Which makes
"What are Bitcoins?"
a strange question to ask on that page!

Your getting started section is somewhat strange...


In that section you link to the wiki pages https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block and https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pooled_mining

Are the sorts of people who might be interested in sports betting generally going to get any further than this?
It seems you've thrown them straight to the geek-aspects of bitcoins.

Looks like a way to scare them off to me!

Well you could be right... I'm saying is that it seems a little odd that it would be a scam.

Even if the guy stuffed up a bit and was operating with somewhat less BTC than deposited - there would be a legitimate way out.
1)Resecure it,
2)offer it up for sale - (I'm sure you could have got some serious coin for it even just a week ago)
3)use part of the proceeds to top the balances back up.
4)Profit.

Despite a few recent problems - the mybitcoin name was big enough that it would have had some serious value as a legitimate sale.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to run off with that much bitcoin - when it'll be hard to offload any time soon without bringing the exchange price down.
If he's that bullish on bitcoin that he's willing to take a slow payout by dribbling the booty into the exchanges.. then surely he'd be bullish enough to realize the potential value of mybitcoin as a legitimate sale.

Even if there was something approaching 1Million USD in BTC there... it strikes me as a dumb move to go the illegitimate way.

It'll help if the owner eventually returns and is actually acting in good faith but is unavailable for some personal reason. 
If the server is down for non-payment - it would not be good if the host just deleted all data for the account.

It's a long shot though. sure.

Possibly.
It would be interesting to know if email to <something>@mybitcoin.org was ever in place..  or did he always use another contact method?

There are such scenarios. 
If you've ever experienced the death of an immediate family member for example - you'll know that there are times when nothing else matters. Not even a bit.

Serious injury/illness is another such scenario.

I see phungus has made an indirect attempt here:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1070151

Perhaps whoever it is who has already tried talking directly - could retry, but this time taking the angle about paying to ensure a backup is maintained in the interim, rather than attempting to get information from them?

It indicates that the domain name is configured in such a way that there is nowhere for email to go.

Although a web host is not going to just hand over control of an account to some 3rd party - it occurs to me that they might accept some money to maintain a backup.

If we have a way of identifying which account the server was using - we might be able to pool a few bitcoin together to ask them to ensure a snapshot of some sort is maintained while we try to establish contact with 'Tom Williams' or whatever his real name is.

Even if leaseweb can just give us a statement indicating that the account and/or backup still exists - it would be a step forward.

I don't want to just approach them myself just now - as I don't have the necessary information, and I don't know if others have already been in contact with leaseweb.


Has anyone already approached leaseweb about the mybitcoin account?

So the bitomat incident is finally getting noticed..  I wonder how long before the mybitcoin fiasco hits the media.

"we need to start discussing a real solution to direct new users. "

I think the entire reason for the moving of this forum from forum.bitcoin.org to bitcointalk.org yesterday,
was because the noise in this forum is seen as a bit of an impediment to getting mainstream adoption by merchants etc.

I expect a more 'sanitized' forum for merchant support issues and the like will be linked to from bitcoin.org and other major bitcoin sites (weusecoins.com?) at some stage.

That being the case - this forum is presumably going to stay more or less the wild and wacky place that it is.. as many value this more than an orderly 'respectable' forum.
I can see a place for both, and think the dissociation from bitcoin.org is probably a good thing.

So.. I don't know if that qualifies as a 'real solution' - but it's clear the folk running bitcoin.org and the forums are addressing this very issue right now.

I'm counting on it being difficult to police.. and easy enough to put a few BTC or RMB into the hands of the local officials (some of this money heading right up the chain to the hands of bigwigs in the party)
If the result on the local level is an inflow of money - the Chinese will find a way to make it happen!

Can you join google plus without risking your existing google account?

I'd quite like to try it out.. but not really interested in using my existing gmail id... especially after hearing of other people having their entire account shut down because of something they did on google plus.
(for all I know use/mention of 'bitcoin' might suddenly be a shootable offence on google plus)
 
Maybe I'll set up another name.. or do they enforce one account per human?

I agree that might be a common reaction.   The Polish bitomat guy in that situation was good enough to communicate it though.. you'd think that the mybitcoin guy would have seen that and followed his lead.. but who knows.


While we're speculating - he might also just be sick. Laid up in bed at home, or in hospital.. or dead.

There are plenty who don't like the way this works.
I think it's a bit of a disgrace.. but then, I'm not a mod/admin who has to fight spam.
Still.. there has to be a better solution than by default treating everyone so poorly.



Some of them do it in an annoying somewhat spammy way - others more tactfully.
Given that I think most people are interested in what new bitcoin-related projects are popping up - it's probably not that easy/worthwhile to police.

I think it's closer to almost 1/4 of a percent.

oh yeah.. but of course I meant.. Gigahash Processing Units   
at least until they get Googolhash Processing Units

(SSHH.. I know..  just tryin to pander to the guvnor's euro-phobia!)


It's criminal how little there is in the way of solar on the roofs around here.
I suspect they only offered a solar subsidy recently because China has been buying so much of our coal that solar is not seen as much of a threat to the coal-revenue.

Now.. has anyone worked out the best way to get the most megahashes per square meter of solar-panelled roof yet?

They'll each complain that the other is doing X wrong and it'd be better if the other guy used exactly what we're using..  and they'd all be afraid to do the slightest pragmatic tweak (which doesn't actually affect security much, but might actually let these systems talk to each other) for fear of being called out as insecure by the others.

I'm guessing their systems would be more secure than their egos so no one would back down to get things to actually work.

Ok - that's the cynical version..

If you can find a bunch of security experts who recognize that all security is a compromise and are able to gauge relative risks well  - maybe they'll even produce something with a user interface that doesn't suck.

(alright.. so it was still a slightly cynical version)