[spuz]

I think the key to understanding this article is this:

> But Mitch, isn’t this wrong? No.

Let's suppose the hacker really did feel no remorse for stealing 153k Ether then it seems they might not feel it necessary to keep their identity hidden. They might also feel proud enough that they feel it is worth the risk to publicly disclose their actions. Given that, it seems that perhaps some of what the author wrote might actually be true.

Despite that it seems that there is more than enough information here to identify them. There is only one country that celebrates Bastille day, they are apparently interested in men so either a gay/bi male or a straight female, they work for a security research company, they have excellent command of English, they are in their early 20s, they apparently have a fast and loose attitude. It seems those criteria would narrow down to only a handful of people.

[JetSetWilly]

Presumably whoever did it is a clever person. If I were in that position, I think it would be a fairly obvious step to season the article with subtle misdirections that send people on a wild goose chase. In fact it would be quite fun to do. So I wouldn't take the "information" in the article at face value at all.

[prklmn]

I don't think being clever with code necessarily equates to having common sense. If he had common sense, he would have went on his merry way without bragging on the internet...

[C4stor]

You possibly vastly underestimate how important it is for people commiting "perfect" crimes to tell the world it was them. There's a lot of stories about forgers including subtle clues in their forgeries to be able to claim their "art" and prove they duped people.

[keerthiko]

This. This is also essentially the premise for (the original) Death Note (except a God complex rather than proving they pulled a fast one).

[mcv]

Chances are that misdirection is exactly why it started with the Tinder date and mentions the Bastille Day.

[whipoodle]

I thought the whole point was you don't need ethics or any of that old boring stuff, the contracts payout once they are filled. Or I guess, when computers have been sufficiently convinced the contracts were filled.

I think people need to decide- do you really want that? Do you really want the decentralized, machine-consensus-based decision making or do you want courts and banks? If the former, you had better make sure those computers will do what you expect them to. Because the computers just do what they're told. They can't read minds.

[Cthulhu_]

It really depends; cryptocurrency is so much in flux right now that governments don't know what to do with it yet, and those are the ones that determine whether something is a crime or not.

If they declare that stealing cryptocurrency is a crime, then they also need to start controlling it. Enforce auditing on smart contracts, crypto codebases, and exchanges. Which goes directly against what the whole crypto-anarchists are aiming for.

But, that's what they wanted. You win freedom, you lose security (and a lot of money).

[jsjohnst]

In the article he mentions he "is not a rich guy."

[Y_Y]

so maybe a rich woman?

[dnh44]

Based on the first paragraph I assumed the author is a woman.

[avinassh]

but could be a homosexual person too, right?

[mcv]

Or a straight man or gay woman. The unnecessary identifying information is very likely meant to throw people off.

[corpMaverick]

Or maybe like others have suggested here, it is fiction.