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bredren

If it was not hacked then I believe the implication is that the key was cracked.

Presumably, via brute force capability of unknown nature or a weakness in Bitcoin not known at this time.

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> If it was not hacked then I believe the implication is that the key was cracked.

Is anyone here willing to say they believe the key was cracked? Seems extremely implausible to me.

I’m open to alternatives, though I have felt that the response to this involved the highest level cyber warfare capabilities of the United States.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27156073

I would not be surprised to find out the US has this capability.

I would be surprised if they would reveal themselves as having it for $2.3 million.

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27437342

It can be cracked if the keypair generator process is faulty. Some wallets have been known to be vulnerable due to poor rng implementation

Always easier to socially engineer in one way or another than to crack keys.

More likely typical law enforcement methods than technical: they seized equipment with key, accessed an account where the key was transmitted (like email or a phone), wire-tapped an insecure channel, or strong-armed a defendant into revealing it.

ie, a $5 wrench

as far as I know the chances of doing this are far less possible than sending your 'tradicional forces' to get the private key..

As others have pointed out in another post, you don't reveal that you've broken an important cryptographic algorithm over $2M.

This was not about $2M. It was a response to what was publicly interpreted as a nation-state cyber attack on infrastructure.

This was about principle and demonstration of capability.

If it is true the US has the ability to calculate BTC wallet keys as fast as it did, the price should fall.

> This was about principle and demonstration of capability.

Still not worth it if a crpyto function has been broken. If it was because of the encrypted chat app honeypot they ran, it might be different, but even then, only if criminals are moving to something else.

They also don't have the perpetrator.

I disagree.

If the US has the ability to quickly break a BTC wallet, it is a public demonstration of warfare that should act as a deterrent in other theaters of war.

> They also don't have the perpetrator.

I don’t think we have a full manifest of who was involved in the colonial attack or the personnel that have made up Darkside.

Even if we did, successful pressure on the perpetrators or their successors does not require holding the individuals directly.

I think this is more a case of "What actually happend": https://xkcd.com/538/

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