I avoided coverage of the campaign like the plague this time around.  I know that health care reform was a huge part of Obama's campaign the first time around, what "mandate" will he be claiming this time around? (I detest it when politicians claim that winning an election means that the electorate supports all their policies when often the electorate chooses the least worst option on a single issue).

Pot smokers aren't going to suddenly be made a protected class under civil rights and other anti-discrimination laws.  

I've never seen an online community in which open applications for mod/admin positions caused anything but drama.

While I get what you're saying about transparency, we all need to remember that this forum is not a democracy and that the admins aren't accountable to the community.  When you talk about keeping the power of the admins in check, you're talking about making a fundamental change in the nature of this messageboard.

How are you ever going to make enough profit to pay back the loan if this is your business model?

It will likely include the value of the coins rather than the coins themselves.  Typically, "things" or "property" are only returned if someone holds a secured interest over them.  Unsecured creditors generally receive a proportion of the value they are owed.

And yes, liquidation is a time consuming process. 

I checked the qualifications of the two appointed liquidators.  One is a chartered accountant (over this way, liquidators are almost always chartered accountants) who also holds a law degree and the other worked for the Official Assignee's office for over 10 years.  They're well qualified.

As liquidations go, this one isn't especially complex.

While creditors can apply to the court to have a liquidator replaced, you need solid reasons for asking the court to replace the liquidator and nothing involving the High Court comes cheap.  One risk of trying to get a liquidator replaced is the Court appointing the Official Assignee as liquidator.

There is nothing to stop theymos contacting the SEC (or law enforcement) and letting them know that the PMs exist and that he will hand them over in response to an appropriate legal request.  My perception is that he wants somebody else to make investigators aware of the existence of the PMs.

The reality is that users who theymos (or anyone else "sanitising" PMs for public release) regards as "innocent" might not be regarded as innocent by investigators.  The reverse is also true.  Parties who theymos regards as "deserving" of exposure might not be regarded as "guilty"/complicit by investigators.  Investigators need access to data which hasn't been filtered in line with someone else's opinion of its relevance.

As stated previously, I'm as curious as everyone else about what was being said behind the scenes.  I also recognise that while making the PMs public might satisfy that curiosity somewhat (it will likely raise as many questions as it answers), only giving the PMs to investigators in unredacted form is likely to help their investigation in any way and the possibility that the investigation will not result in any action against pirate even if those PMs are handed over is a real one.

You can testify to something which you heard yourself.  There are circumstances in which me saying that I heard person B say something would definitely be admissible.  The point on which admissibility turns is often directness of knowledge.  B telling me that C said something would make my knowledge of C's words indirect - I can't testify to what C actually said.  The raw PMs would not be "heresay" as proper forensic investigation could establish whether they'd been altered, their origin, etc. 

I don't have any exposure in this but if I did and my PMs contained useful information, I could forward those to the SEC but they'd want access to the forum database in order to establish the validity of those PMs and need that access for forensic investigation.  Inadmissible evidence can be useful if there's another means to corroborate it and it can provide new leads to investigators.

It sounds a bit like theymos wants someone to issue a subpoena for pirate's PMs but he's not willing to let investigators know himself that the forum database holds over 4000 pirate-related PMs.  It may even contain more because if others were complicit with pirate, PMs between accomplices may be just as important in establishing that as communications with pirate.

I honestly think that this is the only reason for making them public whether in redacted or raw form.  No investigation by authorities with the power to take action against pirate requires the PMs being made public outside of a courtroom.

While I believe that the PMs may have value to investigators, their value to investigators isn't going to be increased by them being released publicly so I think that's a bit of a red herring.  How would releasing them publicly be more likely to assist in locating or prosecuting pirate than simply giving them to investigators without releasing them to the community?

I think that the community itself probably does want to know who knew what and when and whether anyone in this community knowingly and actively assisted pirate in perpetrating his fraud.  I think that if the PMs are going to be released publicly in order to satisfy that curiosity then there is no need to make noble-sounding justifications for releasing them.

The choice ultimately rests with you, theymos.  Nobody else can make it for you.

If you mean any official investigation by regulators or law enforcement, then if the PMs contain useful information they're going to want access to the unedited versions.  If you're talking about redacting the PMs in order to make them publicly available to the community, then I guess the question is whether that is worth the time and effort involved in and of itself.

I guess the burning question is what is the objective of releasing the PMs.  It's not as though pirate is likely to be shamed or embarrassed by their release, so how is the public release of the PMs going to "hurt" pirate in any way?  If the PMs provide evidence that would be useful in an investigation, then investigators need access to unsanitised versions.

I'm as curious as anyone else about what pirate was saying privately, but it very much matters to whom he was saying stuff and what they were saying in response.  pirate's PMs may well provide evidence of others being knowingly complicit in his fraud.  


I absolutely agree that the PMs can be released in redacted form.  My question remains what is the purpose of releasing them and how you eliminate bias form the redaction process.

You'd have exactly the same potential issues with law enforcement.  This isn't the kind of crime which gets investigated by a county police department.  

People likely have violated securities laws.  And tax laws.  And probably a few other laws as well.  And many have likely done so knowingly.  The minute someone goes through those PMs and picks and chooses which PMs to pass on to investigators they're imposing their own bias about who is "innocent" and making themselves complicit in shielding those people.

There can be no effective investigation of pirate - whether by regulators or by law enforcement - without the role others played in his fraud coming under scrutiny.  If the PMs are to be released, they need to be released directly to investigators.  They're not going to have any evidentiary value anyway if they don't come from an original source who can verify that they're unedited and provide all the logging information needed to establish the identities of those involved in the communications.

One thing you need to consider, theymos, is whether you're willing to give testimony in respect of the PMs.  There is little point in releasing them if you're not because their authenticity could be called into question.  You also need to consider the possibility that investigators might wish to image the entire forum database if the PMs are to be used as evidence.

There is nothing stopping those who are talking to the SEC from advising Phil Moustakis that further evidence of pirate's activities can be found in PMs sent through this forum and in IRC logs.  There is nothing stopping those people from forwarding their own PMs related to their "investment" in pirate to Phil Moustakis.

LOL.  Amir asked to be taken off the mailing list when the Bitcoinica shit hit the fan, too.

Seriously folks, don't get involved in operating Bitcoin businesses if you can't handle stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility when shit goes wrong.  Because shit will go wrong in every business and there's a very high chance in the case of start ups that it will go badly wrong.

The bottom pic on trendonshavers.com (the one which has TXjails.info stamped on the image) is of Trendon's younger brother Levin.  You probably need to make clear which images are of Trendon if you're hoping people will give you information about aliases he may have used, other locations where he may have operated, etc.


Email Moustakis and find out.  As Trendon's activities seem to have broken state blue sky laws as well, you could also try contacting the State Securities Board in Texas.

http://www.ssb.state.tx.us/Inspections_And_Compliance/File_A_Complaint.php

The liquidator should have access to what's been submitted already, but as claims against an estate in liquidation are required to be made in a prescribed form laid down in the Companies Act, I expect that creditors will need to submit a fresh claim to the liquidator. 

It would be helpful if you gave us details of when you contacted them about this and how. 


That was for the benefit of US customers when they withdrew from the US market.  If the OP isn't a US customer, it might be possible for him to withdraw in another currency offered by Intersango.

Karma could be a bitch here.  If he really is on the dole and someone gets pissed off enough to report him for possible welfare fraud then the government might decide that they've overpaid him and that they want their money back (and not just "most" of it).  Those recordings of him hyping up himself and GLBSE could come back to haunt him big time.

When has "let's wait a little longer" ever had a good outcome for the victims of Bitcoin enterprise clusterfucks?

Whether or not liquidation is the best option, it was literally the only remaining option available given the inability of the general and limited partners to come to an agreement about how to discharge Bitcoinica's financial obligations and wind up the partnership.  The process which a liquidator must follow is laid down by law, so the issues of contention which plagued the DIY process which was implemented after the Rackspace intrusion are irrelevant.

The only estimates which matter at this point are those given by the liquidator and even those will inevitably change throughout the liquidation process.

Did you actually obtain permission to use Bitcoinica's source code?  Just because it was leaked and is a dodgy piece of crap doesn't make it public domain.  In fact, given that the Bitcoinica IP is one of few assets Bitcoinica has and the company is now in liquidation, I'd fully expect the liquidator to be looking to sell the source code and to demand that anyone using it without the explicit permission of the IP owners cease doing so.