TV News 'Hack' Sees Bitcoins Swiped (bbc.com) 33
Two French hackers used their computer skills to reconstruct a blurred-out code on TV and claim bitcoins worth $1,000. From a report: Michel Sassano and Clement Storck had seen an interview with entrepreneur Roger Ver on French television. Mr Ver had offered $1,000 to viewers - but a QR code needed to claim the money had been blurred out. The duo analysed a small part of the code that was visible, however, and managed to access the funds. When the France 2 channel broadcast its interview with Mr Ver earlier this month, he promised the money -- just over three bitcoin cash coins, worth $1,000 -- to whichever viewer was quickest to scan an on-screen QR code. However, the code had been blurred out by France 2 -- Mr Sassano believes this is because of French broadcasting regulations that prevent news programmes from giving away prizes. "The process to decode the private key from the moment we watched the show to when we entered it in the wallet took, I think, between 12 and 16 hours," Mr Sassano told the BBC.
Comment (Score:4, Insightful)
So, the people on the show offered a small prize to whomever scanned the code first. Somebody did, and gained the prize. How is this news?
Re: (Score:1)
If a camera is around, even if you think you can digitally obfuscate the contents of something, you may not be able.
Re:Comment (Score:5, Informative)
Because the actual blog by the guys who did this [freecodecamp.org] on how they did this is actually very interesting with a lot of technical detail - and really appropriate for a site which used to have "news for nerds". Would have been a much better link to include in the summary...
Re: (Score:1)
What? I think most of that conversation thread exists only in your delusional mind.
Bad headline (Score:1)
Claimed and Swiped are two different things. Dude was offering the bitcoin. Broadcaster prevented that. Viewers found way to still enter their claim.
Bitcoin cash is not bitcoin (Score:1)
the title is pretty misleading. And this is pretty far from a hack, as the QR code was specifically intended to be scanned. Bigger surprise is that no one at the tv station did this first.
Re: (Score:2)
the title is pretty misleading
You must be new here.
Plural? (Score:2)
bitcoins
worth $1,000
I think the plural is misleading. That's less than 20% of one bitcoin at the time of this comment.
Re: (Score:2)
Give it a minute.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is certain language that is required by law to be included in every investment prospectus, and for good reason. It is, 'Past performance is no indication of future results'.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a similar prospectus that I give to each and every woman that enters my bedroom.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You guys will feel like fools when BTC falls below $1 while Dogecoin takes its place and trades at over $8K. You have 19 months to react.
What do you mean swiped? (Score:5, Insightful)
The TV channel made it a bit more difficult than usual.
Where is the swipe/theft/swindle in this case?
Re: (Score:3)
now how legal?? was that? and hack chagers (Score:2)
now how legal was that? and can hacking changers be filed?
In the usa that may of been an computer fraud and abuse act issue + an tax reporting issue as well.
Did the broadcaster learn? (Score:2)
Are we going to stop blurring faces and documents on camera and switch to using black bars?
Or, really, any completely opaque symbol would suffice.
An opaque overlay is computationally cheaper than blurring too. Not that should be an issue anymore anyway.
bitcoin (Score:1)
Shitty Headline - NO bitcoins were stolen (Score:1)
First of all, this story does not involve bitcoin in any way. It involves bitcoin cash, which is not the same coin.
Second, the headline tries to imply that the coins in question were stolen, when they were not. The owner intended to give them away.
Shitty slashdot reporting as always.