Quote from: tarrant_01 on November 11, 2012, 12:32:30 PM

Did anyone notice the messages on the wallet addresses?

These are the "Stop Release" / "Promote Full Release" addresses from the infamous pastebin:

Quote

Bitcoin Address to Stop Release:
1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8

...

Bitcoin Address to Promote Full Release:
12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB

I really hope KnightMB doesn't happen to have the private keys to those addresses.

Found this especially interesting thread on the TimeKoin forums: (Only 4 posts total.)

Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins by koinmaster » Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:24 pm

Quote from: KnightMB

Re: Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins
by KnightMB » Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:51 am

Quote from: koinmaster

This story seems to be everywhere. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is weird that the group wants to use bitcoins as payment. Are they really protected from the FBI tracking them down? I had to find these links on other sites, they seem to have been removed.

I looked around, seems to be two stories. One that says the group "Anonymous" has released them and another that some group got them from his tax office. I think the latter is true and the former was a news hoax. I did read a topic over at the bitcoin.org forum about this as well. They seem to think the FBI will track them down right away.

While I agree that no digital currency will make anyone 100% anonymous, it sure makes it very difficult to find them. To start, they can watch their account without any fear of being found because it's a global register (just like what Timekoin uses) so any transactions they make can be watched. The part where I disagree a little is finding them. If they spend the bitcoins around then it gets mixed in with all the other users. So if a user has 100 bitcoins and this group spends say 15 to that user. The user then spends 50 of the 115 bitcoins he/she has, how do you know which bitcoins were the original and which were from the group? It just doesn't mix that way, there is no way to make a distinction there as it's all math. Repeat this process enough times.

So unless this group with the bitcoins spends it all at say Amazon.com on a new flat-screen TV and has it delivered right to their home address, trying to track them down is going to be neigh impossible without arresting every single person along the way that the dirty bitcoins have touched. That in of itself is a rather impossible task unless there is a database somewhere with the real name connected to every bitcoin address in existence.

Quote from: KnightMB

Re: Romney 1040 tax returns held hostage for Bitcoins
by KnightMB » Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:20 pm

Quote from: koinmaster

Quote from: KnightMB

So unless this group with the bitcoins spends it all at say Amazon.com on a new flat-screen TV and has it delivered right to their home address, trying to track them down is going to be neigh impossible without arresting every single person along the way that the dirty bitcoins have touched. That in of itself is a rather impossible task unless there is a database somewhere with the real name connected to every bitcoin address in existence.

So unlike money which is physical, if a robber steals $100 from a bank and gives it to you. You already had $50 for example. You go spend on something and by using the "stolen" money, it's easy to trace back to the bank. But with digital currency, there is nothing that "marks" one transaction or another, it's just a number balance. So if you spend 1 koin or 5 koins, there is nothing that can tell if those koins are part of a stolen transaction or just from someone else's account? Am I understanding that right?

That's about right. When currency is transferred from one account to another, no information other than X transfer to Y exist. It's just math from that point, take 5 koins from one account, give it another account. The 5 koins are just that, the number 5 and nothing more.

It seems overwhelmingly likely that the Secret Service will want to have a look inside any safety deposit boxes that KnightMB might have,
that are known to contain COMPUTERS (well, usb sticks) that are known to contain Bitcoin wallet files.

This raises the question: What is likely to happen to evidence that is not related to the Romney investigation?

Would it be returned to the owner intact? Can seized evidence be kept indefinitely?
Can the Secret Service give KnightMB a blank USB stick and some unused CD-Rs as replacement?

What is the value of an USB stick containing (perhaps) the keys to (perhaps) 371K bitcoins? Around 20 dollars or around 4 million dollars?
If they give him 20 dollars and tell him to go buy a new stick, how can he argue otherwise? (Without getting into more trouble.)