The group demands $1 million worth of the online currency Bitcoins. It also says that people who want the documents released can send money as well, and whichever side sends $1 million first will win.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/politi...html?hpt=hp_t3
"You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole; you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
Would be even funnier if the culprit was that guy Pirate, so he can use the money to pay people from his Ponzi scheme.
This might actually be bad for bitcoins, if this story draws attention to their ease-of-use for anonymous ransom payments.
Serious question: Would it even be easy to obtain $1,000,000 in bitcoins quickly through the existing trading sites like MtGox?
It would probably be fairly easy, but it would drive the price WAY up.
I agree especially since I think that Romney is now under secret service protection until after the election should he lose. Up until now bitcoins have been on the DOJ back burner but shit like this could bring in massive US government intrusion.Originally Posted by Dan Druff
http://pastebin.com/zdU1TK40
PWC Office @ 830 Crescent Centre Drive, Suite 260, Franklin, TN 37067
Telephone: [1] (615) 503-2860
Romney's 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney's tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.
The group will release all available files to the public on the 28 of September, 2012
This line is on all the package letters for authenticity of the email being sent.
all these considerations did not deter me from the path of duty
Im keeping an eye on this for one simple reason; I think the Secret Service is light years further up bitcoin's ass than anyone imagines, and I think they are going to chase down these clowns by starting with their bitcoin wallet.
To be clear; the principle veil of secrecy for bitcoins is encryption from what I understand.
Ask Microsoft about their hash collided driver signatures, and then ask yourself who has more advanced crypto resources: Microfuckingsoft, or the The Electric Liberty Dollars Redux Experience.
I agree. If this is real, the blackmailers are going to get a rude surprise.
Can someone give me cliff notes on bitcoins and what they are? I just googled it and I still have no idea what this shit is.
One can create a wallet without even TOUCHING the network. Meaning I could request payment, receive it, but never put out _any_ trace that I am the owner outside of my private computer. Until those bitcoins are traded, I don't believe there is even any trace on the bitcoin network. It isn't like someone can just crack (generate private keys) the wallet and then trace whoever owns it. It isn't near that simple.
Microsoft drivers are a horrible horrible analogy. Oh I see now, they're both related to cryptology. Logic failure 101. Not only that, it implies that motivation by the highly intelligent can be purchased by money. Bitcoins were the product of a exceptionally intelligent person. Just because a big company fucked up because their 9-5 grinders fucked up, doesn't mean everyone will.
As far as the tax info thief, if he actually hacked to find Romney's tax record then they'll probably understand all the underlying risks in dealing with the bitcoins. It'll be interesting, but I don't understand the faith you people have in US government. Best that you can do is find the IP address of the bitcoin transactions. Hackers have evaded SS for years in the past.
Bitcoins will be headed for a showdown here shortly I suspect. I suspect they'll go for the money exchangers. IE it won't be illegal to own/trade bitcoins, but it would be illegal to exchange US currency for BTC. Like I've said before, this wouldn't destroy all BTC value but would put a huge dent in it.
One can create a wallet without even TOUCHING the network. Meaning I could request payment, receive it, but never put out _any_ trace that I am the owner outside of my private computer. Until those bitcoins are traded, I don't believe there is even any trace on the bitcoin network. It isn't like someone can just crack (generate private keys) the wallet and then trace whoever owns it. It isn't near that simple.
Microsoft drivers are a horrible horrible analogy. Oh I see now, they're both related to cryptology. Logic failure 101. Not only that, it implies that motivation by the highly intelligent can be purchased by money. Bitcoins were the product of a exceptionally intelligent person. Just because a big company fucked up because their 9-5 grinders fucked up, doesn't mean everyone will.
As far as the tax info thief, if he actually hacked to find Romney's tax record then they'll probably understand all the underlying risks in dealing with the bitcoins. It'll be interesting, but I don't understand the faith you people have in US government. Best that you can do is find the IP address of the bitcoin transactions. Hackers have evaded SS for years in the past.
Bitcoins will be headed for a showdown here shortly I suspect. I suspect they'll go for the money exchangers. IE it won't be illegal to own/trade bitcoins, but it would be illegal to exchange US currency for BTC. Like I've said before, this wouldn't destroy all BTC value but would put a huge dent in it.
that you have no idea what i was referring to with the hash collision reference basically clips the wings on any potentially salient points in an otherwise overlong and petulant attempt for attention and respect, random.
but yeah im sure we will still be here after you google it and come back claiming you understood it all along.
Not sure what you are going for here. Yes you can create a wallet without hitting up any network, but you cannot receive any payment without it going through the network. If you had an empty wallet, and you put some btc into it, doesn't it get recorded in the block chain by necessity? IF it ain't in the blockchain, it doesn't exist. Granted nobody has your name or anything like that, just your IP address where you were when you did the transaction and the addys/signature you use, but in a lot of cases, that's more than enough to get an investigation started. Every single transaction is public, by design, and any time they are moved/split/sold/used/tried to launder, the trail gets bigger. I cannot imagine that when something serious goes down and the good folks at the Treasury Dept turn their vast electronic resources onto the issue, they won't be able to find/identify whomever they need to. All well and good if you can create a wallet and get coins in there anonymously, but guess what? They're pretty much useless unless you can use them. And when you do anything at all with them, you are creating a longer public trail, which they'll obv already be looking for, and spot your transactions immediately.
There is no real veil of secrecy with bitcoins. Cryptography, encryption, whatever, that's there for the creation of the bitcoins themselves, and the sending and receiving and the whatnot, but the coins always leave a trail, and large amounts of coins are virtually impossible to anonymize.
that you have no idea what i was referring to with the hash collision reference basically clips the wings on any potentially salient points in an otherwise overlong and petulant attempt for attention and respect, random.
but yeah im sure we will still be here after you google it and come back claiming you understood it all along.
How would I "understand something all along" when I don't know what you are talking about ? Yes, I could go google it, but honestly I don't fucking care. If you want to make your point, then backup your analogy or give me a reference. My guess is you really can't back up your ridiculous analogy beyond saying "well man like they both have crypto, and thats failed before!" Well played. Just ad hominem attack. Usually it means they lost.
Computer security is more than just firewalls and turning off services/patching systems, etc. If that is your area, then you will see everything in that light. All professions do this. You use what is in your toolbox and generalize things you don't understand into things you do understand. Ergo bitcoins become some windows security hole !
But these guys who may or may not have acquired Romney's tax records, are "clowns". Cuz we all know, yer sooooooo legit. Right? Who is the one randomly subtly begging for respect.. hrrrmmmmm....
Honestly, I'd rather just discuss bitcoins, but then I suppose I should go hang out on bitcoin forums where people begin to have some clue about........ bitcoins. my bad.
You can create the wallet and send out the receive address. The wallet will receive the bitcoins. Then the bitcoins can then sit there fro 3 years... 3 mins.. forever. During that time, nothing an outside entity can do to track you down. I'm not saying that waiting is a great idea, because it just lets the government increase their infrastructure. Bitcoins if attacked, will be attacked in the same way TOR is and that is through traffic analysis via inserted nodes in the network. So you can receive bitcoins but thats not a transaction that involves you. It involves your wallet and the sender. Now once you want to move the bitcoins OUT of the wallet, then you start giving out info.Not sure what you are going for here. Yes you can create a wallet without hitting up any network, but you cannot receive any payment without it going through the network. If you had an empty wallet, and you put some btc into it, doesn't it get recorded in the block chain by necessity? IF it ain't in the blockchain, it doesn't exist. Granted nobody has your name or anything like that, just your IP address where you were when you did the transaction and the addys/signature you use, but in a lot of cases, that's more than enough to get an investigation started. Every single transaction is public, by design, and any time they are moved/split/sold/used/tried to launder, the trail gets bigger. I cannot imagine that when something serious goes down and the good folks at the Treasury Dept turn their vast electronic resources onto the issue, they won't be able to find/identify whomever they need to. All well and good if you can create a wallet and get coins in there anonymously, but guess what? They're pretty much useless unless you can use them. And when you do anything at all with them, you are creating a longer public trail, which they'll obv already be looking for, and spot your transactions immediately.
There is no real veil of secrecy with bitcoins. Cryptography, encryption, whatever, that's there for the creation of the bitcoins themselves, and the sending and receiving and the whatnot, but the coins always leave a trail, and large amounts of coins are virtually impossible to anonymize.
(Actually as an aside, I'm pretty sure this is how Druff figures out who dupes are on other sites.. via cross-referencing/traffic analysis with the sites he had admin privs on..)
I thought about this quite a bit and came to basically the same conclusion as you. The IP addresses are not readily public but once the bitcoin network is actively monitored/traffic analyzed then the IP addresses would become available. (That is my understanding. I'm far from an expert, but I appear to know a lot more than others who chime in with their 2 cents) I don't know how much would be required to actually infiltrate the bitcoin network in this manner.
There are things like bitcoin tumblers. So say they put in 100k worth of bitcoins, then over time they get back some randomized bitcoins mixed in with those of drug dealers and other random bitcoins of people who use the service. There is a larger trail, but the trail can have near infinite random switches in it, right ? I use the tumblers, get rid of all evidence of the hack attempt, then just play stupid. Hard for the government to prosecute.
I really find this subject fascinating. It is about as bleeding edge as software can be.
Honestly, the wallet could receive the 1 million.. Then the owner could see it there and just not do shit about it but laugh and have an inner smugness for the rest of his life. It is foolish to think whoever pulled this off will be auto-caught. (Assuming they hacked anything..)
Last edited by donkdowndonedied; 09-07-2012 at 01:13 PM.
And yet here you are, a skid random out of his depth.
And yet here you are, a skid random out of his depth.
You barely know how bitcoins work.
Trust me on this, I'm sure you are far far far from the only nutcase who thinks that the SS is "light years further" into bitcoins. Don't care to go into cognitive biases, but you are not unique.
It is interesting, because even the tumblers meant to obscure bitcoin sources could be created/funded by the government to log all transactions. I don't even disagree with you here, I just think it is funny how you elevate your opinions so highly when basically any run of the mill crackpot might likely agree. Basically only people who would use the tumblers are random paranoid people or other criminals. Would you even want to mix your bitcoins with the other users of a tumbler ? I find this a lot more interesting than this 'Bitcoins are a just a huge honeypot' mentality.
It is obvious that the SS would track them down starting with the wallet in the absence of other leads, but what does it even mean to "start with their bitcoin wallet". Literally, what do you mean ?
Anyway.. reply with a one liner. I almost didn't reply to the last one. Troll.
Shouldnt you be leveling your druid or something?
Sonatine is in GOD mode son...
Can we get a shout out to the PFA community?????
Friends, let's get it on. #2
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