place to hide money for your impending divorce, this might be easier to hide...
Click to expand...
for drugs.
Click to expand...
On the internet. If you're grabbing them the old fashioned way, old fashioned cash seems like it leaves less of a trail.
Click to expand...
I'll pass on waiting hours to meet some dude named Cornbread in a parking lot somewhere.

 
cstu said:
DrJ said:
cstu said:
DrJ said:
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Now if you're looking for another place to hide money for your impending divorce, this might be easier to hide...
Click to expand...
for drugs.
Click to expand...
On the internet. If you're grabbing them the old fashioned way, old fashioned cash seems like it leaves less of a trail.
Click to expand...
I'll pass on waiting hours to meet some dude named Cornbread in a parking lot somewhere.
Click to expand...
My guy delivers. You aren't very good at this if you are waiting in parking lots.

 
cstu said:
DrJ said:
I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Now if you're looking for another place to hide money for your impending divorce, this might be easier to hide...
Click to expand...
for drugs.
Click to expand...
Or for mining equipment to get more coins so you can get more drugs.

 
DrJ said:
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
Maelstrom said:
stbugs said:
SacramentoBob said:
Maelstrom said:
Looks like there is already some organized theft going on (not the kind DrJ talks about, but actual theft of BCs stored in wallets)

http://www.palkeo.com/code/stealing-bitcoin.html

Every Bitcoin address is based on a secret key, from which the public key (associated to a Bitcoin address) is calculated. Once you have the private key for an address, you have the control of that address and can use it to transfer funds. This secret key is a 32-bytes unsigned integer. You can generate a lot of secret keys, calculate the public keys associated to them and see if they contain bitcoins. If its the case, you can transfer the money to an address you control, because you have the secret key.

...

The rest of this refers to one of the online wallets that just uses the user's password to generate the private key, making it easy to check against common passwords

By using a password dictionary, we can search for private keys corresponding to classic password that were already used. A search allowed me to find nearly 10 000 addresses that have contained bitcoin at some point in time ! I was never able to find any address containing money, and nearly every time they had contained only really small amounts of money

...

If we look at the history of transactions on these addresses we can see that in a lot of cases, a few seconds after money was deposed in them, it was withdrew to another account. ...

We can see that the first address already stole 0.36 bitcoins, 2 seconds after they were transferred to the address corresponding to the key « alfanumerico » ! This address seems to contain more than 1 bitcoin, probably stolen all automatically...

...

As we have seen, it seems that some people even built a gigantic database, mapping from classic addresses to their associated private keys. They seems to be able to steal money only seconds after it was deposited...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Seems like a rock solid system.
Click to expand...
That is a joke of an article. They never even mentioned blockchain, so the lose all credibility. Everything is fine, smelling like roses, this is an issue with just some people <> Bitcoin in general. You guys just aren't smart enough to realize it. Unless you got nothing wrong on the Math SATs, I would suggest not posting in here anymore.
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I completely understand this is an issue with people choosing either poor passwords or poor places to store their Bitcoins, which then in turn makes poor choices in how they implement their storage security. Why do they need to talk about the blockchain to be credible? It's only because of the blockchain the person who wrote this was able to see these thefts, and yes, due to the blockchain it might be difficult for the person(s) responsible to cash out, but that doesn't really have much to do with the article.

But if you don't think that is a problem with Bitcoin in general, you are wrong. It directly affects the level of trust that the average person puts in Bitcoin. And believe it or not, the average person is eventually who Bitcoin has to convince, or it will always be a niche thing that most people don't have any desire to use, much less want to or know how to.

As I've posted in other places in this thread, the idea of Bitcoin appeals greatly to me. The technology underneath it is very cool.

edit: maybe I misread your post given the other post? Points still stand, but take "you" and replace it with people who are invested in backing Bitcoin
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I was being 100% sarcastic. Just trying to fill the void.
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Yah, I got that the second time I read it after reading the next post. I do think one of these crypto-currencies is going to succeed, and there is probably going to be some really cool things built off of the Bitcoin protocol. But that doesn't mean the Bitcoins themselves will end up having any value. We'll see though, the value is actually holding steady lately.
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I guess it depends on how you define success. I'm starting to think that cash itself is a better comparison. This isn't something you want to hold a large amount of your wealth in. The average person doesn't want to be holding 5 figures of it, or making large transactions they'll have trouble disputing in the future with it. It's something you hold in your wallet for quick and easy transactions and carry amounts you wouldn't mind losing at gunpoint to the less scrupulous. And unless you lived in 1930 or something, you probably don't want a mattress full of it either.

Outside of being an alternative for cash, It could be a really easy place to hide money for your impending divorce or something.
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That actually is one of the reasons I like Dogecoin, it is relatively low value now, and the community is very intent on it being a currency, not a value store.

 
MtGox remedy worse than the disease says Kaspersky researcher 'Leaked database' offering details of Bitcoin heists contained Trojan

MtGox remedy worse than the disease says Kaspersky researcher • The Register

A 700MB file that hackers claimed contains valuable database information on bankrupted MtGox is actually hiding Bitcoin wallet file-stealing malware, researchers have warned.

Kaspersky Lab’s Sergey Lozhkin claimed in a blog post last Friday that the entire data leak story, which emerged after MtGox CEO Mark Karpeles had his blog hacked, was invented to lure users into unwittingly downloading the malware.


Although the 716MB file featurestrades.zip, the file actually contains nothing but publically available data on MtGox trades, he said.

 
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DrJ said:
:lmao:

The IRS actually went the complete opposite direction and ruled that this is property subject to capital gains taxes. Wow - it's virtually worthless as a store of value, and this makes it near impossible to use as currency as well due to the tax implications of doing so. So what good is this stuff again?

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/talking-numbers/this-could-be-the-end-of-the-bitcoin-era-220746326.html

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/bitcoin-slips-in-the-wake-of-the-irss-tax-decision/
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I was shocked the bitloons didn't bump this news days ago.

 
Obviously the ship has sailed on mining, but what about using bitcoin as an investment? Or has that ship sailed too with the IRS being punks?

 
Gee, someone is close to taking over 50% of the hashing (like ArtForz before them). I didn't see that one coming.... :lmao:

 
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