Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

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> Will the police help you when you call them to report it? I highly, HIGHLY doubt it

With honest-services and securities fraud, the police are generally there to document, not enforce. If someone stole your WoW gold and you sued, you'd almost certainly have a case. If I were your lawyer (I'm not a lawyer), I'd send a letter to the relevant tax authorities and attorneys general, as a point of leverage during settlement talks. (This is not uncommon in lawsuits--

TL; DR No, one does not always get caught. I won't say I've always been faithful to every city's open-carry alcohol laws. But when you break such laws (a) it's still breaking the law which (b) exposes you to more than just the government.

> So like forgive me if I think it's a waste of tax money for Bharara and the courts and the police to go after Big Vern, while the Equifax guys are not pre-emptively detained while a fine is calculated

You're forgiven for having an opinion? I still disagree. We know there was criminal conduct on behalf of Big Vern. Not yet Equifax. Though on a higher level I agree, since ordinary people were harmed by Equifax. My sympathies for people who lose money in Bitcoin fraud is less, though I think that's a function of familiarity with the system.

I did some Googling. WoW gold theft results in Blizzard suggesting you open a support ticket, despite the fact that WoW gold, like bitcoin, has unofficial street value.

I will do more digging but I don't know if anyone has gone to the police for WoW gold theft. I'm not sure why WoW gold is treated differently from Bitcoin, which is apparently an honest to god bonafide US security in the eyes of the law.

Re: your point about not always getting caught, then it sounds like we have an unequal application of the law/enforcement problem. Which I suppose is the crux of my entire argument.

Why are we going after Big Vern when there are more pressing crimes to deeply investigate? I even used his exchange and I literally don't care. The coins were numbers to me, not dollars.

Re: Equifax, plenty of suspected criminals are detained for years before any criminality is proven. Just look at all the pre-trial detentions on Rikers Island in NYC.

You have young kids being accused of marijuana possession or etc, suspected trespassing, and then they don't go before a judge for many many months.

Whereas with Equifax, you basically have smoking gun stock trade proof and admissions of guilt.

It can therefore only be true that the reason an interrogation of these Equifax officials has not occured, is because the law/enforcement is being applied unequally.

> Why are we going after Big Vern when there are more pressing crimes to deeply investigate?

This is a silly argument, it's not an either or situation, law enforcement can and should pursue all crimes. By your logic, why go after any financial crimes where there are still unsolved murder cases? Do you see how absurd you're being?

> The coins were numbers to me, not dollars.

What your feels tell you has no bearing on the law; bitcoin is a commodity of value and like all commodities of value it's subject to law.

Bitcoin is a commodity of value, but WoW gold is not? Subjectively applying the law. I don't understand how you can't see this.

Law enforcement and governments don't have unlimited resources. Frivolous crimes should not be pursued as vigorously as crimes of violence and physical/financial/corporate victimhood.

Equifax executives are chilling in their house right now. Big Vern is wanted by the feds for loss of fictional assets. Come on, apply the law equally.

53% of prisoners are there for possession of marijuana. Surely you don't want your tax money spent on this victimless crime?

Well, it currently is being spent that way, while many murders go uninvestigated.

> Bitcoin is a commodity of value, but WoW gold is not? Subjectively applying the law.

They're both commodities. People get away with not reporting WoW gold because the mean holder probably holds less than the mean holder of Bitcoin. As you observe, law enforcement resources are limited. That said, counting on flying under the radar is a horrible tax policy.

(It does not help that there is a (a) history of successful prosecutions surrounding Bitcoin, (b) a vocal group of Bitcoin enthusiasts arguing they aren't subject to tax and (c) a veritable black market around Bitcoin.)

> Equifax executives are chilling in their house right now. Big Vern is wanted by the feds for loss of fictional assets

Due process, my friend. The Equifax executives are being investigated; they have not yet been found guilty or even charged. One might argue they should be. But that's a discussion about what the law should be, not what it is. (That said, the insider trading charges look promising.)

As others have repeatedly mentioned, any delineation between "fictional" and "non-fictional" assets is itself a fiction. Arguing that something shouldn't be prosecuted because it isn't as illegal as murder is ridiculous. Better strategy: understand it's illegal, follow the law and organize to lobby to amend it.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor a certified accountant. This is not tax, accounting, legal or any other sort of advice.

Bitcoin is a 63 billion dollar market, you are being dishonest when you call these things frivolous crimes; people have lost their life savings playing in crypto, there's nothing frivolous about it. If you can't see the diffence between WoW gold and Bitcoin, then I suggest you look more into how many people have been financially devastated and robbed in each, because that's why the government cares more about crypto than WoW gold.

You're using the word subjectively incorrectly; the word you seek is selectively.

Bitcoin assets are not fictional, they translate to real dollars, Big Vern stole tens of millions of dollars of other people's assets. You are minimizing this for some reason that you don't make clear.

Equifax didn't commit a crime, having lax security is not illegal, getting hacked is not illegal. They may be been unethical about not disclosing shit soon enough, but there's no obvious crime to charge anyone with, yet; that may change after an investigation. Big Vern however stole people's money, that's a clear crime.

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