Stolen Coins Right After Getting Vanity Address

Shogen

legendary

Activity: 966

Merit: 1001

Quote from: galbros on March 20, 2014, 05:53:57 PM

Quote from: Mitchell on March 02, 2014, 04:19:19 PM

Vanity addresses are safe if they are generated in the right way. Yes, even if multiple people work on it.

Bitcoin Info, would you please go into this a little more or point me somewhere? I though if anyone else generated your vanity that they would have the private keys to it. Is the solution the "sweep" approach?

Thanks!

The method is explained clearly in the following post.
FYR: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.901491

galbros

legendary

Activity: 1022

Merit: 1000

Quote from: Mitchell on March 02, 2014, 04:19:19 PM

Vanity addresses are safe if they are generated in the right way. Yes, even if multiple people work on it.

Bitcoin Info, would you please go into this a little more or point me somewhere? I though if anyone else generated your vanity that they would have the private keys to it. Is the solution the "sweep" approach?

Thanks!

hjbuell

member

Activity: 70

Merit: 10

Writer $0.10/word +

Just get a Vanity address, import it into Blockchain, and then have them 'sweep' the address for you into a non-vanity address. That way your coins are not compromised, because they are never in the vanity address long enough to be cleaned out, yet you're still able to use the address.

desii1

newbie

Activity: 7

Merit: 0

Quote from: Sonny on February 05, 2014, 01:57:20 PM

Sorry to hear your loss.
You should have downloaded Vanitygen and run it offline instead.

Where can I get a compiled, trusted, windows version of vanitygen? All I find is the code.

cp1

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Stop using branwallets

Sorry to hear that. Pretty much never let someone else generate a private key for you. You can just run vanitygen on your own computer if you reaaaly need one.

Mitchell

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Activity: 3948

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Verified awesomeness ✔

Vanity addresses are safe if they are generated in the right way. Yes, even if multiple people work on it.

Gator-hex

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Activity: 490

Merit: 500

Quote from: Domino on March 02, 2014, 02:40:07 PM

Quote from: oriel2 on March 01, 2014, 08:19:28 PM

Quote from: duhosnyul on February 10, 2014, 09:03:07 AM

Why need those vanity address. You are just creating another hole to your security. QT is enough and use a new clean install pc with only antivirus on it besides bitcoin and never use it other than storing your bitcoins.

How many people (average joe not tech mad) have a spare PC laying around doing nothing?!

Maybe a very old pc or laptop?

Don't let anyone create an address for you, they will have a copy of your private key! If you don't exclusively own the private key you don't own the coins!

Install Ubuntu OS, install Bitcoin-QT, encrypt your wallet with a password after making it, use that OS for nothing else but accessing your coins. (It'll even install on the same hard drive as windows if you don't have two PCs.) If you want to use an alt-coin wallet make another user account and keep them separated!

http://www.ubuntu.com/download
https://bitcoin.org/en/download

Domino

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Activity: 662

Merit: 500

Quote from: oriel2 on March 01, 2014, 08:19:28 PM

Quote from: duhosnyul on February 10, 2014, 09:03:07 AM

Why need those vanity address. You are just creating another hole to your security. QT is enough and use a new clean install pc with only antivirus on it besides bitcoin and never use it other than storing your bitcoins.

How many people (average joe not tech mad) have a spare PC laying around doing nothing?!

Maybe a very old pc or laptop?

oriel2

newbie

Activity: 42

Merit: 0

Quote from: duhosnyul on February 10, 2014, 09:03:07 AM

Why need those vanity address. You are just creating another hole to your security. QT is enough and use a new clean install pc with only antivirus on it besides bitcoin and never use it other than storing your bitcoins.

How many people (average joe not tech mad) have a spare PC laying around doing nothing?!

deepceleron

legendary

Activity: 1512

Merit: 1036

I've looked through the site and can't find any abuse contact info; in fact their TOS doesn't have anything about no abuse allowed. Irresponsible to allow unfettered content from anony users and have no abuse contact. Possibly the most efficient way to have it killed is to have someone with any copyright standing for any similar code (or that used behind the scenes such as vanitygen) issue a DMCA takedown request, which Google will have to comply with to maintain safe harbor.

rizzn

member

Activity: 108

Merit: 10

Quote from: Sonny on February 18, 2014, 02:26:59 AM

Quote from: rizzn on February 18, 2014, 02:20:48 AM

I don't know why this didn't pop up when I initially researched the site. Just lost 2.3+ BTC today to this site.

I made a reddit post on this topic.

You can upvote it here if you're so inclined: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1y7upu/bitcoinvanityappspotcom_is_not_secure_and/

Sad to hear your loss...
BTW, if you did a google search with "bitcoinvanity", you will find the thread I linked in my last post.

Yeah - not sure why, but Google buried the results below the official threads and other unrelated sites when I looked prior to using it.

Sonny

hero member

Activity: 868

Merit: 1000

Quote from: rizzn on February 18, 2014, 02:20:48 AM

I don't know why this didn't pop up when I initially researched the site. Just lost 2.3+ BTC today to this site.

I made a reddit post on this topic.

You can upvote it here if you're so inclined: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1y7upu/bitcoinvanityappspotcom_is_not_secure_and/

Sad to hear your loss...
BTW, if you did a google search with "bitcoinvanity", you will find the thread I linked in my last post.

rizzn

member

Activity: 108

Merit: 10

I don't know why this didn't pop up when I initially researched the site. Just lost 2.3+ BTC today to this site.

I made a reddit post on this topic.

You can upvote it here if you're so inclined: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1y7upu/bitcoinvanityappspotcom_is_not_secure_and/

Sonny

hero member

Activity: 868

Merit: 1000

Quote from: desii1 on February 02, 2014, 04:54:20 PM

*https://bitcoinvanity.appspot.com/ < the site I used. I am NOT accusing them!

Quote from: Banksy on February 10, 2014, 08:34:24 AM

Just like to bump this, exact same thing happened to me after using https://bitcoinvanity.appspot.com

Indeed, someone has accused the site stole bitcoin from users back in Aug 2013.
FYR: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoinvanitynibor-scam-alert-pics-278769

LunarLuna

newbie

Activity: 10

Merit: 0

this story is unfortunate

pissedatbitlaunder

newbie

Activity: 37

Merit: 0

***UPDATE***

Mr. Moriarty just got in touch with me.

I have to say that he is in the process of making things right with me. He owed me .3234 BTC. After a couple of back and forth emails, we agreed to the following. I would remove the negative rating and he would deposit .20 BTC in my account. Which he has done. Further, once I update the posts I have made and let folks know the outcome, he will then release the balance of .1234 BTC to me.

After having talked with Mr. Moriarty, I was informed that somehow my account was hacked. He does seem to be quite busy working to contain the situation. The fact that he is reimbursing me out of his own pocket, in my opinion, does speak volumes to this man's character.

Bitlaunder.com seems to be making the effort to correct things.

pissedatbitlaunder

newbie

Activity: 37

Merit: 0

This is a sad situation. It is hard enough for cryptocurrencies to gain legitimacy without all of the BS that scammers pull. I had a similar situation with bitlaunder.com. All of my coins have evaporated and the owner of the site, while he has finally contacted me back called me absurd.

Checkout my original post here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitlaundercom-poor-service-and-poor-customer-support-453671

Is there an email address or other way we can bombard the site you used with emails. If we all can come together, help and support each other, we can maybe drive some of this BS out of the equation.

yatsey87

hero member

Activity: 840

Merit: 509

Quote from: Mitchell on February 10, 2014, 09:52:48 AM

Quote from: Banksy on February 10, 2014, 09:21:40 AM

I realise that and the loss of 7 BTC has been an expensive lesson. Hopefully this is a warning to others, would be nice to be 100% certain that it is due to that website that I have lost the coins though

My bet would be on the vanity site you used, because your other wallets are fine.

IF your other wallets are fine then it's a good chance that the problem was with the website.

Banksy

newbie

Activity: 14

Merit: 0

I couldn't agree more, and to be honest Ive no excuse other than I was too impatient to run the software myself

Mitchell

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Verified awesomeness ✔

Quote from: Banksy on February 10, 2014, 08:34:24 AM

Just like to bump this, exact same thing happened to me after using https://bitcoinvanity.appspot.com

I imported the new address into blockchain.info and secured with 2FA and email login approval. 7 BTC lost withdrawn to a random address over the past weekend.

It may sound a bit harsh but it's your own fault. I have advised a legit, secure and good working vanity pool above...
I don't know how legit bitcoinvanity.appspot.com is, but it doesn't seem secure if you ask me. You don't need to create extra randomness to get a vanity address. I don't even know how that would help.

I do feel bad for you. Losing 7BTC sucks.

Quote from: Banksy on February 10, 2014, 09:21:40 AM

I realise that and the loss of 7 BTC has been an expensive lesson. Hopefully this is a warning to others, would be nice to be 100% certain that it is due to that website that I have lost the coins though

My bet would be on the vanity site you used, because your other wallets are fine.

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