Do you have an old Hotmail account lying around? What would you do if:
Dr. Carolyn Turbyfill
- Someone took control of an account belonging to you – using public information to answer the security questions that allow you to reset a password.
- Used your compromised account to break into other more sensitive accounts – your business, bank, etc.
- Then blackmailed you for $20,000 with the threat of selling your identity and accounts to ‘fraudsters’ who ‘would ruin your life’?
This happened to Roger Ver, a Bitcoin evangelist: ‘This Is What Happens When You Hack and Extort the ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ By ROBERT MCMILLAN 05.28.14 | 6:30 AM on Wired.com.
Actually, the hacker asked for 37 Bitcoins, which is the equivalent of about $20,000. According to the Bitcoin home page: “Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.”
Bitcoin and the Silk Road Anonymous Marketplace are part of the Wild West of the Internet, where Identity, Sovereignty and Laws may or may not be transparent or enforceable, depending on the skill of the user. To complete the analogy, attempting extortion on an experienced denizen of the Internet’s Wild West is a bit like drawing down on the Fastest Gun in the West. In this regard, Roger Ver does not disappoint. He promptly put out a 37 Bitcoin bounty on information leading to the arrest of the blackmailer Nitrous. Nitrous has since backed down.
If you wish to explore alternative currencies and anonymity services, be warned. While there are tools that can shield you from prying eyes, security is always some combination of physical, operational and automated processes. A single weak link, like a 15 year old Hotmail account, can be exploited to expose you.