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An unidentified 36-year-old man who owns a Bitcoin account has lost more than 100,000 euros ($117,000) worth of Bitcoins while he was logged in on a public wireless network in a restaurant in Vienna, Austria.
The Austrian police, however, claimed that they are still investigating whether the victim's account was already hacked before he opened his account on the unsecured network, CBS reports.
This latest case reflects the growing concern over the security of digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum amidst their growing popularity as a mode of payment.
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Bitcoin Account Holder Loses $100K Over Public Wireless Network
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
QOTD:
"My life is a soap opera, but who gets the movie rights?"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:04PM (37 children)
#FakeMoney
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:08PM (36 children)
It's as fake as the USD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:35PM (35 children)
What makes USD fake is that you're forced to use it.
BTC has a value, because people are trading it voluntarily; it's value at any given moment is true to its worth in people's lives.
There is no such thing as intrinsic value.
SoylentNews is such a shitty codemonkey website.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:44PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:28PM (2 children)
The government has decreed that its money must be used or accepted by court order, and the government manipulates the supply to establish certain benefits for itself.
Given that nothing has intrinsic value, it must be the case that a money is "real" only when its value has been found through voluntary interaction.
That's what makes Bitcoin real; it's value is constantly being found by voluntary interaction—people are willfully exchanging it for something else. Its value isn't imposed; nobody has to pretend that a certain value is justified. In the very moment of exchange, it is exactly as valuable as the participants in the transaction make it.
Also, the rules of Bitcoin have been established in advance, and an attempt to change those rules is naturally a very public, nasty affair that is hard to miss. Thus, the clarity of the rules that define BTC as a money is another reason why BTC is "real".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:30PM
That's not the definition of "fake" either.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by isostatic on Monday November 27 2017, @03:12PM
I'm not American, I don't live in America, I don't have any plans to go to America, and I don't owe the US government anything.
However I still have 100USD in my wallet in various denominations. That's more than I have in GBP or EUR. The reason for this is it's globally accepted, in both shady and non-shady situations. Fly into Egypt, and $25 gets you in. Kenya needs something similar. The guy with the AK47 stops your car, it's amazing how much paying a $5 'environmental tax' will fix the 'problem' with your car.
So the USD is real, it has value thanks to voluntary interaction (that said it's value is highest in the situation where the interaction isn't exactly voluntary, but doesn't involve the US government)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:53PM (15 children)
I noticed you posted as an Anonymous Coward... are you, by chance, connected through our onion address?
I won't claim to fully understand the details, maybe one of the devs can elaborate.
The code for SoylentNews is based on an open source version of the code that was used for Slashdot. It needed a great deal of cleaning up in order to be made to work. Given the technological expertise of the community, it would not take long for someone to discover they could spam a discussion by programmatically submitting a slew of comments. Imagine someone dropping a few hundred comments on a story. Very not good. The solution, as I understand it, was that each time you request a form to submit a comment, you are provided a form key which is based on a hash of your IP address. So far, so good.
One of the improvements that was added to SN was support for a TOR connection.
The way that works is you enter the TOR network through an entry node, and a route through other nodes is created until you exit through a different node... an exit node.
We, obviously, have no control over the path your connection takes.
So, if your route is dynamically changed between the time you requested a comment form, and the time you click on submit, then we detect that you are trying to submit a comment from a different IP address from the IP address you used to request the comment form. That is reported as an "invalid form key".
It is a long-standing problem and if you have a solution for that, we would be much obliged.
I apologize for the hastily-written reply as I need to get ready for work, but I hope this at least provides some explanation of the issue you are facing.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:14PM (8 children)
Why couldn't a spammer just programmatically request a new form for each spam comment? How does a "form key" help?
Clearly, tying an IP address to identity is a stupid idea; it is an example of a leaky abstraction. Tor proves this. Hell, NAT proves this.
What's wrong with CAPTCHAs? Why not use HashCash in some way? It was invented to thwart spam!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:31PM (1 child)
> What's wrong with CAPTCHAs?
Oh hell no. What's wrong is that, to stay ahead of bots, they are increasingly becoming unsolvable by humans. My success rate with Google's stupid CAPTCHAs is way, way below 50%. Probably worse than a decent bot.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @06:00AM
SoylentNews, you're shit.
I swear, you must all be old graybeards with no longer an iota of value.
Eat a gray, circumcised, American cock.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:13PM (5 children)
I am one of those who has ALWAYS had problems with Captcha puzzles. Color blind, half blind to boot, and those damned puzzles beat hell out of me. I've asked the wife to tell me what the text is, many, many times. If the wife isn't around, then I make a guess, two or three times, if I can't get it by then, I close the tab and move on.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:34PM (4 children)
Maybe you should have done everyone a kindness and culled yourself voluntarily from the gene pool.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:19PM (3 children)
You're funny. One of my three sons has the same genes, affecting his eyes. Cull? You've obviously missed many facts about me, that are available here on Soylent. I served in my country's military. I've paid taxes all of my life, since age 15. I contribute to society. WTF would I cull my genes? Better to cull some far more famous genes. About half of the readers here would agree that Trump should have been culled. The other half would agree that Hillary AND Bill should have been culled, BEFORE Chelsea happened. Then, there are other lowlifes, such as Shkrelli. Tell me - which of those named has actually "contributed" to society? I can make a damned good argument that each and every one of them are parasites.
Maybe you should have been culled?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:32PM (1 child)
I never needed you to march around like a buffoon, or pretend to be fighting for my rights.
Besides, you're poorly sighted; I'm guessing you were a paper pusher.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:00PM
I spent a couple years pushing paper - that's a fact. I carried an M-14 as well. What else did I do? I did maintenance on a ship. I cooked. I washed dishes. I manned a fire fighting station. On and on it goes - when you're a member of a crew, you do EVERYTHING. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_warfare_insignia#Enlisted_surface_warfare_specialist [wikipedia.org]
March around like a buffoon? You're probably the same AC who believes that the Kurds will eventually be granted indepence, if they just sit back, and be patient. Whether or not you are the same AC, you're equally naive and foolish.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @01:32AM
half [...] agree that Trump should have been culled. The other half would agree that Hillary AND Bill should have been culled
I assure you that the 2 halves have a lot of cross-over in their membership.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Nader/Stein voter)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:48PM (5 children)
So if this error happens with a static IP then what? Probably someone MITMing the connection??
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:09PM (4 children)
Probably typing too slowly. Hit the back button, copy the stuff you were trying to post, request another form, paste and submit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @01:36AM (3 children)
Compose your comment in a text editor.
When you have it all ready, THEN call for a comment page.
This isn't rocket surgery.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)
"Not rocket surgery"? More like lame workaround for a half-assed website.
Other websites don't give me this problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:26AM (1 child)
...the insecure ones, one supposes.
(Clearly, something* is changing your IP address in the time it takes you to compose a comment.
That isn't S/N's fault; our guys are doing things right.)
* TOR? A proxy? Your gratis ISP?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:57AM
See here [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:09PM (13 children)
I wonder - do you know what fiat money is? "Real money", like the old Greenback dollars, were backed by something - anything. In the case of greenbacks, they were backed by either gold, or silver. (look up "silver certificates - not exactly the same as a greenback, but near enough for this discussion) Today's dollars are backed by - NOTHING. Fiat money. The only value it has, is that it measures the world's "faith" in the US government. Or, more accurately, the world's faith in the US Central Bank. Of course, we don't call it a central bank - we call it the Federal Reserve, but it is exactly the same thing that is called a Central Bank in most other countries.
The dollar has no intrinsic value - in that you are correct. But, it used to actually represent something of value. Today, it doesn't even do that.
(Score: 1, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:18PM (2 children)
Bitcoin was cool before libertarians got a hold of it.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:39PM (1 child)
Not only were libertarian ideas about money baked into the very rules of Bitcoin, but Satoshi noted the usefulness of the libertarians as a vector for spreading Bitcoin, and most of the "core" developers would describe themselves as libertarian.
Bitcoin has direct connections to the Cyberpunk movement, which is indisputably libertarian is nature.
So... I guess you think Bitcoin was never cool, because libertarians have had control of it from the very beginning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:04PM
Firken poly-morphously perverse racists! Libertardiantari-ists!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:44PM (7 children)
When you have control of a Bitcoin key, you have control of a massive, global, decentralized network of computers; you also have access to a large network of resource flows that have been built around BTC, which can be interpreted as a money.
These are all real things.
They are made all the more real by the fact that people have built them by voluntary interaction instead of coercion.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:14PM (6 children)
Real things. Something "real" is something that I can pick up, and carry around. Or, load into a truck, and transport it somewhere. Bitcoin is as imaginary as a federal reserve note. It's less real than that federal reserve note. In the event of an electromagnetic pulse, those notes are unaffected. They still exist, they're still foldable, stackable, and transportable.
What if and EMP takes place near one (or more) of your more important servers? Yeah, I know, it's "distributed" - all the same, there is some small number of main servers, which are vulnerable. No, I don't know how many you would have to knock out to destroy bitcoin. Maybe it can't be destroyed, entirely. But, the system can certainly be paralyzed if those key servers are targeted.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)
Your post is not something that I can pick up, and carry around, therefore it is not real. Thus you are false data, and I shall ignore you.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:33PM (1 child)
Bomb 20, is that you?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:22PM
Let there be light.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:16PM
> Something "real" is something that I can pick up, and carry around.
You can't pick up zero and carry it around, but it's real. You can't pick up one and carry it around, but it's real. Bitcoin is complex. Bitcoin consists of many, many zeros and ones (the real part) and the social construction that they have value (the imaginary part).
The idea you have in mind is better expressed as "tangible" or "concrete."
(Score: 1, Troll) by arcz on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:04PM
bitcoin has no key servers. You'd need to wipe out basically all computer infrastructure on the planet to kill bitcoin. and at that point we have bigger problems.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday November 27 2017, @06:56AM
> It's less real than that federal reserve note. In the event of an electromagnetic pulse, those notes are unaffected. They still exist, they're still foldable, stackable, and transportable.
And what makes you think the USD (or any other fiat currency) would be worth anything in such a collapse scenario?
To actually disrupt the bitcoin network, you would need multiple massive worldwide EMP events, akin to a global level nuclear war.
Under such EMPs, peoples accounts, all ledgers, etc... which are held on computers go. Suddenly someone with millions in their current and brokerage accounts has as much money as the bum next to him, i.e. fuck all. Fiat is backed by the power of the government to coerce you to use it with violence. If the government went away or was weakened, so would the strength of whatever paper they push as "currency".
And in such a scenario, if I am a survivor, and someone comes to me and offers me what is basically bits of coloured paper to exchange for material things that are in short supply, I would think they were nuts. Hell, if you came and offered me toilet paper instead of paper money, I would find it a more appealing deal.
In such an "end times" scenario, the only thing I can think would work is barter, so either have something to trade, or some useful skills so you can trade your time+labour for whatever you need (or you are very good with weaponry and don't have a problem with murder to get your way, in which case becoming the local bandit/warlord is an alternative).
Whichever way you slice it, in your scenario, anything that takes out enough Infrastructure to ruin Bitcoin, will ruin pretty much all other currencies as well. If you want to "stack" something to use in such a scenario (apart from the necessities for living), stick to precious metals (Silver/Gold, I would go for Copper too, good conductor, and critical to modern living for its use in generators/motors and transformers), good tools / machining, toilet paper and medicines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @06:42AM
Greenbacks were the start of fiat currency in the US. Look up the history of it before you start lecturing others on it. Moron.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 27 2017, @07:59AM
Equally meaningless [wikipedia.org] or meaninful, whatever way you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:24PM
BTC has a value, because people are trading it voluntarily
Just like Dutch Tulips.