Reposting this here. I took down the original so as not to tip off the hacker, but that seems fruitless at this point. Hope my story serves as a reminder, be careful out there.
Like many Bitcoiners, over the past few months I've been happily claiming & selling all the forked coins. I've synced half a dozen clients and light wallets before learning to use the python scripts. As you probably know, the price of these coins declines quickly as they become available on exchanges, so I was eager to get out ahead to make a bit of profit.
A few weeks ago I came across a post for "Bitcoin Atom: Electrum Wallet" on github. Awesome, another airdrop to flip! Everything looked like all the other forks, just a light wallet to install, but unfortunately it was a fake client that installed the "Man in the Middle" address changing malware. It changes the bitcoin address you copy/paste, leaving the first few characters so they look similar. For example:
Copy: 1CZinhiGqCgSQXJ6PMNh1SW3CKVy7gyjwu Paste: 1CZioyptarnQ3rdT9np2rwMwXftMX9ATT7
The Electrom Atom client didn't work, of course, so I deleted it, but the damage was done. Ironically, I was moving my BTC to a new wallet/privkey as a security measure, copy/pasting some new addresses into a spreadsheet, and I did not catch the difference in addresses. Oh boy.
Sad to say, I got wiped out. I sent all my BTC to a similar looking address, but it wasn't mine. I realized it a week later when pasting addresses "hey, these don't look right...ohh shit..." and then - gulp - opened the new wallet. The past four years, slowly building a nest egg, falling in love with the promise of Bitcoin, dreams of buying a house this year – all gone in an instant, because I got careless. Now I know how Mt. Gox must have felt, just a devastating, sickening feeling.
I don't post this here for sympathy. I made a careless mistake and am accepting the consequences. I will rebuild. If nothing else I hope this serves as a lesson to be careful when messing with unknown software. Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way. Be extremely careful, only use trusted sources, double & triple check addresses before making transactions.
Ironically enough, I'm not even sure the new address has an owner, or at least they haven't realized anything yet. Nothing has been moved, they're just sitting there. If the Gods be merciful, and the hacker happens to see this post, I kindly ask you to return the funds to the sending address. I certainly would appreciate it.
And please, if you feel compelled to reply to this post with "dumbass, you had it coming, got what you deserved, etc" - I get it, please save your breath.
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