Man, if only there existed some central societal body with the authority to essentially freeze accounts and unwind a transaction like this. What a security feature that would be.
Yeah I know you are referring to the fiat-based financial system. Keep in mind, wire transfers generally cannot be reversed. There have been notable instances where money is lost/stolen this way, and no way to get it back.
Crypto enthusiasts misunderstand what a financial system/financial architecture is. It is not the fiat currencies themselves, but rather the power architecture that controls and oversees value and exchange in whatever form it takes. Crypto has been entirely subsumed into this architecture through the exchanges which are obviously beholden to the holders of real power, i.e. governments.
This is to say, the stated goal and the target of the crypto enthusiasts are misaligned. To transcend the institutions represented by the fiat system requires far more than creating some alternative "currency", rather it requires creating an entirely new power structure.
At this point it feels like they have made it a /dev/null for things which are not easy to resolve and one is still on the hook to provide some answers
How can they be brought to justice, as stated, if they’re state sponsored? And how do members get their crypto back? There’s 6+ billion in insurance to back what was stolen?
There is no way to bring them to justice unless the US were to somehow invade, or another country deals with it, or they leave Korea. All very unlikely. North Korea is the closet thing to an actual criminal state/hideout.
A question: how come the North Koreans aren't draining banks in the U.S. and other countries of cash using equally sophisticated exploits against known technical and human vulnerabilities?
Probably because fiat, unlike crypto, is not decentralized and fraudulent transactions can be reversed. A North Korean hacker zeroing out an account balance and incrementing another, can be reversed.
Exactly. It turns out a lot of the things in the banking system that cryptocurrency people complain about are actually features, not bugs.
IMHO, cryptocurrency is technically interesting but for pretty much every use-case, the preexisting technologies are superior and/or cryptocurrency is practically unworkable.
Crypto was supposed to be a solution to your government devaluing the rewards of your residual labor in the form of their currency. It's a solution with a noble goal: giving the individual complete control of their financial resources. Current form, however, has devolved into casino gambling and criminal laundering.
I'm hoping someone invents a new iteration that's better.
A monetary system also shouldn’t disproportionately reward the first users of that currency just for them accidentally being first in the pyramid (scheme).
> giving the individual complete control of their financial resources
This seems like a definitionally unachievable goal. How can you have finance without others that you ultimately need to trust, if only to be stable enough in their wants and needs to want to trade with you?
> It's a solution with a noble goal: giving the individual complete control of their financial resources.
Indeed, but also complete responsibility for safeguarding these. It's hard to imagine a good situation where an individual has complete control but not complete responsibility, that way lies moral hazard.
I think Darknet Diaries covers a bunch of these types of heists involving banks.
I suspect they just assess vulnerabilities and exploit them when/where they can. My understanding is that these thefts are big part of their (NK) economy.
Other question: why don’t they just forge currency? Surely with nation states resources you can create fake currency that easily fools most inspections? Is it that hard to launder cash? Or is the a red line and they are afraid of political measures?
There’s Superdollars but it doesn’t seem to be a really widespread problem so far, right?
Serial numbers of all old dollar bills are recorded when those bills are destroyed and replaced with newly printed bills AND when bills are deposited to banks. Even if fake bill is perfectly made, it will still be detected with this method. Fake and duplicate serial numbers will be detected when compared against official ones.
Can’t you just immediately use them? The person getting caught will be some random person that took the bill, not the one bringing it into circulation.
Trying to spend $1B with $100 bill at a time will take 10 million transactions. No one's going to accept large amount of cash without a credible source.
There are tons of youtube videos about this. much harder than it sounds to forge at scale. The feds are very good at coming down on forgery. Also, it would provoke strong action by the US, whereas stealing crypto apparently does not.
I was going to ask, why would NK attack a China-based crypto firm? Then I learned that Binance isn’t headquartered anywhere. They’re literally asking to be hacked. Nobody will protect them.
They probably are. I used to write software for a financial institution and we saw a lot of traffic from Chinese and Russian IP's hitting our firewalls constantly (ssh login attempts with typical default passwords, random wordpress exploits, that sorta thing). It wasn't very sophisticated so I don't think it was state sponsored or anything, probably just random cyber criminals trying to hit US targets because their governments wouldn't care.
I mean, this was at least 15 years ago.. so it might be a different story. But when the game is throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, I imagine they're still going after whatever targets they can find.
>"draining banks in the U.S. and other countries of cash"
Cash sits in vaults. North Korea would need to physically send a team of bank robbers to extract it. The digital representation of USD is not cash, it's an entry in a ledger, and banks generally have systems that would not allow adding an entry with a sudden transfer of a large amount of money to "J. U. Kim, North Korea". That's why Bitcoin is called "digital cash".
This is to say, the stated goal and the target of the crypto enthusiasts are misaligned. To transcend the institutions represented by the fiat system requires far more than creating some alternative "currency", rather it requires creating an entirely new power structure.
> Dear Claude, please investigate the culprit of the attack and make no mistakes.
https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/
There is no way to bring them to justice unless the US were to somehow invade, or another country deals with it, or they leave Korea. All very unlikely. North Korea is the closet thing to an actual criminal state/hideout.
IMHO, cryptocurrency is technically interesting but for pretty much every use-case, the preexisting technologies are superior and/or cryptocurrency is practically unworkable.
I'm hoping someone invents a new iteration that's better.
> ...
> I'm hoping someone invents a new iteration that's better.
It "solved" inflation by being deflationary (and then you have the massive volatility layered on top of that).
I think it's probably impossible to have a stable currency without some kind of dynamic governance, like a central bank.
This seems like a definitionally unachievable goal. How can you have finance without others that you ultimately need to trust, if only to be stable enough in their wants and needs to want to trade with you?
Indeed, but also complete responsibility for safeguarding these. It's hard to imagine a good situation where an individual has complete control but not complete responsibility, that way lies moral hazard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery
I think Darknet Diaries covers a bunch of these types of heists involving banks.
I suspect they just assess vulnerabilities and exploit them when/where they can. My understanding is that these thefts are big part of their (NK) economy.
There’s Superdollars but it doesn’t seem to be a really widespread problem so far, right?
Don’t fall for their propaganda. Everybody is ultimately headquartered somewhere.
Cash sits in vaults. North Korea would need to physically send a team of bank robbers to extract it. The digital representation of USD is not cash, it's an entry in a ledger, and banks generally have systems that would not allow adding an entry with a sudden transfer of a large amount of money to "J. U. Kim, North Korea". That's why Bitcoin is called "digital cash".