Quote from: ForgottenPassword on November 17, 2014, 06:40:40 PM

There is a major problem with these bounties, and it is that in order for the bounty to be paid out the person needs to be convicted.

In most developed countries, there needs to be a clear chain of evidence in order to secure a conviction, essentially, law enforcement need to prove that all of the evidence was obtained legally and through the proper channels. It's quite likely any evidence obtained by a bounty hunter would be inadmissable as it would be difficult for LE to prove all of it was obtained legally, and for that reason its highly unlikely prosecutors would move ahead on a case like this.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

It would be much better if the bounty was paid for providing the identity of the person along with proof that is acceptable enough for the escrower.

^ This has been mentioned.
(side bar, I don't think the burden of proof should be placed on the third party escrow to verify the tips "acceptability" or validity. Verification needs to be more concrete than that. )

The trouble is that it's still tricky to verify if bounty was changed to just an ID.
I personally mentioned to lower the bounty in exchange for verified identity.
It's just still tricky to do.

Martin needs to protect his bounty from scammers and inaccurate tips.
But the informant also needs to be able to protect their tip.
It's kind of hard to verify this kind of tip and keep both parties protected.
To verify it in public here, the informant is risking posting inaccurate info on an innocent person, publicly.
To verify it privately between informant and Martin would in turn protect the accused identity till it was verified,
but there would be no third party witness to observe the interaction and the validity of the communication that took place - or the status of the case as it relates back to the informant.
I'm sure there is some method of trade and verification that I have not considered yet,
but so far I keep spinning in circles with the options of how that would all go down.

Now, if both parties were on American soil, a conviction would be much more likely - and the probability that Law Enforcement would pursue it is high. But this is not the case, which yes, leaves the conviction requirement almost impossible to obtain on many counts - while also leaving the informant in a situation where their work is publicly noted and utilized - but they don't ever get paid for it due to extraneous circumstances.

I understand both sides of this coin. I can put myself in Martins shoes and see his side, and I can see the side of the informant.
I am getting the impression that Martin does not fully understand the situation himself and his limitations.

On the other hand,
When I asked about the Id of hacker vs Conviction, Martin replied: "when his identity is proven he will be convicted 100%"
- I don't know what to make of this comment beyond possibly that it reveals Martin never actually spoke with any lawyers before he placed this bounty, and is misjudging the situation a great deal based upon a simple report he made with his local law enforcement.

I am also a little conflicted on the official terms of the bounty because when I have asked about them, I get conflicting responses.

Per the bitcoinbounty page, the steps include:

1. upload to block chain,
2. Report to law enforcement (DO NOT SUBMIT INFO TO US).
3. Wait for law enforcement to make an arrest that leads to a conviction in the case.
4. Contact us with the original document submitted to Proof of Existence, proving you provided the correct information to law enforcement.
5. Get Bounty

But when I submitted my info to blockchain, and told Martin it was done, he replied for me to email him a copy of this information directly - which contradicts step 2.

"hi,
thanks

yes please send me a copy to martin@bitalo.com"

I was kind of considering just sending this to him on good faith - but I was still unclear about it. Plus it was the first time I had ever used blockchain so I was trying to understand how it worked. I assumed it would be publicly viewable on blockchain at first than I realized it wasn't, so i asked him If he needed a copy and that was his response. Afterwards, I looked at the bounty steps and it hit me that in bold letters it instructs me NOT to submit to martin directly. So that's where I got confused.

When I started to discuss exchanging ID vs a Conviction, he kind of implied that I would not actually need a conviction saying:

"If you can PROVE identity and you have info, you will get the full bounty, if you dont have anything, you dont get anything"
So I'm not sure if I'm just misunderstanding our dialogue or what...but I'm not clear on it.

I have a chain of evidence that was obtained legally.
I could literally type out the steps I took in acquiring this information, and it could be mirrored and verified.
I can prove his other online identities too and even connect those names to other crimes he did under different names.
Which all tie back to his real life identity. All obtained legally.

I've also spoken to a couple Attorneys about this situation to get a better understanding of all the limitations and possibilities.
(I'm am lucky to have a few close friends in my circle)

To approach this hacker internationally from the get-go will only result frustration and walls in terms of prosecution and conviction. Although, his case would be helped by getting this hacker for a crime he committed in the country he lives first - than shifting over to Europe.

Even if Martin video screen capped hacker confessing in video on skype - he would most likely never get a conviction internationally because the crime is relatively minimal and he would most likely have to rely on the American police to find a way to convict him for something here. Under those circumstances, at most, Hacker would just have to avoid traveling to Bialos home country to avoid those charges.

TBH, this whole case would hold more weight if a ransom had actually been paid. Not paying the ransom actually minimized the damage done to him as the victim, and minimized the actual criminal act which was committed. This minimizes the potential for law enforcement to see value in pursing the case internationally. The end results in Martin paying a drastically higher amount of bitcoin than he would have been victimized for, while dramatically decreasing the probability of his desired end results. Instead, he could have paid the smaller amount of ransom one time and in turn increased the probability to effectively pursue the crime. He could have offered the difference amount in bounty afterwards for the tips.

[I'm not in any way suggesting to pay out ransoms to hackers, I'm just repeating what was explained to me in context of the situation - and chances are I would have done the same thing refusing to pay the ransom]

SO!

One thing I could potentially do is work from inside the boundaries of the US and attempt to have him arrested for unrelated crimes he participated in while in using the other alts. Once he is actually arrested and in custody for the other crimes it will verify that I have the correct person. This is because I can prove a link between those other alts and him here as dd4bc.

At that point, I can share my tip publicly and the proof linking this criminal who was arrested for "unrelated crimes" to "dd4bc" hacker (and the proof of existence I uploaded to blockchain previously). At this point, I can choose to reveal to Martin the link between this "unrelated case" and his own hacker...he can verify the legitimacy of my information - and be free to use it for his own case and hopefully pay out a bounty maybe.

The US would also be more sympathetic to his case at this point because they would have already caught the hacker for similar crimes here.

This is the best I can come up with at this point.
If Martin wants the ID sooner rather than later - and without the conviction requirement,
he already knows that I'd be willing to work with him on a safe exchange for a lesser reward.
I just don't think he's interested in it, nor have I been able to think of a legit way for it to go down.

One extra thing I just noticed:
Before I continue, I just suddenly realized something. God I'm so sleep deprived here.
The bounty is in third party escrow - but the escrow is Roger Ver. Martin told me that the 100btc bounty was a combined reward from both Roger and Martin in my PM here. But they are actually listed seperatly on the bitcoinbounty page - so that confuses me. His is listed for 37btc, while Martins is listed for 100btc. Earlier, I had asked martin about the two bounties and Martin said to me via PM "No, it is one bounty. Roger Ver is doing the escrow for our bounty and acts as referee and also guarantuees that we have the coins for the bounty etc etc." - I stand here a little confused with that too atop of everything else above.
Also a little unclear why Roger Ver would be escrowing his own bounty. Am I misunderstanding this?