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Kaspersky: Mt. Gox Data Archive Contains Bitcoin-Stealing Malware
itwbennett writes "An archive containing transaction records from Mt. Gox that was released on the Internet last week also contains bitcoin-stealing malware for Windows and Mac, say researchers at Kaspersky Lab who have analyzed the 620MB file called MtGox2014Leak.zip. The files masquerade as Windows and Mac versions of a custom, back-office application for accessing the transaction database of Mt. Gox. However, they are actually malware programs designed to search and steal Bitcoin wallet files from computers, Kaspersky security researcher Sergey Lozhkin said Friday in a blog post."
Oh yes, I totally trust easily manipulated computer bits over paper money.
This becoming comical to the point of absurdity.
This was known minutes after the leak was released. You disappoint me, slashdot.
The leak is real, nonetheless. I found my balance and transactions there.
Coindesk already wrote about that almost two weeks ago!
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Looks like someone posted code that shows the censored IP http://pastebin.com/w2EWMp35
...a government plot to concentrate dark money into preferred hands.
turned out to be a house of phosphorous cards,
and you don't see a red flag waving?
Was your retirement locked up in there and now you find yourself too poor to pay attention?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
And he says,
Da plane!
Da plane!
You can keep trying to suggest Linux is sufficiently mainstream by now, but if even the ultimate in geekness, an exchange for Bitcoins, didn't bother developing a Linux version of the malware for stealing biocoins, then you know that Linux is not even given credit by the geek community. Stop wasting your life trying to convert to Linux and go back to Windows; at least you know it has a future.
no web depository or vault is safe as long as its up to one gatekeeper to allow withdrawals - mt gox has historically been very slow to allow withdrawals - one year ago and more, many many complaints from mt gox members regarding inability to withdraw funds - karpeles always had excuses even back then and that is bitcoin's fatal flaw.
...except this was no different from someone doing the same thing to a bank. Your arguement is invalid
Except that the current banking system has failsafes to protect the depositor, even if the bank is at risk. For those who still use it, bank books and pass books record how much is in your bank account. Ditto for the monthly statements sent to depositors who have an electronic account, which is a hard copy in your hand. In many jurisdictions, these are legal evidence of a debt owed by the bank to you. Most banks are insured, both privately and by their respective governments.
If you are just a normal depositor stashing your cash in a bank account, you are much more likely to recover something in the event a bank is (electronically) robbed. Take for example the relatively recent collapse of Barings Bank - according to the Bank Of England Report on the Collapse of Barings, the interests of depositors and creditors were still protected although the bank was closed. Compare this with the uncertain fate of the Bitcoin depositors of Mt. Gox which just recently filed for bankruptcy.
The truth is that depositing funds in Bitcoins right now involves taking a substantial risk which is much higher than putting it into the current banking system. Deluding uninformed investors that investing in Bitcoins is "no different" from putting it in a bank is untrue and is likely to greatly harm the Bitcoin cause once these investors are burnt.
Almost every aspect of Bitcoin is just seeping with get rich quick scammers, schemers, and thieves and just general disgusting lowlifes. Whatever money I might have made by holding onto my bitcoins, it was worth to lose just to get out of Bitcoin and not have to associate myself with that den of scum and villianry anymore.
Ah, so you've finally become a Buddhist and renounced all material possessions and currencies.
You'll find the same with the forex market and other dodgy investment schemes.
Trading and investing is basically a game of "who is the better legal scammer".
At it's core, it's a game with it's own rules and dirty (but legal) tricks and unsportsmanlike behavior.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
There is zero counterfeit bitcoin. You can't say the same about paper currency.
Technically correct, since bitcoin does not exist in physical form and therefore cannot be counterfeited in physical form.
But can transactions involving bitcoins be counterfeited? Most certainly!
The net effect is the same. Counterfeit paper currency deprives its holders of the value of that currency. Counterfeit bitcoin transactions deprive the owners of the bitcoins involved in that transaction of the value of those bitcoins.
After these recent heists about 7% or more of all bitcoin ever mined is controlled by thieves.
Bitcoin was obviously scamtastic and doomed from the start.
So hold Bitcoins as money for people that accept Bitcoins as money. Don't exchange your Bitcoins for government backed fiat money.
Except that when this happens to a bank, the money can be more easily traced and recovered.
The claimed virtues of bitcoin (anonymonity, non-reversability) make these attacks an order of magnitude worse when applied tIo bitcoin, compared to conventional internet banking.
Geographical and physical limitation is key part of most security systems
... has been going on for almost as long as coinage itself. One of the advantages of paper money (in addition to weight, lower manufacturing cost, etc.) is that it can be harder to forge. Any shmuck with a press can create coins that are hard to distinguish from the real thing. On a larger scale, one of the big problems today with gold is people hollowing out gold bars and filling them with tungsten, or starting with tungsten and wrapping a small amount of gold. These are indistinguishable from the real thing, for the non-expert and even for experts without the necessary equipment (and suspicion).
IANA bitcoin holder, but having looked into the original Nakamoto paper (which is short and much better than any of the derivatives), and discussed this with people who know, the bitcoin methodology or protocol or whatever is with us to stay, and will be used for a lot of things beyond just digital money. The same methodology will be essential for things like secure confirmed transactions between entities far distant from each other (like space stations, moon colonies, etc. - this happens to be one of my interests); it will be used for 'digital contracts' with its internal scripting system, and perhaps even for guaranteed unique digital identity; and it has the powerful feature that it doesn't depend on any external agency - governments or whatever. So bitcoin itself is having growing pains, and it may or may not survive and grow, but don't believe that the methodology won't be an essential part of many future activities.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Yes, the data is publicly available NOW after it was leaked. duh.
The trade history at MtGox has always been publicly available. The trade history with user IDs isn't. The complete set of user balances is not publicly available (that data is now available thanks to the leak). The history of BTC deposits and withdraws at MtGox is not available except for the leaked document.
" restore those stolen coins to the hands of their rightful owners." -what? I bet you have no idea how bitcoin works :-)
"legal scammer" is an oxymoron, but I suspect you know that.
I also suspect that you know there is a real difference between legal forms of investment, with which you will find associated every kind of good and bad person in the world, but predominantly "normal" people availing themselves of opportunities to invest their money as they see fit, and generally with protections and expectations of security that are in the vast majority of cases respected.
Then you have bitcoin, where you have an extremely high chance that the person on the other end of your transaction is a scammer, unless you know them personally. And where, almost any discussion in any forum invites the participation of every kind of greedy do-nothing imaginable, along with the aforementioned outright thieves and scum.
I say this from experience. There is almost no aspect to my involvement in bitcoin that wasn't flavored to some degree, usually to a large degree, by the scumminess of the average bitcoin participant.