Kopp Online, a German news website, has just published an article which mentioned that Ghost Security Group hactivists have managed to control a bitcoin address related to ISIL and were able to lock out 9554 bitcoins that were going to be used to spread terror all around the world.
Kopp Online, published an interview with “Anonymous”, a group of hactivists who have declared war against ISIL following France’s attacks. Here is a quote from the article that was written in German:
Jetzt feierte die Hacker-Gruppe Ghost Security Group bereits einen ersten Sieg: Sie sperrte ein Konto des IS mit 9554 Bitcoins.
A great fuzz was created last week in the media, when Anonymous declared war on ISIL and also following NewsBTC’s interview with Ghost Security Group. However, according to the article on Kopp Online, there is no evidence that can prove that GSG really seized 9554 bitcoins from ISIL’s BTC addresses, especially that the website didn’t publish any BTC addresses related to GSG’s attack operation on ISIL.
There has been a lot of gossip relating ISIL to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, but no one ever presented cutting evidence that links ISIL to bitcoin or other cryptos. However, it is rather logical to think that a terrorist group like ISIL would resort to the anonymity haven of bitcoin, yet we are still waiting for evidence to uncloak to prove that.
So, is Ghost Security Group just trying to capture the attention of the media again, after our interview with them went viral all over the internet, or shall they present us with clear evidence that they really seized 9554 bitcoins from ISIL’s BTC addresses?
I hope the following few days would yield the answers to those questions.
Note: This article is just conveying the story published by the German news site Kopp Online, which lacked proof. We are investigating the case and attempting to contact GSG and Anonymous to clarify this story.
Tamer Sameeh 
Peter James 
Tom Mornini 
facepalmfrank 
Anon Wibble 
TopBitcoinExchanges.com 
J Mo 
Frank 
Joe Blow 
well then 
darren kis 
Fred Durst 
Fred Durst 
Julien Brown 
jimmy joebob 
anchoright 
Moɹlp 
Bieber before hos 
d0m 
Kevin 
Kevin McCain 
spazzdla 
lunokhod 
JeromeL 
jimbit 
smh, one does not simply “hack a bitcoin address”.
no it is possible, if the hacker phishes the Private keys from the victim’s machine after successful port mapping and detection of open vulnerable ports.
Whist true you must know this can only be done in transmission, then they can hijack the address using the private key hacked from their computer. Since the terrorists bitcoins were found after the attack its a far call claiming the group hacked the address itself. Whilst you do claim the proof is on them to show, please for the respect of the technology dont insight insecurities in the technology, bitcoin is battling enough ignorant fools (not you) as no bank exec wants bitcoin to survive and they are using the publics ignorance to insight scare tatics which inevitability wont work. This is like 1997 all over again and corporations freaking out over mp3’s
I understand the implications of what I write. I have been supporting bitcoin since 2010 and a lot of the readers here know this and frankly, bitcoin turned my life around, but I can’t throw the blind eye to illicit activities that are facilitated via bitcoin. The deep web is filled with child pornography bitcoin paysites and big markets that sell drugs and weapons worldwide for BTC. Yes, they break a gun into 5-6 parts and ship them separately, using some sort of concealment in certain packages. So, just like every other form of money, BTC can be used for good purposes and evil purposes. And don’t worry no power in the whole world can ban bitcoin. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
So they hacked the computer, not the address. The implications that one can “hack an address” implies they can crack the private key which if they can then we are all screwed. If they got phished for nearly 10k btc but didnt get caught organizing an effective terrorist attack that killed 150 people then smh.
I would like to see this address though.
me too
A journalist would have waited to publish until he/she had seen it, and Ghost Security Group had signed a message win its private key, AND shown actual evidence that it is linked to IS.
What does that make you?
That makes me the first to publish the news 🙂
That also makes me on the top of Google search results for Bitcoin and ISIL, thanks
Keep eating your heart out!!!
I believe that the blockchain is hack-proof, but may I ask what smh is? 🙂
Shake my head
How bout writing an article questioning how the government found out they used bitcoin? It possibility means governments have been far more proactive than what has been acknowledged, it may show its transparency is better for governments than traditional banking
Good topic. I will surely start looking into it. Thanks for your constructive criticism and your netiquette! 🙂
Nobody suggested you turn a blind eye.
Many people have asked you to report factually and not spread unsubstantiated rumors.
I reported the news from another portal and I added my opinion CLEARLY THAT THERE IS NO PROOF. It is only the tree loaded with fruit that people throw stones at. I am not spreading lies, I am just enjoying publishing the news first while watching my rivals eat their hearts out!!
“I can’t throw the blind eye to illicit activities that are facilitated via bitcoin.”
Then I urge you to stop using air, shoes, USD, EUR, water, etc…(or write FUD articles about them) 😀
All support illicit activities.
Every tool is neutral, you can use nuclear power to provide electricity to the population, but you can use the same energy to destroy cities, it depends only on the users of the said tools and you can’t do anything about that.
On the other hand, there are many things which are not crimes but punished by law….Who are you to dictate what’s bad or good?
I urge you to leave behind your statist fallacies…although you have ruined your bitcoin “journalist” carrier already, so wouldn’t make much difference and I do not care. 🙂
> no it is possible
No, it is not possible. It’s possible to steal someone’s private key — if it’s unencrypted or they have abysmal security — but it’s impossible to hack an address.
If you don’t know the difference, learn the difference and fix the article. If you do know the difference, shame on you — and fix the article!
No, you are absolutely wrong, a private key can be stolen and certain attacks can phish any files on your PC including your BTC wallet backup. Also, if the victim has a blockchain.info wallet and the attacker hacked his/her email to steal the wallet identifier and then injected a keylogger to phish the wallet’s password, then the BTC would be lost too.
If you don’t know the difference, learn the difference and fix the
comment. If you do know the difference, shame on you — and fix the
comment!
Welcome to the group of “Let’s trip on Tamer!!”
Join my ethical hacking group on FB where I teach kids like you, basics of internet security and ethical hacking
No, dude, it’s not. You have to be a torpid asshole to lose your private key.
PLEASE STOP publishing misleading sensationalist headlines about bitcoin AND articles that have zero proof. FFS are you deliberately trying to make bitcoin bad or are you just retarded?
No, I don’t think bitcoin is bad, I have been in love with BTC since 2010, so I think you know the answer
Oh, you busted me!!! You have discovered that I am trying to manipulate bitcoin price. Just another naive like Tom Simons who also accused me of trying to manipulate bitcoin price.
It’s garbage like that this, that give governments opportunities the pass AML laws and nonsense. That and the myth that bitcoin is used to buy CP. CP, i ask you? What self respecting dark network market tolerates CP ?!
what is CP?
100% agree. What is the tx hash? Where is the signed message from the owner of the address that should appear on GH website?
I presented all these questions in the article. I just reported the news on the German website and said that there was no proof.
Your headline declares the seizure as if it’s fact. Come on dude stop acting like you’re not being dishonest
If something’s obviously a steaming pile of propaganda and it’s obviously the case: DON’T BROADCAST IT. Simple, no?
Its your site and your name on the article. Take some accountability in what you publish. Furthermore, saying “I just cut and paste from another site” shows total incompetence. Do some research and provide the bitcoin community with something of substance. If you had of spent a few minutes doing a bit of fact finding, you could have actually presented a good skeptical analysis of the aforementioned article. Epic fail mate.
what are you the Daesh freedom of speech censor now? get a life
Bahahahahaha. Bitcoin IS bad. You can only keep up the front of ‘cool new technology’ for so long before everyone realizes bitcon is just a speculative investment whose only utility as a method of exchange is to do highly illegal shit.
And the trolls have arrived…Why are you here if bitcoin is only a speculative bubble?
If it’s just a speculative bubble how come it is useful for people?
You seem to be mentally challenged. 🙂
This is a Bitcoin news site publishing news about Bitcoin. You’re asking them to only publish news that makes you feel good and you’re calling them morons? Maybe you should stick to news sources of your beloved ISIS if fair and accurate reporting of Bitcoin news sends you into an autistic stupor.
Read the headline! From the headline the average person would believe this is a story about 9554 bitcoin belonging to ISIS being seized, which it is NOT. The Headline is misleading and sensationalist as I previously stated. There is zero proof of this story at all, hence my request.
I am NOT asking them to only publish news that makes me feel good, come on, you know I am not wrong about this headline. Get real.
Lulz, author has no idea WTF he’s writing about. Get a different job, you might be better at it.
Thanks for your suggestion, I already have 8 jobs, so it seems I need to find the 9th. I really appreciate making me realize that I am a terrible writer; thanks man.
Maybe just find one you’re good at and do it
I wish I could do that, but my monthly bills are over 30 hundred bucks so I have to work a lot of jobs
You are a terrible writer. Stick to being a ‘doctor’
Wow, Mr Daren, seems to have more vision and understanding of the principles of modern journalism than Google and Bing. The newbie guys at those search engines put me at the top of search results for bitcoin for this article, so may be you are a terrible reader, so stick to playing your ookie-cookie game lol!!
You have no proof and then write a sensationalist article like this? Are you stupid or just an attention whore?
No, I am a doosh-bag-online-bullies magnet
no, you’re just a clickbait journalist that can’t back up what he writes.
don’t read my articles then
And you’re a d-bag on top of that! Poor journalism!
Thanks for your constructive criticism.
here’s some more constructive criticism – ignore the negative comments and keep moving forward – life is too short.
Thanks my friend. At last some positive words after all this negativity. I am really surprised how a lot of people start firing their “cursing” rounds just because of disagreement over a subject. Does one feel free and strong when he/she insults other people? I always say this “IMPOLITENESS IS THE WEAPON OF THE WEAK, BECAUSE THE STRONG HAS MANY WEAPONS IN HIS INVENTORY THAT CAN HELP HIM DELIVER HIS MESSAGE”
People gave you constructive criticism, but the article still stands with not a spec of journalistic integrity in it. Instead of fixing it, you’re here in the comments… you know… just doing your d-bag thing!
Ok i wont then.
You are acting like a child. Take some accountability and a simple apology would go along way.
You spread crap repeatedly and we are the bullies?
WTF?!
don’t read my articles and save yourself all the hassle, cool? I can even help you by banning your IP address. Shall I do it? Your wishes are my commands Mr Bitcoin Expert Crap Detector Specialist lol
Have you heard about anonymity networks? 😀
Fucking imbecile.
No Mr IQ 140, can you please explain this to me? I am really a newbie in this aspect. I can never get enough of your sagacity lol
Have you ever heard about a “button” labelled “ban this Disqus account” on the WordPress CMS? have you ever heard that webmasters can ban bullies and impolite people from commenting on their blogs and polluting the vision and hearing of others with their dull inconvenient language? FOr heaven’s sake, you are not even creative at choosing your bullying language!! So you are even a loser at trying to be a loser!!
Your arrogance and stupidity is just amazing. 🙂
Have you heard about creating a new account?
And your impoliteness reflects the type of community throughout which you have been brought up. You will be banned period. Your Disqus account and IP address will be banned from NewsBTC so I am helping you not to read Tamer’s crap again; enjoy
I browsed the site with adblockers anyways, and newsbtc/disqus cannot block i2p/tor exit nodes or VPNs.
You’re so unprofessional, you should be a negative example in textbooks 🙂
Great to see you insisting on browsing the site that you consider its editor-in-chief an “imebecile”
I had to see the lunacy for myself. I do not generate traffic for tabloid sites usually.
This is sensationalist indeed. “NO PROOF” should be written in the title. Instead the author decided to mislead people into this CLICKBAIT article.
Welcome to the club!!
racist
Yes, that’s why Google has put it on the top searches for bitcoin. I am sure your opinion and professionalism are far more valuable than those of Google’s Leapforce army.
FROM NOW ON, ANYONE WHO USES IMPOLITE LANGUAGE WILL BE BANNED. It seems that a lot of people are exploiting the “free of speech” atmosphere here in NewsBTC, So, would it be better to close the comments’ section like our competitors do?
If you can’t show the transaction in the blockchain it is all hot air.
Ive seen zero evidence the terrorists used bitcoin
I don’t know what to believe less. That they knew which address belonged to ISIL, or that they hacked a Bitcoin address.
Who pays newsbtc? the amount of FUD and misinformation is highly suspect.
well, people are saying all sort of things, I even have some readers accusing me of creating the blockchain, others are saying that I used to tip btc in the early days to market it and raise its price, so I won’t be surprised if you accuse me that I am paid by the CIA and FBI to help kill bitcoin!!!
Seriously, I would even pay you to STOP writing these tabloid rubbish.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Seriously, I am very proud of myself and I won’t STOP writing because my boss pays me quite well to do what I do and with all due respect to your unsupported opinions, by all scalable parameters, this article did well regarding views and search engine indexing, so welcome to the club!! Your “LET’S TRIP ON TAMER” badge will be shipped to you soon.
Who is your boss?
lol
Truth is told. It’s not about facts it’s about his “boss” and money.
Typical.
You would never afford it dude!!!
What an arogant fool. Ignorance really is a bliss.
You have just bought yourself a ban, congratulations Mr resourceful, genius, know-everything-about-bitcoin !!
As if I care, mr clickbait fabricator.
I actually appreciated the article, thanks for covering the story, and please keep us updated on future involvement.
Thanks man and in the midst of gloom, here comes the light. Thanks Beiber.
Sorry Tamer, you can’t post shit on the Internet and cry “bully” whenever you get some harsh criticism. Also, banning someone because they hurt your feelings or because they disagree with you is a childish is hypocritical thing to do especially an emerging journalist.
No, banning is for impoliteness not for criticism and it is childish to be impolite with people because you don’t like what they write. Please be rational and mature and don’t just follow the herd, or if you insist we can hook you up with one of those “Let’s trip on Tamer” badge they are free and they get shipped to your door in less than 10 days!!
i urge you to do your research on bitcoin before you post a piece that says the bitcoin “can be hacked”. If you think you can hack a bitcoin address you obviously dont know enough about it to be writing about it
What a load of tosh.
Get out of here then and don’t expose yourself to this.
Elvis living on the Moon. NewsBTC: According to a bloke we had a drink with in a pub.
Note: This article is just conveying the story published by the German news site Kopp Online, which lacked proof. We are investigating the case and attempting to contact the bloke in the pub to clarify this story.
I am already on my way to that pub; Elvis decided to quit rock and roll and start playing heavy metal music, Mustaine, Hatfield and all the others will be there.
The hate from us crypto people.. not cool. The last paragraph he even states Ghost Security Group needs to provide us proof. Stop blindly raging on people so hard.
How does one “lock out” 9554 BTC??? The only possible interpretation is that they hacked an ISIL computer, got the private key, and then transferred the BTC to another address. All you have to do is look on the blockchain for a 9554 BTC transaction. The time it would take to do this is the time it would take to post this crappy story.
the writer is full of bullshit no proof only empty cliams
Title is misleading.
#clicbait
another sensational headline… And I was duped into clicking the headline again, bad jimmy, bad!!!
goodby newsbtc
I cant believe I clicked on another newsbtc article… I told myself I wouldn’t….. this is because of the misleading headlines.
I dont think the author knows you cant “hack” bitcoin. In order to gain pocession of someone elses bitcoin you have to gain their private key which is not possible under 99% of instances. Now the only situation i can think of something like this happening would be if ISIL had their 9954 BTC sitting on a hot wallet connected to the internet with their wallet file unencrypted practically yelling “Some steal my private key and take my bitcoin!”. The odds of this is tiny as i doubt isis would be stupid to leave millions of dollars of bitcoins unguarded on a hot wallet with a unencrypted private key. On top of this their is no proof on transaction on the blockchain no address – nothing. This article is bogus until proof is published of the aforemented claims.