This would make an awesome episode of Leverage.
I know. I think I read SciFi stories like this when I was a kid.
The plot thickens.
There are four companies listed at 815 Brazos St, Suite 500. The names of three of them are certainly intriguing given the bitcoin connection.
Bit Investment Eleven, Lp
Bit Holdings Forty-Six, Inc.
Bit Investment Fourteen, LLC
The fourth one is also interesting.
The GPUMAX website is protected by a login screen. https://gpumax.com
Google lists GPUMAX as “GPUMAX - The Bitcoin Mining Marketplace”
The GPUMAX website is protected by a login screen. https://gpumax.com
davidm, are you breaking this news on the Dope or are you posting this somewhere else?
Other people are discussing these things elsewhere. I linked to one such discussion in a previous post.
Honestly, I don’t think this is any kind of important news. These “binary transactions” were more than likely made by third party trolls playing games. It’s just fun trying to crack the codes. I thought that maybe some of the smart people on the Dope could figure it out.
If that tax archive were decrypted it’ll probably be just blank files or joke returns of some kind. It just makes no sense for extortionists to play these kinds of secret agent games.
Judging from what you’ve found so far, I bet it’s an alternate reality game of some kind. What the payoff is, who knows, but I seriously doubt it’s anything of import.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a possibility that the extortion attempt is real, regardless of whether or not they actually have the returns. I just think these binary messages are from a party or parties unconnected to the extortionists.
I should add that there are also binary ASCII codes at the “release the forms” bitcoin address.
Those spell out “prove it”. That could actually be a legitimate message from someone with an interest in the whole affair.
Why would the senders of the binary and the “extortionists” not be the same party? Did the senders have some ARG already whipped up, and they were just looking for a bitcoin-related scandal to tack on to?
Why would the extortionists be posting esoteric clues like that? They’ve already sent out the encrypted drives.
And what’s with the pointers to those companies? Why would the extortionists do that? To me that just seems like someone trying to cause trouble for those companies.
:smack: Remind me not to enter the detective business.
I’ll note that the bitcoin deposits total to under $100. This whole thing screams hoax. Still the embedded messages are interesting.
I predict
Either these coded message creators are affiliated with the extortionists or not. Either way, I predict that Romney’s return, to be released on Sep 28th, itself has some concealed message. In other words, if you can’t create a facsimile that will bear careful scrutiny, you can at least make a document that generates media attention. Maybe when the .pdf code is printed in reverse it reads, “Ron Paul 2012”, or “My sweet Satan”. Or something.
Another thought. The 1040 would be tricky to forge. But AFAIK a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (Form TD F 90-22.1) wouldn’t be as challenging. And that could be made to simulate Romney’s coverup of his illegal UBS accounts, for which he received amnesty along with 14,700 other Americans in 2009. If indeed that was the case. Of course Romney would know if it’s a forgery due to font sizes and signatures: he has the original copy after all. But establishing that without implicating himself would be impossible, judging from his refusal to release more that 2 years of tax returns.
IRS website: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Report-of-Foreign-Bank-and-Financial-Accounts-(FBAR)
Alas, the ransom note makes explicit reference to 1040s, so it appears that the trolls/crooks had insufficient foresight.
two more days…
That’s right!
I’m honestly not expecting anything. The whole thing is very likely a hoax.
Well… today’s the day we find out, hoax or not. I really hope that the returns get released. That would be very cool in an Anonymous sort of way.
Was the a UTC value assigned for the ‘release’ or should I wait until tomorrow (EDT) to be disappointed?
Well, I’m so excited… that I’m going to bed. Wake me if anything actual happens.
shuffles… kicks at the floor I for one am severely let down at this point. My faith in the hackerdom is waning.
Both the “don’t release” and “release” wallets were emptied yesterday.
I think the perpetrators, hoaxers or not, were likely disappointed in their haul.
Don’t release: Address: 1HeF89wMjC48bWNgWvVo7Wu3RaLW8XVsE8
Release: Address: 12AP6iCwRNFQqKLStH3A4b4hw3SL6RaNgB
Then this morning (9/29), someone deposited 0.00005 BTC in the “release” wallet.
The current value of 1 bitcoin in US$ appears to be around $12. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets
So the amount deposited is a fraction of a cent, which makes absolutely no sense.
The total received into, and transferred out of, the “don’t release” wallet is 0.72362276 BTC which is approx US $8.68 at current rates. This leaves a balance of 0 BTC.
Not counting this morning’s miniscule deposit the total received into, and transferred out of, the “release” wallet is 3.0751561 BTC which is approx. US $3.07 at current rates. This leaves a balance of 0.00005 BTC because of this mornings deposit.
So those accounts weren’t abandoned by the hoaxers and they did bother to extract a small amount of profit, which was probably mostly or completely eaten up by the cost of the drives and envelopes they sent out.
Maybe they’ve sent the key to their recipients and those recipients are preparing to publish the results or, much more likely, hoaxers who never actually had any returns have netted $11 and grossed $0 or maybe even came out behind.
You shouldn’t have much faith in hackerdom. As someone who sits on the other side of the fence most of the time, most of them suck at even being script kiddies. Occasionally I see a hack done by someone who’s capable, and they’re kinda terrifying to deal with. But most of them just break systems while they’re trying to hide their tracks or because they’re clueless as to what to do after their script gets them in.
So, in short: I’m not really surprised that nothing came of this. I’m still a little sad, because hacks that happen to someone else are at the very least interesting, and sometimes they’re quite entertaining.
What doesn’t make sense is that they transferred it into a wallet that had 60+ BTC from somewhere else.
Someone also put up a 2008 Romney return (1st 2 pages), but that was on 27 Sept and only the first two pages, so not enough to even begin to look real. (They showed $22+ million income w/ $421 in taxes paid.)
PWC has never said that there was not a break in. Either they don’t know if there was one or not or there actually was a breach at their office.