MtGox Finds 200,000 Bitcoins In Old Wallet

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MtGox Finds 200,000 Bitcoins In Old Wallet

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 21, 2014 @01:29AM from the left-it-in-their-other-cryptopants dept.

thesandbender writes: "Today brings news that MtGox has 'found' 200,000 Bitcoins in a 'forgotten' wallet that they thought was empty (PDF). The value of the coins is estimated to be $116 million USD, which happens to cover their $64 million USD in outstanding debts nicely and might offer them the chance to emerge from bankruptcy. There is no explanation yet of why the sneaky thieves that 'stole' the bitcoins used a MtGox wallet to hide them."

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Smelling more fishy every day. by RobertM1968 · 2014-03-21 01:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's amazing how they "found" these... I would have thought that computers would make it impossible to "lose" such funds - even with the most simplistic of accounting programs. The more I hear, the more it sounds like something else is going on (like the principles of Mt Gox trying to run off with as many BitCoins as they can). It's like watching a soap opera.

--
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
1. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by B33rNinj4 · 2014-03-21 01:34 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  All we need is for MtGox to "disappear" after a tragic fall off a sailboat...only to return with amnesia later on...and begin a romantic relationship with his nighbor who actually turns out to be his unknown sister.
2. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by mysidia · 2014-03-21 01:36 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Probably... they were 'magically discovered' when it became clear to Mark that the authorities might be contemplating criminal charges against him.
3. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by alphatel · 2014-03-21 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  Probably... they were 'magically discovered' when it became clear to Mark that the authorities might be contemplating criminal charges against him.
  Or when it seemed obvious the rest of the world had hacked the sh$t out off his life and he was going to be terminated by the next silk road assassin within weeks.
  
  --
  When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
4. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Megane · 2014-03-21 01:42 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I would have thought that computers would make it impossible to "lose" such funds
  Except that computers make it possible for idiots to screw up even worse than ever before. And given that the guy apparently cared more about opening a bitcoin restaurant than, say, using a programming language that wasn't crap COUGHPHPCOUGH, I'm just barely willing to believe they lost it. I'm really more surprised that they found that wallet before it got thrown out on a junked hard drive.
  Sure, it's a bit too convenient, especially after all the rumors of hacks that let people double-dip when withdrawing bitcoins, but it's not impossible that they came from a different source. So just how easy is it to look up the transaction records for 200,000 bitcoins, anyhow?
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
5. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by BitZtream · 2014-03-21 01:42 · Score: 2
  
  Pardon the ignorance, what are you referencing?
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
6. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:45 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It's autobiographical.
7. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by hawkinspeter · 2014-03-21 01:45 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  ...aaand it's gone!
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg/
  
  --
  You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
8. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by AmiMoJo · 2014-03-21 01:45 · Score: 2
  
  A Bitcoin wallet is just a text file. They moved it to offline storage to protect it from hacking. They had it in their accounting software, that's how they knew it was missing.
  Man, I wish I could find $116m in an old wallet.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
9. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by invictusvoyd · 2014-03-21 01:46 · Score: 2
  
  It's like watching a soap opera.
  Its like watching a very dumb version of Monty python .. really ..
  
  _____
  This !! aint fishy . This is "sea food platter"
10. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by BlackPignouf · 2014-03-21 01:47 · Score: 2
  
  Exactly.
  - Sorry, we lost $1B
  - But, you owe us $50M
  - What a coincidence! I just found $100M. But I promise you, I don't know where the other $900M are.
11. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by marcello_dl · 2014-03-21 01:48 · Score: 1
  
  He's referencing a sizable portion of what we call literature, drama.
  
  --
  ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
12. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2014-03-21 01:48 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Every single soap opera ever written.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
13. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by RobertM1968 · 2014-03-21 01:49 · Score: 1
  
  It's like watching a soap opera.
  Its like watching a very dumb version of Monty python .. really ..
  LoL, I stand corrected!!! And now, I can't get Monty Python skits outta my head - this is going to make the work day a lot more fun! :-P
  
  --
  StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
14. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Big+Hairy+Ian · 2014-03-21 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  What next Bitcoins dow the back of the couch?
  
  --
  Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
15. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Joce640k · 2014-03-21 02:01 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Aka: "Never attribute to malice that which be adequately explained by stupidity".
  
  --
  No sig today...
16. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Marginal+Coward · 2014-03-21 02:06 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Darn, I thought it was as an episode of "Arrested Development" I hadn't seen yet. Maebe not.
17. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Joce640k · 2014-03-21 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  Pardon the ignorance, what are you referencing?
  It's called "popular culture".
  It's what happens outside basements...
  
  --
  No sig today...
18. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Mr0bvious · 2014-03-21 02:10 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No, no, popular cultures also grow in basements..
  
  --
  Never happened. True story.
19. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by beelsebob · 2014-03-21 02:13 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  He's referencing a couple that did exactly this in the UK a couple of years ago.
20. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Richard_at_work · 2014-03-21 02:16 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The first half is strikingly close to what happened recently in the UK - John Darwin went missing while canoeing in the North Sea during 2002. His canoe was found, but his body was never recovered and he was declared dead in 2003.
  In 2007 he returned to life, having lived in the intermediate years as John Jones, firstly in the UK (living in a bedsit next door to his old home, then living with his supposed widow wife, before they moved overseas, eventually ending up in Panama. The catalyst for his return was a change in Panamanian visa law, which required British police confirmation of his identity.
  So he came back to the UK, claimed he had amnesia and didn't know what had happened after his disappearance, and his widow wife and children played their part in the fantastic return - but it soon all unravelled when it was discovered that his wife knew all along and had lived with him in Panama for several years.
  They are both now serving jail sentences for insurance fraud.
21. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Richard_at_work · 2014-03-21 02:19 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Also, he may be referencing Robert Maxwell, who disappeared from his boat while sailing off the Canary Islands, but his body was actually recovered a while after and positively identified - but his disappearance at the time was widely believed to be a deliberate act to avoid being prosecuted for discrepancies in his companies pension funds.
22. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Enfixed · 2014-03-21 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  Pardon the ignorance, what are you referencing?
  It's called "popular culture".
  It's what happens outside basements...
  Seems like a rough reply for one of the few people that would openly admit ignorance on Slashdot. ^_^ BitZtream, I commend your initial bravery!
  
  --
  Sigs are bad for you...
23. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Michalson · 2014-03-21 02:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  While the MtGox situation is very, very suspicious the way Bitcoin works it makes the stealing and 'finding' of bitcoins very strange compared to traditional currency. Imagine a dollar bill. Much like a Bitcoin it has a unique serial number at the bottom. You can deposit it in a bank where they will keep a ledger so they know how much money anyone can withdraw from the teller while keeping most of it in the vault. If the vault is robbed it will quickly be discovered when they open it up in the morning and find it empty.
  
  But Bitcoin differs in that last part. When you spend or transfer a bitcoin you aren't handing over the original, you're making a copy and the person receiving it is adding an extra digit to the serial number. Even though you still have it your copy of the coin is no longer legal tender and if you go to a store and try to spend it the cashier will tell you the serial number is too short and someone else owns the legitimate digital copy of that coin. If a thief gets into the bitcoin vault he doesn't need to remove or change anything, he just copies all the serial numbers and immediately 'pays' it into wallets he owns or controls, making his copy the legitimate article and the coins in the vault useless bits of data. The owners of the vault don't know this - the contents of the vault have not been changed in any way and it's only when they remove some of the money from the vault and try to spend it that they'll discover they've got worthless old copies.
  
  While less likely it is also possible, with ledgers being moved around and even manipulated by thieves, that bitcoins that where assumed withdrawn are in fact still legal tender - if the bank made a copy of a one of their coins to service an apparent withdrawal, but that copy was never 'spent' then the original is still good. This is one of the difficulties of Bitcoin, unlike physical currency or even centrally managed digital currency (what a lot of your money basically is) you can't determine if each coin is worth something or just a bunch of worthless numbers without asking for the opinion of a bunch of other people. The extra layer of security of a vault actually makes it harder, since you are trying to keep that data out of the wrong hands, not share it with others to get their daily opinion (imagine if a bank removed every bill from the vault daily to check them with those counterfeit pens - how many opportunities to steal the money would that add).
24. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Richard_at_work · 2014-03-21 02:28 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Sorry, I left a parentheses open in my last post and its bugging the hell out of me. So heres the closing one. )
  I apologise whole heartedly for all of the teeth-nashing this has caused.
25. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by jeffasselin · 2014-03-21 02:29 · Score: 1
  
  The Kalevala
  
  --
  If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
26. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 02:39 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  In that same spirit, here's the g you missed out of 'gnashing' ;)
  g
27. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Frosty+Piss · 2014-03-21 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  Pardon the ignorance, what are you referencing?
  My life, you insensitive clod.
  
  --
  If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
28. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by usuallylost · 2014-03-21 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  I remember the one with Robert Maxwell. Mostly because I had just interviewed for a position at one of his companies when it occurred. I was looking for a part time job in my field while I was in college. He was one of those guys who named everything Maxwell whatever. The company I had interviewed at pretty much vanished within a few months of his death. I always figured it was a suicide since he was in serious financial and legal trouble at the time. Though I guess he could have been drowning his sorrows and fell.
29. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by bill_mcgonigle · 2014-03-21 02:45 · Score: 2
  
  I would have thought that computers would make it impossible to "lose" such funds - even with the most simplistic of accounting programs.
  OK, look - for their infrastructure, they re-implemented ssh in php.
  If somebody wants to argue "plausible deniability", then fine, but it would require an assertion of supergenius levels of foresight, planning, and cunning.
  I lean more towards "you've got to be kidding me".
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
30. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Princeofcups · 2014-03-21 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  Probably... they were 'magically discovered' when it became clear to Mark that the authorities might be contemplating criminal charges against him.
  There are more players in this. Nameless ones. The ones who make sure that no one accidentally sets fire to your house.
  
  --
  The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
31. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by DarkOx · 2014-03-21 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  That would be my guess as well. Others keep trying to make this about 'regulation' and such but even in the absence of specific securities are wire transfer laws that could apply to Bitcoin, there are still simple fraud charges to consider. Now this is Japan so the rules might be different there.
  In general though if I say I'll take your $Y and give you Xbtc and don't do it, or if I say I'll take your Xbtc and give you $Y and don't do it. I have misrepresented what I am going to do in a contract with you. Its fraud and its a crime.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
32. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  I understand your pain, and appreciate your belated closing parenthesis. Note that it is now in vogue to support "eventual consistency"!
33. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Zalbik · 2014-03-21 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  In that same spirit, here's the g you missed out of 'gnashing' ;)
  And the ' the GP missed out of here's
  (I totally get it though. It drives me nuts when people don't close their parentheses
34. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by next_ghost · 2014-03-21 03:16 · Score: 2
  
  Mybitcoin.com copycat scam, right on schedule.
35. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by eulernet · 2014-03-21 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  It could also be malicious stupidity or stupid malice.
36. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by HnT · 2014-03-21 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Especially in that case this isn't a very smart move at all. Once you tell a lie like that, your best bet is to stick with it until the bitter end.
  "Suddenly" discovering a couple of million in hope of folks then looking the other way sounds so absolutely ridiculous of a plan, I honestly doubt that is what they were trying to do. Even if the noose is getting tighter around their necks. They simply cannot be so very delusional.
  
  --
  "Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
37. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 03:35 · Score: 1
  
  )
  Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
38. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Zanadou · 2014-03-21 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  ear, ear!!
39. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Tom · 2014-03-21 03:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I would have thought that computers would make it impossible to "lose" such funds - even with the most simplistic of accounting programs.
  
  ROTFL.
  The dark secret of business world-wide: It's all a hodgepodge of hacks and duct-tape. Large corporations regularily misplace money and assets, often in the millions. And yes, despite SOX and all that.
  Computers or not, large corporations are complex beasts, and all the accounting trickery they play for tax purposes doesn't exactly make it easy nor transparent, because it intentionally isn't. For a fast-growing company, most CFOs are pretty happy if their accounting isn't too far off.
  So yeah, losing a hundred million is a rare event, but it's impossible nor unheard of.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
40. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by JazzLad · 2014-03-21 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  (whooosh
  
  --
  "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
41. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by TWX · 2014-03-21 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, just because something is prolific or widespread, doesn't mean that it's popular...
  
  And can I get an "Eeeeeew"?!
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
42. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by TWX · 2014-03-21 04:06 · Score: 2
  
  Heh. I'm reminded of The Big Bang Theory when Sheldon's MMO in-game crap was stolen by a hacker that happened to be local to them, and it finally took Penny to kick him in the balls while the four men looked on to get the stuff put back...
  
  So a cute blonde girl will show up and break Mt Gox's nuts until they scream, "uncle!"
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
43. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry but that is a completely inaccurate misunderstanding. This is basically what is being spouted by those who don't understand bitcoin and believe in the transaction malleability "bug" that Mt. Gox is claiming was used to steal from them.
  In reality there is a blockchain and your wallet is getting updates from said blockchain. Everyone has a copy, every transaction is validated against the blockchain to make sure that the sender does in fact have the coin, the transaction is entered in to the blockchain, the sender, the recipient, and everyone else using bitcoin gets the updated blockchain showing who has what. Validating these transactions and checking the hashes is what miners do. The recipient doesn't have the coin until 20 miners have validated it.
  With dollars you can in fact make a copy with the same serial number and there is effectively nothing to stop you if have the technology to replicate the bill. With bitcoin, it is impossible to counterfeit or double spend.
44. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by joshuao3 · 2014-03-21 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  In that same spirit, here's the ' you missed out of "it's" ;)
  
  '
  
  --
  Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
45. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by kilfarsnar · 2014-03-21 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  It's amazing how they "found" these... I would have thought that computers would make it impossible to "lose" such funds - even with the most simplistic of accounting programs. The more I hear, the more it sounds like something else is going on (like the principles of Mt Gox trying to run off with as many BitCoins as they can). It's like watching a soap opera.
  That's been more or less my assumption from the start; that this is some sort of inside job at Mt.Gox.
  
  --
  "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
46. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Hognoxious · 2014-03-21 04:45 · Score: 2
  
  Nothing to do with Reggie Perrin, then?
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
47. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by azav · 2014-03-21 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  And you forgot an apostrophe in your last one, so here it is, '.
  
  --
  - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
48. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by azav · 2014-03-21 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  And one in here's.
  
  --
  - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
49. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by azav · 2014-03-21 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  it's*
  it's = it is
  its = the next word or phrase belongs to it
  here's
  here's = here is or here has
  heres = not a word in English
  Learn this.
  
  --
  - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
50. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by nwaack · 2014-03-21 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  Given this new development, the authorities should DEFINITELY be pressing criminal charges against him. It's becoming very obvious what actually happened here.
51. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by azav · 2014-03-21 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  company's* pension funds
  companies = more than one company
  Learn this.
  
  --
  - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
52. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Wycliffe · 2014-03-21 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Pardon the ignorance, what are you referencing?
  He is combining several common plotlines into a single exagerated story. There are multiple movies I know of
  where someone gets amnesia from falling off a boat. "Overboard" and "Bourne Identity" are two that I know but
  I guarantee there are several more and tons where someone gets amnesia and/or unknowningly falls in love with a
  relative, etc.. but none that I know of that are these exact parameters.
53. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Wain13001 · 2014-03-21 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  At the time of the Black death, popular meant "prevalent among the populace"...so in fact, The Black Death was pretty popular.
54. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2014-03-21 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  You forgot one. it's = something belonging to it
55. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2014-03-21 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  Just kidding. Don't think it came off though. NM
56. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Ralph+Wiggam · 2014-03-21 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  How does finding 20% of the missing bitcoins change that situation?
57. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Richard_at_work · 2014-03-21 06:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Maxwell had lots of companies, several of which had irregularities.
  It helps to not be arrogant in your attempts to "correct" people.
  Learn this.
58. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2014-03-21 06:15 · Score: 2
  
  Also,if I understand it all correctly, in principle, it is possible to watch the block chain and observe your own coin has been "stolen", because the public keys used to validate are public. Whether that is practical I do not have any idea.
59. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by NotDrWho · 2014-03-21 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  I just hope I find Patrick Duffy in my shower.
  
  --
  SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
60. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by NotDrWho · 2014-03-21 06:23 · Score: 2
  
  Batley Townswomans Guild presents The Fall of MtGox....
  
  --
  SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
61. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by PRMan · 2014-03-21 06:30 · Score: 2
  
  That's because some guys pointed out in the blockchain that MagicalTux (Karpeles) was proven to have previously had access to an account with 200,000 bitcoins in it. That meant that any coins spent out of that account would be proven theft. Better to say they "forgot" about them.
  
  --
  Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
62. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by eyeisback · 2014-03-21 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Something really does stink! lol!
63. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by eyeisback · 2014-03-21 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  Well he is the MagicalTux! Man there sure are a lot of blunders lately. We have compiled information on the Flexcoin one. I know it's a tad off topic, but we have the information at http://flexcoin.info/ for those who are interested. They have tried to censor us many times too, so we know it is accurate.
64. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by brec · 2014-03-21 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  if the bank made a copy of a one of their coins to service an apparent withdrawal, but that copy was never 'spent' then the original is still good.
  Hmm? What's an "apparent" withdrawal? The bank's transfer to a depositor is the same as the bank "spending" the bitcoins. The transfer is a transaction that will be confirmed by bitcoin's peer-to-peer protocol. After the transaction the "original" is not "still good" and cannot be spent or transferred, i.e., will not be confirmed by the network.
65. Re: Smelling more fishy every day. by LoRdTAW · 2014-03-21 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  I bet they found the wallet in a pair of pants when they did the laundry. I have made the same mistake.
66. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Animats · 2014-03-21 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  Probably... they were 'magically discovered' when it became clear to Mark that the authorities might be contemplating criminal charges against him.
  
  Probably the best explaination. But it's not enough to save Mt. Gox. 650,000 Bitcoins are still missing.
  A lot of people are looking very hard at Mt. Gox. Mt. Gox now has a court-appointed bankruptcy supervisor in their offices, authorized to look at all records and talk to all employees. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is investigating. Maybe they didn't know much about Bitcoin a few weeks ago, but if they need outside experts, they can bring them in.
67. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by The+Grim+Reefer · 2014-03-21 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. The Black Death was widespread, but not generally popular.
  Perhaps not with humans. But carrion eaters were as happy as a redneck family of 12 at Golden Corral on coupon day.
68. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by DerekLyons · 2014-03-21 08:05 · Score: 1
  
  A Bitcoin wallet is just a text file. They moved it to offline storage to protect it from hacking. They had it in their accounting software, that's how they knew it was missing.
  If they had it in their accounting software... it (the old wallet) should never have been missing in the first place. (Especially if they were balancing and auditing their books on a regular basis.)
  No, the OP is correct, this smells fishy. Either their accounting system truly was/is fucked up beyond all human belief, or this 'discovery' is a PR/save their bacon maneuver to throw the blame for malfeasance onto mischance/incompetence.
69. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by cheater512 · 2014-03-21 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  You clearly have no idea how Bitcoin works.
  A wallet is a file. Ever lost a old file on your computer before? And then found it again years later? I know I have.
70. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by worf_mo · 2014-03-21 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  I noticed the missing ) in your first post; it actually bugged me and would have haunted me all night had you not posted a correction. Thank you.
  Oh, and here is the opening ( to the closing parenthesis above.
71. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by ChumpusRex2003 · 2014-03-21 11:49 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It is practical, and if you have a bitcoin client (with knowledge of your public key) running, it will show your balance in real time.
  This type of setup is often called a "watch wallet" and a number of bitcoin exchanges have these set up as a method of auditing their transactions against their deposit/withdrawal database (to detect intrusions, database bugs, and to detect insider thefts).
72. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by jeremyp · 2014-03-21 13:22 · Score: 1
  
  { Bastard!
  
  --
  All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
73. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by DanielRavenNest · 2014-03-21 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  So just how easy is it to look up the transaction records for 200,000 bitcoins, anyhow?
  Pretty easy, since a complete record of every bitcoin transaction ever is available for every user of the software. It's called the "Block Chain", where a "block" is a set of transactions that have a hash generated to validate the contents, and they are chained by also including the hash of the previous block as data in the following block. Thus any changes (data corruption or malicious) become evident by re-hashing the block and comparing it to the value stored in the next one.
  The Block Chain is shared across a peer-to-peer network among running copies of the software, so that everyone gets a constantly updated copy as new blocks are added.
  Your terminology is incorrect, though. Bitcoins don't have transactions. Addresses have transactions, whose amount is measured in bitcoins. But the addresses are indexed for the Block Chain data, and it is fairly trivial to look up all the transactions for a given address. There is even an online website you can look it up without having to download a full copy: https://blockchain.info/addres... (these are transactions for the address in the last part of the URL).
  You just need to know the addresses associated with the "found" 200,000 BTC.
74. Re: Smelling more fishy every day. by Jesrad · 2014-03-21 21:38 · Score: 2
  
  I initially read that as 'insensitive dad', that would have been interesting.
  
  --
  Maybe we deserve this world ?
75. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Tom · 2014-03-22 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  You don't need a citation, you need to get out into the real world and make some real-life busines experience.
  I encountered this little fact first in university, thanks to a professor with two decades of that experience, and ever since it has been confirmed everywhere I could look under the bonnet, including when I was the senior manager in charge of SOX at a large telco.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
76. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by mysidia · 2014-03-22 14:11 · Score: 1
  
  How does finding 20% of the missing bitcoins change that situation?
  It helps him make the situation appear more strongly to be total incompetence on his part --- as in he doesn't have fscking clue..
  Which is an appearance different from him masterfully sneaking away with 99% of the exchanges Bitcoins held in wallets that are supposed to be Gox wallets, but due to "lost keys" are now controlled only by partners in crime.
77. Re:Smelling more fishy every day. by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2014-03-24 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you, for the confirmation. So, in principle, if one were running an exchange that might be having problems, a diligent and honest operator could shut down for a week or so, and validate all their currency using public keys by inspecting the blockchain. Since public keys are public, having an up to date inventory at your fingertipcs should be a basic accounting practice (otherwise how could I ever do any transaction at all). That MtGox could not accomplish this or chose not to accomplish this (or did so and kept the facts close to its chest) makes me now lean towards Inside Job as the likely story.
How convenient by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:31 · Score: 1

Oh, look what's this. These aren't the embezzled coins you're looking for.
How much... by Clyde+Machine · 2014-03-21 01:32 · Score: 1

How much of that bundle is theirs and how much of that bundle is the users'? Can't just go around spending anybody's money.
Like Politics by Akratist · 2014-03-21 01:34 · Score: 1

Steal from Peter to pay Paul...it works for the USG, right?
1. Re:Like Politics by tapspace · 2014-03-23 14:24 · Score: 1
  
  For old times sake: mod parent up.
And they're gone by MrKaos · 2014-03-21 01:35 · Score: 1

ooops, here they are

--
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Reminds me of the time... by jittles · 2014-03-21 01:36 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh I know how that is. The other day I put on one of my old winter coats from years ago and found 500,000 bitcoins in the pocket. It was completely unexpected. I used it to buy a pizza.
1. Re:Reminds me of the time... by Megane · 2014-03-21 01:45 · Score: 2
  
  If you had just waited a day longer for the price to fluctuate, you could have bought a thousand pizzas.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
2. Re:Reminds me of the time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:58 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Or a thousandth of a pizza...
3. Re:Reminds me of the time... by VortexCortex · 2014-03-21 03:19 · Score: 2
  
  Reminds me of the time this happened to a Norwegian guy who forgot he had bought $24.00 of bitcoin, after the price shot up he wound up with $850000 worth.
  Which reminds me of this other time another college kid said he invested $1500 in bitcoin, forgot the password, and when he finally remembered it was worth about $150000, not bad for a college kid.
  Happens more often than you'd think.
  I lost some on a flashdrive once. I thought the drive was empty, but I had just formatted it EXT3 and stupidly forgot how inferior MS operating systems are -- "Unformatted", yeah right Windoze. Glad I don't trust MS to format drives, ever, I was one click away from letting evil proprietary software destroy yet another batch of hard earned bits.
4. Re:Reminds me of the time... by GameboyRMH · 2014-03-21 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  Which reminds me of this other time another college kid said he invested $1500 in bitcoin, forgot the password, and when he finally remembered it was worth about $150000, not bad for a college kid.
  It might just cover his student debt!
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
5. Re:Reminds me of the time... by farble1670 · 2014-03-21 10:52 · Score: 1
  
  not bad for a college kid
  are you implying he did something smart? dumb luck is not intelligence.
Thieves by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Thieves often place stolen goods nearby so they can retrieve them later
1. Re:Thieves by XxtraLarGe · 2014-03-21 02:19 · Score: 2
  
  Thieves often place stolen goods nearby so they can retrieve them later
  But is it really theft if they didn't actually "take" it? If you're at the store, and you take a jar of peanut butter and later place it on the shelf of the produce aisle, did you shoplift?
  
  --
  Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
2. Re:Thieves by geeper · 2014-03-21 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  A defendant can commit the crime of shoplifting without actually leaving the store. All he needs to do is to move the property and exercise control over it in a way that is inconsistent with the shop owner's reasonable expectations as to how shoppers will handle merchandise.
  
  --
  Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
3. Re:Thieves by pnutjam · 2014-03-21 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  That depends on the laws in each state. In many, you have to pass the point of purchase.
  
  --
  Cheap storage VM.
4. Re:Thieves by leuk_he · 2014-03-21 04:46 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt it.
  1. Eat something from shop.
  2. Leave shop
  3. Noting left to prove you stole it.
  Security waits for you to leave the shop, because it is far easier to prove that you had a shoplifting intention, but that certainly not the final rule.
5. Re:Thieves by myowntrueself · 2014-03-21 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  A defendant can commit the crime of shoplifting without actually leaving the store. All he needs to do is to move the property and exercise control over it in a way that is inconsistent with the shop owner's reasonable expectations as to how shoppers will handle merchandise.
  Right. I eat some food in the store. I go to the stores toilets and poop. The food has not left the store but I've moved it, exercised control over it in a way that is inconsistent with the shop owners reasonable expectations. Makes perfect sense.
  If I'm shopping and I put some product in my basket then, in while in a different area of the shop, I decide I don't really want this ice cream after all, and I pop it behind some cans of beans I *guess* this is the same kind of thing in principle but shoplifting as such? Not so sure.
  
  --
  In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
6. Re:Thieves by Valdrax · 2014-03-21 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  If you're at the store, and you take a jar of peanut butter and later place it on the shelf of the produce aisle, did you shoplift?
  It depends. Did you tell the store owner that it went "missing" and then plan to retrieve it later when no one else is looking?
  (Either way, you're at the very least a huge douche, especially if you're the kind that puts frozen or other perishable goods in random places in the store. That point, you've at least committed conversion.)
  
  --
  If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
7. Re:Thieves by gnasher719 · 2014-03-21 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  Security waits for you to leave the shop, because it is far easier to prove that you had a shoplifting intention, but that certainly not the final rule.
  It depends on the laws of your country. It seems that in the USA it's legally theft if you move it with the intent to steal (with some crazy details what exactly it means to move an object). In other places, it becomes theft when you leave the building with the object. Probably anywhere leaving the building is a good point to prove intent.
8. Re:Thieves by onkelonkel · 2014-03-21 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  Textbook example is the car thief. I was told that around here thieves will steal a car and move it no more than 2 or 3 blocks and then park it. This avoids any problems with LoJacks or similar silent tracking systems. If the car is still parked a day later, a tow truck will haul it to its final destination (chop shop or loaded into a container.)
  
  --
  None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
9. Re:Thieves by david_thornley · 2014-03-23 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  Thing is, taking a jar of peanut butter and putting it down on a produce aisle shelf is consistent with what the shop owner can reasonably expect. People do take things off the shelves in grocery stores. I believe that's even encouraged. People decide they don't want things, and some don't bother to put them back where they found them.
  About the only way you can violate those expectations is to go past the checkout counters with something, or eat it in the store.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
While I expect foul play... by jellomizer · 2014-03-21 01:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

I could argue that the system probably was setup to save lost bitcoins into a wallet.
The CEO may not have known about it, as the programmers, probably felt that such an error could happen, so there was a mechanism to deal with it.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. Re:While I expect foul play... by Charliemopps · 2014-03-21 02:28 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Actually, I think there might be merit in your idea. We had a similar thing happen with one of our ticketing systems. Thousands of vanished tickets... They weren't even on the tables anymore! Oh no! Then we found them on some random table (there are thousands in the DB) and apparently, over 10 years ago, someone had conceived of the idea that something could go wrong, and instead of strait up deleting rows the system was throwing the deleted rows onto this "archive" table. The code that broke it was someone on another teams fault, but whomever wrote this way back in the day saved us a hell of a lot of trouble.
  Of course, MtGox could just be a bunch of thieves as well.
2. Re:While I expect foul play... by Sarten-X · 2014-03-21 03:00 · Score: 2
  
  Never one to assume malice, my guess is that it was a temporary wallet used for short-term transfer of funds. Back when I worked in finance, we fairly often set up accounts for a few days, just to receive an incoming transfer or to send out funds from the right name. Those accounts, by their published nature, became targets for attack. It was always enlightening when a client sent in an emailed request to withdraw money from the temporary account, after we'd just closed the account as planned a few days before.
  Similarly, I'm thinking the wallet was opened, used, then emptied, but stuck around on their servers. It'd make a convenient place to hide stolen coins (regardless of who stole them). Those malleable transactions could be used to skim coins and push them into the wallet. If noticed, any investigation into the wallet would reveal that it was just an internal account, conducting low-volume business as usual. The thieves could then transfer the coins out at their leisure, in small similarly-innocuous amounts.
  Then everything collapses, and the company faces bankruptcy. Step one is to look at every asset the company has, and figure out whatever value it may have. Naturally, that would include explicitly checking each wallet, rather than just relying on what the database says the balance is. Lo and behold, one wallet has coins still in it, and the company might have assets to cover its debts, which is exactly why that search is the first step.
  
  --
  You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
3. Re:While I expect foul play... by cusco · 2014-03-21 03:32 · Score: 2
  
  Here's what I'm wondering; $64 million is missing, and they find $116 million. Where the frack did the other $52 million dollars come from? If I've lost a 20 dollar bill and find 38 one dollar bills while looking for it I may be happy but I'm still missing a 20 dollar bill.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
4. Re:While I expect foul play... by Collective+0-0009 · 2014-03-21 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  It probably has something to do with how much BTC has increased in value over the past few years.
  
  --
  I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
Possible by GoCrazy · 2014-03-21 01:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

While it's seems convenient and sketchy to magically find money after it was stolen, is it possible that MtGox is just that incompetent?

--
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
1. Re:Possible by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:50 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  That's called plausible deniability
2. Re:Possible by Megane · 2014-03-21 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  Your sig makes me wonder if possibly Homer Simpson was somehow involved in the Mt. Gox problems. Maybe it was on the sofa and Homer sat on it, causing it to be lost in the cushions. Have they done a parody episode for bitcoin yet?
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
3. Re:Possible by GoCrazy · 2014-03-21 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  From a previous post:
  
  "Aw, 500 bitcoins, I wanted a pizza."
  500 bitcoins can buy many pizzas!
  "Explain how"
  Bitcoins can be exchanged for limited goods and services!
  "Woo hoo!"
  
  --
  No beer and no TV make Homer something something
4. Re:Possible by NewWorldDan · 2014-03-21 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  I place the odds at about 3:2 for incompetence over malfeasance. When you run that much money through a website for trading Magic cards, the probability of either is pretty good.
5. Re:Possible by blueg3 · 2014-03-21 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  ...is it possible that MtGox is just that incompetent?
  Absolutely. It's just a question of whether their incompetence happened to be the cause here.
6. Re:Possible by omnichad · 2014-03-21 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
7. Re:Possible by pitchpipe · 2014-03-21 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  While it's seems convenient and sketchy to magically find money after it was stolen, is it possible that MtGox is just that incompetent?
  Funny story: I remember going online once, only to randomly end up in some sort of exchange. It was magic. There were spontaneous gatherings of bitcoins popping into and out of existence. A person called 'MagicTux' kept telling me over and over that the future was now.
  
  --
  Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Forgotten by that sleazy lookin' moro that by BitZtream · 2014-03-21 01:41 · Score: 1

runs the place.
If you didn't know he was going to rob you just by looking at him, you deserved it.

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
1. Re:Forgotten by that sleazy lookin' moro that by kumanopuusan · 2014-03-21 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  Did you mean mofo, or were you trying to pin this one on Muslim Filipinos?
  
  --
  Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
Ooooohhhh theeeeere's your money! by alexmogil · 2014-03-21 01:42 · Score: 2

They have the lying skills of a twelve year old.

--
A winner is you!
1. Re:Ooooohhhh theeeeere's your money! by myowntrueself · 2014-03-21 04:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  They have the lying skills of a twelve year old.
  Do not underestimate the lying skills of children!
  At 10 years old I realised that if I wanted to lie to my mum the best way was to first offer an obvious lie which she would detect and demand 'the truth'. I'd then, unwillingly, offer a more plausible lie. She'd accept the more plausible lie as the truth; she felt like she'd won a victory over me, that she was so much smarter than me and that I was obviously ashamed at having been caught and had admitted the truth.
  
  --
  In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
2. Re:Ooooohhhh theeeeere's your money! by citylivin · 2014-03-21 07:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  She was just being nice. As the parent of an 11 year old, they make very bad liars. I just take everything my children say with a grain of salt. The thing with lies is if you understand peoples motivations in life, what they are interested in, what they desire. Then you can easily see when they are lying, withholding information or distorting their own memories to match with a current assumed reality.
  I find that it's good practice to firstly identify peoples motivations and character and then look at everything they say through that prism.
  
  --
  As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
breaking news lol by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:46 · Score: 1

slashdot has become so lol and lagging. These 200k btc went through the mtgox api two weeks ago and there was numerous posts about it on /r/Bitcoin and bitcointalk at that time. Look forward to the breaking news that China announced new stricter Bitcoin regulation today at slashdot in a month or so.
Check behind the fridge by Hognoxious · 2014-03-21 01:47 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm going to check behind the fridge and under the couch.
I hear someone's lost an airliner.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
1. Re:Check behind the fridge by david_thornley · 2014-03-23 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  No, global warming has forced the Bermuda Triangle out of its normal position.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
As Falkvinge says by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 01:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

As Falkvinge says, this looks like a copycat fraud.
In one of the first major bitcoin scams, mybitcoin com in 2011, the owner also said hackers took everything and "luckily" recovered a percentage of the funds some weeks later. This is a classic con man move, called cooling the mark out. You're supposed to accept that you were stupid, take your losses and go home, rather than pursue the scammers for the rest.
1. Re:As Falkvinge says by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2014-03-21 06:06 · Score: 2
  
  Yours is a very plausible theory.
  The slightly more innocent (but still probably criminal) interpretation is that MtGox employees were scrambling to make transfers that kept themselves financially whole, while the company burned down with everyone else's assets. That is usually fraud when viewed under the bright lights of a courtroom, because of the implied or explicit promises made to customers, even when the company somehow escapes the usual fiduciary duty to its account holders.
  A week ago there was a rumor going around that 200,000 bitcoin seemed to have been transferred to a place the CEO had provably had involvement with in the past. It could be that the CEO finally recognized that his own efforts to cover his tracks were inadequate, and if he did not "discover" this "accounting error", he would be put in jail.
Hanlon's Razor... by maz2331 · 2014-03-21 01:50 · Score: 1

This looks like they were just incompetent and stupid rather than evil. Still, their credibility is now zero.
Remember guys by Dekonega · 2014-03-21 01:50 · Score: 1

"It was an inside job, Like it always is, Chalk it up, To business as usual..." -- Don Henley
It's even more amazing... by MindPrison · 2014-03-21 01:55 · Score: 1

...that news like that keeps surfacing every time someone "stumble" over their lost & found bitcoin-collection. Remember the Norwegian guy who forgot that he bought some bitcoins many years ago, and all of a sudden was a millionaire (just to see his bitcoin value drop to HALF the value the next month or so?)

Bitcoin is a perfect example of how easy it is to create something out of virtually nothing. It's essentially bits & bytes with a digitally encrypted keylock, it's nothing physical, most governments won't even recognize it as a currency, at best - it's a shady way of transferring money anonymously.

--
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
1. Re:It's even more amazing... by jeffb+(2.718) · 2014-03-21 02:03 · Score: 2
  
  it's a shady way of transferring money anonymously.
  One man's "shady" is another man's "prudently concealed".
2. Re:It's even more amazing... by Oligonicella · 2014-03-21 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  That would depend on all the surrounding circumstances which you conveniently left out.
3. Re:It's even more amazing... by omnichad · 2014-03-21 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  Arguably, they kept the company funded well enough to create a profit. You're confusing actual investing with high-frequency trading.
4. Re:It's even more amazing... by cwsumner · 2014-03-23 10:52 · Score: 1
  
  ...Bitcoin is a perfect example of how easy it is to create something out of virtually nothing. It's essentially bits & bytes with a digitally encrypted keylock, it's nothing physical, most governments won't even recognize it as a currency, at best - it's a shady way of transferring money anonymously.
  You seem to think that "real" money is better than that. It is not, almost all transfers of "real" money are just as digital and even more shakey in their methods!
Sounds familliar... by fellip_nectar · 2014-03-21 02:04 · Score: 1

Now they're just waiting for Milton to destroy all the evidence in an arson attack, then they're in the clear!

--
Worst. Signature. Ever.
1. Re:Sounds familliar... by Outtascope · 2014-03-21 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  They just forgot a decimal place. Always some silly little error like that.
What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by presidenteloco · 2014-03-21 02:15 · Score: 2

If you copy my wallet (cloudy or cold) and know the decryption password or whatever, presumably I still have it as well, since it's just digital data.
So it is a race to see who spends them first I guess, me, if I discover the "theft" quickly, or you right after you access the data.
Or I guess you could copy the coins data then do a secure wipe on my storage including my backups. That seems implausible if I have a decent backups policy.
Anyone know what "stealing" bit coins from MtGox actually meant in this case?

--

Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
1. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 02:26 · Score: 1
  
  Transferring them to a whallet owned by someone else.
2. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by AaronLS · 2014-03-21 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding of bitcoin is limited, but I thought that there were distributed public ledgers that track transactions on the bitcoin network. How would they transfer these without anyone knowing?
3. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by gnasher719 · 2014-03-21 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding of bitcoin is limited, but I thought that there were distributed public ledgers that track transactions on the bitcoin network. How would they transfer these without anyone knowing?
  A bitcoin is a hard-to-compute number. When you officially transfer it, a new number is created by adding to the key, and the old number becomes invalid.
  
  So if I have a bit coin, I can make a million copies of it. However, I can sell it only once. When I sell it, all the million copies of it become worthless.
4. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by JesseMcDonald · 2014-03-21 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  A bitcoin is a hard-to-compute number.
  Bitcoins aren't numbers. If they were then you couldn't transfer fractions of a bitcoin, since each fraction would need its own unique number. They're fungible abstract units, much like dollars or euros, or even points in a game. The GP's understanding was closer to the mark. The hard-to-compute part comes in when you work toward confirming transactions by solving a block; as a reward, you're allowed to include a "coinbase" transaction in the block which credits a certain amount of freshly-minted bitcoins, plus any fees from transactions in the block, to an address of your choice. The coinbase transaction, like other transactions, is just a notation in a ledger associating a certain number of bitcoins with certain address(es).
  To answer the GP's question, all Bitcoin transactions are public, but only in terms of the addresses, not real-world identities. If Mt. Gox were to publish the public part of the address the coins were in before they were "misplaced" then anyone could look that address up in the block chain and see which address(es) they were transferred to. Of course, that could just be another address belonging to Mt. Gox. There's no way to prove that they don't have the private key.
  
  --
  "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
5. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by ChumpusRex2003 · 2014-03-21 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  That is correct. There is no such thing as "a bitcoin" - instead, all you have are balances in a distributed public ledger.
  Each balance has an associated public key pair. A payment instruction in bitcoin simply consists of a digitally signed message effectively saying "1Alice56789 pays 1.234 BTC to 1Bob12345 ". This message propagates around the network, and if Alice has sufficent funds to cover the transaction, and the signature is genuine, then the network will, in due course, add it to the ledger. If Alice doesn't have sufficient funds or the signature is invalid, then it will not be added to the ledger and the transaction will fail.
  If you possess the private key associated with a particular "account", then you effectively control its spending power. All you need is the private key to the relevant "address" to control all the bitcoin held in it, or that may arrive in it, for all time.
  It is not possible to transfer BTC without someone knowing. As soon as the transfer is confirmed, it appears in the public ledger. Similarly, because the ledger is public, if you know who holds the private key to a particular address, you know how many BTC they control.
  In fact, on the day that Mt Gox claimed to have lost all their BTC, the general public knew that this was BS. Mt Gox had a couple of years ago, revealed the identity of some of their "cold" addresses. On the day of their bankruptcy, the bitcoin community had identified 200k BTC still held within these addresses, hence why the announcement was widely disbelieved. A competeing hypothesis to "transaction malleability theft" was that Mt Gox had simply lost their private keys to the BTC effectively resulting the in those BTC being forever lost. The fact that Mt Gox had started reorganising and moving these BTC to new addresses a couple of weeks ago, also had not gone unnoticed.
6. Re:What does "stealing" bitcoins mean anyway? by AaronLS · 2014-03-24 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for the excellent explanation.
Big mystery by Wansu · 2014-03-21 02:16 · Score: 2

"There is no explanation yet of why the sneaky thieves that 'stole' the bitcoins used a MtGox wallet to hide them."
Sure there is. The explanation is the whole thing is a huge swindle.

--
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
More likely duplicates by goombah99 · 2014-03-21 02:29 · Score: 4, Informative

Consider, What does it mean for a bitcoin to be lost or to be found or to exist. To be "lost" it means no one no longer knows the bitcoin's key. Yet you can also have more than one copy of the key. For example MagicTux might have "stolen" the coin (that is, transfered a coin to a key, deleted that key from the mtGox data base ("oopsie") but secretly kept a copy of the key somewhere else. But then suppose that not all copies of the key were deleted. Both the "found" key and the one lurking in MagicTux's hideout are the same valid key. Either one can spend the coin.
Thus there is not one copy of the coin to be found. there could be many.
If you give someone control of your wallet, so that they know your keys, you can never get back that control. They can always keep copies of it and have the authrority to spend. THe only way to recover control is to make a new key and transfer the coins to that. Thus these exchanges that manage your coins are scary.

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Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
1. Re:More likely duplicates by jythie · 2014-03-21 02:45 · Score: 2
  
  Though it almost sounds like in this case they thought the coins had been transferred out into a new wallet and never were, thus they old copy of what should be a useless key to an empty wallet turned out to be valuable.
2. Re:More likely duplicates by goombah99 · 2014-03-21 02:58 · Score: 1
  
  Though it almost sounds like in this case they thought the coins had been transferred out into a new wallet and never were, thus they old copy of what should be a useless key to an empty wallet turned out to be valuable.
  I suspect they honestly did transfer the keys to a new wallet at some point. Then some time later they "stole" them by deleting those keys from the new wallet (keeping a backup in their hideout) but forgot there might be other copies of the key around when they deleted the keys in the new wallet. The person that stole them might not even realized there was an old wallet. That is how would anyone know the past wallets a key might have resided in. there's no history that tells you how many copies of a key exist. So if you think you have the only one, you might try to steal it.
  
  --
  Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
3. Re:More likely duplicates by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-21 04:30 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I have not understood the concept of BitCoin exchanges:
  1: Unlike banks which are similar in "just keep your money with us... yes, you can trust us", banks have insurance where if they go under, your cash is safe up to a certain amount. A BitCoin exchange going under, those coins are lost forever, period. I don't know any BitCoin exchanges that have insurance, much even an independent auditor coming in to check that they have a basic set of security standards.
  2: If an exchange takes all the coins it has, dumps them into a wallet, and walks off, there is no criminal liability for doing so. Just using the excuse of being hacked is good enough to get off the hook. Then the wallet can be sold, the goods transferred into other wallets, etc. BitCoin by itself can be traced, but some shell games with wallets make for easy laundering.
  3: What does an exchange do for a person? If you want any security against double spending, you have to walk the whole blockchain history for every transaction, and this only will get hairier as time goes on and coins get split up into satoshi. Only use for an exchange is turning BTC into another currency and back. To trust one for storing coins is idiocy at best.
  4: Do exchanges have any internal protection if hacked? There should be a layer between the wallets and the outside world, something that isn't easily breachable by a single phish attempt or two.
4. Re:More likely duplicates by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2014-03-21 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  It is possible for things to get temporarily or permanently lost by transferring around your own wallets. But an actual thief would be 100% likely to do a real transfer of that money, making the old keys obsolete, for the very reason that it is not actually stolen until you make the transaction impossible or very hard to reverse.
5. Re:More likely duplicates by Jane+Q.+Public · 2014-03-21 06:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  "If you give someone control of your wallet, so that they know your keys, you can never get back that control."
  Yes you can. Create a new wallet and pay those bitcoins into the new wallet. Done.
6. Re:More likely duplicates by JesseMcDonald · 2014-03-21 08:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The GP already alluded to that. But that gives you control over the funds in a new wallet, not control over the original wallet. If someone sends new funds to the old address you won't have exclusive control over them until you've transferred them elsewhere.
  Think of wallets as free, unbreakable safes with fixed combinations. If someone else learns the combination, you can move the contents to a different safe that only you know the combination to (as long as you get to it first), but the other party will always be able to get into the original safe.
  
  --
  "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
7. Re:More likely duplicates by complete+loony · 2014-03-21 11:45 · Score: 1
  
  And they are like post office boxes that anyone can send more valuables to at any time they wish.
  
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  09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
8. Re:More likely duplicates by mysidia · 2014-03-21 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  If someone sends new funds to the old address you won't have exclusive control over them until you've transferred them elsewhere.
  That's true. They ought to add a spend transaction type of "Spend and revoke source wallet". With an optional challenge phrase used to originally construct the keypair
  Revoke transaction requiring knowledge of both the private key -- and the challenge phrase. So any future spends to the revoked wallet will either be invalid and not be confirmed by the network, or the money goes to the first revoker, instead.
  Also: revokation of a wallet, should dump any unconfirmed transactions with that wallet as source on the floor, except spends to the replacement wallet declared in the revokation.
9. Re:More likely duplicates by Jane+Q.+Public · 2014-03-21 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  "The GP already alluded to that. But that gives you control over the funds in a new wallet, not control over the original wallet."
  Yes, that's true. I was referring to the funds, not the wallet.
  
  But my point was, as long as you also have the credentials for the wallet, you can take the actual bitcoins back at any time.
  
  But the issue is real, and precisely why I said long ago that these exchanges were problems waiting to happen.
10. Re:More likely duplicates by mysidia · 2014-03-22 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  4: Do exchanges have any internal protection if hacked? There should be a layer between the wallets and the outside world, something that isn't easily breachable by a single phish attempt or two.
  If they wanted to operate a truly secure Exchange...... they could start by having a policy of not holding customer Bitcoins. Instead: they should hold a small 'security deposit' for each customer --- a minimum $100 or so. And use a rule, that the most BTC you can sell in one trade is your deposit times 5; so to sell $10000 worth of Bitcoins, you would need a $2000 deposit.
  When you want to buy fiat: you enter your trade, and then you have 15 minutes to settle by immediately depositing your Bitcoins plus the Exchange's fee after making the trade.
  If you fail to settle the trade within 20 minutes, then the exchange will match the buyer with a different seller, and add up to your security deposit to the buyer's payment, in order to reduce the buyer's risk caused by market fluctuation from seller's failure to settle.
  I have not understood the concept of BitCoin exchanges:
  An Exchange: You deposit something of value of one type, then trade it for something else, then withdraw the thing you traded it for.
  I don't know any BitCoin exchanges that have insurance, much even an independent auditor coming in to check that they have a basic set of security standards.
  It's not necessary, until some Exchanges are in competition with each other, and one of them starts advertising that they have insured all the Bitcoin assets, or a regulator forces them to do so.
  By the way.... it would be very expensive or impossible to insure a Bitcoin exchange, most likely. What traditional insurance company understands Bitcoin well enough..... and is going to have the Bitcoin funds necessary to initially back such a policy?
  If an exchange takes all the coins it has, dumps them into a wallet, and walks off, there is no criminal liability for doing so. Just using the excuse of being hacked is good enough to get off the hook.
  This is not necessarily true. There may be liability, particularly for fraud, negligence, or other crimes related to running a financial institution without the required adherance to certain rules. Investigators will ultimately have to look into the nature of the 'hacking' and ascertain if the claim is legitimate.
  Then the wallet can be sold, the goods transferred into other wallets, etc. BitCoin by itself can be traced, but some shell games with wallets make for easy laundering.
  This is when other Bitcoin exchanges, retailers, etc, start getting served with papers to disclose all wallet IDs that they have received funds at... And separately, all wallet IDs that made payments/deposits to them.
Market manipulation by john.syrinek · 2014-03-21 02:49 · Score: 1

Karpeles: Sorry guys, we lost em'! *insider trading* Oh look, we found them! Their value has been restored! (Also, I'm rich)
Wow by rebelwarlock · 2014-03-21 02:54 · Score: 1

Do they really not realize that this is actually way scarier than simply saying that they were hiding this wallet all along?
Re:BS by ArcadeMan · 2014-03-21 02:56 · Score: 2

That's not a very safe place to keep your wallet.

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Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by ArcadeMan · 2014-03-21 02:57 · Score: 1

We're talking about BitCoin, not LeafCoin or PotCoin.

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Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
That's why trust my bitcons to FRED'S BANK! by RevWaldo · 2014-03-21 03:01 · Score: 1

Hi, I'm Fred! I have a bank. Got 50 BTC? I'll keep it, er, right here on my smartphone, right here in my vest pocket, don't worry about it..

.

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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Re:Fraud charges inbound... oh wait by geeper · 2014-03-21 03:18 · Score: 1

Agreed. It's no fun reading the ramblings of a stoned ESL student.

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Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
Is this real life? by VortexCortex · 2014-03-21 03:22 · Score: 1

Or am I watching Office Space again?
Ever since I did that relaxation therapy I really can't tell anymore and don't particularly care either.
Re:BS by hawkinspeter · 2014-03-21 03:45 · Score: 2

It sounds to me like it's a very safe place. You're going to notice any pickpockets pretty quickly.

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by hawkinspeter · 2014-03-21 03:51 · Score: 1

You seem to be a bit confused. The problems are with MTGox, not with bitcoin itself. Also, aren't the majority of big drug deals conducted in US dollars? AFAIK, bitcoins are only used for relatively small amounts - the shipping containers full of contraband are paid for with real-world currencies.

Also, I'd have to question the logic of only judging a service/product based on its origin, not on its suitability for your needs. You realise that bubble-wrap was first sold as wallpaper, yet I bet you're fine with using it to protect items in transit.

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:BS by cusco · 2014-03-21 03:52 · Score: 1

Actually it's probably about as safe as can be, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to go looking there . . .

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"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I wonder... by Tom · 2014-03-21 04:01 · Score: 1

...what this means in meaningful terms. Does it mean I get to actually withdraw the single bitcoin that I had tried to exchange at MtGox? Probably not, right?

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Bitcoin is for fools by Lumpy · 2014-03-21 04:11 · Score: 1

Holy crap, anyone that is using bitcoin for anything but their illegal money laundering is insane.
"oops we forgot about this" is 100% lies and bullshit. They might as well start talking with a thick new jersey accent and ask if they need to send Big Tony over to talk about if legs need to be broken or not.
fagetaboutit!

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by cusco · 2014-03-21 04:23 · Score: 1

Wallpaper? Really? Now I have the image of a 1970s-era 'Space Age' apartment papered with bubble wrap burned into my brain.

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"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by hawkinspeter · 2014-03-21 04:43 · Score: 1

Now imagine yourself bouncing off the walls trying to pop all the bubbles with a big cheesy grin across your face!

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Dumb and dumber by benjfowler · 2014-03-21 04:52 · Score: 1

MtGOX are a class act all right.
"Found" "Lost" riiiight. by whitroth · 2014-03-21 04:57 · Score: 1

Let's see, the head of Mt. Gox unloaded all his bitcoins, and then told his users. Prosecutors are looking into this.
Goshawowie, where did they find this "old", "lost" file, in the head honcho's smartphone?
mark
If MtGox hadn't been hacked... by gnasher719 · 2014-03-21 05:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

So let me see if I get this right: If MtGox hadn't been hacked, and if they hadn't found this old wallet, then these guys would have lost $116 million out of sheer incompetence? Can you imagine Bezos saying to Amazon shareholders: "Sorry guys, we lost $116 million. The money must be somewhere in the building, but we can't find it. " Or Tim Cook. Or Eric Schmidt. Or Ballmer.
1. Re:If MtGox hadn't been hacked... by JustNiz · 2014-03-21 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  I could imagine Ballmer both saying it and getting away with it.
2. Re:If MtGox hadn't been hacked... by Outtascope · 2014-03-21 07:16 · Score: 2
  
  See AIG, circa 2005. Much more than $116 million.
3. Re:If MtGox hadn't been hacked... by Wain13001 · 2014-03-21 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  ...Or Ballmer.
  Well if it had gotten lost in the cushions of a chair, I can imagine it.
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by Outtascope · 2014-03-21 07:11 · Score: 1

Who the fuck let George Will in here?
Typical internet loser by hessian · 2014-03-21 07:58 · Score: 1

Definitely not stoned, and I see only one typo. It happens to everyone; deal with it.

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Futurist Traditionalism
Gore? by cascadingstylesheet · 2014-03-21 13:17 · Score: 1

Al Gore? Is that you?!?
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by hawkinspeter · 2014-03-21 20:21 · Score: 1

Nope, the problem is with an incompetent provider (MTGox) that never bothered itself with decent security practices.

Here's a car analogy. What if a garage buys two totalled Ford cars and chops and welds them together to make one "good" car out of the wrecks and then I come along to buy it thinking it was a properly built Ford? I'd eventually notice all kinds of problems with the chassis - is that a problem with Fords? Or is the problem with the garage that did such a shoddy job?

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Pothead banking isn't safe by david_thornley · 2014-03-23 08:06 · Score: 1

Sure, this is all MTGox's fault. (Writing their own security software, and in PHP? Blithering incompetence or malice.) Now, where do I find a trustworthy exchange? One that takes security seriously and does things right, and isn't going to suddenly "lose" all its bitcoins shortly before the founder takes an extended vacation somewhere without extradition treaties?

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes