That's just an investigation...  "lol"  it's not a lawsuit.  They haven't decided if they are going to actually take him to court.  Since the SEC is involved, it's unlikely they will, since Ken is forced to pay back shareholders, there is nothing for Woodlaw to gain by taking him to court, unless they somehow find out Ken is a multimillionaire.  Not likely.  He'll be broke by the end of this.

I've always been under the impression that Ken doesn't understand how Bitcoin works at all from a technical viewpoint.  He understood how to trade it, but he required the help of other people to do anything technical.  It's why he was unable to fix his website, or handle transferring the shares (Until he got himself the "project manager") which was probably one of those kids that were putting the Hash Fast boards together on the web cam.  His intention there, was to raise the share prices so he could sell more shares for more money.  I don't believe it was ever about distributing anything to shareholders.  Plus his ability to ship and support those boards was almost non-existent.

He purchased People's Asic, which gave him an ASIC design that he later scrapped.  He may have retained some of their people, or one of their people, for help in the eASIC stuff, but he scrapped that as well because he couldn't afford to do it at that point.  He seemed to have some expectation that Bitcoin was going to continue its drive up to a $10,000 valuation.  And therefor have enough to pay his entire family of workers, People's Asic employees, and who knows how many others.

He then, apparently, built a facility that apparently didn't have enough AC in it to handle more than one rack of Hashfast boards. 

The guy is just massively incompetent.  After eASIC fell through, he should have scrapped the company and refunded everyone he could.  But he found himself in a pickle of having a lot of preorders on VMC and being unable to refund them, because he blew the money on who-knows-what.  So he tried to scrape together a mining farm that really was a total disaster like everything else.  And now he's pocketed the coins it earned, likely sold off the boards to whoever, and vanished under the guise of legal restrictions.  Although he's not banned from providing refunds to VMC customers, he just can't deal with shareholders.  Though there was an announcement that he would be providing refunds, we've heard no proof that he ever did and many people still waiting for theirs posting about how to get it.

So, really...  That first part is incompetence, but the last part is fraud.  Taking people's money for a product you don't have and never intend to give them, when you have the money to refund them is fraud.  Especially because he never filed bankruptcy and never liquidated the company.  He just ignored his responsibilities and continues to do so.

CEX is owned by Bitfury.  We're talking about PBMining...

It does not.  There is a Missouri SEC investigation which "may" force Ken Slaughter to refund share holders because he sold unregistered securities.  He may also be forced to refund people who ordered VMC devices.  At this point, we're just waiting around for information from the investigation from the court's side of things.  It's moving very slow.  There's been a continuance until early December to conduct an initial hearing.  It'll likely play out over a long period of time.

The guy who originally had the fire was due to the blown caps.  They removed the caps from shipping units.  The current reason the units burn out is apparently due to a bad mosfet that causes a short which then melts the connector between the hash board and the backplane.  The components here aren't "burning".

In truth, any electronic component can catch on fire.  Take some lighter fluid and pour it into the case and toss a match in there.  Flames!

Ultimately what David was saying is that the internals do not create flames.  They do however release toxic fumes that will cause you to grow a third eye on the palm of your hand.  Which is fun at parties...

We have very little proof that he did half of what he said he did, and only ancillary proof of the things he said he did do.  What we do know is that he had a lot of money and produced nothing from it for share holders, and many people who preordered.  He never allowed anyone to see the books.  Likely because there were no books. 

They were discontinued shortly after they were shipped.

It's storied.  Ken Slaughter sold shares of profits for a new chip to be made and sold as an ASIC.  He also sold preorders of the chips/boards to customers.  He then did not produce the chip.  He did purchase some Hashfast chips and got them mounted to hash boards, and delivered some of these (Not many) to people waiting on preorders as well as new orders.   The bulk of investors and people who preordered received no refund, and no income from the shares.   Slaughter apparently purchased resources but revealed no evidence (other than things he said) of where the money went.  Millions of dollars...  Poof.   So the Missouri Trade Commission got involved, and basically is bringing Slaughter into court over his issuance of non-registered securities.  And that ultimately he'll have to refund investors.  However, it is likely there is no money to refund anyone, so not really sure what will happen then.  We wait and see...

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

Thanks Doc, the Yo thing will work in the interim.  I appreciate the response and the available options.

Is it possible to get a feature where I get an email when a block is found?  Since we're basically finding them about once a day now, it'd be nice to get notified rather than look on the website all the time to see that nothing has changed/happened.  If this already exists, can someone tell me where to find it?  Thanks.

Open them up at the top.  Remove the fans.  Lift the metal tab slightly and pull the hash boards out one at a time (Obviously unplugged from the wall).  Insert one hash board at a time and power up each time.  See if one of the hash boards cause the problem.  You can then RMA the hash board that causes the miner to stop working.  And mine with the others in the meantime. 

He already responded to it here...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=215230.msg7813658#msg7813658

That's the same thing everyone gets when they used that automated form process.  Waiting for reference and that'll be the last you'll hear about it, most likely.  I got the same thing over a month ago.  Haven't heard diddly doo since then.

Namecoin is broken.  Read back through the thread, it was discussed not that long ago, a few pages back.

Read about PPLNS ->  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39832

I think the problem with leaving the zeros there is you risk losing some people who don't understand PPLNS.  Perhaps leave the zeros, but make it a link to an explanation of what PPLNS is, or how Bitminter is doing it.  That way they can get some education and understand what they are looking at.  Or perhaps change the zeros to read, "Free Piece of Candy" because everyone likes some free candy. 

The owners are in the UK.  So you, being in Europe, could go after them there.  But it's very difficult to connect the dots legally between all the companies involved.  If you had paid by bank wire, you can link the bank wire to the one guy's company and go after them.  Since you have proof of payment, and they have no proof of sending you anything for it.  (In Europe)  You may even have an EU small claims court that could work for you in that regard.

It's more difficult in the U.S.A. because all the players and companies are overseas.  There is talk of some Chinese lawyers looking into it, but for all we know, that's Black Arrow themselves fronting that they are starting a lawsuit, and nobody actually is.

It's difficult, when the costs to sue are much higher than the losses.  It's why you don't send money to people in foreign countries and hope for the best.  Sometimes it doesn't work out.  (And I'm out over six thousand bucks myself)

Ah, very cool.  Thanks for the info!

Don't be so coy, what are you planning to do with it?  We want to know!  If you had a second one, you could make some nice cuff-links out of them.  Possibly sharpen the edges and make a throwing star out of it.