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TN Man Indicted For Romney Blackmail Attempt: Wanted $1M In Bitcoins
OakDragon writes "A Franklin, Tennessee man has been indicted for his attempt to blackmail Mitt Romney. Michael Mancil Brown allegedly claimed his intent to release some of Romney's pre-2010 tax documents unless one million dollars was converted to Bitcoins and deposited into an account which he specified. Demand letters were sent to Republican and Democratic Party offices in Tennessee, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (whom he claimed to have stolen the documents from). Pricewaterhouse Coopers denies that he ever obtained such documents. Brown was also attempting to "sell" the documents to others (presumably the Democrats or other interested parties) for the same amount. And yes, he was apparently well aware of the Dr. Evil reference."
It's not like he was asking for anything of value in return.
"Man charged for accepting bitcoins"
because all he does is trying to open-source romney tax return
Its not. It is an opening for an argument about Mitt Romney and his policies which will never be implemented at the top federal level. Page views = ratings...
Republican vs Democrats is always a good place for someone to fight. Do not give into 'we vs they'. There is only us.
Despite the efforts of Republican pollsters to make the whole country speak in a way that focus groups showed was mildly favorable to their interests, there is no such entity as the "Democrat Party."
starting the insanity defense early
Corrected now; that was a slip-up, should have caught it in the original submission.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
"If he just asked for dollars instead of bitcoins, would you still have posted this??!! I don't get it, what makes this story relevant to tech or geeky news??"
A man from Tennessee knows what bitcoins are and he assumes that Romney does too, isn't that wild enough for you??
You're right.
Corrected now; that was a slip-up, should have caught it in the original submission.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Look, these tax returns are unique, kinda neat. But if I buy them, they are gonna sit on a shelf for 6 months. I have to find just the right buyer. And even then, I am not sure I can get $1 million for them. I'll give you 50 bucks.
sudo make me a sandwich
Who the hell is he?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's called the "Democratic Party". Their political opponents have taking to calling them the "Democrat Party" in recent years because "Democratic" sounds the same as "democratic".
$1 Mil in Bitcoins is the total daily volume of MtGrox. I am thinking it might take some work to get that many bitcoins in short order.
mnewberg.com
$1M worth of BTC bought back on Sept 2, 2012 would be valued over $10M today and closer to $25M during the peak a few months ago. What blackmail!
He would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling printer. Such a perfect plan.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
or you just immediately convert it back to dollars, foo
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Another example of why both law enforcement and regulators will have increasing interest in Bitcoin as it becomes more heavily used.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Kind of pointless too, since from what I read Bitcoin transaction hashes are designed to identify exactly where the money came from, so it would be very difficult for him to convert the money into a fiat currency without it being extremely traceable.
There are laundries where this is possible (For a fee). Not every exit to BTC is guarded by the US or its extraditing allies.
crime over the internet isn't techy?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Their political opponents have taking to calling them the "Democrat Party" in recent years because "Democratic" sounds the same as "democratic".
You say that like it's a bad thing. Personally, I think your bias is showing, because you are telling us that you like the confusion that may be caused by mixing "Democratic" and "democratic".
"One is my name, the other is not."
I am not a crackpot.
Today people learn, work, shop, bank, communicate, mate and basically live on the internet. Just because something happens on it doesn't make it relevant to technology.
well yeah if you would expect every bitcoin user to care about it - which you can't.
and since you can't, you can laundry it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If it confuses you, you are an idiot. There is no bias in calling a group what they want to be called.
Does it matter? That's not even slashdot's slogan anymore.
It's called the "Democratic Party".
By Democrats. By everyone else, it's not (and the use of the term dates to at least the late 19th century). That little rhetorical change helps remind us that the Democrat Party is not a party of democracy, but just happens to have that name.
Why does anyone consider Mitt Romney's 2010 worth anything at all, and what in the bleeding blue hell is so bad on these that it's considered ransom-able?
I got here through a series of tubes
Or use one of the 800+ vendors that accept bitcoins.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There should be a "Liar" mod.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Obama is not remotely as bad as Romney, not within orders of magnitude.
Nonsense. For example, none of Obama's employers have ever benefited from Obama like Bain Capital did from Romney.
Bitcoin provides anonymity. Unfortunately like most computer security mechanisms, the weak link is the human being using them.
Even if this guy had the alleged information, and wasn't stupid enough to get caught, it makes no sense for Romney to pay him. If Romney paid the guy $1M in bitcoins, there is nothing stopping him from also selling the info to the democrats or a newspaper immediately afterwards for another $1M. It's not like you can sue the guy for breach of contract.
"Democrat Party" sounds like you're deliberately using bad grammar to demonize democrats, because they rate so low in your estimation.
Are you saying Vulture Capitalism is a good thing?
If Obama's massive spending and borrowing scared the shit out of investors, dragging out the recovery, then Obama was literally about 50,000 times worse than Romney, assuming you wanted to assign all Bain blame to Romney.
For this not to be true, you have to hope and pray investors are not signicantly scared and skittish when politicians spend out of control and scream the only way out is increasing taxes on them.
NO. I'm sure I'm wrong. Go on about your business.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I've dabbled in it myself. Don't see the harm it's alleged to cause to be honest.
"Democrat Party" is generally accepted to be derogatory, by the people who use it and the Democrats themselves. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807ta_talk_hertzberg I remember that Joe McCarthy used it.
Baloney. There is a reason the guy demanded bitcoin instead of USD that has nothing to do with politics, it is due to the technical aspects of bitcoin, namely the fact that it is designed to be untraceable and facilitate anonymous transactions. All made possible (again, UNLIKE conventional currencies) entirely by the Internet and encryption. Slashdot is about nothing if not the double-edged nature of each advance in technology.
Yes, Im quite sure Romney is oblivious to economic trends and topics, and that everyone in Tennessee has no technical prowess whatsoever.
How exactly did you get modded insightful for an idiotic jab at an entire state's residents?
I think it sounds stupid but I really dont understand why people are getting bent out of shape about it. Its a name, and not a particularly insulting one (unless youre choosing to be insulted for some reason), and the intent seems pretty clear-- to avoid creating an inaccurate association between democracy and the "dem" party. (there is, of course, nothing more democratic about the "democratic" party than there is about the republican party).
If it makes anyone feel better you can call my party the "republic party". Ill look at you a little strangely but I promise it wont upset me.
And you're a whiny little brat. Neiner neiner.
As opposed to cash in nonconsecutive $20 bills, which are trivial to trace, and which record all transactions directly at the nearest IRS office? OP and grandparent ACs have it right. This is tangentially about anything in which nerds would be interested, as nerds.
Well, it is, but it gets overwritten too fast for anyone to see unless they read the HTML source.
"Democrat Party" sounds like you're deliberately using bad grammar to demonize democrats
You mean Demoncrats. I'm here all week. Try the veal!
It is not untraceable. In fact, if that bribe was paid, Romney could trace it from account to account, no matter how many the blackmailer tried to filter it through. As soon as one of the coins were used in the legal economy (for buying dollars, hosting space or whatever), he would leave traces which would link back to the original account.
Lots of bitcoin have been stolen through bitcoin's history, mostly though scams. And the vast majority of stolen bitcoin has not moved since - for good reasons. It is possible to measure how much of the coin in your wallet is "tainted", coin that came from a scam at some point. Bitcoin exchanges have frozen accounts because they held too much tainted coin, and it's only going to get worse (or better, depending on your perspective) in the future.
There are "mixing" services where you pay one bitcoin to get back one bitcoin (or rather, slightly less) from someone else. This is a way to break a bitcoin's chain of custody. However you're a fool to do this if your coin is clean, since you're likely to get a dirty (potentially less valuable) one in return. It's just charity to scammers and others who managed to get their paws on bitcoin in dubious ways.
Plus, since these services are anonymous and cater to criminals, there's a significant risk they'll break and run one day, so you won't even get a dirty coin back.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Right or wrong, the blackmailer evidently at least thought bitcoin would be harder to trace than cash, because otherwise he would have demanded cash. It would certainly be easier to spend. The resulting discussion about the blackmailer's (erroneous) assumptions, such as your post, are interesting, pertinent to slashdot, and not particularly political.