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Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by sharpneli on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @10:22AM (#7422060)
Most of real world fraud is exactly this kind of stuff. Bitcoin solves a problem which is not actually a problem in real world. And leaves the problems which actually are problems unsolved.

Don't get me wrong. The proof of work ledger is a cool idea. However using it as a currency in this kind of implementation with complete disregard to anything else doesn't work in the long term.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by wyager on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @11:14AM (#7422402)
>Bitcoin solves a problem which is not actually a problem in real world.

Well, it solves more than one problem, and a few of them are certainly real-world.

>However using it as a currency in this kind of implementation with complete disregard to anything else doesn't work in the long term.

Would you care to expand on what you mean by "complete disregard to anything else"? I mean, clearly this is hyperbole, but I'm curious what you are referencing specifically.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by sharpneli on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @12:37PM (#7422951)
I simply meant that the bitcoin as a protocol and the standard client implementation right now pretty much ignores everything else. Some can be fixed on the client but it is not there yet. As an example the wallet is unencrypted by default.

In addition one of the biggest problems with bitcoin stems from the problem it solves. Transactions cannot be reversed, thus making thefts extremely lucrative.

Normal banks simply reverse transactions if they are fraudulent. As an example someone hacked Nordea (Bank operating in Nordic countries) last spring and got away with 600 000 euros. All of the transactions except one were reverted and the missing one was compensated by the bank.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by lhgaghl on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @12:58PM (#7423152)
> Normal banks simply reverse transactions if they are fraudulent.

That's not a feature.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by svenkatesh on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @09:21PM (#7426259)
Right, fraudsters should be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains.
Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by lhgaghl on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @01:12PM (#7430185)
Rephrased: it is a feature, but it implies a tradeoff: people who are considered more important than you control your money. One which I don't consider worth it. I've never had a problem with stolen assets of any kind other than in the physical world, and I consider my physical assets that were stolen fair, I would not want a God government who can see every single thing that happens in any place and any time so they can recover my physical assets.
Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by jordigh on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @10:34AM (#7422126)
The decentralised check against double-spending is bitcoin's only solution. And it's quite a genius solution, in a way. Bitcoin is not the first cryptocurrency, but it's the first decentralised one.

Other than that, bitcoin behaves more like cash than like banks or credit cards. You can build banks and credit cards around bitcoin, and you should, but bitcoin itself is just like cash, and that's all it should be. It doesn't need to solve other problems that as you say have already been solved by systems like two-factor authentication and the like.

This particular attack is more like thieves walking into a bank and claiming to be a person and then being able to get cash from the bank's safe (an analogy that also fits nicely with the relatively small amount of money they were able to steal). It is not like being able to rack up fraudulent charges on a credit card.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by wlphoenix on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @11:37AM (#7422543)
I only have a vague memory/understanding the subject, but I believe the Bitcoin protocol supports the concept of multi-signature contracts. That could be used to create decentralized escrow/trading/exchanges, which means that you would never have to let a single entity control your private keys. (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts)

I don't think there is a working implementation of the multisig contracts in the wild yet, but the protocol does support a way to solve these problems.

Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by gnaritas on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @11:45AM (#7422595)
That won't work for traders, transactions on the blockchain are too slow to do what exchanges really do. Traders would not use such an exchange, it'd be too slow.
Re:Ottawa Bitcoin exchange defrauded of $100,000 in cyber cu... by lhgaghl on Tuesday March 18, 2014 @01:15PM (#7423315)
> Most of real world fraud is exactly this kind of stuff.

So what? Banks have the same problem. If I call up my bank and ask them to do something, they'll ask for a bunch of random information I didn't know I'm supposed to keep secret.

> Bitcoin solves a problem which is not actually a problem in real world.

What? It solves the problem where some incompetent fucks are in charge of your money and screw you over, which is exactly what happened to this company (except they trusted them with hosting instead of money)