Sensible Erection | Possible hack and $1M ransom of Romney's tax records

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Possible hack and $1M ransom of Romney's tax records

quote [ An anonymous individual or group is alleging that they have gained "all available 1040 tax forms" of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney ]

These (supposed) hackers want 1 million dollars in a bitcoin account, before September 28th, or else they release the public key to decrypt the returns OR 1m paid TO release the returns. What to believe? Is it a hoax? Can the Romney camp take that chance?

[politics] [by blacksun@8:42pmGMT] [+10 Funny]

Comments

Ankylosaur said @ 8:50pm GMT on 5th Sep
What reward do I get for pledging $1?

backSLIDER said @ 8:54pm GMT on 5th Sep
I see kickstarter political campaigns in 2020...

MrZeroPing said @ 8:56pm GMT on 5th Sep
Bitcoins are still a thing? I thought that market collapsed.

foobar said @ 8:58pm GMT on 5th Sep
Nope, it's going quite strong.

cb361 said @ 9:57pm GMT on 5th Sep
$250,000 Bitcoin theft causes Bitfloor exchange to go offline

blacksun said @ 10:03pm GMT on 5th Sep
This is an interesting and timely development. However, that's just one exchange of many

foobar said @ 10:27pm GMT on 5th Sep
And it doesn't seem to have had any effect whatsoever on the price, which rather makes the antithesis of the argument you seem to be making.

cb361 said @ 8:57am GMT on 6th Sep
Just a piece of bitcoin news. I hadn't heard about them for a year, and then came across two references to bitcoins in an hour.

eggboy said @ 10:43pm GMT on 5th Sep
Not as long as the silk road is up and someone somewhere has a PO Box in someone elses name.

foobar said @ 9:07pm GMT on 5th Sep [Score:1 Informative]
Here is the pastebin announcement. (also in hidey box below)

Don't release address
Do release address

My take: Occam's razor says it's a hoax until we find out otherwise; ie either it's released or 100,000 BTC appear in the don't release address.

blacksun said @ 9:40pm GMT on 5th Sep
Yeah, I have to agree. I wish it was true, but, it's just too easy to manufacture as a stunt to see if anyone bites.

Ebichuman said @ 11:58pm GMT on 5th Sep
Question: Aren't there still few enough bitcoins in aggregate that converting $1,000,000 to bitcoins would noticeably devalue the currency?

foobar said @ 1:56am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:2 Informative]
There's just shy of 10 million BTC, which would be about 110 million dollars at the current exchange rate.

Buying BTC would increase, not decrease the price. The 30 day volume for the largest exchange is about $24 million dollars. Adding one million to that over a month wouldn't be terribly disruptive, but doing it in a day would triple the volume and spike the price.

Presumably if the ransom was paid the hackers would spend some time obfuscating the payment trail before trying to extract the value from the BTC economy, if they did at all. It wouldn't have a noticable impact on the price unless they did something that would guarantee they got caught.

blacksun said @ 9:58pm GMT on 5th Sep [Score:4 Informative]
There's talk in the Reddit thread of a 2nd copycat pastebin text demanding money, while the first text did not. The first simply states that the records will be released on the 28th.

conception said @ 11:30pm GMT on 5th Sep
The reddit thread also has a potential image of the first page.

atter_cob said @ 10:05pm GMT on 5th Sep
So if I had the records, I'd do the ransom thing and then post them anyhow.

bruceski said @ 11:43pm GMT on 5th Sep
And that's why he won't pay. There's no way to guarantee.

atter_cob said @ 12:39am GMT on 6th Sep
yep

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 10:40pm GMT on 5th Sep
|If they do collect....will they declare the ransom as taxable income?

jerv said @ 2:25am GMT on 7th Sep
Why not? Paying the ransom is a deductible expense.

tickaz said @ 10:58pm GMT on 5th Sep
$1 million? Is that all? I imagine that's nothing but a piss in the ocean for Mittens.

It sounds like something straight out of a movie.

Ankylosaur said @ 11:03pm GMT on 5th Sep [Score:3 Funny]
I think they're going for $2 million.

Dimmesdale said @ 12:16am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Perhaps that's the point. It's not enough to destroy Romney financially, therefore maybe making it more likely that he'll pay, and yet $1 million is still a lot of money for someone who doesn't already have $1 million.

Ankylosaur said @ 5:56am GMT on 7th Sep
This first million is the hardest to blackmail.

RedRiverRat said @ 11:02pm GMT on 5th Sep
Epic blackmail

RedRiverRat said @ 11:05pm GMT on 5th Sep
Thats something I hadnt considered. Now that Anon and Antisec and other groups exist how long until the threat of truth, even if a lie, can force people to do things.

The old I know what you did and I won't tell anyone for X$.

If you ever fucked up you have to worry.

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Era of Paranoia!

spite48 said @ 12:51am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Funny]
For $50 I will refrain from writing a poem about you. I am a dismal poet.

mechanical contrivance said @ 1:07am GMT on 6th Sep
I'll refrain from writing a poem about you for $40!

Homer said @ 1:54am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Funny]
For forty dracmas I
An epic verse shall write

RedRiverRat said @ 3:19am GMT on 6th Sep
I'll even help. For a mere 20 drachmas.
Bargain at the price.
I wont even mention what I know about you and that girl in the bathroom at Waffle House for an extra hundred.

RedRiverRat said @ 3:22am GMT on 6th Sep
Frigging Homer. How did I miss that? Doh. Well played.

Croatia said @ 3:36am GMT on 6th Sep
"I am a dismal poet."

Are we talking Vogon bad?

Paul Neil Milne Johnstone said @ 3:46am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Funny]
What's wrong with Vogon poetry? I mean, apart from there not being enough dead swans in it.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 4:16am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Funny]

bruceski said @ 11:24am GMT on 6th Sep
I also know what I did, and I make it a point to not intentionally do anything worth paying to keep quiet. The internet's an open book, and while I've been stupid sometimes, and changed some opinions, I try not to say anything irredeemable.

Some might call it paranoia, I call it good manners. I'm chatty and it would probably be pretty easy for anyone on one of my forums to do some digging and track down who I am. I figure my best defense is to make myself not fun to troll.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 3:48pm GMT on 6th Sep
In a world with no secrets, the only way to be safe is to appear utterly uninteresting.

mechanical contrivance said @ 1:36am GMT on 7th Sep
That's what I do.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 4:01am GMT on 7th Sep
Do you really? That's very... interesting.

ahPook said @ 11:28pm GMT on 5th Sep
This is funny and clever but almost certainly a hoax and even if it's true there's no way Romney would pay them because that would be an admission of guilt.

sanepride said @ 11:39pm GMT on 5th Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Bullshit.

bruceski said @ 11:42pm GMT on 5th Sep
Blackmail is the first move in a game that ends with somebody getting killed.

GordonGuano said @ 12:03am GMT on 6th Sep
The FBI might settle for "indefinitely detained".

This time.

lilmookieesquire said @ 12:37am GMT on 6th Sep

crom said @ 3:25am GMT on 6th Sep
I hope no one is dumb enough to actually send money to this obvious scam.

Croatia said @ 3:38am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
I diagree, if RomneyPAC pays these hilarious scammers it would be awesome. They get money for RomneyPAC being stupid and paranoid, less ads are run, and Romney's tax info gets released anyway as I'm sure it will.

crom said @ 6:04pm GMT on 6th Sep
It is an obvious scam because they obviously don't have Romney's tax records to release.

blackpsypher said @ 4:24am GMT on 6th Sep [Score:1 Underrated]

GordonGuano said @ 7:48pm GMT on 6th Sep
And now I have a new band to obsess over, thanks!

blackpsypher said @ 5:32pm GMT on 7th Sep
You're welcome. Pick up a copy of their album 'Destroyed', it's a pretty easy find and a good album to start with.

Bodnoirbabe said @ 6:19am GMT on 6th Sep
Let's say these people are legit and Romney pays the money. Bad move on his part. It proves he has something to hide and also proves he WILL negotiate with terrorists, a quality not a lot of Americans like in their president.

I think this is a bluff and they're hoping it will get them to release the records himself.

maryyugo said @ 6:37am GMT on 6th Sep
Nah. It's a hoax. If they really had the documents, and they were incriminating, they'd quietly and secretly negotiate with both Romney and the Obama campaign for payment. That they went public proves it's a hoax. Anyway, nobody would pay them without proof they have the goods.

cb361 said @ 8:55am GMT on 6th Sep
They might make a few hundred bucks from idiots on both sides of the political spectrum 'donating'.

bruceski said @ 11:36am GMT on 6th Sep
Yeah, if you really had something like this and chose to do it this way, you don't announce that you "will be" sending encrypted copies to the news networks. You release the encrypted file publicly at the same time as the demand, and quietly (and securely, otherwise you blow it) squirt the blackmailee the decryption key so they verify it. As has been said though, this way leaves very little chance of a payout from Romney, since there's now no way to do it quietly.

foobar said @ 3:28pm GMT on 6th Sep
That could very well be the point. $1 million wouldn't make a dent in Romney's campaign. He could easily pay it. If real, he has the choice between being seen to pay, or having his returns released. We do know the campaign has been sent something. They may well have a decryption key.

ComposerNate said @ 9:35pm GMT on 6th Sep
So anonymously pretend you have the tax records, publicly blackmail Romney for money, then claim the blackmail was paid and disappear. No proof needed, Romney looks a chump. Dirty politic.

ComposerNate said @ 9:43pm GMT on 6th Sep
While at it, give a boost to bitcoin interest.

foobar said @ 1:09am GMT on 7th Sep
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, but the transactions are all publicly viewable. The links in my post above show the ledgers for the do release and don't release addresses.

spite48 said @ 3:45pm GMT on 6th Sep
Sounds like you've done this before. For a mere $1 Million, I'll keep quiet about your past blackmailing activities.

bruceski said @ 7:09pm GMT on 6th Sep
Not sure you want to do that, my past experience with it involves killing a guy who tried to blackmail me.

spite48 said @ 11:39pm GMT on 6th Sep
Oh. In that case, have a nice day.

bltrocker said @ 3:23pm GMT on 6th Sep [Score:2 Interesting]
Politics-related: Here's Clinton's speech from the DNC. Pretty good.