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Ulbricht Admits Seized Bitcoins Are His and Wants Them Back
An anonymous reader writes with the latest news about the aftermath of the Silk Road shutdown "From the article: 'Ulbricht ... said in a notarised December 11 statement that he believes the virtual currency should be returned to him because Bitcoins are "not subject to seizure" by federal law. Ulbricht, 29, now admits the Bitcoin fortune is his — even though he's previously denied any wrongdoing regarding Silk Road and claimed through his lawyer that the feds arrested the wrong guy.' So not only has he now confirmed his link to the site, and confirmed the money is his, but also means that a few precedents will be set. Is it seizable? Is it just 'copying data?'"
Relatedly, three alleged moderators of Silk Road were indicted on Friday.
I'm pretty sure I would have kept my mouth shut. The worst thing you can do is make it easier for the feds. But who knows, I've never been arrested on those charges and had a shitton of bitcoins seized.
When one song is put online for illegal download, it's potentially worth $700k, still a lot more than one bitcoin, so I guess this is not "just copying".
I think Megaupload and Co. are still waiting...
The foolish arrogance of geeks is sometimes astounding.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Give them all to me!
In all seriousness, I imagine the bitcoins are currently in a state of limbo - if the government were to spend them it could legitimise the new currency, something that would make a lot of officials uncomfortable. Most likely the wallet will be retained until the case is done and whatever legally mantained retention of evidence is passed, then just deleted, effectively removing the coins from circulation forever.
So the piece describes it as an edgy argument, but what is his actual claim? Does anywhere go over why he believes BTC is not subject to seizure? Or is he just doing another variant of 'theft by government!' rant?
... he believes the virtual currency should be returned to him because Bitcoins are "not subject to seizure" by federal law.
See the bolded part ?
That Ulbricht still doesn't get it, does him ?
The master, aka the government, obeys NO law.
If they can ignore the highest law of the land, the Constitution just like that, what makes you think that they will follow mere "federal laws" ?
And they not only can seize your bitcoin, they can also take away your *LIFE*, if they want to.
Before you guys telling me that the government doesn't have the right to kill you, please look back to the incident that took place in Waco, Texas, USA, back in 1993.
They burn children to death.
Yes, *CHILDREN* and till today, 20 years later, *NOBODY WAS PUNISHED* for the death of those children, all of whom happened to be American Citizens.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
So, what does seizing mean in this context? The only thing needed is a private key. He doesn't have it and the feds do? I assume that's the case since he wants it back, right? In that case I must say it was an extremely poorly managed fortune.
Is there some other interpretation?
It's been what - a few hours since the last one? How about some Duck Dynasty or Kim K threads, we can't get enough of them either...
I find it funny that downloading a song mean $22,000 fine. That software are only "licensed", not sold to you so you can't do everything you want to with. That importing books you legally acquired from a different country is a violation of copyright, and needs the Supreme Court to clarify that it's not. Meanwhile, the police can reason that seizing $700K in Bitcoins is just copying a file.
I don't know what Ulbricht's connection to Silk Road is, but the Crown must be prove that this asset is acquired through illegal activities to seize it.
There is a better probability my brother-in-law will leave Jennifer Anniston beneath the Christmas tree for me tomorrow than the Feds returning this seizure.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
he believes the virtual currency should be returned to him because Bitcoins are "not subject to seizure" by federal law.
See the bolded part?
Both you and Ulbricht don't get it. What you believe has no bearing on reality.
Ulbricht isn't claiming that the government violated the constitution. He is claiming Bitcoins aren't property and thus can't be seized under federal law. That is for a judge to decide, but lawyers don't think he will prevail because intangible property is still property and federal law allows for the seizure property that are the products, or purchased with the products, of federal criminal acts.
Unless you were at Waco, you don't know what happened at Waco.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I can bold random words too. It makes my stuff much more important.
There is no federal law that makes it illegal to seize bitcoins. It is an asset just like any other. The fact that it is electronic has nothing to do with it at all
Seeing as you are going to have to prove how you got that much money worth of bitcoins, without tying your self to the criminal activity that went on thru Silk Road.
I don't see him getting his bitcoins back, but I guess if he figures he's probably going to jail for Silk Road, there isn't any harm in trying to get his bitcoins back.
Be seeing you...
please look back to the incident that took place in Waco, Texas, USA, back in 1993.
They burn children to death.
As the folks from Waco never tire of telling you, it really didn't happen there.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
He'll virtually be sentenced to bit-jail.
The Government can do what it pleases. The Law does not apply to the police, FBI, Feds, etc...
He has ZERO chance of getting anything back.
I know people that had servers illegally seized in a data center raid, they were scooped up with everything else, they did not get anything back bot a box of parts that were not even theirs.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah, let's tone down the hysteria a notch now, shall we?
Mr Ulbricht admitted to committing a crime, by facilitating the buying and selling of drugs on the Internet. Wrong move, but let us set this aside for a moment.
Bitcoins can be considered (and, indeed, are presented everywhere) as a currency. Hence, they can be considered as an ill-gotten gain.
While I am not a lawyer, I am pretty much certain that every country under the sun has got a law in its books that says, essentially: "Thou shall not profit from illegal activities" or some such.
This is prefectly constitutional, it respects the 4th amendment of the Constitution of the USA, and I am pretty sure it has been challenged many times in front of the Supreme Court, and upheld every time.
Since Bitcoin is a currency, and that said currency has been obtained from an illegal activity, it represents a profit from an illegal activity, and, therefore, can be and should be seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, a branch of the Department of Justice of the Government of the United States of America. The same thing would happen if, say, he had been paid in Euros or Yens (or any other currency, really) instead of Bitcoins.
If Mr Ulbricht is cleared of all charges - good luck with that since he pretty much admitted committing or facilitating an illegal activity - then, of course, the Bitcoins he has stashed should be returned to him by the FBI, probably with a little note attached saying: "Sorry! Here is your crypto currency" (again, good luck with that).
Should drug selling and buying be considered legal? Why not, you may have some arguments for the legalisation of drugs (See: Marijuana, legal use of), but, in the mean-time, it remains an illegal activity.
Hence, I believe Mr Ulbricht (a) will never see ''his'' Bitcoins again, (b) is about to learn a thing or two about the US legal process and (c) spend quite a number of years in a Federal Correctional Facility (or Prison). Whis is as it should be, since the guy comes off as a complete amateur.
And, while I agree that the ATF has badly bungled the whole Waco fiasco, I have zero compassion for religious nuts.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Unless you were at Waco, you don't know what happened at Waco.
You mean what happens in Waco stays in Waco?
Why doesn't he have a copy of his "wallet" in a safe place, for just such, I say, for just such an eventuality? Since he's the only one with the key.
If there is value in the property the Government always claims it under proceeds of crime legislation.
It's not as if he'd use it for anything bad like having people killed or anything. He's never done that before.
He has ZERO chance of getting anything back.
Yes, because his argument is crap and has no actual case/statutory law to back it up. He simply thinks he's going to "baffle" the "normy" judge with his arrogant nerd argument.
Big assumption: BitCoin is a currency. If it is then it is confiscated as proceeds of illegal acts. If it isn't then it is an asset, just like converting dollars into works of art, shares, et alia and is *not* confiscated except as means of paying fines. They can't have it both ways.
That BitCoin is "presented" as a currency is immaterial (pun intended) as it can also be "presented" as barter.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
I can bold random words too. It makes my stuff much more important.
There is no federal law that makes it illegal to seize bitcoins. It is an asset just like any other. The fact that it is electronic has nothing to do with it at all
To people who don't want their assets seized it does. On the other hand, some people enjoy a seized asset.
acting in the manner of a traditional marketplace such as a flea market where the owner of the flea market does not know what the merchants are selling, can the owner of the flea market be charged with criminal activity in the event someone sells marijuana?
Should drug selling and buying be considered legal? Why not, you may have some arguments for the legalisation of drugs (See: Marijuana, legal use of), but, in the mean-time, it remains an illegal activity.
Hence, I believe Mr Ulbricht (a) will never see ''his'' Bitcoins again, (b) is about to learn a thing or two about the US legal process and (c) spend quite a number of years in a Federal Correctional Facility (or Prison). Whis is as it should be, since the guy comes off as a complete amateur.
You had a point at the first bolded part, but then you had to go and ruin it with the second. "He deserves what will happen to him because he is an amateur." That's almost like saying we should find someone guilty of something that is not a crime, just because that person is scum.
happy hollow days (or worse) is their wish for us unchosen brother & mother uns. free the innocent stem cells to compliment healthcare.love
My opinion that the less than Dread Pirate Roberts is a massive idiot has now been reinforced in a way I never would have imagined. The demand is tantamount to the drug lord demanding the feds return the hundred million dollars that could only have come from selling 100 kilos of cocaine many times over.
He hasn't got any possible legal pretense to justifying having the money and all it's going to do is prove his guilt. This idiot ought to look at the cartels and organized crime worldwide where they pointedly have this process called laundering money so that they can have at least have a pretense of legitimacy for their claims. No jury in the world is going to buy that this guy made tens of millions of dollars day trading bitcoin without a paper trail.
I haven't seen a single thing about the silk road operation that did anything other than prove the man was an idiot from inception through the present day. Why the hell are people defending this guy, just because he ran a trading site for drugs? The people who were deluded into thinking they were safe on silk road are being arrested, the intelligence gained was an incredible coup and likely the only reason it lasted as long as it did until the guy started trying to trade bitcoins for murder.
If you want to defend legalizing drugs, than make your argument for that, but don't defend one of the biggest idiots the Internet has ever seen.
I know this is off subject and feel free to mod me as such, but did anyone else that was not logged in while trying to view this story get automatically forwarded to the craptastic beta.slashdot.org site? I know it is only a matter of time before Dice forces that train-wreck on us but I would much rather not switch until I am forced to. I mean if I wanted to be Javascripted to death, or the likes I would go visit some God awful PHPNuke blog site! Thanks a lot Dice :P
Um, the fact that they were just seized, seems to refute that statement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Unless you were at Waco, you don't know what happened at Waco.
Bullshit. Even the US government doesn't deny that children were burned to death. They do deny their culpability, but it isn't terribly hard to see that as misdirection.
Even if the footage (which I watched on live TV at the time) of the tank pushing in the walls and the fire starting not to long afterwards was misleading, the government were the ones with all the resources and time necessary to handle the situation in a safer way. They decided that their time was worth more than the risk to the children and that's the best possible light you can put on the government's actions, all other interpretations are much less favorable.
Most people who have responded seem to not understand the legal argument here. Yes, this is risky to his case and basically he can't explain how he got the coins without hurting his own case. However, that's not the point. My guess is that he and his attorneys know that he is going to lose in court and go to jail. They are trying a novel argument that likely won't work that the government doesn't have the right to seize the coins no matter how acquired specifically because of their electronic nature. This is basically a low percentage "hail Mary" type play (to use an American football reference - look it up in Wikipedia if you don't understand it) to try to at least get him some income (and get his lawyers paid now) for when he gets out of jail. It's trying to turn the best case scenario into "Yeah, you're going to jail, but you'll still be rich when you get out". The unpleasant alternative is to say nothing, let the government keep the coins, and proceed with his weak defense that probably won't work anyway, in which case he goes to jail for a long time penniless. He's going to jail - the only question is whether this highly unlikely argument to keep the coins actually works and he at least gets to leave prison as a rich man. Anything can happen in a US courtroom, but I don't think this is going to be successful.
I'm an atheist and I shake my head at the incredulity of religious belief. But being a religious nut should not rule out people from being treated with compassion, even if only out of sense of enlightened self-interest.
The Feds killed a bunch of innocent people at Waco, including kids. The direct blowback from this was Timothy McVeigh who had no qualms blowing up a building including a day care center under the notion that anyone who worked for the Federal Government, including their families, was complicit in the Waco atrocity/debacle/fuckup/whatever. And while I'm also intentionally child-free, and particularly immune from "think of the children" arguments, the bombing of the Murrah Building should give both sides reason to think that there are consequences for being vicious thugs, because some people take kids pretty seriously, and that has repercussions.
I feel bad for the people who died at Waco at the hand of an overbearing government agency, for those who died in the Murrah Building bombing at the hands of some vengeful idiots, and for those vengeful idiots who were executed as a result their misplaced sense of justified retribution. All of the people caught in the crossfire died tragically, and all that death and destruction could have been easily avoided if the government hadn't been so arrogant and if the Murrah Building bombers hadn't likewise been so arrogant. And that starts with treating people as something more than meat to slaughter, even if they are religious.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
they're my bitcoins, and I want them back. This Ulbricht fellow can shove off.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He is claiming Bitcoins aren't property and thus can't be seized under federal law.
If they're not "property" then they can't belong to anybody, ie. him.
No sig today...
Except that ill-gotten gains are always subject to seizure. Look up US Federal drug forfeiture laws some time. The feds can take anything that's the proceed of or used to facilitate drug crimes. It doesn't matter what form the assets are in. If the feds can prove they were bought with drug money, they can seize them. If they were used as an active part of the trade, the feds can seize them. Since the bitcoins appear to be both, it's going to be pretty easy for the feds to get them.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
He should be in jail because he's an amateur? Or because drugs are bad m'kay?
His argument here is unlikely to work, and so is unlikely to do him much good.
On the other hand, admitting on the record that he owns these specific bitcoins is likely to harm him. Bitcoins are like dollar bills that remember every hand they've passed through (with pseudonomous but consistent identifiers for those people). It feels straightforward to trace the bitcoins to specific crimes if they can positively identify any of the OTHER parties to those crimes (e.g. someone else who's plead out). Being in provable possession of the proceeds of a crime feels like a Bad Thing to admit to.
As far as I understand it (not a yank) the principles behind civil forfeiture mean that assets are fair game, so the authorities are not forced to walk both sides of the is-a-currency line.
However, you're certainly right that Dollars are bartered with, as they are not the currency everywhere where they're actually in use. I know I've bartered a mixed bag of different paper not-currencies-here when I had problems with plastic when travelling.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Here are some wise words from legal experts: when dealing with the police, just keep your mouth shut.
Let me say this again: Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut.
And whatever you do, do not admit, in front of cops, that your bitcoins came from an illegal activity. I expect better than that from Dread Pirate Robert!
Nay, I DEMAND better legal knowledge from the Dread Pirate Robert! Shoot, man, the right to remain silent is a part of the freaking US Constitution!! Fifth Amendment and all that.
Here is a guy whou KNEW he was engaged in illegal activity, and yet whines to everyone something like: ''gnya gnya gnya, these are my bitcoins and you can't seize them!!''. Yeah, right. Total amateur. Any more stupider, and he would be eligible for a Darwin Award.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
OK, fine, Bitcoins are an asset. But, you admit it yourself, assets can be seized.
And, in the case of a criminal proceeding, assets will be seized because you are not allowed to profit from an illegal activity.
Hence, the distinction between currencies and assets is moot: they will be seized, because they both were acquired through aiding or engaging in an illegal activity.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If they were indeed his, and he is accused of something that allows the government to seize valuable property because of, and they are valuable property, how are they somehow "not subject to seizure"? The US government can seize Swiss bank accounts, if they can get a hold of the necessary information, for crying out loud.
No need to go back to 1993. Look at the 2011 execution style murder of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. The murderer's defense was paid for with taxpayer dollars and in the end he only served one year in jail.
>Bitcoins can be considered (and, indeed, are presented everywhere) as a currency
Nope. Not a currency by any meaningful definition of the word. But they *are* an asset. Just like a stock or a boat.
Since it's a financial crime, I would expect the Secret Service to be handling it and hold the property. The FBI does the investigation but not the arrest and seizure of property. Source - I knew this guy, who got busted by them for piracy (albeit not well - friend of a friend kind of knew him).
"Since Bitcoin is a currency...". Is it really? This is the whole point of the article! Of couse if you just assume this, then there is nothing more to discuss! Ulbricht is claiming that, technically, bitcoins are not a currency under US law. As far as I know, he is correct, and the current forces that be do not want to legitimise bitcoin by making it a currency, so he wants to exploit this loophole. In some places bitcoin is considered an asset, and I think in the US it is taxable (but not everywhere, e.g. Germany I think), but it is not recognized as currency. If bitcoin were a real currency, then this would have very important legal implications. For example, the US constitution makes it illegal to use alternative currencies in the US. So far the authorities have refused to decide the legal status of bitcoin, this could force them to do so, which is probably a good thing, depending on what they decide.
That they were seized does not mean they were LEGALLY seized. The argument is not that it's not possible to seize bitcoins. It's that any such seizure is an illegal seizure, and therefore the property must be restored.
The feds certainly have the ABILITY seize an ex-wife's assets for debts her ex-husband incurred after they were divorced. But they can't do so LEGALLY. If they did, you'd see a petition like the one here - the seizure is unlawful, and the property must be returned.
If he has/had a backup of the wallet somewhere, all he has to do is copy that backup and move it to a different wallet, taking it all back from the feds. (the feds have admitted with frustration, they do not know the password to the larger of the two wallets they seized, thus they cannot spend or transfer them.)
Yes, and the term of his sentence will fluctuate wildly too.
That's not entirely true. As Bill Hicks pointed out, it was covered on public access television, live. Anyone who happened to be watching a live feed at the time saw exactly what happened.
I was going to ask: ‘But if Bitcoin works as advertised, how were the feds able to seize them?’
But your post kind of answers that: through Ulbricht's own incompetence.
Doesn't matter if they're currency; if they're barter they're still subject to seizure and forfeiture. If you gave your dealer a watch for your drugs, the watch is now going to be seized when he gets busted.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Routinely, if allowing the defendant to copy the evidence presents problems, they are allowed to examine the data but not copy it. Child porn cases are a well known example.
Of course it's the same for any evidence that isn't data - OJ wasn't allowed to take the bloody glove home with him. The defense team is allowed to examine prosecution evidence, there's clearly no right to take it.
Federal Bureau of Investigations, a branch of the Department of Justice of the Government of the United States of America.
FBI. It's called the FBI. You could've just said FBI and everyone would have known what you were talking about.
the ATF
What? What's that? The Asia Task Force? The American Type Founders? The Atlantic Theatre Festival?
I'd mod you down, but there is no -1: Pomp
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Silk Road was clearly designed and promoted as a way to sell drugs and engage in other illegal activity. Same as the difference between a hotel and a whore house.
The adults weren't completely innocent. They were served a legal search warrant and instead of the doing the sane thing, they hold up inside their compound. After surrounded by police a sane person would surrender. They were delusional and caused the deaths of their own children by not letting the cops serve a warrant.
If the cops come to my house to serve a search warrant and I hold up inside with guns and don't let them in their is only one end result. Eventually they are coming in and if I hold out through the tear gas and whatever else they use to try to flush me out, then yeah, eventually I'm gettin' shot and I'm gonna die.
But while I recognize that Silk Road was illegal -- now that I've grown up a bit, I don't think it's so wrong.
What's killing us in this country is a lot of things that should be illegal, are legal. High compound interest loans. Money influencing votes. Hiring of mercenaries for war. Private contractors with tanks. FBI unaware of wrong-doing on Wall Street. I've got a LONG list of grievances.
I see a legal system that comes down hard on someone with a bag of ween but Wachovia and now HSBC got caught money laundering. Break out the kid gloves for another slap on the wrist.
Adults used bitcoins to purchase a product from Silk Road that they investigated and wanted. It'd assume to find out about this service, use bitcoins, and research the product -- we are looking at a self-selected group that would be above average in education and likely income. Not non-functioning dregs.
My point is; if all these illegal drugs were so bad, why do we need drug tests and illegal searches to tell if someone is abusing them? Why stop people for drinking and driving when we can easily tell if someone is weaving in their car -- THAT person is impaired. The person who had a glass of wine at dinner, who functioned just fine until the "surprise" road block with breathalyzer -- that person's inebriation is only detectable by sniffing alcohol -- not by judging impairment.
People die all the time and get sick eating healthy food (my wife did). I don't see a lot of celebrities with excessive lifestyles dying from illegal substances -- I see them dying of sleeping pills and prescription meds.
What exactly are we protecting people from? Yes, people can get addicted and ruin their lives -- that can happen with video games or donuts which are all still legal.
The point I'm making is; at this time, these things are illegal, but we have a system that doesn't really look out for us with bad meds, bad lead painted toys, bad spinach, bad banks, crooks with nice suites, and it spies on us all the time but never stops these activities that cause us harm. It used to be I thought the Mob was the worst thing ever -- but maybe they were only allowed because the people benefited. Without guarantees of gainful employment, without unions, without some social contract -- how do you defend yourself? You can't just join a group unless it makes money, right?
So the great damage being done right now is our system itself. I can't get excited by a guy "merely breaking the law". What good is the law going to do for my kids when their options are; Prison Guard, Mercenary, or Prostitute? That's the future I see right now for my kids. It certainly isn't College with my new job getting paid 1/8th what I used to.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Not an expert on Waco, but didn't that become a fiery death trap due to a combination of; "Stupid overbearing FBI" coupled with "Stupid zealots sitting on munitions and flammable objects"?
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
The US Constitution doesn't make it "illegal to use alternative currencies".
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The people at waco were heretics against the US religion.
They violated the US religion in a number of ways:
Marrying girls to a man: In the US religion pedophillia of men with girls is forbidden. (It is allowed in old religions such as old testament (read deuteronomy 22 28-29 in hebrew), islam, and the vedic religions. Catholocism had the age of reason at 6 and young girls were married in some places too).
Having usable weaponry: in the US religion civillians are barred from owning automatic weapons and anything better.
Being racist/anti-semetic/so on: in the US one is not free to dislike whom they please.
So an armed pedophile/girl lover was burned alive with his heritic church.
Just like in any other state in the world.
Just show me 3 places a man can be fully armed and marry little girls. In the world. You won't find many. Now a few that a man can have little white girls as wives.
Nope. The religion of the world is the US religion. Heritics are dronebombed or burnt alive.
What about the Dorner case? You won't touch it.
wrong, the FBI and other federal police act according to the law almost all the time. They can sieze information used in financial transactions believed to be criminal. They can and will sieze bitcoins and systems related to them in actions against criminal activity, all perfectly legal.
That is because you are not free. You must obey every fucking dictat THEY proclaim. They say no marrying little girls, you better not fucking do it. They say pay them money, you better fucking do it. They say don't own this or that (weapon), you better obey.
FUCK THE USA AND EVERY STATE LIKE IT.
They need to burn like their victims all over the world.
They dronebomb, shake and bake, and burn alive people who don't obey the US belief system all over the world.
They don't allow you freedom.
So do not be free: make your life or liberty cost them. And not on their terms.
Marry little girls. Kill those who try to ENFORCE their religion/beliefs all across the globe on every man.
Something that happened to a "friend of a friend" is pretty much the definition of an urban myth.
Look, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advise, but does this guy actually have a lawyer*? Would any lawyer make such a dumb argument?
* If he doesn't, he sure needs one. Stat.
But it says "This file is not fiction." The Interwebs nevar lies!!!
I'm with you on most of what you post. White collar crime is under-legislated, detected and punished. Whilst the use of drugs is at most a health issue, but certainly shouldn't be a crime. etc.
However, this is nonsense...
Why stop people for drinking and driving when we can easily tell if someone is weaving in their car -- THAT person is impaired. The person who had a glass of wine at dinner, who functioned just fine until the "surprise" road block with breathalyzer -- that person's inebriation is only detectable by sniffing alcohol -- not by judging impairment.
The two major driving skills that are impaired by drinking are reaction times, and ability to perceive risk. They go way before the stage when someone is so inebriated they can't keep the car in lane. Most of the time, the modestly drunk person will get home without incident. But if it happens that there is a hazard on the road, then that is when the alcohol stops them performing, and people die.
That's why the blood alcohol level is set somewhat below the level when people start weaving. And why it needs testing for. Because simply acting in retrospect after an accident isn't enough to deal with the problem. It's bolting the door after the horse has bolted.
He is claiming Bitcoins aren't property and thus can't be seized under federal law. .
Catch 22: If he believes Bitcoins can't be seized because they aren't property then he can't believe that there was actually a seizure of his Bitcoins.
An "enemy of an enemy" is a much more reliable source: after all, there's only one degree of separation.
Im glad Im not the only one who found his statement chilling.
I fixed that for ya, bud. With all respect, please take your demonization and arrogant intolerance, and stuff it.
I don't know if Mr. Ulbricht's bitcoins have been improperly seized or not, but I do know that property is seized all the time in the US from people who have not been found guilty of a crime. Funny, I don't find authorization for anything of the kind in my copy of the Constitution. In fact, mine says "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".
But I rather expect your conception of due process of law is rather different than mine.
He'll virtually be sentenced to bitch-jail.
ftfy
Ulbricht isn't claiming that the government violated the constitution. He is claiming Bitcoins aren't property and thus can't be seized under federal law.
An argument which is a non-sequitur. If they aren't property then he can't very well claim they are his. You can't own something that isn't property. If they are an asset (which they are since they can be used to purchase useful goods and services) then they are by definition property and can be seized.
"And, while I agree that the ATF has badly bungled the whole Waco fiasco, I have zero compassion for religious nuts."
did you really just say that as long as the government potentially-kills-thru-negligence the women and children of "religious nuts", its ok???
as opposed to what? the children of left-leaning journalists?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
True when you operate with the mode that everyone is a criminal, everything is legal.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Isn't the very point of seizure, that when you ask "What gives the government the right, and grants the power, to seize things from unconvicted suspects?" that the answer is always "Fuck you. That's what gives us the right." The answer to all seizures is "fuck you," so I don't see why Bitcoins would be any different. (Well, the exception is that if you use the words "due process" in your question, the answer is "fuck you," plus hitting you in the head with a club.)
The purpose of seizure is to cause injustice and remind people that social contract blah blah yadda yadda Fuck You, don't take "rule of law" so fucking serious. This caused injustice and successfully served as a reminder that we don't really have laws. Thus: purpose fulfilled. What's to complain about?
What exactly are we protecting people from?
We are protecting them from themselves AND we are protecting ourselves from them. We restrict availability of certain drugs because used improperly they are dangerous to the individual taking them AND because people who are cognitively impaired by drugs and/or addicted to drugs tend to affect other people in negative ways. Do I really need to explain that someone addicted to cocaine is pretty likely to make all sorts of bad decisions that will not only affect themselves but will probably hurt people around them too? Yes, sometimes people do need to be protected from themselves and sometimes we need to be protected from others. Flawed thought they may be, many of our laws are made with exactly this in mind.
The point I'm making is; at this time, these things are illegal, but we have a system that doesn't really look out for us with bad meds, bad lead painted toys, bad spinach, bad banks, crooks with nice suites, and it spies on us all the time but never stops these activities that cause us harm.
The systems we have in place demonstrably do prevent most of the problems you mention from getting out of hand most of the time. Where your argument is confused is in that you seem to thing that somehow we can achieve perfect safety in any of those things. Each and every problem you mention would be much worse if there were no restrictions in place. Imperfect though our society might be, it is not nearly the hell hole you are making it out to be.
Essentially, he's trying to deny what Bitcoin fans/supporters (including Ulbricht himself) have been trying to establish - that Bitcoins are in fact assets with actual value. I suspect this attempt will fail miserably, and as you say he's just shot himself in the foot with a thermonuclear weapon.
Or to put it another way: Bitcoin fans/supporters should be hoping this fails, because a court decision that they are valuable assets and thus subject to seizure will go a long way towards establishing their legitimacy as currency. Much more than than a third rate shopping site or fringe player telecomm accepting them will.
In what way is seizing his bitcoins illegal? Can you name the statute or case law that backs either you or Ulbricht up?
How is the value of a BC calculated? They're pretty volatile value-wise. I don't really understand US tax law, but I thought that they weren't taxable until changed into dollars or whatever.
What happens if you have $500,000 worth of BC at tax-time and then the bottom drops out so that they're only worth $50k the next month?
Huh. If they're not property then they weren't his to begin with, were they?
Seems like a pretty shaky base to start from. Methinks someone's greed overwhelmed their common sense. Or perhaps he's been pinned to the wall hard enough that the extra evidence won't make things any worse, so he may as well at least try to get his money back.
Then again maybe he's got a drug cartel gunning for him for losing their money, in which case he may have decided they're scarier than the federal prosecutors. Yes he probably ends up in prison, but that may be safer than the streets if he doesn't actually have the connections and resources to make himself disappear. Then if he actually gets his money back he can repay the cartel, with enough left over to buy himself plenty of protection and luxuries in prison.
Or here's a thought - he's actually innocent, but it's become abundantly clear that he's going to be made an example of anyway, and, well, the FBI is sitting on a fortune that they claim belongs to him...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You've got it backwards. Law enforcement can take any of your stuff they want and it's up to YOU to prove it WASN'T from illegal activity.
There's no disincentive for the government to not take all your stuff. Any mistakes are the victims problem, not theirs
The last I read was that there was a raid of "live" bitcoin on the server for silkroad, but it was only a fraction of the total sum that DPR had control over. For all we know, the mother-lode is still somewhere in one or more locked wallets. If I had that much money in BTC wallets, I'd have locked backup on several places. I'd abandon all the unlocked BTC and get my backups taken care off by a trustee so I'd be rich when I got out of jail and my lawyers would get paid.
I honestly can't think of any good reason to start this discussion about whether these BTC are of value and could be confiscated/impounded by the USA government for whatever reason, other than the dude is broke, has no backups of any wallet whatsoever or he's delusional and his lawyers can't talk him out of this.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I guess part of the issue is that these days, places are accepting BC in lieu of fiat currencies.
Nowadays you can buy a pizza with BC. Unless the pizza place is listing a [local currency] value for the transaction, that fluctuating value is going to be a PITA to nail down to dollars.
The government has a bunch of fuckups working for it. They botched a hostage situation. They are partly responsible for the deaths of the children inside because they could have handled the situation better. The other part of the blame goes to the religious nutjobs who don't feel like they need to obey the law and would rather endanger a bunch of kids and have a shootout with the government.
This is quite different than saying the government assumes the authority to kill whoever they want without any danger of accountability. This is quite clearly an exaggeration.
The Feds killed a bunch of innocent people at Waco, including kids. The direct blowback from this was Timothy McVeigh who had no qualms blowing up a building including a day care center under the notion that anyone who worked for the Federal Government, including their families, was complicit in the Waco atrocity/debacle/fuckup/whatever.
If you are going to say "The Feds killed the kids at Waco". Why not take it one step further and say that they also committed the Oklahoma city bombing since they caused Timothy McVeigh to commit the bombing with their actions at Waco?
Bullshit. Even the US government doesn't deny that children were burned to death. They do deny their culpability, but it isn't terribly hard to see that as misdirection.
Even if the footage (which I watched on live TV at the time) of the tank pushing in the walls and the fire starting not to long afterwards was misleading, the government were the ones with all the resources and time necessary to handle the situation in a safer way. They decided that their time was worth more than the risk to the children and that's the best possible light you can put on the government's actions, all other interpretations are much less favorable.
Hundreds of guns, several agents shot and possibly dead. Agreed the ATF was heavy handed, but it was quite understandable in that situation.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Yeah, let's tone down the hysteria a notch now, shall we?
Mr Ulbricht admitted to committing a crime, by facilitating the buying and selling of drugs on the Internet. Wrong move, but let us set this aside for a moment.
Not a crime for the DHS/CIA. They get away with that shit all the time.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Maybe he can force them to disclose the private keys for these bitcoins through discovery and have them turned over to his attorney.
If they transfer the bitcoins from their original addresses he could argue that they tampered with evidence.
If they were made public, it would be interesting to see who is able to snatch them up first.
Whatever happens this will certainly make an interesting precedent.
He's arguing a technicality. They can require him to pay a fine sufficient to wipe out all his earnings so either he gives up the BTC to pay the fine or he is stuck with BTC that he can never use. Judges can be rather pedantic, but I doubt they'll fall for that ploy. I'm surprised his attorney let him say that.
Well he probably has some Fourth Amendment rights, but if I recall he's a bit screwed because warrants were issued against him. Depends on how specific those warrants were, I suppose.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
If he said this without his criminal defense lawyers telling him that it wouldn't hurt his criminal case, he's stupid and his lawyers should consider asking the court permission to drop him as a client.
If his lawyers told him it wouldn't hurt his criminal case, their state bar association should sanction the lawyers for incompetence, and the prosecution should seek to have them removed now to prevent an "incompetent attorney" motion on appeal after a conviction.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here's what the judge at the forfeiture hearing should say once the government has successfully made its case for keeping the booty:
Judge: Mr. Ulbricht, you claim that Bitcoins are not currency and are not subject to seizure, right?
Ulbricht: Right.
Judge: And this is because they are just numbers, right?
Ulbricht: Right.
Judge: Okay, here is what we are going to do. I am going to let the government have a copy of these numbers and let them do what they want to with them for the next business day. After that, they will have to destroy their copy. I will return the originals to you this time tomorrow.
[the next day]
Judge: Are the attorneys for The People prepared to testify that they have destroyed all copies of the "bitcoins" per my order of yesterday?
Attorneys for The People: Yes, Your Honor, and we so attest.
Judge: Ulbricht, here are the numbers you are entitled to.
[meanwhile, 23 hours earlier]
Attorneys for the people, to their technical team: Please spend this.
Technical team, 5 minutes later: Done. In a few hours the transaction will be irrevocable.
Technical team, several hours later: The transaction is irrevocable.
[back to the present]
Ulbricht, to the Judge: Thank you.
Ulbricht, to his lawyer: Spend these.
[later]
Ulbricht's lawyer, to Ulbricht: Sorry, when we tried to spend them, we couldn't. Someone spent them the day before we go them back.
Ulbricht: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Typo fix near the bottom:
Someone spent them the day before we got them back.
Slashdot keeps a letter as a transaction fee now? Who knew?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Not an expert on Waco, but didn't that become a fiery death trap due to a combination of; "Stupid overbearing FBI" coupled with "Stupid zealots sitting on munitions and flammable objects"?
It became a fiery death trap due to a combination of the FBI parking a tank on top of the escape hatch, and setting the buildings on fire with flamethrowers. Video references are available on Youtube, and in a small handful of independent documentaries which make use of the best available news footage — from something like a mile away.
The FBI had access to the full plans of the compound ahead of the attack, and thus knew precisely what they were doing. Presumably, not all the assholes on the ground, but someone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I suspect this was done under the guidance of a lawyer. He has a point:
Confiscated assets need to have a legal value to be confiscated. If internal corruption, or something unrelated to the crime happens, the "assets" are "damaged" or "lost" the crown is held to account to replace what they took / lost.
If the crown decides that they have a value, they are liable for that value until guilt is proven. At which point they're off the hook. If they fail to prove that the suspect is guilty, they must return the assets or cover the cost to recover.
There are odd exceptions to this are obvious: things that won't last in an evidence locker like food or animals, that have a "value" but is difficult to quantify.
If it doesn't have a legally replaceable value: than it's not an asset that can be confiscated or held from a suspect.
Hundreds of guns, several agents shot and possibly dead. Agreed the ATF was heavy handed, but it was quite understandable in that situation.
No, it is not understandable. It would be understandable if they were just regular people. But they weren't - they have been given an enormous amount of power with that comes an enormously higher standard of behavior. Giving them a pass because the situation was emotionally difficult is like giving someone a pass for vehicular homicide because they were drunk.
Did not say it was illegal, in fact they can take EVERYTHING you have for any reason. Every single US citizen is a felon. In fact you probably committed at least 3 felonies just today.
http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx
And I am not saying he is innocent, He's a scumbag. but they can legally do anything they want to him. They can even torture him or imprison him forever without a trial if they wanted to. It's very easy to make the small step to "enemy combatant"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It sounds like the thing internet libertarians like to dramatically state as if it were factual regardless of the actual truth of the matter.
See also: "Sovereign Citizen"
That isn't a Catch 22, that's just straight up what he's arguing.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Which is ironic, because it's precisely this attitude that's the difference between religiosity that's at worst a personal quirk and religiosity that makes you fly airplanes into buildings.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I do not and will not accept your religion/government system.
I'd like to marry a young girl but your fucking cuntry is bombing any CIIVILIZATION that allows men to have such.
Fuck you. I pray that you are killed just like the people who do marry young girls are (drone strikes, or prison).
Fuck you. Fuck your law/religion. FUCK YOU.
FUCK YOU. Civilization is possible without you cunts saying I can't marry a little girl, own a useful weapon, so on and so forth
Did you just say that that if any government employee's actions leads to the unjust death of another human being, then that whole government is now responsible for murder and everyone in that government should receive the death penalty?
Well I guess you didn't say that. I made it up. But a conversation can get out of hand pretty quickly if people don't make an effort to read what people actually say.
The govt had no right to invade their property. They had every right to shoot the thugs invading. They have a right to disobey your public laws in their own property. FUCK YOU! Marry young girls.
Bitcoins can be considered (and, indeed, are presented everywhere) as a currency. Hence, they can be considered as an ill-gotten gain.
There's a problem with this, that really needs to be shouted from the rooftops so the ordinarily dim-witted politicians (not because they really are, but because their concerns extend as far as the thinking of their political interests' needs, meaning the labors of thinking by their constituents) know better. They "can" be so considered but doing so is a mistake; Bitcoin and related *coins are merely protocols in which numbers, meaningless without the rest of the system, are generated and transferred: it is something like an automated ledger which is unlike others because it's decentralized and self-monitoring
SO...http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4591965&cid=45775365, and not only that but this ledger is, essentially, simple a giant expression: it's a data-movement system which is meant to convey expression, so it does end-run the Feds, precisely as the First Amendment means that speech acts should do. Bitcoin and related are an embodied speech process useable for many other purposes...
And more ingeniously, it's simply a means for ordinary people--not just elite or superior intellects--to essentially decide they will trust a system to exchange value, or a house, or a book, or promise some kind of interaction...all without a "currency". "Is a currency" keeps getting stated out of excitement, but actual consideration of the substance of things (that's the legal sense in the noble sense that judges were meant to look to the substance and not form in sense that form is statement rather than substance) says otherwise.
At its base is code with instructions for disparate machines to intercooperate and perform both the automated tasks of reconciling actions on two sides of a line, or two accounts on either side of a 'send-receive' equation just as in accounting, except given this is virtual space nothing is being sent at all: another thing that troubles me with FinCen attempting to write self-serving "guidance"--statutes), which really are a strech of the law: there are no "coins", only numbers and verifications of promises, so on the one hand people can attach promises to "back" (if you trust it) these things with fiat, on the other you could exchange poems: it isn't currency.
It isn't currency. The "coins" aren't money. The whole damn system is a ledger for allowing normal, everyday people to do the same things that major organizations might do, whether move goods or exchange promises or accords of understanding and to...account, to track and preserve proof of these things, and all with more recording fidelity and redundancy than any prior accounting system, court stenographer, diplomatic record, etc.
So repeat after me: Bit "coin" is not a currency; it is a multi-variate decentralized-redundance-assuring ledger-like system useable for practically anything you can imagine that requires record-keeping.
Pretty boring and doesn't fit a sound bite...but also the key of its power: it's meant to make the bureaucrats et. al. who paper-push in a billion ways obsolete all while letting ordinary people preserve records privately that may or may not require later disclosure for legal actions and gurantees of contracts.
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
I don't think you understand what he was saying. It wasn't that taking the bitcoins were claimed to be unconstitutional, it was that if the government can turn a blind eye to the constitution, it can turn a blind eye to any law and do whatever it wants to do with impunity.
There is a pretty good record of what happened at Waco Texas. It is safe to say we know what happened at Waco and the parent poster is not wrong- at least entirely, he just didn't add how they justified it by being accidental when mixing two different nerve agents (not) knowing it would create a flammable gas and using pyrotechnic gas canisters that some think ignited the blaze. Of course others think the pilot lights on the stove in the kitchen which is the last place they ripped a hole in the compound to pump gas into could have been the source of ignition.
But it is not that bad, it isn't like those children would have actually been alive when all this went on. Forensic pathologists said they would have likely died from the uncontrollable contortions their bodies would have went through due to the amount of gas they used in the first place. There are some who claim the photos of the dead support that too with dislocated ribs and other signs of severe convulsions due to the gasses.
Important things like burn heretics alive (waco).
Arrest and imprison those who disobey you, kill anyone that doesn't go quietly.
The more important things you have to do is dominating the peons/civillians.
Sadly we will never burn you alive back and destroy your civilization.
Actually, read the wiki page. The Feds were a hell of a lot more arrogant than they needed to be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Certainly the Feds were a proximate cause of the destruction of the Murrah building, and as such deserve blame and perhaps even prosecution, but that does not relieve McVeigh and his compatriots of guilt for their direct role in that particular act. That they were guilty of such a terrible crime however, does not in some way make the Feds not guilty of creating the environment in which that crime was likely. So yeah, I wouldn't be upset if those responsible for Waco, got prosecuted for Murrah.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
There is a difference between being a contributing factor to a an outcome, and being culpable or blameworthy for that outcome.
If a drunk driver runs a red light and crashes his car into your car, and both of you die, there are many contributing factors to this outcome. Some contributing factors might be that the driver was drunk, that his father abused him when he was young (contributing to his alcoholism in adulthood), etc. You driving home at that exact time was also a contributing factor. If you weren't there then the accident might not have happened, or happened differently.
That doesn't mean that all these contributing factors are partly responsible for the outcome.
While you may have been a contributing cause, what you did (driving home at the wrong time) was not blameworthy.
The alcoholics father certainly contributed to his son's personality. But is the father blameworthy for the car accident? What about his father (the grandfather)? or his father (the great grandfather)?
The reason the father is not culpable is because it is not reasonable to expect that his bad parenting will naturally cause an innocent person to be killed in a car accident by his son while he is drunk driving.
It is also not reasonable to expect that a botched siege by the federal government would naturally lead to someone deciding to blow a building full of innocent people that had nothing to do with that siege. That is not a reasonable thing to do as a result of how Waco was handled.
If the Oklahoma city bombing never occurred would anyone think: "Hmm that's weird, I would have expected some kind of domestic terrorist act as a result of how Waco went down". Even though Waco was a a large contributing factor, the Oklahoma city bombing was not something that should have been expected as a natural result of Waco.
Let me say this again: Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut.
Too bad he didn't listen.
Any more stupider, and he would be eligible for a Darwin Award.
"Could he look any more stupider?" -- Mrs. Chanandler Bong
What is he, high? "I'm not the owner of the site but by sheer coincidence, I own a buttload of bitcoins and want them back." I wonder if he knows that those bitcoins were tied to lots and lots of Silkroad transactions. What an idiot!
> where is the system that keeps up with how much, and where?
The whole bitcoin network (BitNet) performs this function. You start with a private cryptographic key, and an address derived from that key, like mine is 1Hfxy1j4uJknLzAKhjrNPXpCGmzPGX3PPQ. My private key allows me to sign a transaction that sends some amount of bitcoins from my address to someone else. The transaction goes across a peer-to-peer network to everyone else. Each node in the network looks up past transactions for my address, and makes sure I had enough bitcoins to make the transaction, and also verifies the digital signature matches the address. If it's a good transaction it gets passed along, if not, it's ignored.
Certain people on the network, called "miners", gather incoming transactions, and try to find a hard to find hash value which is a checksum of the included transactions. How hard it is to find is adjusted so the whole set of miners can only do it on average every ten minutes. The incentive to look for it is if you find it first, you get to include a transaction that creates new bitcoins which are sent to yourself. You send off this gathered set of transactions (called a block) and the hash to the network, who adds it to the growing set of all past transactions. Blocks also include the hash value from the previous block as part of their data. Thus each block is linked to a parent block, and the whole forms a chain we call the "block chain". The block chain is an unambiguous history of the order of transactions, from when a given bitcoin is created, to all subsequent transactions up to the present.
Because of the amount of work that goes into creating each block (proof of work), and that each block is linked to the next one which contains the hash that verifies it's contents, no past entry can be changed without redoing all the hash searching. Since the whole network was required to do the job the first time, there is no available processing power larger enough to redo it, thus the history is un-alterable. Since everyone has a full copy of the whole transaction history, everyone can verify new transactions are valid on their own, without the need to trust any third party.
The current balance on any address is simply the sum of all past transactions into and out of that address. Figuring that out is basically a database query on the block chain, then adding up all the found transactions. Thus the answer to your question is "everyone keeps up with how much, on their own independent copy of the bitcoin account books (the Block Chain)". We don't have to trust anyone else, because we all check for ourselves.
...that bitcoins, in and of themselves, have no inherent value. Since they really aren't a currency, and are just bits and bytes, the govt can seize them.
Too bad, so sad, retard
In what way is seizing his bitcoins illegal? Can you name the statute or case law that backs either you or Ulbricht up?
The act of forging his digital signature on a spend transaction. Which is the only way to "seize" coins.
This is the equivalent to the FBI seizing your checkbook, and forging your name, to empty your bank account. They can't legally do that. (Although they do have legal options provided by the law, at their disposal).
Unless you're HSBC.
Your home is not soverign. You can't run out of your house on raiding parties, kidnap people, then take them back to your house to rape, kill, then rape at your leisure. When the cops come to stop you, you don't have the right to execute the invaders.
And none of it would have happened if religion wasnt involved.
Go back to raping little girls troll.
Just pray to your evil god that you dont get caught by someone from a civilised culture or you find out the true meaning of hell.
That isn't a Catch 22, that's just straight up what he's arguing.
Yes, but given that the Feds have in actual fact seized his coin seems to weaken his argument
Well... His catch 22 is a bit more like...
They cant seize my bitcoints because it's not property. If it's not property the only value of it is the harddrive it's stored on. Ie the goverment could choose to destroy the storage-device it's located on and then refund him for a brand new harddrive.. :)
Think this was a bad move by him :)
This is why you should keep a offline copy, in a separate location, of your bitcoin wallet.. If your house burns down or breakdown of a hard-drive or someone steals your computer you can always regain access to the bitcoin-wallet... And with offline i'm referring to paper/metal representation of the wallet+private key, preferably in encrypted form.
Who is giving the FBI mod points? This is factual information that you need to know. Janet Reno led a murder raid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
173,000 * 695 (current price of bitcoin according to MtGox) = $120,235,000
Agreed. That thing thinks the government is punishing pedophiles, while it's more the opposite. A rather large portion of American fathers would gladly torture a pedo. It's not that far of a stretch to imagine bidding wars just for the privilege.
He's arguing that his bitcoins weren't actually seized? I'd think that would make him happy.
Hasn't he ever heard of Al Capone. He just made a great case for tax evasion against himself. I'm pretty sure he never listed that income on a tax return. What a dumb ass.
I don't know why so many slashdotters are under the impression that the US govt. is somehow trying to avoid "legitimising" BitCoins. I know it's gratifying, in a "Fight The Power" kind of way to think so, but the US govt. has taken absolutely no action whatsoever to regulate their use beyond enforcing the exact same laws on currency trading that anyone moving large amounts of cash has to follow.
No, you aren't going to be paying your taxes in BitCoins ever, but there's no indication it won't be treated like gold bullion is today. BitCoins may get geeks salivating, but they don't create any problems for the govt. that gold doesn't. Or, for that matter, cash. In fact, BitCoins are probably less anonymous than a briefcase full of Benjamins.
Why doesn't he just change the password on his wallet?
This signature has Super Cow Powers