Comment Re:So, who is the thief? (Score 1) 279
Agreed. The point is that people (maybe not even you) leave crumbs around in twitter, forums, etc. (plenty of "throw me some BTCs here if you like this" links). So they can see the "associations". Does it mean that if there is a transaction from thief to known user, that the known user is the thief? Maybe. Does the known user know the thief? Maybe. Do they have no clue? Maybe. The only thing for certain is that they can't be certain.
BTC's public register isn't secret. Like stock trades, you can see the money moving around, and the article does a good job of visualizing some particular BTC floating around. They tie some of keys to ids they were able to scrub (i.e. forum user, etc). So if YOU aren't anonymous then you most likely outed yourself.
Does the FTA know the thief's id? Doubtful. They do a good jobs of tracing the money around, but that is about all you can tell. You too can follow the money at http://blockexporer.com/ They might track it to a website and if they had help from the website then to a login and an IP, then via a ISP w/ court order, perhaps to a paying internet customer. Who knows... Clearly anything MOST people do online leaves a trace.
BTC is basically digital cash and you need to treat it as such. The guy who lost his coins was careless on security. Somebody basically pick-pocketed him and he didn't find out until it was too late.
