MtGox Finds 200,000 Bitcoins In Old Wallet 227
thesandbender writes: "Today brings news that MtGox has 'found' 200,000 Bitcoins in a 'forgotten' wallet that they thought was empty (PDF). The value of the coins is estimated to be $116 million USD, which happens to cover their $64 million USD in outstanding debts nicely and might offer them the chance to emerge from bankruptcy. There is no explanation yet of why the sneaky thieves that 'stole' the bitcoins used a MtGox wallet to hide them."
Re:Possible (Score:2, Informative)
That's called plausible deniability
Re:Smelling more fishy every day. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, he may be referencing Robert Maxwell, who disappeared from his boat while sailing off the Canary Islands, but his body was actually recovered a while after and positively identified - but his disappearance at the time was widely believed to be a deliberate act to avoid being prosecuted for discrepancies in his companies pension funds.
Re:Smelling more fishy every day. (Score:5, Informative)
But Bitcoin differs in that last part. When you spend or transfer a bitcoin you aren't handing over the original, you're making a copy and the person receiving it is adding an extra digit to the serial number. Even though you still have it your copy of the coin is no longer legal tender and if you go to a store and try to spend it the cashier will tell you the serial number is too short and someone else owns the legitimate digital copy of that coin. If a thief gets into the bitcoin vault he doesn't need to remove or change anything, he just copies all the serial numbers and immediately 'pays' it into wallets he owns or controls, making his copy the legitimate article and the coins in the vault useless bits of data. The owners of the vault don't know this - the contents of the vault have not been changed in any way and it's only when they remove some of the money from the vault and try to spend it that they'll discover they've got worthless old copies.
While less likely it is also possible, with ledgers being moved around and even manipulated by thieves, that bitcoins that where assumed withdrawn are in fact still legal tender - if the bank made a copy of a one of their coins to service an apparent withdrawal, but that copy was never 'spent' then the original is still good. This is one of the difficulties of Bitcoin, unlike physical currency or even centrally managed digital currency (what a lot of your money basically is) you can't determine if each coin is worth something or just a bunch of worthless numbers without asking for the opinion of a bunch of other people. The extra layer of security of a vault actually makes it harder, since you are trying to keep that data out of the wrong hands, not share it with others to get their daily opinion (imagine if a bank removed every bill from the vault daily to check them with those counterfeit pens - how many opportunities to steal the money would that add).
More likely duplicates (Score:5, Informative)
Consider, What does it mean for a bitcoin to be lost or to be found or to exist. To be "lost" it means no one no longer knows the bitcoin's key. Yet you can also have more than one copy of the key. For example MagicTux might have "stolen" the coin (that is, transfered a coin to a key, deleted that key from the mtGox data base ("oopsie") but secretly kept a copy of the key somewhere else. But then suppose that not all copies of the key were deleted. Both the "found" key and the one lurking in MagicTux's hideout are the same valid key. Either one can spend the coin.
Thus there is not one copy of the coin to be found. there could be many.
If you give someone control of your wallet, so that they know your keys, you can never get back that control. They can always keep copies of it and have the authrority to spend. THe only way to recover control is to make a new key and transfer the coins to that. Thus these exchanges that manage your coins are scary.
Re:More likely duplicates (Score:4, Informative)
"If you give someone control of your wallet, so that they know your keys, you can never get back that control."
Yes you can. Create a new wallet and pay those bitcoins into the new wallet. Done.
Re:Smelling more fishy every day. (Score:5, Informative)
Maxwell had lots of companies, several of which had irregularities.
It helps to not be arrogant in your attempts to "correct" people.
Learn this.