Trojan Goes After Bitcoins 344
Orome1 writes "Bitcoin has definitely caught the attention of criminals. Even though it has been calculated that the use of botnets for Bitcoin mining is still not quite as lucrative as renting them out for other purposes, targeting people who have them in their digital wallets is quite another matter. Symantec researchers have spotted in the wild a Trojan dedicated to this specific purpose. Named Infostealer.Coinbit, it searches for the Bitcoin wallet.dat file on the infected computer and sends it to the criminal(s)."
mugging (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing of value was lost.
Re:mugging (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding. I always thought that the actual money file was encrypted, and could have an arbitrary name. You know, like a truecrypt volume file. Then I find out it's by default a text file hanging out on your computer. Fine and dandy if you have 100% control over your computer at all times, but we all know that's never the case. And judging by the passwords people use, it will be easy to brute force most passwords.
Somehow, I think bitcoin is going to flame out in a rash of digital thievery when criminals realize that it is easier to steal someone's bitcoin file than it is to mine it or even look for credit card info.
A file within a file... (Score:5, Insightful)
But honestly, if you're using this system for any sort of money handling, then leaving it, the equivilent of lying around, is not a good idea. Secure your money properly, use common sense. Also I believe it's even on BitCoin's good practise list of recommendations. Encrypt your wallet and keep a backup elsewhere incase a nasty trojan erases it. Good data retention practise applies to everything.
Re:mugging (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitcoins may well be worthless, but they are in no respect a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes have to grow geometrically to continue in existence, which is why they quickly get destroyed after a few iterations. Bitcoins in circulation, on the other hand, grow at an increasingly slow pace. Similarly, Ponzi schemes have a 'promoter'.
The whole purpose of the bitcoin ecosystem is that it is something electronically transferrable (anonymously), yet fundamentally limited in its number.
Now: they could easily be a complete fraud - with the number of bitcoins in circulation being far more than claimed. However, if the claims for the limitation of their number in circulation are true, then they could easily become a store of value, in that any fiat currency (or indeed gold itself), has value because choose to believe it.
Or to put it another way: if people wish to assign bitcoins value, they can. Likewise, they can choose not to.
Re:Another visitor! (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as the Bitcoin stories are getting a little much we are seeing the birth of something completely new; A medium of exchange that is independent of any government. The criminal/socially unacceptable elements are legitimizing the currency by applying value. Anything that enough humans apply value to will become valuable. The primary value of gold is that many people ascribe value to it and wish to possess it. If you buy gold on the markets you pay a storage fee because there are not enough commercial applications of gold to make storage profitable. Silver, platinum, copper... They all pay a bit if you buy contracts. The only purpose of gold then is to provide a medium of exchange.
Bitcoin is something similar in that a very large group of people are beginning to value the electronic currency, thus it has value. The context of the source of that valuation has no consequence. Humans are now using it as a medium of exchange which is now creating demand. That demand is causing a rise in price and others now wish to posses it as it has potential for increasing value. This is the basic form of speculation.
Now we have a socially illegitimate group applying the initial value and then speculators step in. Speculators are socially acceptable and so a balance is beginning to form. If this continues a stabilized economy will form and it will be unstoppable.
To wish that these stories be stopped is a bit shot sighted. We may be witnessing something that has *NEVER* happened before! It's quite exciting to watch something like this form, not to mention the insight into human behavior and the many benefits that can result for that insight. Not to mention a currency that is independent of any one government.
I do not see Bitcoins ever replacing government currency but I do see it becoming a supplemental tool for securing wealth and providing a medium of exchange detached from economically repressive governments. Any government that taxes represses it's people, the people accept that repression as a necessity to govern the society. Anyway, being able to purchase something without the government being in your business is a true expression of freedom and extends a way for true privacy to be exercised. This scares quite a few people in government and will be incredibly interesting to watch it play out.
As a side note, the VHS and Internet were "legitimized" by unsavory elements of society. And here we are discussing something in a way that 20 years ago was a dream and 80 years ago was unimagined, all because it was first a marginal "thing" exploited by unsavory elements in which a majority of the population expressed the desire to not be bothered. We live in exciting times and Bitcoin is the tip of something extremely interesting.
Re:Another visitor! (Score:5, Insightful)
I would mod you up if I could, as you've said just what I wanted to say.
BitCoin is technically interesting, dammit. I don't own any, and I don't think I want to. . . it does seem like a risky, unstable economy to me. But the very idea of it is brilliant, and the implementation details and implications of its existence are profoundly interesting to me. It fits the "New for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" theme far better than most of the other stories posted here.
Re:mugging (Score:4, Insightful)