Trading bitcoins has just gotten easier now that Mt. Gox and some of the other exchanges have (temporarily) halted withdrawals. You can now sell bitcoins without the drudgery of receiving payments. How's that for thinking outside the box? Unfortunately, no similar moratorium exists when buying bitcoins. Mt. Gox says to blame it on the glitch. A vulnerability in the bitcoin protocol dubbed "malleability."
Well known to core developers since 2011 this chink in bitcoin's armor was considered more of a nuisance up until now. Come to find out hackers have been busy exploiting the up to 10 minutes it takes for a bitcoin transaction to confirm on the blockchain. Inside this 10 minute window (which by the way is an eternity to miscreant hackers types) these unsolicited beta testers are able to insert phoney transactions. By exploiting the "malleability" thingie they can fool third party transactors into believing their cockamamie assertion that the original bitcoins were never received and thus get themselves a double dipper, wit cheese.
It's still unclear as to how many bitcoins have been stolen in this manner. Being unable to settle and pay clients on time is no trivial matter for a currency exchange. There now exists a palpable loss of trust - particularly with the Mt. Gox exchange which calls into question the future viability of the repeat offender.
Well known to core developers since 2011 this chink in bitcoin's armor was considered more of a nuisance up until now. Come to find out hackers have been busy exploiting the up to 10 minutes it takes for a bitcoin transaction to confirm on the blockchain. Inside this 10 minute window (which by the way is an eternity to miscreant hackers types) these unsolicited beta testers are able to insert phoney transactions. By exploiting the "malleability" thingie they can fool third party transactors into believing their cockamamie assertion that the original bitcoins were never received and thus get themselves a double dipper, wit cheese.
It's still unclear as to how many bitcoins have been stolen in this manner. Being unable to settle and pay clients on time is no trivial matter for a currency exchange. There now exists a palpable loss of trust - particularly with the Mt. Gox exchange which calls into question the future viability of the repeat offender.
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