[HN Gopher] Germany: Police seize bitcoins worth EUR2B
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Germany: Police seize bitcoins worth EUR2B
Author : taimurkazmi
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-01-30 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| dewey wrote:
| The project they were running was movie2k.to in case anyone is
| curious as it's not mentioned in the article.
| curiousgal wrote:
| I always wondered what happened to that website. Good times!
| mrb wrote:
| This is correct. I also found some other articles do mention
| movie2k, eg.: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/movie2k-to-
| beschuldigter...
| lawlessone wrote:
| For those that don't read the article. They stopped in 2013, so
| it was worth a lot less than that back then.
| paulpauper wrote:
| not smart enough to use cold storage either. probably had the
| private keys on desktop in plain text
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _cold storage_
|
| This is the equivalent of 19th century criminals burying
| their cash. It's fine. You just put the person in jail until
| they cooperate or die.
| earnesti wrote:
| Wat? They had cold storage, the cops just used a $5 wrench
| attack, kind of. Basically they stashed their profits from
| the operation to BTC, then just held it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| do you think German police used 5$ wrench attack? this is
| not North Korea.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Not a literal wrench, but more like... persuasive
| talking, backed by credible threat of incarceration.
|
| The point of the "$5 wrench attack" is that it's not a
| cryptographic break.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Germany has very lax sentencing. for $2 billion I would
| just do the time. I am still guessing it was unprotected
| file on desktop. Probably the criminals kept the only
| copy of keys on a thumb drive , which when confiscated
| meant they had no choice but to comply.
| progbits wrote:
| You think you can just get out of prison and use the
| money? They will be watching you and anything you buy
| with it or any cash you convert it to will be seized
| again. Might as well give it up for reduced sentence.
| wmf wrote:
| Obviously you'd want to leave the country and never
| return like Kim Dotcom or Mark Karpeles.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Or Carlos Ghosn (a prisoner in Lebanon)
|
| the TV miniseries on his case is well worth watching.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| EUR2bn buys a nice life for you and everyone you've ever
| been acquainted with, somewhere without an extradition
| treaty.
| patall wrote:
| Plus, these guys were (mentally) able to keep to those
| bitcoin for 100x of growth. I would guess they are likely
| to have more from other, legal sources, which potentially
| makes them millionaires. Why (indefenitely) stay in
| prison with a billion when you can go free with a
| million.
| hot_gril wrote:
| "$5 wrench" refers to https://xkcd.com/538/
| josefx wrote:
| The 5$ wrench is just a simple example of social
| engineering. No amount of cryptography will help you if
| the guy holding the keys can be talked/pressured into
| handing them over.
|
| https://xkcd.com/538/
| feoren wrote:
| I wouldn't say all social engineering is a $5 wrench
| attack. A $5 wrench attack is having physical access to
| the _person_ and using physical means (handcuffs, prison
| cells, guns) to convince them to comply.
| screamingninja wrote:
| Reference: https://xkcd.com/538/
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| Yeah it would be a proper German made 50EUR wrench at
| minimum!
| supafastcoder wrote:
| It would probably be a 5 euro wrench, they don't use
| dollars in Germany
| dodslaser wrote:
| It would probably be a EUR500 Knippex adjustable torque
| wrench. Assuming a German would use a tool for anything
| except it's intended purpose.
| bubu-bln wrote:
| I laughed reading this. I'm now feeling ungerman,
| because, you know - humor!
| nash wrote:
| The way things are going with these seizures, soon governments
| are going to be largest holders of bitcoins.
|
| Good work on getting a currency without government control peeps!
| bondarchuk wrote:
| It would be rather strange to expect a mechanism that bars
| governments from holding bitcoins to be built into the
| protocol, and thus it is rather strange that you expect this to
| have ever been the intention.
| anonporridge wrote:
| > The seizure came after the "accused voluntarily transferred"
| the bitcoins to an official wallet of the Federal Criminal
| Police Office (BKA), police added in a statement.
|
| Seizure is a technical word here, not what laypeople expect
| when they hear the word.
|
| But yes, governments are already very big holders.
| https://bitcointreasuries.net/?maximized=treemap
| firmnoodle wrote:
| The US Government is already one of or the largest know holder
| of Bitcoin. And that is without the assumption that the US
| Government owns the Satoshi coins. It would be fine if
| governments decided they want to hold Bitcoin. I see no issues.
| 39 wrote:
| Dumb take, anybody can hold Bitcoin.
| Lerc wrote:
| I don't think bitcoin was designed to be impervious to
| government influence. The intention was to not be limited to a
| single controller, not that no controller be a government.
| Despite what some people think, bitcoin is not a "stick it to
| the man" invention
|
| Ultimately if bitcoin is to reach the peak of a standard
| currency that some feel is inevitable (and some feel is futile)
| it would necessarily require government involvement. It
| wouldn't be a single government however. Monetary policy would
| have to be driven by a consensus of nations. That would
| possibly be the best (or least worst) way do do things.
|
| None of this has any particular bearing on today's Bitcoin, if
| it's going to replace money it's not going to be in the next
| few decades. If it's still working in 50 years time, there
| might be a chance.
|
| If you eliminate the noise of speculation on day-to-day levels
| of bitcoin, the underlying value difference between the current
| usefulness of bitcoin and the current trading price represents
| people placing bets on the likelihood of that success
| condition.
| immibis wrote:
| I think Bitcoin was designed to be decentralized money, and
| the rest was all emergent behaviour.
|
| A lot of bitcoin holders do want it to be free from
| governments, though.
| hackernudes wrote:
| As long as government can't print more Bitcoin, I don't see the
| problem!
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| The site contained no piracy, only links. If it was a "piracy
| website" why are German authorities not going after Google,
| Yandex & co?
|
| There was no law forbidding what they did at the time they ran
| the site, even if there have been law changes since. It's the
| PirateBay nonsense all over. In that case it was later discovered
| that one of the police officers investigating the site had
| previously worked for Warner Brothers before returning to the
| Swedish police.
| plumeria wrote:
| > In that case it was later discovered that one of the police
| officers investigating the site had previously worked for
| Warner Brothers before returning to the Swedish police.
|
| Revolving doors [0], IMHO should not be permitted.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
| sph wrote:
| Rules for thee...
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| It's kind of irrelevant who the police officer worked for. In
| the end courts have to interpret the law and decided how a law
| is applied. Even if a law might not explicitly state the exact
| circumstances, the court may decided that the spirit of the law
| was broken. It's of course a more difficult case to make for
| investigators, why law makers might then codify the law more
| precisely.
| dewey wrote:
| This has been discussed numerous times over the years, you can
| read the court documents for the "kino.to" case which was very
| similar here: https://openjur.de/u/961112.html
|
| The key is usually the part where it's done with the explicit
| goal of making money exclusively off copyrighted material
| ("gewerbsmassig begangene unerlaubte Verwertung von
| urheberrechtlich geschutzten Werken"), that's also why the
| court case of TPB was so focused on how much money their ad
| business made.
|
| Google, YouTube and other similar players are very well
| integrated in the whole DMCA takedown process and you can't
| really compare them.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| _Friends of mine_ who watch movie streams on similar sites
| tell me they always get their links from Google. Apparently
| all you have to do is input the movie name, together with
| relevant keywords.
|
| Since authorities started cracking down on these streaming
| link sites, they now have to frequently change their URLs, so
| ironically general search engines like Google are the fastest
| way of finding the latest working links. Google has the exact
| same business model of making money with ads on their site,
| which people visit to get those links.
|
| It's easy to look up rulings and see that European courts
| interpret the law the way you say - 100% correct. It's rule
| of corporations, not rule of law. Google will never be
| touched, even though they have served a larger number of
| supposedly illegal links to users. Of course Hollywood
| doesn't go after them because it's a fight they could not
| win.
| nilsherzig wrote:
| Friends of mine told me that someone automated that for you
| https://github.com/movie-web/movie-web
| dewey wrote:
| The point is not if you are able to find streaming links on
| Google in the window of time before the copyright holder
| files a DMCA (https://lumendatabase.org/notices/search?term
| =google+streami...) notice and they are blocked from the
| index or not, but if the site has a legal process to
| process these.
|
| I don't find it very hard to see a difference between
| "illegal" streaming site with no contact information,
| imprint or company behind it vs. large companies that have
| a working legal framework to take down content and do so
| all the time.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Not a valid comparison for two reasons:
|
| 1. The primary use case of Google is not to find pirated
| streams.
|
| 2. Google responds to lawful take-down requests.
|
| > Google has the exact same business model of making money
| with ads on their site, which people visit to get those
| links.
|
| This is a disingenuous claim for the reasons mentioned
| above.
|
| > Google will never be touched, even though they have
| served a larger number of supposedly illegal links to
| users.
|
| False equivalence for the reasons above. Piracy links are a
| small fraction of Google's use case, not the primary
| advertised function. They're also responsive to following
| lawful requests.
| kube-system wrote:
| Law is not code that evaluates exactly as written without
| any exception, any time someone commits an act deemed
| illegal.
|
| Law (usually) considers the full context of the situation,
| like the intent, malice, or negligence of the person
| involved.
| sureglymop wrote:
| But why would the law be vague about this? What if I
| accidentally link a copyrighted work and I happen to run ads
| on my site?
|
| In fact, what if I link to something and it is changed to a
| copyrighted work silently?
| immibis wrote:
| Computers don't care what you intended, but the law cares a
| whole lot. As programmers we sometimes aren't used to that.
| There law isn't executed by a computer, but by judges who
| can see that the clear purpose of a website like this is
| piracy.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > What if I accidentally link a copyrighted work and I
| happen to run ads on my site?
|
| If you make a site that legitimately serves a different
| purpose, then you accidentally post a single link to
| pirated content in a truly good-faith accidental manner,
| then you response to any requests to take it down with a
| good-faith action in a timely manner, you are in a
| completely different category than dedicated piracy
| websites.
|
| There is no equivalence.
|
| Furthermore, the law generally takes intent into account.
| You can start reading on the general concept on Wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
| germanier wrote:
| Do we know for a fact that the operators didn't run file
| hosters as well with links to those hosters being preferred?
|
| Because that was the business model of their predecessor.
| jstrong wrote:
| I don't think if I had $2 billion in proceeds from a piracy
| website I would choose to reside in Germany.
| paulpauper wrote:
| sure better than residing in the US which hands out huge
| sentences like Halloween candy .
| Bluecobra wrote:
| Very true, the guy who hacked into Valve and leaked HL2 got 2
| years probation in Germany.
|
| https://www.svg.com/899802/the-real-reason-valve-wanted-
| to-o...
| f1shy wrote:
| The only thing with you do not f*k around in Germany is
| taxes. For the rest, the fines and sentences are a joke.
| pimeys wrote:
| This one is also questionable in a country that allows
| you to buy a Porsche with cash, and which in general has
| its capital full cash only casinos and bars.
|
| But yes, if you play by the book, you definitely don't
| want to mess with the Finanzamt.
| sva_ wrote:
| There's a planned limit making sales above 10k Euro in
| cash illegal, afaik.
| weinzierl wrote:
| You'd need both: law enforcement that looks the other way when
| it comes to the crimes you commit _and_ good infrastructure.
| Countries with one or the other are easy to find, but both?
| oskarkk wrote:
| You can rent infrastructure from a provider from a country
| you don't reside in.
| hobofan wrote:
| While the people behind this website were indeed caught in
| Germany, providers of similar popular streaming piracy sites
| (kinox.to and movie4k.to) have/had warrants out for them
| internationally as well as house searches all over Europe. They
| really don't joke around when it comes to copyright
| infringement.
| patall wrote:
| Beyond what other wrote: A polish and a german citizen. Website
| was taken down in 2013, but they were imprisoned in 2019. Maybe
| they thought they had got away with it?
| joelthelion wrote:
| This could have a significant downward impact on bitcoin's market
| price. I imagine they will be sold fairly quickly.
| bogota wrote:
| The volume today is 22 billion. 2 billion in downwards pressure
| would lower the price but it's really not a huge deal.
|
| Most deals like that are not done on the open market though.
| paulpauper wrote:
| it is a lot but it would not be sold at once. probably sold in
| secondary/OTC market
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| If it's sold at an auction or anything like that I don't know
| how much arbitrage you can really get. Especially since there
| might be fees or taxes
| vkou wrote:
| Governments aren't fools, they generally don't just yolo a
| market sell order when liquidating seized financial
| instruments.
| doener wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39188364
| weinzierl wrote:
| I only read the German news and there they make it sound as if it
| was handed over voluntarily.
|
| Now, what _voluntarily_ means exactly when dealing with criminals
| and law enforcement is probably nuanced, but they definitely didn
| 't say it was seized.
|
| Also, it was not the only transfer in connection with that site,
| only the latest and biggest, so the overall total is even higher.
| treffer wrote:
| Well, "seize" = court order or a police action.
|
| If police shows up to seize something then you can either
| cooperate (hand it over voluntarily) or risk additional
| penalties (fines, prison time, ...).
|
| I read this story as "law enforcement was able to figure out
| that they have bitcoins, so they knocked on their door, and the
| criminals opted to hand it over instead of prison time".
|
| So yes, they transferred it, but I wouldn't call this
| voluntarily. It's just that the applied force is as visible as
| the seized bitcoins.
| dheera wrote:
| "I lost the keys"
| codetrotter wrote:
| Boating accident. We've all been there.
| not_a_dane wrote:
| German police want to scare bitcoin investors just before the
| halving event...
| sva_ wrote:
| I was wondering why they would give up the 2B EUR, as the prison
| sentence here in Germany can't be that long afaik. But then
| imagined they could probably be extradited to the US for their
| 'crimes'. Not sure if that'd actually happen though... Germany
| refused extradition based on too low prison living standards
| before.
|
| Then again, if you can't leave Germany and have 2B EUR that would
| be seized if you try to use it, it is game-theoretically a loss
| as well.
|
| Maybe they saw a deal as their only possible restart in life.
| up2isomorphism wrote:
| Crypto lost the anonymous value long time ago when against a
| state power. So the money are not really their to begin with,
| particular when it is 2B.
| sva_ wrote:
| Really depends if the coins were really known/tainted. I'm
| sure you could find ways to mix it in intervals, in smaller
| amounts, that could allow you a luxurious life indefinitely.
| Although I have to admit I don't know how much harder it has
| become, as I exited crypto some 5 years ago.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| _" An investigation is still underway and no charges have yet
| been filed, police said."_
|
| Whoa.
|
| > _" The seizure came after the "accused voluntarily transferred"
| the bitcoins to an official wallet of the Federal Criminal Police
| Office (BKA), police added in a statement."_
|
| What are the odds this was a trade - "give us the coins or we
| proceed/extradite you to somewhere else"?
| jandrese wrote:
| From a service that was taken down in 2013? That's a hell of a
| long time to build a case.
| medo-bear wrote:
| What is that sound ? It is the sound of Zelenski rubbing his
| hands together :)
| netman21 wrote:
| When are we going to stop calculating BTC total value by
| multiplying number of BTC times what is, let's face it, a spot
| price. There is no way you could sell 2 billion euros worth of
| BTC. You can't convert them into real property.
| huytersd wrote:
| Sure you can, you'll have to do it slowly over years.
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