Was Paymium really hacked? Or are they running a scam? Latter appearing likely. - page 2.

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

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Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Quote from: pyedpyper on April 17, 2013, 04:23:19 PM

Boussac,

And just for the record...

Please state who the "independent auditors" are that are conducting "computer forensic analysis" on the alleged "hack".

And please state what they have discovered so far. I'm sure your clients are interested.

I need confirmation of your refusal to answer this (another) direct question as well for my statement...

Have a nice day Wink

Surely, this is not their "independent auditor": https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.89874

http://web.archive.org/web/20120116132913/http://www.amivulnerable.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20111113122934/http://www.amihackable.com/

nellybear

newbie

Activity: 33

Merit: 0

Quote from: Phinnaeus Gage on April 16, 2013, 05:12:48 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Does anyone have a copy of the original "term of use" of Instawallet ?

Bump.

I can try to look how a letter should be written but I first need the ToS of the web site justbefore it was closed. In french or in english (or both so that I can check if there are differences).

The ToS is the "contract" between the user and the company running the site so I first need to see if it was a breach of contract (civil lawsuit possible) and/or if it is only a penal (not sure this word exists in english) lawsuit.

I tried looking for a cache, but to no prevail. I'm pretty sure it's going to be similar to what they use on their only sites.

This isn't a proper ToS but AFAIK these were the only terms visible on Instawallet: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1320842

pyedpyper

full member

Activity: 172

Merit: 100

Boussac,

And just for the record...

Please state who the "independent auditors" are that are conducting "computer forensic analysis" on the alleged "hack".

And please state what they have discovered so far. I'm sure your clients are interested.

I need confirmation of your refusal to answer this (another) direct question as well for my statement...

Have a nice day Wink

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Quote from: davout on October 18, 2010, 05:29:09 AM

Hello all !

Posting here for one of the first times, got really interested in the whole bitcoins community a little less than a month go.

As always when I discover something interesting I feel the urge to develop something revolving around it using the wonderful Rails framework.

So I've started developing something that would look like MyBitcoin but having in sight to add lots of interesting features and try out some economic models...

Features I'dd like to add :
- Improved address books and transfers to e-mail addresses
- Interfaces with other bitcoin services
- Open and powerful API for other services and merchants
- Facebook integration (that would be opt-in

)
- More generally speaking, enable people without any bitcoin knowledge or curiosity to open an account

Economic models that could be interesting :
- Interest for your deposits
- {insert interesting idea here}

So what I'm posting here for is basically :
- Gathering interesting ideas and comments from the community
- See if it would be a smart move to open the code in order for anybody to look for security breaches and therefore harden the bank safe

Dear God! He succeeded. The first Bitcoin entity to do what they set out to do in their mission statement.

pyedpyper

full member

Activity: 172

Merit: 100

Thanks for this ghdp

Was very interesting to stumble across this thread as well https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/you-think-you-dont-need-to-trust-blockchaininfo-think-again-86278

Instawallet being sold very hard it seems. It does raise a question as to what the motivation would be for that?

Boussac has already made much of that Instawallet was a free service and therefore no revenues earned by Paymium etc etc.

So why sell it so hard? A possible case for premeditation here I think...

crazy_rabbit

legendary

Activity: 1204

Merit: 1001

RUM AND CARROTS: A PIRATE LIFE FOR ME

If they really did run a scam- why didn't they return the BTC yet? It was 'hacked' before the collapse- and they had plenty of time to sell everything before it hit the bottom, buy back and keep the profit.

That would have been the perfect crime really. I'm sure there was enough in there to send the market in a death spiral. But if thats what they did- why not return the funds? Just insane greediness? Not willing to get out with less money but no legal repercussions?

Even though they said the way their database was accessed means they can't come back online, doesn't mean they couldn't refund everyone. So strange.

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Quote from: Phinnaeus Gage on April 16, 2013, 05:12:48 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Does anyone have a copy of the original "term of use" of Instawallet ?

Bump.

I can try to look how a letter should be written but I first need the ToS of the web site justbefore it was closed. In french or in english (or both so that I can check if there are differences).

The ToS is the "contract" between the user and the company running the site so I first need to see if it was a breach of contract (civil lawsuit possible) and/or if it is only a penal (not sure this word exists in english) lawsuit.

I tried looking for a cache, but to no prevail. I'm pretty sure it's going to be similar to what they use on their only sites.

Yep, it looks like this will work: https://a.bitcoin-central.net/s/terms_of_service

Quote

The services offered by Paymium include, but are not limited to, the use of the following web-sites and platforms, hereafter referred to as the "Service" :

Bitcoin-Central.net
Paytunia.com
InstaWallet.org
InstaWire.org

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Quote from: ?? on ??

Does anyone have a copy of the original "term of use" of Instawallet ?

Bump.

I can try to look how a letter should be written but I first need the ToS of the web site justbefore it was closed. In french or in english (or both so that I can check if there are differences).

The ToS is the "contract" between the user and the company running the site so I first need to see if it was a breach of contract (civil lawsuit possible) and/or if it is only a penal (not sure this word exists in english) lawsuit.

I tried looking for a cache, but to no prevail. I'm pretty sure it's going to be similar to what they use on their only sites.

jonytk

member

Activity: 106

Merit: 10

Well, as a bitcoin-central client, i hope this is fixed for good.

I have suffered huge losses and i'm starting to think there's too much insider trading here. Notice the huge lag in bitcoin-central? Don't tell me is the bots because they have no api.

The hack, if it's true, were very simple: database of url stolen.

The question about if they are going to profit: They profit from the dust of coins never reclaimed and from playing with your coins in the mean time, and there's nothing we can do about that. I'm talking about "dust" of milibitcoins that were sended there and could not get out, since the minimum amount to withdraw was 0.1 or 0.01, and many services like https://coinad.com?r=7084 and others pay 0.000001bitcoins for viewing advertising and browsing pages.

they think, "mehh nothing is going to happen, we can control the server from some beach in thailand..."

They are like a bank in regard to bitcoins, so i will advise them against doing anything illegal, just look at what happend to bitcoin-24, first of all starting verifying all their costumers, look for multiple accounts from the same ip with 500E withdrawalls etc. If there's money laundering going on, anyone of us can close their bank account right now. So they better explain what happened.

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
Only One, Only One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG-Wt0dAm_U

Sometimes, you just can't make this stuff up.

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

http://web.archive.org/web/20120609071056/http://paymium.com/

Quote

The three founders of Paymium, Gonzague Grandval, Pierre Noizat and David François, have a cumulated experience of over 30 years in payment solutions, software development and computer security.

With all that experience, nobody was able to hack our sites, so we opted to do it ourselves, blaming it on outside forces because you fucktards would believe it. Besides, we offered a free service and even warned you bastards to not leave your money with us, but you didn't listen, so we are going to teach you ANOTHER lesson.

And about that police report number: Fuck all of you, for you're not getting it. How do you like them apples.

Team Paytunia, et al.

esad

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

I bet you can't guess which one of GRANDVAL Gonzague company's he's trying to pass off this woman as being on its staff. Hint: The other three images of staff are also public domain images.

I'll make it easy for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=33.786541133&aq=f&oq=33.786541133&aqs=chrome.0.57j60j62l3.24792j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

These fuckers are beginning to truly piss me off.

Phinnaeus Gage

legendary

Activity: 1918

Merit: 1570

Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

https://paytunia.com/

Quote

[Apr-01 10:30PM CET]

Bitcoin-Central and Paytunia update: Our customer's bitcoins and euros are safe and will not be affected by the security breach. We have taken the websites off-line for proper investigation.

The address 1LrPYjto3hsLzWJNstghuwdrQXB96KbrCy is under our exclusive control.

We thank you for your patience and will provide updates exclusively on this page as they come in. We are committed to resuming service as soon as possible. Expect normal service to resume within 48 hours.

A couple days later they no longer were using that one address because they split up the funds into a myriad of wallets.

Now, who has exclusive control of them?

Herodes

hero member

Activity: 868

Merit: 1000

Quote from: BubbleBoy on April 15, 2013, 04:26:25 PM

Quote from: Herodes on April 15, 2013, 03:48:50 PM

Quote from: BubbleBoy on April 15, 2013, 03:27:03 PM

It's almost dumb not to seize such an opportunity.

No - it's not. Doing so is criminal in each and every jurisdiction.

Yeah, but it's the perfect crime. If they manage to buy back at lower prices, there's not even any basis for a criminal complaint, you have your coins back. If questioned they will tell the police they covered the coins "that the hackers stole" out of their own pocket. Maybe some civil liability for not being able to access your coins for an extended period of time is it's not already covered in the TOS.

Gambling with client funds is not the perfect crime. It's extremely risky and could put the ones responsible in jail for a very long time. Of course, if it was never discovered, then it could be 'the perfect crime', but what if they sold off, then price made a U-turn, and they couldn't buy back all the coins, then they would've been in deep shit, and could've claimed another hack, but trails would've shown the truth as to what really happened. Anyway - all of this is mere speculation.

tvbcof

legendary

Activity: 4592

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Quote from: steelboy on April 15, 2013, 05:11:27 PM

As most people following this know I have a lot of coins tied up in this problem. (Stupid I know, but I genuinely believed that if I kept my URL safe no one could acces my money)

I am hoping that Boussac and paymium are honest but there are reasons to be suspicious.

I am meeting with a lawyer on Wednesday to discuss options. I believe that i should be doing something towards registering a crime regardless of if they are guilty or innocent. I am hoping to claim skmething through my insurance xompany if possible. He is a finance lawyer who worked in Paris for 10 years so hopefully will have contacts in all the right places.

I am hoping to arrange some kind of fee based on money back with him as nearly all my coins were held by instawallet.

I will keep you all updated.

I'll appreciate your updates.

I feel that it would be in the best interest of those who've lost high values to operate as individuals in the system. It strikes me as more likely that Paymium will 'pay off' those who are willing to take these actions.

It makes sense to me, though, that those who lost smaller amounts of value can form an effective cooperative pool to push this thing forward and try our best to make sure that this thing does not become forgotten about.

In your discussions with your attorney(s), if the opportunity comes up, please mention that at least one person is interested in seeing a multi-pronged attack as described, and feel free to e-mail me if anything comes of it.

One more thing to note is that especially for this possible 'small fry' cooperative adventure, I highly value as much public visibility as possible. Hopefully there would be enough information freely available that effected users could easily just pick up the ball and file their own complaints without needing a high level of communication or whatever.

Thanks,

- Tom

repentance

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Activity: 868

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Just for fun : suppose Boussac provides you a number such as "2013-0123" for the "police report number". What will you do with that information ?

I am not kidding. I filed a complaint (with no relation to bitcoin) last year (end of 2012) and my record number is something like it (2013-0XXX). No other reference, nothing.

It just allows you to confirm that a report has been made. There are many reasons why it might be undesirable for the actual information in the complaint to be made public but those who've been affected by this incident need a way to reassure themselves that appropriate action has been taken.

I know you all think I'm something of a dinosaur when it comes to management styles, but this is the kind of situation in which management needs to come out very publicly and allow themselves to be subjected to scrutiny. I've previously suggested that a public letter from the auditors investigating this incident would be appropriate. Users essentially want some kind of confirmation that this incident is being investigated from a third party who is unlikely to lie and it's within Paymium's power, and certainly in their best interests, to provide that.

steelboy

hero member

Activity: 756

Merit: 1000

As most people following this know I have a lot of coins tied up in this problem. (Stupid I know, but I genuinely believed that if I kept my URL safe no one could acces my money)

I am hoping that Boussac and paymium are honest but there are reasons to be suspicious.

I am meeting with a lawyer on Wednesday to discuss options. I believe that i should be doing something towards registering a crime regardless of if they are guilty or innocent. I am hoping to claim skmething through my insurance xompany if possible. He is a finance lawyer who worked in Paris for 10 years so hopefully will have contacts in all the right places.

I am hoping to arrange some kind of fee based on money back with him as nearly all my coins were held by instawallet.

I will keep you all updated.

crazy_rabbit

legendary

Activity: 1204

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RUM AND CARROTS: A PIRATE LIFE FOR ME

It would be insane to suggest they caused this crash, right? Take all the coins and sell them all at once- cause mass panic and buy them back now?

tvbcof

legendary

Activity: 4592

Merit: 1276

Quote from: ?? on ??

...
But of course anyone not trusting them is free to fill its own police report. France is still a somehow democratic country and even a foreign customer is allowed to fill a complaint against any french company, which will be processed by the police, even if it takes one year or more ...

You, ~ghdp, are my best hope yet for getting police reports filed.

If you are willing to either:

- locate a suitable legal person to do the next bullet item, or

- formulate a suitable report for international victims to use as a template and publish it on this thread for public comment and utilization,

I will promise at least 2 BTC for this task from my own funds.

----

If anyone else who has experience in the corporate world wishes to formulate some documentation to present first to the marketing departments of the 'mainstream' banks that 'Paymium' claimed to be working with, and thence (possibly) on to mainstream media outlets, that is another task. And also one which I will be inclined to personally commission if necessary.

The goal would be to enlist the legal bodies of said corporations if they feel like it would be in their interest that their names not be sullied in association with 'Paymium' who, by all appearances, seems at this point to be a criminal organization.

Thanks,

- Tom

pyedpyper

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Activity: 172

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Quote from: Phinnaeus Gage on April 15, 2013, 04:31:45 PM

http://betabeat.com/2012/12/bitcoin-central-becomes-first-bitcoin-exchange-to-operate-as-a-bank/

Quote

In addition to protections provided by the Garantie des dépôts (France’s FDIC), user funds will also be held at Credit Mutuel under their name instead of an online Bitcoin wallet, ostensibly providing accounts with more stringent security. This may be attractive to users worried about theft, considering some Bitcoin exchanges have been the target of heists in recent months.

Quote

Update:

A commenter writes in to clarify:

The insurance on deposits is only for euro-denominated deposits, and funds in euros are stored at the bank. Bitcoin balances are not stored at the bank, and are not insured.

Rather ironic then that this company is appearing to be one of the more sketchy around...

Topic: Was Paymium really hacked? Or are they running a scam? Latter appearing likely. - page 2. (Read 7140 times)