US Marshals Accidentally Reveal Potential Bidders For Gov't-Seized Bitcoin 101
jfruh (300774) writes "When the U.S. government shut down the Silk Road marketplace, they seized its assets, including roughly $18 million in bitcoin, and despite the government's ambivalence about the cryptocurrency, they plan to auction the bitcoin off to the highest bidder, as they do with most criminal assets. Ironically, considering many bitcoin users' intense desire for privacy, the U.S. Marshall service accidentally revealed the complete list of potential bidders by sending a message to everyone on the list and putting their addresses in the CC field instead of the BCC field."
Lol (Score:1)
Lelelelel
Much infosec fail.
Re:A planned failure (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think that the leak is a failure, well, it's a PLANNED FAILURE
The Fed doesn't like bitcoins, feels very threaten by bitcoins, and hope that nobody will deal in bitcoins
With the sale of those bitcoins of course they will execute a planned failure that will look to the world at large as a "leak"
It is never a leak, it is a PLANNED LEAK
I'm not so sure. I'm thinking that Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org] should be applied here.
Unplanned failure (Score:3)
Don't ascribe to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Or maybe a variant thereof. Who knows, maybe people have become so used to social media, that secrecy becomes an afterthought. Maybe the person in charge thought email is just the pre-Facebook version of posting a status update?
Suggestion for three-letter agency recruiters: screen for applicants who aren't Facebook/Twitter/Instagram addicts.
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Why not both?
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The corollary? Nothing is provable; everything is permissible.
Your adage is one of a pushover. You are a sucker, and you promote being one.
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The corollary? Nothing is provable; everything is permissible. Your adage is one of a pushover. You are a sucker, and you promote being one.
Are we having a bad day? Did mommy make you leave the basement or clean your room?
Your statement may be a corollary to something, but not Hanlon's Razor. Given the rest of your blather, I attribute your poorly written and rather emotional post to both stupidity *and* malice.
My name isn't Hanlon, and it;'s not my adage.
I'm sorry you're dumb. I'm sorry you're angry. I feel pity for you. At the same time, you're still an asshole, which is certainly provable (you did that yourself) and while I do support
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If you think any govt feels threatened by a LOLbertarian idiot toy, you are an even bigger moron.
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This is what happens (Score:4, Informative)
This is what happens when you have a single point of failure like a stupid, technically illiterate secretary added to the mix.
Re:This is what happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is what happens (Score:5, Funny)
Hacker: Who else is in this department?
Sir Humphrey: Well briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary. I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.
Hacker: Can they all type?
Sir Humphrey: None of us can type. Mrs Mackay types: she's the secretary.
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Like, secretary as in the one that takes dictation, or secretary as in the one that is in charge of a large arm of government bureaucracy?
Yes.
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Or even the entire country [wikipedia.org].
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But... but.. a sectetary is exactly the right person to trust with a secret.
"Secretary - late Middle English (originally in the sense ‘person entrusted with a secret’): from late Latin secretarius ‘confidential officer’, from Latin secretum ‘secret’, neuter of secretus"
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That's a fairly massive assumption. Even competent people make mistakes.
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This is what happens when you have a single point of failure
There was not a single point of failure. If the bidders used email addresses that could be traced to their real identities, that was another point of failure.
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That would be an administrative assistant you insensitive mad men clod!
Re:This is what happens (Score:4, Interesting)
This is what happens when you have a single point of failure like a stupid, technically illiterate secretary added to the mix.
Misogyny much? Secretaries are usually well versed in things like email, since it's a major part of their job. Managers are the ones who think they know everything, and make these kinds of mistakes.
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"Secretaries are usually well versed in things like email"
I don't really consider email proficiency to be a thing sorry.
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Beats not being proficient with email.
Or using a proper list manager (Score:2)
ezmlm works fine for me.
Ya Right (Score:1)
Ya Right (Score:2)
Bait (with coin sale), catch looking for each others coins, release as informants.
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ohhhhhhh crap (Score:4, Interesting)
Spoils of war. (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who gets disturbed every time it's blithely mentioned that this or that police agency gets to take spoils for themselves? It seems a little... inherently corrupt.
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well yeah kind of since is this the only really legal sale of bitcoins in USA? there's some reason for why the exchanges avoid it.
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No you are not the only one.
Of course is is corrupting.
The politicians that can change it cannot appear soft on crime.
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How would it look soft on crime to suggest that the 'winnings' should go to some higher governmental branch rather than straight to the police agency?
The only ones this might annoy would be the police themselves. It wouldn't take a PR genius to point out that the current system encourages the police to screw up their priorities.
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No. The forces at play would be massively diluted, so the issue would be lessened enormously.
To higher government, the money raised in these auctions is just spare change.
Incidentally, this is precisely how things are done in the UK [findlaw.co.uk]. The proceeds of traffic tickets are handled similarly.
Re:Spoils of war. (Score:4, Informative)
Due Process is going out the window. That also includes defending yourself with the lawyer you choose. Recently the SCOTUS ruled amazingly enough that it was okay for the government to even seize assets that were in your lawyers hands to pay for legal fees. [washingtonpost.com] So now the system is rigged against you to the point where the Judge and the prosecution pick your lawyer for you. Good by freedom, hello club Fed.
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Good point. That would almost be reasonable, if the proceeds weren't going to the police doing the seizing. If the system were set up so that the proceeds went, for example, into paying back social security, or to pay for services or toys or whatever for orphans... For that matter, if there were just some laws preventing police officers from profiting directly from seized property (no more bonuses to officers, no more first pick of auctioned property, etc.), the situation might be improved. The fact is, fou
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Nope, you're not alone.
http://fear.org/ [fear.org]
Auctioning money? (Score:2)
I don't get it, why are they auctioning money? Why don't they just exchange them for USD? They will necessarily get less than the market value for them, because nobody would buy money for more than it's worth...
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Because Bitcoins is not money.
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It is because Governments say it is and most people agree it is.
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You will know the difference one day. It will hit you in an instant, but it will be too late.
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For the same reason gold served as money for thousands of years; for the same reason you let your employer (via the bank) pay you in 6.25x2.75 strips of colorful paper; for the same reason you carry a credit card; for the same reason some pacific island cultures collected cowrie shells: Because someone will give you tens of billions of dollars (actually more like half a trillion total market cap, BTW) in goods and/or services in exchange for them.
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Gold has intrinsic value. Does bitcoin have any? No.
Real money is guaranteed by the govt. If bitcoin can be considered valid currency, anybody else should be able to create their own currency.
Credit card companies don't manufacture currency, they just transfer it. Bitcoins are manufactured in tran
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> Gold has intrinsic value. Does bitcoin have any? No.
Gold has value because of its physical properties, scarcity, and attractiveness. The Bitcoin Network has value because of the ability to move funds from place to place, just like the UPS network has value for the ability to move packages from place to pace. Gold's source of value isn't better than other sources of value, just different. All value derives from people wanting or needing something, and the supply in relation to demand. Demand for the
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The secret service would like a word with you...
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Fine, but that doesn't change my basic point. Why bother with an auction that will necessarily get less than an open market?
Re:Auctioning money? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, but that doesn't change my basic point. Why bother with an auction that will necessarily get less than an open market?
The same reason you wholesale anything; You get a transaction that moves a large volume quickly. Basically all consumer goods you buy in any kind of branded store works this way, Wholesalers, whether manufacturers or a middleman, sell large volume to companies who then take the burden of distribution but reap the benefits of charging retail price and profiting on the difference between that and the wholesale cost plus infrastructure/logistics costs. The wholesaler gets the benefit of moving a large volume at an agreed upon price and not having to worry about inventory control, distribution, or logistics of getting it to the consumer.
This is not strange, or even strange at all. Side benefit in this case, they get the auction entry fee from everyone bidding regardless of whether they win and also a look into who is interested in amassing a large quantity of bitcoins.
Honestly this shouldn't require explanation,
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Maybe because by actually converting the currency to money, they're sending the message that they accept it as real money and will use it. It gives a aire of legitimacy to it they don't want to impart. But selling it is simply offering it and taking what they can get. It doesn't say that they think it's worth anything, just that the bidders do. Kind of like if I took a dirty sock and auctioned it. I can say I believe it to be trash all I want then. If someone pays me $10 for it, it doesn't mean it's really
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With a few exceptions like stocks (which are sold on the open market, since it's very established and liquid), law enforcement sells things by auction. In some jurisdictions they're required by law to sell things at public auction with a certain notice period, because it's considered more transparent. So if they seized 100 bikes this month, they sell them at the monthly police auction, rather than trying to find a used-bike shop to sell them to.
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Why don't they just exchange them for USD?
Unless there's some well organized exchange, as for stocks and bonds, the U.S. Marshals Service sells everything by auction. No Bitcoin exchange is solid enough for a transaction of this size.
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Law..
There have been problems in the past with government agencies pricing things low and employees snatching it up before the public was able to. So laws require most thing being sold to other than another government agency to be sold at public auction.
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You're asking a government bureaucrat to learn how to exchange bitcoin, give them $18 million worth and expect them not to get ripped off? Auction it.
Extra effort to hide stingray, BCC too hard? (Score:3)
So they can go out of their way to try and stifle information on stingrays, but they can't make the BCC field work?
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what's the difference? (Score:2)
All us /.-ers, being highly experienced software jocks, know perfectly well that anything sent in an email might as well be posted up in Times Square. It might have made it a bit more difficult for the bidders to find out the names of the other bidders, but even if each one were sent a separate, one-address, email, the info is on servers all over the place (insert lame joke about asking the NSA for the other bidders' emails).
These are the people...? (Score:1)
And these are the people we want to trust making decisions about our healthcare?
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Actually no, these are the idiots who come and seize your property with little suspicion or on the orders of the jackbooted thugs who want your stuff and sell it off without due process. They're the ones what to make your decisions on everything, to make sure that big brother is watching you and taking all of your hard fought earnings all in the name of social justice where your individuality doesn't matter but the collective good does. Of course by collective good that means you don't keep anything you e
At least it won't be... (Score:2)
At least it won't be a silent auction then because you'll know your competition.
What is the standard? (Score:2)
Never attribute ... (Score:1)
According to CMU-SEI data, over 70% of all software organizations are at Level 1 (Chaotic) of the Capability Maturity Model. In reality many may lie below the merely chaotic, but no lower levels exist in the CMM.
This article [smartmatix.com] defines and describes lower maturity levels and their associated Kounter Productive Attitudes (KPAs). O
So where's the list? (Score:1)
Alright, they flubbed up and leaked everyone's email address; where is the list? Surely it's been posted somewhere, I'd like to take a look at it myself.
MENSA (Score:1)
Reminds me of the time I got a recruiting email from MENSA where they made the same mistake. Nice job, geniuses!