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FBI pranked by furious Bitcoin users since Silk Road shutdown
Hundreds of protest messages have flooded an FBI-controlled Bitcoin account since it seized $3m from Silk Road
Alex Hern
The Guardian, Monday 7 October 2013 13.08 BST
Protesting against the FBI's seizure of Bitcoin crrency, one protestor called for an end to the US Federal Reserve. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The FBI has been deluged by more than 200 messages of protest from pro-drugs advocates after a raid on Silk Road, an online marketplace for illicit goods.
The agency is attempting to access 600,000 Bitcoins, worth around $80m (£49.7m), accumulated by Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of Silk Road, but has already seized 26,000 ($3.2m) that the site had held in escrow for its customers.
The FBI then transferred the Bitcoins to a new address on blockchain.info., which allows users to manage their Bitcoin accounts.
Unfortunately for the FBI, hundreds of Silk Road users identified the FBI's wallet details and used blockchain to post publicly viewable messages along with miniscule transactions.
Most were no larger than 0.00000001 BTC (0.0001p), but allowed users to vent their anger at the seizure of their virtual cash.
“Take the drugs, take the domain, but don't take the people's Bitcoins. This seizure was only legal because Bitcoin is not recognized as a currency,” says one.
Quoting Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the US, one called for the end of the Federal Reserve: "The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs".
"The musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs," posted another, who use six separate payments to reference comic Bill Hicks.
"The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.”
As well as a large number of pro-drug messages, some were arguing that the money was incorrectly seized.
“Many items sold through Silk Road were perfectly legal,” says one such note. “There is no way to know whether these funds were to be used for illicit purchases. Users should be allowed to withdraw their funds.”
Others used the opportunity to post adverts for Bitcoin-related services, and some comments were less critical.
One posted a link to an image of Ulbricht’s face superimposed with the words “sets up a multimillion-dollar drugs business. Uses real email address,” a reference to one of the many slip-ups which apparently led to the his arrest.
FBI struggles to seize 600,000 Bitcoins from alleged Silk Road founder
Having seized 26,000 Bitcoins belonging to site users, authorities battle to control Ross Ulbricht's personal wallet
Alex Hern
The Guardian, Monday 7 October 2013 11.31 BST
This artist rendering shows alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht appearing in federal court in San Francisco on 4 October. Photograph: Vicki Behringer/AP
The FBI has found that seizing an anonymous decentralised peer-to-peer currency was trickier than it seemed, following the Bureau’s bust of the international drugs marketplace, Silk Road.
When Ross Ulbricht, known as Dread Pirate Roberts to users of the site, was arrested last week, the FBI seized 26,000 Bitcoins belonging to Silk Road customers. But it also attempted, unsuccessfully, to claim the nearly 600,000 - thought to be worth around $80m - which Ulbricht himself is thought to be holding.
Bitcoin is a digital currency based on a methods of cryptography similar to those used to protect confidential emails. Due to its decentralised nature – the currency does not rely on any centralised agency to process payments, instead relying on work done by users’ computers – it is popular for a number of fringe-legal and illegal uses. One of those uses was Silk Road, where Bitcoin was required for all transactions.
In order to transfer Bitcoins out of a “wallet”, the name for the digital file which contains the encrypted information necessary to spend the currency, users need to know that wallet’s password or “private key”.
According to Forbes’ Kashmir Hill, that hurdle is causing the FBI difficulty.
“The FBI has not been able to get to Ulbricht’s personal Bitcoin yet,” wrote Hill. An FBI spokesperson said to Hill that the “$80m worth” that Ulbricht had “was held separately and is encrypted”. At current exchange rates, that represents slightly more than 5% of all bitcoins in circulation.
Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, merely having possession of the wallet file itself is enough to prevent the coins being spent. The Bureau is in a position equivalent to having seized a safe belonging to a suspect with no idea of the combination – and no hope of forcing it open any other way.
