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Robin Hood Hacker Donates $11,000 of Stolen Bitcoin to Help Fight ISIS (newsweek.com)

Posted by msmash on from the modern-life-robin-hood dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A Kurdish region of Syria that borders territory held by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has received an $11,000 donation in allegedly stolen bitcoin from a vigilante hacker. (paywalled, alternate source) The pseudonymous Phineas Fisher donated 25 bitcoins to a crowdfunding campaign set up by members of the Rojava region's economic committee, described by Fisher as "one of the most inspiring revolutionary projects in the world." Fisher claims that the bitcoin donation, recorded publicly on the blockchain ledger and listed on the crowdfunding campaign page, came from hacking into a bank. "The money did come from robbing a bank," Fisher said. "Bank robbing is more viable than ever, it's just done differently these days."Phisher adds: "Unfortunately, our world is backwards. You get rich by doing bad things and go to jail for doing good."

2 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. No, it is NOT fuzzy by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Stolen property is stolen property. You can't un-steal it by giving it to a cause, no matter how worthy.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    1. Re:No, it is NOT fuzzy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wow, it's 2016 and people still believe this bullshit?

      Over half of the subprime mortgages were created by non-bank entities that the government did not regulate (like General Motors, who had sunk a ton of money into a website you might have heard of called "ditech.com" ... any wonder why they needed a bailout when the other car companies didn't?). Further, even with the anti-redlining rules in place, the regulations that the government had still mandated that some level of due diligence was required. The undocumented NINJA loans were completely noncompliant with even the reduced requirements for subprime loans. Banks created those loans themselves all on their own initiative because they believed that they could get them rated AAA++++ and sold on to other suckers without being left holding the bag.

      If you want someone to blame for the mess, then if Moodys, SnP, and the rest had actually reviewed the documentation (or lack thereof) and rated these loans junk, Fannie and Freddie wouldn't have bought any of them to back their prime mortgage insurance. Of course, neither would anyone else, and the banks would have quickly stopped creating these instruments when they ended up without any suckers to sell them to.