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Silk Road 2.0 'Hack' Blamed On Bitcoin Bug, All Funds Stolen
Forbes ^ | February 13, 2014 | Andy Greenberg

Posted on 02/13/2014 7:20:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

The same bug that has plagued several of the biggest players in the Bitcoin economy may have just bitten the Silk Road.

On Thursday, one of the recently-reincarnated drug-selling black market site’s administrators posted a long announcement to the Silk Road 2.0 forums admitting that the site had been hacked by one of its sellers, and its reserve of Bitcoins belonging to both the users and the site itself stolen. The admin, who goes by the name “Defcon,” blamed the same “transaction malleability” bug in the Bitcoin protocol that led to several of the cryptocurrency’s exchanges halting withdrawals in the previous week.

“I am sweating as I write this… I must utter words all too familiar to this scarred community: We have been hacked,” Defcon wrote. “Our initial investigations indicate that a vendor exploited a recently discovered vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol known as “transaction malleability” to repeatedly withdraw coins from our system until it was completely empty.”(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Japan
KEYWORDS: australia; bitcoin; bitcoincrime; bitcoinmarket; bitcoinnsa; craigswright; craigwright; crime; cryptocurrency; internet; japan; nakamoto; nsa; nsabitcoin; satoshi; satoshinakamoto; silkroad
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1 posted on 02/13/2014 7:20:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: Errant

Ping


2 posted on 02/13/2014 7:21:45 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

NSA.


3 posted on 02/13/2014 7:24:21 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Islam is a religion of peace, and Moslems reserve the right to behead anyone who says otherwise.)
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To: Jet Jaguar

What do you want to bet that the NSA was involved in this...


4 posted on 02/13/2014 7:24:50 PM PST by babygene ( .)
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To: Jet Jaguar; Lurkina.n.Learnin; nascarnation; TsonicTsunami08; SgtHooper; Ghost of SVR4; ...
Thanks Jet Jaguar


Click to be Added / Removed.

5 posted on 02/13/2014 7:26:07 PM PST by Errant (Surround yourself with intelligent and industrious people who help and support each other.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I don’t understand anything about bitcoin. I know it is digital currency, but what is backing it?


6 posted on 02/13/2014 7:26:09 PM PST by cardinal4
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To: cardinal4

Same thing backing the US dollar.


7 posted on 02/13/2014 7:27:56 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Islam is a religion of peace, and Moslems reserve the right to behead anyone who says otherwise.)
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To: cardinal4

Nothing, the same as Federal Reserve notes.


8 posted on 02/13/2014 7:29:53 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (I will raise $2M for Sarah Palin's next run, what will you do?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

If there exists a dollar alternative, then this diminishes the ability of the gummint to control.

I, too, think the NSA was behind this.


9 posted on 02/13/2014 7:31:08 PM PST by gaijin
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To: cardinal4
I don’t understand anything about bitcoin. I know it is digital currency, but what is backing it?

Just google it.

10 posted on 02/13/2014 7:32:16 PM PST by gaijin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

At least the US dollar has ink and paper—both of which will be worth more than the face value of the bill in due course.


11 posted on 02/13/2014 7:33:09 PM PST by Fungi
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

State sponsored, or banksters, or both, IMO. A lot of the bank executives meeting with mysterious deaths lately (4 - 5). I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the same are involved in the DOS attacks on the exchanges are as well.


12 posted on 02/13/2014 7:34:58 PM PST by Errant (Surround yourself with intelligent and industrious people who help and support each other.)
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To: gaijin

But not China?


13 posted on 02/13/2014 7:36:52 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: All
Silk Road 2 Loses Over 4,500 Bitcoins in Alleged Hack

Check out the comments as well.

14 posted on 02/13/2014 7:38:54 PM PST by Errant (Surround yourself with intelligent and industrious people who help and support each other.)
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To: Errant
State sponsored, or banksters, or both, IMO. A lot of the bank executives meeting with mysterious deaths lately (4 - 5).

Yeah, isn't it odd? Maybe it's just a statistically fluke, though.

15 posted on 02/13/2014 7:39:50 PM PST by freerepublicchat
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To: cardinal4

I googled it, yahood it, binged it, .... still don’t understand it.


16 posted on 02/13/2014 7:41:17 PM PST by VerySadAmerican (".....Barrack, and the horse Mohammed rode in on.")
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To: cardinal4
but what is backing it?

It was created out of nothing by a hacker.

17 posted on 02/13/2014 7:41:26 PM PST by PAR35
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; cardinal4
Same thing backing the US dollar.

That's not entirely correct. The USD is backed by the enormous mass of goods and services that are ready to be exchanged for it. BTC is backed by hardly anything because there are virtually no goods or services that are exchangeable for a BTC. No merchant would want to hold the BTC, which is not a surprise considering BTC's volatility. A few vendors sell stuff "for BTC," but in reality they convert your BTC into USD and then sell you the product for those USD.

18 posted on 02/13/2014 7:42:10 PM PST by Greysard
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Nothing, the same as Federal Reserve notes.

Have you forgotten about the German gold?

19 posted on 02/13/2014 7:42:11 PM PST by PAR35
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Except malleability is not going to transfer coins. This is pure theft, not some conspiracy. They just took the money and ran.


20 posted on 02/13/2014 7:43:35 PM PST by Vermont Lt (If you want to keep your dignity, you can keep it. Period........ Just kidding, you can't keep it.)
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