South Korean Police Lose Seized Crypto By Posting Password Online 51
South Korean tax authorities lost millions in seized cryptocurrency after publishing high-res photos of Ledger hardware wallets that clearly displayed the wallets' seed phrases, allowing an unknown party to drain the funds. Gizmodo reports: South Korea's National Tax Service seized crypto assets during recent enforcement actions against 124 high-value tax evaders, but now, a large chunk of that crypto cash has been lost. The operation originally resulted in the confiscation of crypto holdings worth about 8.1 billion won, or roughly $5.6 million. However, officials later issued a press release to showcase these efforts in recovering delinquent taxes, and the release included photographs of Ledger hardware wallets taken into custody along with handwritten notes that displayed the wallet seed phrases.
Those images attached to the press release turned out to be the critical error. High-resolution photos clearly showed the mnemonic recovery phrases, which serve as the master key for accessing the wallets. This exposure eliminated any protection provided by the offline cold storage on the Ledger devices. Possession of the seed phrase allows complete control, and anyone who knows the phrase can import it into software or another hardware wallet and initiate transfers without the original device.
In this case, an unknown individual who saw the photos published by law enforcement first added a small amount of ether to one of the addresses to cover Ethereum network gas fees necessary for outbound transactions. From there, they executed three transfers to move approximately 4 million Pre-Retogeum, or PRTG, tokens. At the time, those tokens carried a value of $4.8 million, but reporting from The Block indicates liquidating that much value from the holdings would have proven difficult due to market dynamics.
Those images attached to the press release turned out to be the critical error. High-resolution photos clearly showed the mnemonic recovery phrases, which serve as the master key for accessing the wallets. This exposure eliminated any protection provided by the offline cold storage on the Ledger devices. Possession of the seed phrase allows complete control, and anyone who knows the phrase can import it into software or another hardware wallet and initiate transfers without the original device.
In this case, an unknown individual who saw the photos published by law enforcement first added a small amount of ether to one of the addresses to cover Ethereum network gas fees necessary for outbound transactions. From there, they executed three transfers to move approximately 4 million Pre-Retogeum, or PRTG, tokens. At the time, those tokens carried a value of $4.8 million, but reporting from The Block indicates liquidating that much value from the holdings would have proven difficult due to market dynamics.
Oops (Score:3, Funny)
lol
Re:Oops (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL, Indeed.
What happens if the alleged scofflaws from whom the crypto was seized successfully defend themselves from the government's claims? Does the government have to return the value they seized?
Does the government get to still require the alleged scofflaws to pony up their tax debts now that the crypto the government seized has vanished (and hence can no longer be redeemed to pay off the debt)?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Oops (Score:2)
Like everywhere, you don't get the coins back, but the value at the time they're impounded.
Re: (Score:2)
Not if it's a drug case (and they'll link it to drugs by the most tenuous of threads). It's quite common in the US for goods seized in drug cases to be sold before the case even goes to court much less a guilty verdict decided. My brother knew someone who had 5 acres seized and the case was eventually dismissed (he didn't know the neighbor kid had planted weed there), but he had to sue the new owners to get it back. Don't know how that was ever decided.
This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
...you really should NOT have stupid people running, or being in, police forces ANYWHERE.
Indeed, it's why society really really cannot afford crass stupidity in its population.
Since the majority of a person's intelligence comes from environmental factors, not genetics, this is a societal/cultural issue in all nations. You can't fix it by "not letting stupid people breed", you have to fix it through not letting people become stupid. And that's going to be a hard one to solve. Even though it's essentially a choice by society.
In the meantime, criminals will simply impound the money seized from other criminals (and the money held by governments and officials), because computers and cryptographic protections don't care about the colour of your hat.
Re: (Score:2)
> You can't fix it by "not letting stupid people breed", you have to fix it through not letting people become stupid
This sentence seems to be somewhat self contradictory. Despite decades of trying to make it not so, it seems that intelligence remains primarily inherited from parents/ancestors.
Socioeconomic status, education, opportunities, etc all have no ability to improve iq. Nutrition only matters in the sense of malnutrition. So environmental factors can reduce IQ, but they cant do anything to raise
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"it seems that intelligence remains primarily inherited from parents/ancestors"
citation needed
I would question whether you should be basing an apparent worldview on an argument in which the words "it seems" appears more than once.
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Re: (Score:3)
Studies have ruled that out repeatedly. No more than 47% of intelligence is inherited, and that's the absolute ceiling, the rest is cultural/societal input.
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Re: (Score:3)
Stupid is as stupid does. Intelligence is a biological ceiling but it needs to be applied to be of any use. I've seen plenty of very intelligent people do insanely stupid things and I've seen some really limited people make the absolute most of what they've been given. Much of the foolishness I see in the world today is avoidable based on the limits of the person's intelligence, but
Re: (Score:2)
She said she loved me!
Moore-Ons Law. (Score:2)
...you really should NOT have stupid people running, or being in, police forces ANYWHERE.
Indeed, it's why society really really cannot afford crass stupidity in its population.
Since the majority of a person's intelligence comes from environmental factors, not genetics, this is a societal/cultural issue in all nations. You can't fix it by "not letting stupid people breed", you have to fix it through not letting people become stupid. And that's going to be a hard one to solve. Even though it's essentially a choice by society.
The choice to grow a child instead of raising one, is indeed a choice. One being made by grown-ass child parents now. And it shows. When the average 30-year old can recognize the cultural difference in measured maturity between themselves and the newly minted grown-ass "adult" at 18, the concept of Moore-Ons Law comes into play. We are now breeding mass ignorance at a rate faster than a single generation.
We can fix it by understanding humans are born stupid. About everything. It is up to Wisdom and Inte
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The cops should have gotten their IT department involved, but they'll never let the nerds they look down on from their lofty perches on Macho Mountain touch evidence. The nerds might make them look stupid!
Re:This is why... (Score:5, Informative)
They don't become cops because they want to be computer experts, they become cops because they want to push people around and pretend to be heroes.
Re:This is why... (Score:4, Funny)
they become cops because they want to push people around and pretend to be heroes.
That was why I became a computer expert.
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How very postmodern of you.
Then again, I'm going to venture a guess that your kind of people are those who denigrate law & order generally, and wonder why we even have borders, man.
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I've known/worked with enough cops to know how most of them are. Most of them really believe that "Thin Blue Line" garbage (ever read that poem? Yeesh), and that they are the only thing between civilization and a Mad Max world.
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This has nothing to do with stupidity, It is a simple matter of the police not having the intiricate knowledge of crypto usage. If someone were a good computer programmer but have no knowledge of farming, should farmers call them stupid - obviously no, its just lacking knowledge.
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Nothing to do with lack of knowledge. Everyone has a lack of knowledge about most things - last person who knew everything there was lived sometime in the mid 1800s. When you don't know something, the very first thing you should do is check with someone who does. Not doing so is what makes this stupid. Assuming that your ignorance is safe is stupid. Ignorance is NEVER safe.
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If the programmer were to try to raise a dairy cow and didn't ask advice from someone who knows something about the subject then yes, the farmer can absolutely call them stupid.
Re: This is why... (Score:1)
Unnnn... fortunately, only stopped people want to be in the police force.
Re: This is why... (Score:1)
Yep. Awesome, misspelling stoopid :-)
No way! (Score:3)
Whether it was intentional or not, they are fooked up!
ROFLMAO x 1,000 (Score:3)
Or ... (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the involved police drained the wallet, then posted the photos as cover.
What Kind of a Name is Pre-Retogeum (Score:1)
Excue me? (Score:2)
but reporting from The Block indicates liquidating that much value from the holdings would have proven difficult due to market dynamics.
How is this supposed to be a replacement for cash if this small amount changes the market dynamics by selling it? Transactions far larger than that take place thousands of times each day without issue using real money.
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You just don't understand how crypto works. It's all perfectly normal and acceptable for transactions of a few million dollars to sway crypto markets with surges and plunges. It's by design. It's actually a good thing.
You just need a crypto bro to explain it to you, that's all.
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You obviously don't understand the way MARKETS work. The stock market lives on hype surrounding companies, which is why companies like NVIDIA have their stock go flying high, because of hype around AI. Any bad news that might indicate that AI won't do as well, and the stock can fall. The same applies to other companies....Intel or NVIDIA does well or poorly, and you see AMD also affected, just because it's the culture of Wall Street to try to categorize and group companies together.
So, AI not seeming
overheard at the blame storming meeting (Score:2)
(from the closed-captioned archives)
Chief of police: "I'll take full responsibility"
Commissioner: Not so fast. We don't want the media to run with this. Isn't there a new guy in the task force?"
Chief: "Yessir, from Hong Kong, named Yiu".
Commissioner: In that case, in our press statement, we'll blame Yiu.
Chief: "Brilliant, sir, I think"
Chief: It's settled then. Meeting adjourned.
cryptocurrency needs banking laws and ways to forc (Score:2)
cryptocurrency needs banking laws and ways to force funds to be returned.
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cryptocurrency needs banking laws and ways to force funds to be returned.
At that point why not just use currency?
Just like me putting up my NFT QR above my couch (Score:2)
Ssince I don't own the ugly boat monkey picture, I decided to put up my ugly monkey QR code above my couch as a reminder of my great investement.
Later I learned why my friend was so eager to take a picture of it.