[kylell]

do anyone prosecute this kind of hacks? or just because is a token without legal status is like stealing Sheldon's gear in WOW.

This kind of pre-generated seed hack is quite dangerous, a lot of mobile apps, don't have deterministic build so you can't be sure the open source version is the same as the one from apple store, and I bet Apple won't do such a thoroughly search.

[abusoufiyan]

considering how rabidly most cryptocurrency supporters denounce the government and the banking system and wall street and evil regulations, you would think they would be livid at the idea of a government(!) prosecuting people for anything related to cryptocurrency.

[JustFinishedBSG]

A statist is just a libertarian who had his crypto stolen :)

[josephagoss]

I'm a cryptocurrency supporter but I'm not anti tax or anti government. I genuinely think that decentralized trust based systems such as blockchain have a place in our world even alongside government.

With that said, I would like to believe that if caught, these types of seed hacks could be prosecuted. (If viable)

[vog]

> I'm a cryptocurrency supporter but I'm not anti tax or anti government.

The GNU Taler project might be interesting to you, then.

It is based on design decisions that are refreshingly different from classic crypto currencies (who implement more an anarcho-capitalism mindset). Because of those design differences, I'm not sure if it should be considered a crypto currency or not. (They themselves do not.)

Website: https://gnutaler.org/

Presentation at SHA2017: https://taler.net/videos/sha2017taler.webm

[paulrd]

BEWARE: apparently gnutaler.org is a fake website taler.net is the correct one! source: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/taler/2018-01/msg00009.htm...

[vog]

Whoops, wrong URL. Sorry for the confusion!

https://taler.net/

(Too bad I can't edit my original comment anymore here on HN. I find it disgusting to have helped spread a scam website and not being able to fix that afterwards.)

[pbhjpbhj]

Paging dang, can you fix this?

[banachtarski]

So as a non-cryptocurrency suppporter, what's the point then? Making things distributed necessarily makes it slower and harder/more expensive to regulate (let alone operate). Not to mention the high volatility which is the primary thing that gives a currency any value (hence, why the US Dollar is considered the reserve currency of the world: its stability). At some point, a duck is a duck. This duck is a fun experiment and someone discovered how to combine proof of work (old concept) with quorums (old concept) and a distributed ledger (old concept) that altogether gave the illusion of something unique and usable. I'm seeing worse usability on all fronts, no endgame in sight (except to move to a new currency when transaction fees get high), little to no regulation, and a worser world in general. It's also ecologically irresponsible (centralized currencies will _always_ be more efficient by definition).

I don't care that I can make a quick buck by preying on people's FOMO, the whole movement is fueled by seemingly emotional, albeit baseless, arguments and bravado.

[DennisP]

It's perfectly consistent if they're minarchists rather than anarchists. Or Occupy Wall Street types, for that matter.

[quickthrower2]

Yeah but then they should be livid at the idea of the government prosecuting people period.

[bradleyjg]

Maybe if the whole thing is dropped neatly with a bow on someone's desk at a cybercrime unit of the central police in the country where the perpetrator lives. But probably not.

It's not so much because authorities don't consider it a crime, like stealing WoW gear, but because of the difficulties in investigating and prosecuting the case vs the total losses.

[rsync]

"do anyone prosecute this kind of hacks? or just because is a token without legal status is like stealing Sheldon's gear in WOW."

Actually, I do lean towards the notion that stealing/embezzling/defrauding iotas/bitcoins/cuervocoins is legally equivalent to looting gold in WoW.

I see nothing in this news/thread today about "Iota" (which I have never heard of until today) that makes me consider it serious, legal business.

It approaches the seriousness of WoW from below.