BitCoin : Account hacked, coins dumped = BTC Crash

[NoStateofMind]

Huge Bitcoin sell off due to a compromised account - rollback

The bitcoin will be back to around 17.5$/BTC after we rollback all trades that have happened after the huge Bitcoin sale that happened on June 20th near 3:00am (JST).

Service should be back by June 20th 11:00am (JST, 02:00am GMT) with all the trades reversed and accounts available.

One account with a lot of coins was compromised and whoever stole it (using a HK based IP to login) first sold all the coins in there, to buy those again just after, and then tried to withdraw the coins. The $1000/day withdraw limit was active for this account and the hacker could only get out with $1000 worth of coins.

Apart from this no account was compromised, and nothing was lost. Due to the large impact this had on the Bitcoin market, we will rollback every trade which happened since the big sale, and ensure this account is secure before opening access again.

UPDATE REGARDING LEAKED ACCOUNT INFORMATIONS

We will address this issue too and prevent logins from each users. Leaked information includes username, email and hashed password, which does not allow anyone to get to the actual password, should it be complex enough. If you used a simple password you will not be able to login on Mt.Gox until you change your password to something more secure. If you used the same password on different places, it is recommended to change it as soon as possible.

DDoS attack on Mt. Gox continues!

So it seems as though someone out there does not want Mt. Gox to be able to stay in business. From what I've read, Mt. Gox is likely going to move to a network host that will be more resilient to attacks of this type.

A DDoS attack is a Distributed Denial of Service attack, which aims to stop legitimate users from accessing a resource. A DDoS can be performed in a variety of different ways, but from what I can guess of the nature of the attack is that it appears to be a zombie botnet attack. This is only a theory of course, however, a botnet attack is an incredibly simple and cheap way to bring down a web server such as the one used by Mt. Gox.

So, here is some theorycrafting for you: I think the attacker is either someone that doesn't want Bitcoins to be traded, or someone that wants to force Mt. Gox to have more secure servers. Generally a DDoS is perpetrated as a form of protest, or it can be a malicious attack. In my opinion, the attacker has the purpose of malice.

My opinion is based on a few assumptions. I'm going to assume that Bitcoin is still relatively obscure, so it's highly unlikely that any type of agency or group of any renown would take the time to try to bring down a small website like Mt. Gox. If anything, the attacker likely someone using a rented Botnet, or using that type of software to make themselves look much larger than they really are.

From what I've read, the attack so far has gotten about 7,000 IP addresses banned, which is a fairly small pool, which leads me to further believe that it's a very small scale attack. So, the solution of moving to a network that can handle more stress, or one that has better protection will most likely allow Mt. Gox to ignore any continued attempts by this particular individual.

Moving to a more secure network does NOT necessarily protect against a clever attacker. If the attacker gets more bandwidth to attack with, it's highly unlikely that Mt Gox will be able to protect itself. So if you're reading this Mt Gox, get yourself multiple web server backups and you'll never have this problem again.

Mt Gox and many pools have been DDOS attacked recently. Apparently someone does not like this BitCoin thing. Who has the motives to destroy it?


Senators seek crackdown on "Bitcoin" currency

ST. LOUIS (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Two senators are pressing federal authorities to crack down on an online black market and "untraceable" digital currency known as Bitcoins after reports that they are used to buy illegal drugs anonymously.

Drugs and cyber terrorists are on the growing list of reasons for shutting down the anonymous digital currency. Shutting down the "Silk Road" may be a start but not the end of this battle.

LulzSec Hackers Post Sony Dev. Source Code, Get $7K Donation

The hacker group LulzSec has struck again and the target (surprise) is Sony.

This time they’ve released 54MB of source code for Sony Computer Entertainment’s Developer Network, and an internal network map of Sony BMG. The group say this is their fifth Sony hack, and the 16th overall against Sony. The website attrition.org has a timeline of the recent Sony hacks that would suggest this is indeed attack No. 16.

Sony has been the victim of a stream of cyber attacks since mid-April, when hackers broke into its PlayStation Network and compromised the details of more than 100 million registered users.

LulzSec posted a terse press release on its website saying, “Konichiwa from LulzSec, Sony Bastards!” and “That’s hackers 16, Sony 0. Your move!” They signed the missive, “Lulz Security,” and uploaded the data as a torrent onto PirateBay.

The hacker group also announced on Twitter today that they had received $7,200 worth of BitCoin donations, bringing their total balance to $7,853.35.

Well if you've been living under a rock go over to the Video Cards and Graphics subforum and catch up. For those in the know it looks like the untrackable BitCoins are changing hands without any government oversight and now has started to land into known "cyber terrorists" hands. They may not be labeled that now but they will be. LulzSec just received a donation of BitCoins for about $7200 in U.S. currency. Many are saying this cannot be stopped much in the same way Bittorrents cannot be stopped. The virtual currency has spiked in value over the past few weeks and continues to grow in popularity.

How long before its deemed a crime to exchange virtual currency for the sake of stopping terrorism funding? Should the government regulate BitCoin transactions?

 

[wantedSpidy]

won't take long. As soon as you use bitcoins to buy real merchandise and pay the seller USD, the bitcoin needs to be converted to USD by some payment processor. The govt. will let these payment processors survive for a bit, but as soon as the transaction amounts increase they will shut it down.

 

[cubby1223]

How long until BitCoins are banned because governments need to collect taxes? How long until BitCoins are abandoned because the network was tampered with? How long until BitCoins are devalued from lack of confidence?

 

[IceBergSLiM]

won't take long. As soon as you use bitcoins to buy real merchandise and pay the seller USD, the bitcoin needs to be converted to USD by some payment processor. The govt. will let these payment processors survive for a bit, but as soon as the transaction amounts increase they will shut it down.

The payment processor doesn't need to be based in the U.S.

Online gambling has survived for years.


terrorists that live in caves and have un matching shoes are hoarding video cards.....yeah sure they are. I think they'll stick to their bread and butter which is trafficking humans and selling drugs..

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

BitCoin is a short lived fad at best.

 

[Triumph]

BitCoin is a short lived fad at best.

I've never heard about it. I just read up on it. No thanks.

 

[jhu]

Reminds me of Linden dollars. Do people still "play" Second Life and is it still populated by flying dildos?

 

[BeauJangles]

BitCoin is a short lived fad at best.

It's already been around for two years and, because of its anonymous nature, I think calling it a fad is completely incorrect. There are more than enough people out there who, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons, would use an anonymous currency that the only way Bitcoin falls apart is if it gets hacked (unlikely) or if governments around the world make a concerted effort to get rid of it.

 

[senseamp]

I would like to see it survive an all out hack attack and a legal attack by the US government attempting to shut it down before I would accumulate any quantities of Bitcoin.

 

[yllus]

BitCoin is an interesting thought experiment. Aside from the problems it faces in its architecture (deflation is built into the model), there is the fact that that you can't actually convert the currency to USD. Maybe you could pay for various services using BitCoins and extract value in that way, but not much else.

 

[QuantumPion]

I'm pretty sure every single news story and forum post regarding bitcoins is part of a conspiracy to get more people to join the ponzi scheme to enrich the original inventor of them.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

I'm pretty sure every single news story and forum post regarding bitcoins is part of a conspiracy to get more people to join the ponzi scheme to enrich the original inventor of them.

Its open source, so if it was a ponzi scheme it would be exposed by now.

 

[Yreka]

Wow, I wonder what Sony did to piss these guys off.. Would be funny if someone was just going postal because the BD drive on their PS3 kept going out.

 

[davmat787]

Ars put out a write up on BitCoins a few days ago if anyone is interested in a general background piece: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...nside-the-encrypted-peer-to-peer-currency.ars

Not interested personally, but I will follow it from time to time because as yllus put it, it is an interesting experiment. If you read the AT thread linked to above, people are mining bitcoins by apparently renting out GPU/CPU cycles. Some chipsets have sold out recently due to the increase in people snapping them up. It will be interesting to see how/if things consolidate as costs increase per user, kind of like a free market. BitCoin mining, from my admittedly simplistic take on it, is kind of a microcosm of a new, unregulated free market in way.

 

[cubby1223]

Its open source, so if it was a ponzi scheme it would be exposed by now.

Just like how lots of people had ample opportunity to expose Madoff but never got around to it.

Just because it is "open source" doesn't mean that is what is being used on everyone's system, or if someone else can decipher every intricacy of exactly what it does.

And if it truly were open source, then everyone has the means to create their own competing bitcoin currency, thus massively deflating the value of everyone's bitcoin currency.

And in the end it all relies on a large system of other people willing to accept your bitcoins in exchange for goods, services, or other forms of currency.


We have the Secret Service that works to maintain the integrity of the U.S. Dollar, as well as shared confidence in the integrity of the U.S. Government. Bitcoins have neither. Anyone wants to invest in this currency go right ahead!

 

[BeauJangles]

Just like how lots of people had ample opportunity to expose Madoff but never got around to it.

Just because it is "open source" doesn't mean that is what is being used on everyone's system, or if someone else can decipher every intricacy of exactly what it does.

And if it truly were open source, then everyone has the means to create their own competing bitcoin currency, thus massively deflating the value of everyone's bitcoin currency.

You should really read up on how bitcoin works. It's actually pretty fascinating.

 

[NoStateofMind]

BitCoin is an interesting thought experiment. Aside from the problems it faces in its architecture (deflation is built into the model), there is the fact that that you can't actually convert the currency to USD. Maybe you could pay for various services using BitCoins and extract value in that way, but not much else.

It's being done. https://mtgox.com/ to https://www.dwolla.com/default.aspx to bank account IIRC.

 

[cubby1223]

You should really read up on how bitcoin works. It's actually pretty fascinating.

Fascination? Sure.

Something I will trust? Absolutely not.

 

[Fern]

How long until BitCoins are banned because they are used to "support terrorism"?

I supppose I live a rock, never heard of this stuff.

But after reading a bit, seems to me the intent, design and very nature of the thing and those who are most likely use them make an effective ban practically impossible. They never asked for permission and I don't see how they need it, thus a ban will not be easy.

Fern

 

[gevorg]

Terrorism is not needed, just one case of child porn transaction is all that will take to shut down Bitcoin.

 

[BeauJangles]

Fascination? Sure.

Something I will trust? Absolutely not.

I'm just saying that it's actually pretty secure, and the security itself is the fascinating part.

Also, considering that bitcoin is mostly used for nefarious purposes, those who do use it are willing take certain risks that are most likely lesser than the risks they face using other payment methods.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

You should really read up on how bitcoin works. It's actually pretty fascinating.

This. One of the most fascinating concepts I have ever encountered.

It takes time to wrap your head around how it actually works, not just the surface summaries you get from the news, but the real mechanics behind it. It is a genius, but not perfect system.

 

[cubby1223]

Also, considering that bitcoin is mostly used for nefarious purposes, those who do use it are willing take certain risks that are most likely lesser than the risks they face using other payment methods.

Yea, this is pretty much exactly how I view this system. They can put whatever happy face they want on their homepage about how they are creating a liberating currency for the good of humanity or whatever other crap. But, all it is is a system to allow anyone in the world easy access to make payments and donations to illegal entities.

 

[airdata]

How long until BitCoins are banned because governments need to collect taxes? How long until BitCoins are abandoned because the network was tampered with? How long until BitCoins are devalued from lack of confidence?

I'd like you to now take a second and replace 'BitCoins' with 'USD'. Have a nice day.

That's really the only argument there needs to be in my opinion. All of the negative 'Silk Road' attention is really a non issue. You could just as easily snail mail somebody an envelope full of cash in exchange for the drugs ( which plenty of people do on a regular basis ) or use western union, again which lots of people already do.

Originally Posted by BeauJangles
Also, considering that bitcoin is mostly used for nefarious purposes, those who do use it are willing take certain risks that are most likely lesser than the risks they face using other payment methods.

An unfortunate misconception. Again, back to my initial posting... simply replace BTC with USD in any negative thing you're saying. The USD is mostly used for nefarious purposes.. this would be an accurate assessment whether you mean war, drugs, or terrorism. Terrorists aren't out buying weapons with BTC.

And then we can bring up the fun stat of over 90% of USD having traces of cocaine on them.

 

[yllus]

It's being done. https://mtgox.com/ to https://www.dwolla.com/default.aspx to bank account IIRC.

Wow, BitCoin has moved pretty fast. According to this page you're right - there are now a number of ways to make withdrawals. Maybe I should start leaving my home PCs running to farm BitCoin and trade them in for real cash.