from Hacker News

Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the police

by MatthiasP on 8/3/17, 10:22 AM with 43 comments

  • by xya on 8/3/17, 1:41 PM

    Ironically, bitcoinblog.de, (which is the blog of bitcoin.de) published an article in November 2016, citing the lack of anonymity in bitcoin transactions, that would drive around 1/5 of bitcoin users to not using bitcoin anymore. the article I am referring to: https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/11/09/ein-fuenftel-der-bitcoin-n...

  • by yAnonymous on 8/3/17, 11:14 AM

    I get user data protection and all that, but when you know that the charges are drug-related and they'd get a warrant anyway, why not cooperate and make it easier for everyone?

    Would you risk having your servers seized for someone you know committed a crime? If you do, you make it very easy for competitors to shut you down.

    edit: I'm assuming they don't blindly trust the police, but can verify the transactions to the drug site themselves. If that's not the case, making the police get a warrant would be the right thing to do.

  • by benedictp on 8/3/17, 2:17 PM

    They released on Facebook a statement to this article: https://www.facebook.com/bitcoin.de/posts/1621138617927372

    > The protection of our unscrupulous customers and their bitcoins is more important to us than the protection of the data of offenders.

    Another interesseting thing:

    > We only issue data from customers to investigating authorities if they can inquire in writing in specific cases and can demonstrate a legitimate interest in specific criminal offenses. This has always been the case from our point of view.

    Big question here: So they've done it several times?

  • by INTPenis on 8/3/17, 3:05 PM

    I'd think most of them would cooperate with the police.

    We've already seen local cops in Sweden and Denmark track drug dealers through bitcoin. They must have had the cooperation of exchanges and banks to make that happen.

    So I expect exchanges to cooperate on the same level that banks cooperate with police.

  • by saimiam on 8/3/17, 11:56 AM

    I want to understand this a bit better from an operational perspective..

    Say my DigitalOcean VPS hosted in Germany provides a service X which can be subverted for illegal purposes. Will the police have to me to ask for data or can they go to DO and demand access to the data without my knowledge?