Nearly all of the roughly US$370 million in bitcoin that disappeared in the February 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox probably vanished due to fraudulent transactions, with only 1 percent taken by hackers, according to a report in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, citing sources close to a Tokyo police probe.
Of the 650,000 bitcoins unaccounted for — worth about US$208 million today — only about 7,000 appear to have been purloined by hackers, the newspaper reported on New Year's Day, adding that investigators have yet to identify who was responsible.
That conflicts with the explanation by Mt. Gox, which blamed a bug in the Bitcoin system when it filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 28.
"We believe that there is a high probability that these bitcoins were stolen as a result of an abuse of this bug," Mt. Gox said in a statement on its website that day ( https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140228-announcement_eng.pdf ), which suggested "a variety of causes including hacking by third parties."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday January 03 2015, @03:54PM
Since every bitcoin transaction is published, is it possible to flag the stolen coins and see where they went? Sure they may have been stirred around through several intermediaries and split into subcoins, but still, can the trails be followed?
Maybe some of the intermediaries were in on it, maybe others were innocent. It might not matter.
In at least some countries, stolen items remain the legal property of the last legitimate purchaser. He may not possess the item, but he still possesses the title - the right of ownership. If you bought stolen goods you might have to forfeit them. Ignorance is not a defense.
BTW, once this question is answered, we can apply the answer to other transactions that were not authorized by the coin's owner... AKA government seizures.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:07PM
the whole point of bitcoin was to avoid government regulation and intervention, wasn't it? if they want the security of a government-backed currency, which includes some protection against fraud, they can use a government-backed currency. if they want to use a non-backed currency knowing the risks, then they must suffer those risks when they occur. you can't have it both ways, using a non-backed currency and then cry foul when the risks occur and expect the government to drag you out of the mess you willingly brought upon yourself.
(Score: 1) by tchuladdiass on Saturday January 03 2015, @10:03PM
So if someone breaks into my house, and steels a 20 dollar bill, then uses that to buy cigs at the gas station. Then you go and buy gas, and get that same 20 buck bill back in change. Does that mean I am entitled to get that 20 from you?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:13PM
When there is some area that is relatively free from government interference, the people that are going to be most attracted to it are criminals. And if you're attracted to that area because you're a criminal, you have to remember than in a den of thieves the chance that you'll get robbed is pretty high.
And that, in a nutshell, is why anarchists, including anarcho-capitalists, are basically wrong. In theory, it might work, but it never has in practice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:37PM
> in a den of thieves the chance that you'll get robbed is pretty high.
And some people who enter that arena are aware of that risk, and are willing to defend themselves, or be cautious, or take losses now and then. Naturally if you stop relying on government for some service, you'll have to be prepared with an alternative. Naturally those who don't will lose.
Still, if I add up everything taken from me without my consent in my lifetime by thieves (as defined in the law) and compare it with everything taken from me without my consent in my lifetime by the many redundant layers of governments, well, I think you can work out that thieves are not the number one threat. (Neither are terrorists, by the way. But they make a nice excuse, and bootlickers and their masters love excuses.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:54PM
Still, if I add up everything taken from me without my consent in my lifetime by thieves (as defined in the law) and compare it with everything taken from me without my consent in my lifetime by the many redundant layers of governments, well, I think you can work out that thieves are not the number one threat.
That is faulty math. In order to make a meaningful comparison you also need to subtract what you got from the thieves and from the government.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:04PM
> In order to make a meaningful comparison you also need to subtract what you got from the thieves and from the government.
Most of what I "got" from the governments I didn't want.
For example, my county forces me to have a pool inspection every year (at my expense). Because, you know, they know what's best for me. And I'm too stupid to take care of my own pool.
Every two years, they just happen to find something wrong, so they force me to make an expensive, completely unnecessary, pointless repair. Never mind that it was fine a couple years ago, now it isn't.
The result is that our county's pool contractors have a steady supply of work. Naturally, they are enthusiastic about supporting the county supervisors for re-election.
But I suppose you think if I have a pool I must be "rich" and therefore my money should be confiscated anyway.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday January 03 2015, @08:22PM
No, I don't. I think that the right solution to that situation is to make a big enough stink about it and work with other pool-owning citizens in your county so that those same county supervisors are risking their job if they keep the stupid rule. That solves your problem, and keeps the aspects of your county government that you probably like, like making sure the roads to get to your home are in drivable condition and making sure your well doesn't run dry because somebody else is using far too much water. And since this is a county government, you have much better odds of fixing the problem than if it were a state or federal issue - heck, most people don't even know who their county supervisor is, much less the power s/he wields over their day-to-day lives, and citizen organizing efforts like this often clean up governments in other ways.
Anyone can come up with one area where some level government has annoyed them or done something monumentally stupid. It's a big enough organization that finding at least 1 screw-up is pretty much inevitable. This is true even if they get it right 99.99% of the time, and no other organization who has tried to accomplish the same task has gotten even close to that good of a track record, because that 0.01% can still be thousands of people. The problem is that the only solution that libertarian thought can propose is to simply scrap the whole thing, which also eliminates whatever the government managed to get right and usually brings back whatever problem the government was trying to solve.
So this tends to read, to me, as the equivalent of this argument: "There's a section of the north wall of my house that has torn siding. Therefor we should tear down the whole place and build a new house." My suggestion is to make a good-faith attempt the much simpler repair job first.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday January 03 2015, @09:36PM
Some organizations make mistakes. Some others makes mistakes on a systematic scale..
Some houses needs repairs others have a fault design which makes their repair cost to increase faster than a linear relation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @05:49AM
"making sure the roads to get to your home are in drivable "
Roads are arguably a subsidy to the auto industry. Those roads take away valuable land that can be used to grow food hence reducing my dependency on others and my need to travel to make money to buy food from various monopolized entities essentially turning us into their slaves. If you are to consider that the government created roads you must consider what the government took away from us to make those roads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @04:16PM
Those roads are used to transport food to your general vicinity.
Valuable land that used to be used for growing food isn't needed for that purpose anymore, and is used for other things instead. Might as well be roads.
Certainly roads benefit the car industry. Otherwise they would be railroads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @11:14PM
Sure, which is also a subsidy for monopolized farmers. Roads create the need to transport food to my vicinity by reducing our ability to grow our own food. The main point of having roads is to satisfy the need for us to eat by transporting food but that need was artificially created through the creation of roads that reduce our ability to grow our own food. The creation of these roads come at a cost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08 2015, @08:08PM
Farming as an industry enabled the growth of cities and human productivity. It doesn't reduce your ability to grow your own food, just move somewhere where you have the space to actually grow your own food. Yes, there is a cost to roads, but also many benefits, for most people the benefits far outweigh the costs. And for a modern civilization to function we need a robust reliable transport infrastructure, and the road network helps provide that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @03:21AM
The government screws up on a regular basis and, when caught, they hardly get punished. If a normal citizen is caught screwing up the government will nail them to a cross.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:11PM
you consent to taxation by living in society and reaping the benefits that come along with it (running water, roads, garbage pickup, mail service, etc). taxation is not theft.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday January 03 2015, @06:44PM
while I agree with the spirit of what you said and I too think taxes are preferable to the alternative, 'consent' implies the possibility of opting out. how exactly does one opt-out of society and all the rights and responsibilities thereof in this day and age? seems there's nowhere left on the planet where tax-haters can run to.
maybe we should let them build one of those bootstrappy floating rayndian paradises they keep going on about, see how long it takes to implode. now there's a reality show I might actually watch.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday January 03 2015, @09:39PM
International waters, ocean floors and space. Especially the last ones lack any "government".
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday January 03 2015, @09:51PM
Oh, there are places: Somalia, Afghanistan far from Kabul, and international waters. There are also a lot of countries, mostly in Africa and South America, where enforcement is lax and corrupt, and you can easily bribe the rarely seen tax collectors for a fraction of what you actually owe.
But for some reason, you don't see libertarians leaving more developed countries (with their high taxes and big government) for these places in anything close to large numbers.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @10:31PM
English is even the official language in Guyana. But we all know how that last enclave turned out...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday January 03 2015, @11:33PM
you don't even have to go that far, just go live out in the middle nowhere, out in the woods or something; i believe its called "off the grid" or something like that.
its not only possible to opt out of paying taxes, its extremely easy. just move to someplace where you're not inside the limits of any city, or you can even stay within the cities, just don't participate in society (don't work, don't use any taxpayer-provided services, don't drive a motorized vehicle, etc).
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday January 04 2015, @05:30PM
Many people live outside of cities. They are called farmers and ranchers. But you shouldn't think that they are not paying taxes. They do - they pay to the county. I know it firsthand.
That is still not enough. You have to be a homeless person to avoid paying the property tax. And still you'd be paying sales tax on whatever little you buy. You'd have to completely remove yourself from the economy to avoid taxation.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday January 04 2015, @05:46PM
Out of this list running water, garbage pickup and mail service are commercially provided services. Roads are paid for through taxes that are included in the fuel price. Nothing out of this list is financed by your income taxes, and very little (roads) gets money from your property taxes. Most of your federal and state taxes are used to pay for [investopedia.com] Social Security:
When all the categories of government spending are combined, about a third of total spending goes to Social Security, about a quarter goes to Medicare, about a fifth goes to the military, and most other categories account for 1 to 4% each.
Your property taxes are financing local programs, like schools, firefighting, police, some road work, and lots of bureaucrats. Local governments also charge fees for issuance of papers that bureaucrats themselves established and require. (Just like indulgences [wikipedia.org].)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @05:09PM
if you're attracted to that area because you're a criminal,
What if hanging out in those areas is what makes you a criminal to begin with? People aren't born as criminals, after all.
you have to remember than in a den of thieves the chance that you'll get robbed is pretty high.
Not necessarily. In a den of thieves, the chance of immediate retribution should be pretty high. Beware of civil forfeiture, though.
And that, in a nutshell, is why anarchists, including anarcho-capitalists,
Anarchocapitalism is very much the opposite to anarchism, according to the anarchism FAQ.
are basically wrong. In theory, it might work, but it never has in practice.
Never say never: Christiania exists since 1971.
In the context of the sibling sub-threads, it should be mentioned that organized crime also collects taxes, althought those are called "protection money".
(Score: 2) by novak on Sunday January 04 2015, @08:09AM
Not to downplay the seriousness of the theft... But... Mt Gox stands for "Magic the Gathering Online eXchange." These guys are fully documented as being incompetent clowns, actually the exploit which stole a small fraction of coins was because they wrote their own incompatible bitcoin backend which basically didn't work with anyone else's software, and they couldn't verify their own transactions, it was that bad. Yep, that's who I want controlling my savings.
novak