Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: JustTheOne on May 27, 2012, 06:06 pm

Title: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JustTheOne on May 27, 2012, 06:06 pm
I had an interesting thought. What if you kidnap someone and demand bitcoins, say one million dollars, that's only about 2% of the bitcoin economy. There are lots of rich people out there that aren't famous that have 1 million dollars to spare that don't have any security, just take one of their kids and send them a letter explaining how to buy and transfer the bitcoins and warn them not to contact the police (doesn't matter if they do).

The only problem I can think of is:

1. How would they buy 200 000 bitcoins quickly, are there any exchanges that don't have purchase or transfer/withdraw limits?

2. After it's all over, the bitcoins will probably be monitored, but constantly transferring them and using several washing services and withdrawing them or only using them to purchase things like gold to an address in a third world country (good luck tracing that feds!!!)

3. The actual kidnapping. Although this really shouldn't be that hard. You just got to use common sense, and preferably steal a young child. (Before anyone complains that this would be morally wrong, you could easily kidnap the child in a way that doesn't distress him/her, and give her water and food and cartoons to watch so the child wouldn't even know what was going on.)

By the way, this is merely a theoretical concept I am looking to explore.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Locker on May 27, 2012, 06:23 pm
Just get cash mate, dont want to waste any time if youve got someone in your basement!
But seeing as though you have the child/close family member i doubt he would do it without getting help, but good luck if your going ahead  with it anyway ;P
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JustTheOne on May 27, 2012, 07:14 pm
Just get cash mate, dont want to waste any time if youve got someone in your basement!
But seeing as though you have the child/close family member i doubt he would do it without getting help, but good luck if your going ahead  with it anyway ;P
Are you kidding? First of all, how is the person going to get hold of 1 million dollars in cash at a speed that's faster than obtaining bitcoins? Second of all, they ALWAYS get you when you collect the money.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: blahftw on May 27, 2012, 10:50 pm
OP, how about instead of kidnapping some innocent child, and scarring their mind for life, you go ahead and shoot yourself in the fucking head.  then the kid will live a normal life, and you will have no need for money.  it's a win/win.

seriously, kill yourself, and do it on a live internet stream, you scumbag piece of shit.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: mito on May 27, 2012, 11:02 pm
What ransom would SR pay for DPR?

:D

Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: sl1pknot on May 27, 2012, 11:05 pm
I have kidnapped thousands of little children and demanded hundreds of thousands of BTC in return, now I am spending all my BTC from my kidnappings on SR.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Meister on May 29, 2012, 02:12 pm
How bad would that feeling hurt when you look at the fees racking up from moving that chunk of change around from wallet to wallet.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JimPooley on May 29, 2012, 02:26 pm
Kidnapping is a no win situation, with the time and effort invested you'd have been better devoting that time to learning how to hack, and just steal the money directly!
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Meister on May 29, 2012, 03:33 pm
Depends if you're in it for the short term or long term. If I were desperate for fast cash, short term, armed robbery would probably be my route. Far more stores, and banks, are robbed than most people realize. Most somewhat-intelligent bank robbers aren't caught until their 5th or 15th heist, people imagine holding up the entire bank at gunpoint when in reality it's just a person trying to conceal their identity while they slip a note to the teller to empty their drawer.

The reward is usually rather small, even smaller for convenience stores, which is why I said if I were desperate for cash. Most convenience store thefts are done from the inside, I had a semi-friend who was a manager at a convenience store and while his store was a victim several times a year, either armed robbery or smash and grab, the store lost far more money from his small thieving over time. He started by stealing toilet paper, napkins, condiments, and small shit from himself and relatives. Escalated to cartons cigarettes (friends would phantom swipe their card at the counter and walk out), and product shipments where he would park his car by the back camera so that the truck shipments would have to park on the side where he would dump some into his trunk. He probably would have never been caught if he hadn't worked out a plan with his cousin to rob the store when he knew the register was full. Not exactly rocket science for LE to figure out the dude was his little cousin.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Meister on May 29, 2012, 03:35 pm
The above long ass rant was brought to you by Adderall, the tl;dr drug of choice.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: monkeyslut on May 29, 2012, 03:50 pm
What ransom would SR pay for DPR?

:D

All of it.

Although, by nomoclatic definition the mantel could be assumed by another; the dude is a sacred cow.

No touchy.

The the abductors would be found (assuming they were still on this planet) and everyone on SR could break out their razors.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: vlad1m1r on May 29, 2012, 08:01 pm
The Bitcoin network doesn't lend itself well to concealing that large an amount of money!

However, the OP's question is a legitimate one and I have wondered myself if BTC could be used in a hostage scenario. Irrespective of the problem of getting one's hands on that many Bitcoins in one go it's hard to see how a mixing service could cover your tracks as the amount in question would be difficult to hide.

Having said that the Bitcoin network isn't going anywhere so it might be possible to cash out small amounts at a time to live comfortably but I think you'd find LEO would be putting their best people on to tracing the flow of coins throughout the network to you.

None of this is to say Bitcoins couldn't be used to extort money from people, I just doubt they could conceal a very large Ransom.

Incidentally has anyone seen the 1994 Mel Gibson film "Ransom"? Gibson plays a millionaire whose son is kidnapped for a ransom of 2 million dollars. When he realises (correctly!) that the kidnappers have no motive to give his son back even if he pays up, Gibson's character instead offers the money as a bounty on the kidnappers' heads, offering to retract it if his son is returned unharmed. A rather drastic solution but under the circumstances I think it was his only option!

V.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JustTheOne on June 12, 2012, 10:52 am
Anyone else have any comments?
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: MojoMan on June 12, 2012, 12:51 pm
This wouldn't work as the bitcoin network can't hide that many bitcoins. It would be like trying to push a brick through a hose, or you know when a snake eats a large rabbit, and you can see it moving down inside the snake.

Bitcoin washing services rely on other people using the service so everything gets swilled around, but 1 million dollars isnt going to be mirrored that quickly within the service, could take months or years.

Your best option would be to quickly buy 1 million worth of bulk drugs here, then sell them on at a loss quickly.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: vlad1m1r on June 12, 2012, 08:59 pm
This wouldn't work as the bitcoin network can't hide that many bitcoins. It would be like trying to push a brick through a hose, or you know when a snake eats a large rabbit, and you can see it moving down inside the snake.

Bitcoin washing services rely on other people using the service so everything gets swilled around, but 1 million dollars isnt going to be mirrored that quickly within the service, could take months or years.

Your best option would be to quickly buy 1 million worth of bulk drugs here, then sell them on at a loss quickly.

...What he said /\
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Limetless on June 12, 2012, 09:04 pm
Lol this thread made me laugh.

To be fair enough when I get shit service from someone (non-related to SR) I usually vent it by making up a random tormail account and then send bomb threats and demand BitCoins. Obviously it's never worked but if the possibility they evacuate their building that's good enough for me.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: overman on June 12, 2012, 09:14 pm
At the time I'm reading this it says "read: 187 times", made me smile  ;)
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: oscarzululondon on June 13, 2012, 01:02 am
Jesus Christ man the FBI is already looking into bitcoins.

Implying the American government didn't make bitcoins and it's continued existence isn't completely down to the American governments will for it to do so.

They made and continue to fund Tor....

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2011-April/019959.html
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JustTheOne on June 13, 2012, 01:31 am
This wouldn't work as the bitcoin network can't hide that many bitcoins. It would be like trying to push a brick through a hose, or you know when a snake eats a large rabbit, and you can see it moving down inside the snake.

Bitcoin washing services rely on other people using the service so everything gets swilled around, but 1 million dollars isnt going to be mirrored that quickly within the service, could take months or years.

Your best option would be to quickly buy 1 million worth of bulk drugs here, then sell them on at a loss quickly.
You're kinda wrong. Just depositing a part of the money into SilkRoad then withdrawing them would, if I'm not mistaken, be like using a tumbling service. Even if it's not, you're not going to spend the whole million in one go. What I would do is to make sure I commit the crime in a different country than I plan on living in. So if I commit the crime in the US, then withdraw the money in say South America or Asia, what are they going to do about it? Even if I withdrew the money to a normal bank account, what proof do they have? What I would do is split the money up, make hundreds of random transactions, beginning by splitting the 1 million dollars into chunks of a couple thousand in each bitcoin address, hell maybe I'd even give some coins away just to throw them off. I just can't see any organization being able to track all those bitcoins AND having the legal resources to pursue them. What if I wait for 5 years until I touch the coins, are they going to have people on standby for years just waiting for me to withdraw? Even if it takes years, that would still mean I could withdraw thousands of dollars a month, enough to live extremely comfortable in a lot of countries.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: thyme on June 13, 2012, 01:57 am
I just can't see any organization being able to track all those bitcoins AND having the legal resources to pursue them. What if I wait for 5 years until I touch the coins, are they going to have people on standby for years just waiting for me to withdraw?
I'm going to guess "yes" based on history.

There are a lot of people who want to advance in their careers out there who are very obsessive and who would love to just beagle-dog the fuck out of something like that, I'm guessing.

Probably someone will come along to tell me I'm wrong, but I've spent a lot of time with obsessive data-driven people in a totally different field.

Also, one million dollars? Who is this, Dr. Evil?

Go big or go home. You would want to go for enough money to make it so that you could relo and live comfortably for life in a country with sanitation systems and the like.  Maybe you're of advanced age or terminally ill, but last I calculated something like this it was 3M plus. I don't live an extravagant life.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Limetless on June 13, 2012, 02:15 am
I'm not by any means a bitcoin expert, considering I haven't managed to get any yet, but I've read that massive purchases and cashing out of bitcoins leads to chaos in the bitcoin economy. I don't think 200,000 bitcoins even exists on the open market. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You could get this many but you would have to stage a run which would take weeks of planning and you'd need a team and you'd probably have to work for around 48 hours solid.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: ralph123 on June 13, 2012, 02:47 am
I'm guessing that this talk about kidnapping a child is all in good humor even if it is a terribly sick and psychotic sense of humor. Maybe it's a ploy to keep the attention of the feds concentrated mostly in this part of the forums, I don't know. What's the latest news on the value of the bit coin anyway? Doesn't it split again real soon? If so then the value will continue to increase until the inevitable split bringing it back to the $4 mark
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: oscarzululondon on June 13, 2012, 02:58 am
I'm not by any means a bitcoin expert, considering I haven't managed to get any yet, but I've read that massive purchases and cashing out of bitcoins leads to chaos in the bitcoin economy. I don't think 200,000 bitcoins even exists on the open market. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You could get this many but you would have to stage a run which would take weeks of planning and you'd need a team and you'd probably have to work for around 48 hours solid.

There is another way you could get that many bitcoins, but it isn't economically worth it.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Limetless on June 13, 2012, 03:12 am
I'm not by any means a bitcoin expert, considering I haven't managed to get any yet, but I've read that massive purchases and cashing out of bitcoins leads to chaos in the bitcoin economy. I don't think 200,000 bitcoins even exists on the open market. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You could get this many but you would have to stage a run which would take weeks of planning and you'd need a team and you'd probably have to work for around 48 hours solid.

There is another way you could get that many bitcoins, but it isn't economically worth it.

Which method? There is a few ways to do it but really staging a run is the only economic/practical way to go about it. Even that would be shit hard though, if the coordination was even slightly off you could balls it.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: JustTheOne on June 13, 2012, 03:15 am
I just can't see any organization being able to track all those bitcoins AND having the legal resources to pursue them. What if I wait for 5 years until I touch the coins, are they going to have people on standby for years just waiting for me to withdraw?
I'm going to guess "yes" based on history.

There are a lot of people who want to advance in their careers out there who are very obsessive and who would love to just beagle-dog the fuck out of something like that, I'm guessing.

Probably someone will come along to tell me I'm wrong, but I've spent a lot of time with obsessive data-driven people in a totally different field.

Also, one million dollars? Who is this, Dr. Evil?

Go big or go home. You would want to go for enough money to make it so that you could relo and live comfortably for life in a country with sanitation systems and the like.  Maybe you're of advanced age or terminally ill, but last I calculated something like this it was 3M plus. I don't live an extravagant life.
I agree, problem is that obtaining 1 million USD in bitcoins is hard enough (several % of all bitcoins).. and 1 million dollars is enough.. a safe investment giving you 3-5% annual return would give you 30-40k a year. You can live like a king on just 2k USD a month in a lot of countries if you're willing to sacrifice some things. You can rent large modern luxury oceanfront properties for 1k a month, everything else is cheap.

Only problem still is how you would buy that amount of bitcoins, is there any exchange that allows it?
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: SRTRAVLER on June 13, 2012, 09:27 am
someone alrdy said it, go kill you self
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: vlad1m1r on June 13, 2012, 08:05 pm
I'm sorry I don't feel comfortable discussing this any more. We may be criminals but that doesn't mean we don't have decent standards of behaviour - I for one am happy to try to make my fortune without hurting anyone!

V.
Title: Re: Kidnapping someone and demanding Bitcoins as ransom money?
Post by: Limetless on June 13, 2012, 08:32 pm
I'm locking this thread, this is NOT what Silk Road is about and it has no place here.

There is a difference between taking care of business - defending yourself, collecting debts, striking back, protecting your family - and hurting civilians - kidnapping innocents, targeting women and children, victimising people.

The former is fair enough, it's just part of life. The latter is unnecessary and there is no decency in it. SR is NOT about people with no decency.

If you wana talk about that shit GTFO, it isn't welcome here.

OP you are a fucking degenerate who needs putting to sleep.

Locked.