The Bitcoin Tracking Thread

[steyr_m]

I don't know enough about it, but anything electronic can be hacked. i'm a bit leery.

[EE_]

I don't know enough about it, but anything electronic can be hacked. i'm a bit leery.

Hackers steal over $12,000 of Bitcoins from transaction broker Bitinstant
By Nathan Ingraham on March 8, 2013 03:41 pm Email @NateIngraham

Online institutions of all types are vulnerable to hacking, and Bitcoin is no exception: last week, hackers stole over $12,000 worth of Bitcoin currency from Bitinstant, one of the bigger Bitcoin transaction sites. As with many recent hacks, the Bitcoin theft was executed thanks to a bit of social engineering. According to the Bitinstant blog, the attacker went to the company's domain registrar posing as a Bitinstant employee — the attacker had a similar enough email address and knowledge of the employee's date of birth and mother's maiden name. From there, the attacker convinced the domain registrar to make the fake email address the default and to reset the account's password.

Once the attacker had access to the Bitinstant domain, he redirected the DNS to servers in Germany and then to the Ukraine, locking out the Bitinstant employees and gaining access to their email accounts. With control over the email accounts, they reset the login for a Bitcoin exchange and stole the $12,800 in three separate transactions. Getting access to the Bitcoin exchange proved simple because of a lack of two-factor authentication — all the thieves needed was a username and password.

Fortunately for Bitinstant and the company's customers, no personal information was obtained by the hacker — the company says it keeps all personal and transactional data offline to protect user privacy. Sadly, it wasn't as vigilant with other forms of security. Wired reports that Virwox, the Bitcoin exchange hackers raided, has supported multi-factor authentication since September of 2012. "Bitinstant was not using it (they learned and do now)," a Virwox representative told Wired.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/8/408...rom-bitinstant

[madfranks]

Hackers steal over $12,000 of Bitcoins from transaction broker Bitinstant
By Nathan Ingraham on March 8, 2013 03:41 pm Email @NateIngraham

Online institutions of all types are vulnerable to hacking, and Bitcoin is no exception: last week, hackers stole over $12,000 worth of Bitcoin currency from Bitinstant, one of the bigger Bitcoin transaction sites. As with many recent hacks, the Bitcoin theft was executed thanks to a bit of social engineering. According to the Bitinstant blog, the attacker went to the company's domain registrar posing as a Bitinstant employee — the attacker had a similar enough email address and knowledge of the employee's date of birth and mother's maiden name. From there, the attacker convinced the domain registrar to make the fake email address the default and to reset the account's password.

Once the attacker had access to the Bitinstant domain, he redirected the DNS to servers in Germany and then to the Ukraine, locking out the Bitinstant employees and gaining access to their email accounts. With control over the email accounts, they reset the login for a Bitcoin exchange and stole the $12,800 in three separate transactions. Getting access to the Bitcoin exchange proved simple because of a lack of two-factor authentication — all the thieves needed was a username and password.

Fortunately for Bitinstant and the company's customers, no personal information was obtained by the hacker — the company says it keeps all personal and transactional data offline to protect user privacy. Sadly, it wasn't as vigilant with other forms of security. Wired reports that Virwox, the Bitcoin exchange hackers raided, has supported multi-factor authentication since September of 2012. "Bitinstant was not using it (they learned and do now)," a Virwox representative told Wired.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/8/408...rom-bitinstant

This sucks, but really is no different than old fashioned bank robbery. The difference is, there is no FDIC or central issuing authority to simply print more bitcoins into existence and make the victims whole.

[Shami-Amourae]

I'll give you guys a hint. Bankers what to shut Bitcoin down. They want to do whatever they can to discredit it. Make you afraid. Exchanges are the targets.

I've had Bitcoins stolen from me myself. I learned my lesson. You treat it like cash, don't treat it like a credit card or your bank. Understand that if you sell Bitcoins, someone can report the dollars they gave you as stolen and get a chargeback (what happened to me.) So only go to exchanges like Mt. Gox. Don't trust anyone other than a trusted exchange, and when you finish your trading, pull your dollars and Bitcoins out of their servers ASAP and store it on your hard drive(s).

[chad]

emp burst = no more bitcoins

[Shami-Amourae]

emp burst = no more bitcoins

If there was an EMP burst civilization would collapse. That's why you have Gold, Silver, Ammo, and Physical Dollars.

Bitcoins are an online currency. They compete with things like the credit card and Paypal type systems.

[sirgonzo420]

Currently at $53.99

[sirgonzo420]

Currently at $53.99

Ok now it's at $54.88

[Ares]

Ok now it's at $54.88

You can thank Argentina price controls for sparking demand in bitcoins, and Cyprus getting ready to take a haircut. With a limited supply demand will dictate price.

[Santa]

I wonder if the financial "electronic" pillage going on in Cyprus and other places like Argentina is in large part causing this current run into bitcoins.

Problem-reaction-solution.

It's true I don't know dick about cryptography and I suppose that's a part of the reason for my skepticism of this bitcoin "business model." Yeah, I'm fucking stupid, I know.

But read this quote.

Fortunately for Bitinstant and the company's customers, no personal information was obtained by the hacker — the company says it keeps all personal and transactional data offline to protect user privacy. Sadly, it wasn't as vigilant with other forms of security.

This brings to mind another ignorant question. If every buy and sell transaction occurs through an exchange like Bitinstant, what prevents these exchanges from being owned and operated by the Banksters themselves, who in that case would be the keepers of the personal and transactional data in the first place? If that were the case, they would already control every bit of the electronic information from the get go, wouldn't they?