1. The "About" section claims that the reason "why" is because somebody said it wasn't possible. That certainly makes sense but once the first "collision" was found the point was proven and there is nothing to prove anymore so why keep going?
A collision is found as soon as you have two
different private keys that evaluate to the same Address.
We found two addresses with funds, the keys are weird (either broken RNG or real collisions of a "regular private key") but up to now no one came with an alternate key - so we cannot be sure it's a collision.
2. If a "collision" is found the amount (if any) is "misplaced" (i.e. stolen) into so-called custodial address. The reason for that is because when the discovery is announced somebody else could quickly find the same and steal it. And the reason why the discovery is announced in the first place is.. to prove the point that has already been proven? Again, why this whole thing still keeps going? To prove the point was a valid and perfectly understandable reason. What valid reason is there now?
If we simply announce the private key and the funds stay where they are - they are gone and no one knows who drained them (simply the person who was quickest). By the process of transferring them to a custodial address and announcing we can "protect them". Now I believe that let alone the announcing of having found something and stating the custodial addresses should make it
dead clear that this is not some stealing. If anybody wanted to steal - why make it public? I really get tired of having to explain this.
3. The webpages are full of "rightful owner" this, "rightful ownership" that, but how is this rightful owner supposed to find out about what really happened, i.e. that they in fact weren't robbed, they were just "robbed"?
How about you look at:
https://blockchain.info/address/1PVwqUXrD5phy6gWrqJUrhpsPiBkTnftGgAssuming that every owner of bitcoins in the whole world will somehow magically become aware of some random thread at some random Internet forum and from now on will be anxiously reading it every day for the rest of their lives is just insane.
Have you read
https://blockchain.info/address/1PVwqUXrD5phy6gWrqJUrhpsPiBkTnftGg already?
As for checking a "random thread" somewhere: I believe when LBC finds some more addresses, it will not be a "random thread" somewhere, but a quite well known thread. Also the development is not finished yet. I may set up a RSS feed for
https://lbc.cryptoguru.org/trophies.
4. So far only empty or almost empty addresses have been found but what will happen when some reasonable amount (hundreds or thousands BTC) is found? Will the "announcing" and "misplacing" happen again?
As far as I am concerned - yes.
If somebody has such an amount in one address they are either stupid or they have many similarly loaded addresses. If the latter is the case then aren't you afraid what may happen to you and your dear ones if you piss off the wrong people? I don't see it entirely unrealistic if some angry criminals tracked you down and murdered you and your whole family, and they will most certainly not care one single bit about your "proving the point", "custodial address" etc. bullshit.
Ok - I think we can stop it here, because your choice of words proves you are not here to have questions, you have some opinion already. You also watch movies too much.
But just for the fun of it, to entertain your "army of hitmen coming after me and my friends": If anything like that was to happen. And it's a big IF because the pool would have to find something, actually my client would have to, so I would do the custodial transfer, they would have to find out who I am (which is the easiest part), they would have to be totally dumb (but criminals often are) to not simply get their funds back by providing their alternate private key....
I certainly hope they would not be as dumb as to killing me immediately, but torture me 1st for the private key of the custodial address.
Because else - you know - they would need LBC to find that.
Rico
