I am getting the scent of the "anything-to-add-legitimacy-to-bitcoin" shitpile wafting through those words.

Of course you should cooperate with authorities when, and only when, you are legally required to do so. Not if you are not legally required to do so.

If you bow to government and law enforcement pressure without court orders or absolute legal requirements, you are not serving your customers interests at all.

When you get a request for cooperation, the very first thing you need to ask yourself is, "Am I legally required to do this under this specific circumstance", and if not, do not, and if you are required under law to do it, then by all means do it.

Anything less is just another company selling out their customers, who cares more about the legitimacy of bitcoin and their own wallet than they do their customers or their customers rights. You know, those people who allow you to stay in business and succeed.

I think Mt Gox needs to respond to us and tell us under what specific circumstances they will be cooperating, and everyone stop trading through them until they do respond ... preferably in writing and on their sites TOS and Privacy Policy.

Last thing I needs is the authorities on a fishing expedition knocking on my door because I bought or sold some bitcoins that someone else may have used, or will use, for nefarious purposes.

I think ONLY  under legal and required circumstances (court orders), all bitcoin business should cooperate with the law. Not to appease an outraged and out of control legislator, general public, or governments, and certainly not make bitcoins appear more legitimate.

Unfortunately, this is the general public perception of bitcoin because of scam/theft threads like this.

The world has gotten used to their interest debt whores "protecting" them.

wait, what ?

"normal joe" cant read and follow basic instructions found at the Bitcoin wiki ?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet

"all steps" as in all these steps ?

• open truecrypt
• Make & select a file any location you want
• create volume
• mount it
• copy wallet in it
• unmount it

BAM! You are fully protected, so long as you remove the wallet.dat copy from you computer and use another address(es) to mine... even if you hand the thief the encrypted archive file. From there you can use a usb stick, cd, dvd, hell even a floppy to store another copy of that encrypted archive in a safe place.

My 64 year old mother uses it for her investment and banking information and my 10 year old son uses it for his bitcoin wallet.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Its Free by the way.

You can have as many alternate BTC addresses that you want, which means you can have as many "Bank Accounts" as you want. Log term savings, regular savings, checking, and working miner account.

We do not need BTC Banks. We need people to use their brains, open their eyes and read whats in front of them, and most importanly, act accordingly utilizing personal responsibility.

Silk Roads server is accepting connections and there is data being transmitted. The pages are blank. No idea what the issue is.

Whats to stop  a scammer from lying and claiming they were ripped off then ?

Whats the evidentiary criteria ?

Sure the transactions exist, but what does that prove in and of itself ?

that the transactions exist ?

Anyone can log into a website through tor or another proxy and change those details. Even the real account holder  in an effort to solidify the claim.

How do we know they were not legitimate, other than taking someones word on it, who might have ulterior motives ?

There is a reason BitCoin is designed the way it is with reversible anonymous transactions.

fortunately we do not have to deal with 2 theoretical universes factoring in obtuse theories.

we have one where bitcoin and personal responsibility reside

in our real universe, there are no errors here besides the ones bitcoin users make (by inaction) who do not secure their property and finances as exhaustively promoted, suggested, and listed on the page they need the download the program, and on this forum.

I have not defended bitcoin.

If bitcoin did anything wrong or were neglegent I would have been on them like white on rice too.

personal responsibility goes a long way.

now perhaps incidents like this will enable a more inconvenient form of wallet protection from bitcoin ... who knows ... personally I dont think its needed ... I know I am safe because I research and read things i am interested in and dont ignore the in-your-face security alerts and precautions plastered all over this domain and forum ... but thats just me ... a simple guy with a brain and an attention span longer than a toddlers' with eyes that can see whats in front of me.

its a wallet, and much like you own money wallet or purse, you need to secure it.

if you have 25k in your money wallet and leave it sitting on the living room table and hutch at the front door with the doors UNLOCKED, someone that breaks in can steal it quite easily. You going to blame the banks because someone stole your cash out of your wallet from your unlocked home ?

hello ?

Its up to you to secure your wallet and house.

Just like its up to you to secure whats housing your wallet ... you computer.

The onus is on you, not bitcoin, to secure your computer. Bitcoin cant secure your computer. Bitcoin is not a system security program. If you want that go run a system security suite (that probably would have protected you from intrusion in the first place). It sends and receives secure encrypted data. Thats it.  Its not a system security suite. Now if they ever make a change that allows additional wallet security, like making you type in a password before each and every manual send transaction, then you (or others) would be complaining what a pain in the ass THAT is because its inconvenient.

All over these forums and specifically on the bitcoin how to info and help section is everything you need to do it. They explain it and the risk in exhausting detail. What more do you want ?

This is NOT a bitcoin issue.

This is an issue where the user didnt secure his wallet and the house his wallet is sitting in.

Those of you who disagree go read the help how to and info section.

You shouldnt even be using bitcoin without knowing all of that information, but no, you just wanted to jump right in (or ignore that information) because of your greed and apathy and disinterest in learning or doing what you need to know and do, and now you blame bitcoin for it.

Again I am so very sorry for your loss, but anyone with even the most rudimentary photoshop skills can manipulate and alter a image screenshot.

There is absolutely no way, other than legal and judicial means, for you to get your money back, and anyone who helps you through exchanges and such are themselves stealing from others because there is no certifiable concrete documented evidence of the theft.

Additionally because of the anonymity and security build into the bitcoin system, there is plausible deniability as exemplified by the core teams development posts and released project information.

Supposition, conjecture, and coincidence ARE NOT PROOF.

Thinking or knowing something is a lot different than proving it.

You know the culprit is probably reading this thread and moving it around while watching these responses as he launders and distributes it. With each hop adding plausible deniability.

It is not a high horse.

Its an attempt to let every reader see the only true issue that matters in this thread in an effort to help them so it does not happen to them as well.

Security.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I am sorry for your loss.

Nothing matters here except the OP did not secure his wallet.dat and/or computer.

Thats the thing everyone needs to take away from this thread. Nothing else.

Protect your ASSets.

Have multiple wallets.

Mine BTC with a temp everyday wallet.

When you get coins move it to your SAVINGS account wallet, which is encrypted on your hard drive. Truecrypt is excellent for this. Have a copy on your hard drive. Upload a copy to various online sites, burn a copy to cd. Its safe and secure. Even if someone obtains it they wont be able to decrypt it. Replace as needed to update it.

You can even have a CHECKING account wallet for spending if you want.


Sure you should go through the motions and get the police involved. Who knows, something might turn up.

I dont think ANY exchange owners is going to violate their clients trust by believing you and acting on your behalf just because you claim you were ripped off. You could be lying, then saying wait no, i am telling the truth!!!! Honest !!!!

For all we know you are a scammer trundling through the block explorer and found a nice juicy wallet to try to exploit here, hoping some idiotic exchange admin acts on.

If not, at least you have learned a valuable lesson about computer/wallet security.

I have absolutely nothing against paypal.

I use it daily .. just not for as payment for selling bitcoins for the reasons mentioned in my previous posts.

I did not get scammed.

They did not freeze my account.

They did not kidnap your family.

There is a need to educate the people about the risks of paypal, and I will continue to do so on every forum and every thread is see it appear on in relation to buying/selling any ecurrency.

There is no safe bitcoins for paypal transactions. There very well may have been successful ones, but no safe ones.

If they choose to use it after knowing the risks, then of course it is their prerogative.

confirmed.

returning your btc's to everyone who purchased today.

thanks and enjoy The Silk Road !

Our national parks are already in hock to the United Nations/IMF/WB as collateral for the national debt since using our people and wages as collaterial doesnt seem to be enough (see the federal reserve act, the 16th amendment income tax act, irs forms with IMF all over them, and the UN plaques at all the national parks).

They are selling us all down the river to enable a global state controlled by the united nations, giving our military over to them for enforcement, with finances controlled by them, ajudicated by the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

and 99.9999% of you dont even know it and make fun of those who do, and you refuse to believe it.

One World, One Dream ?

If you only truly knew what that means.

very sad.

Every major piece is in place.

The chessmasters have the board all set.

What will you do about it when they come knocking on your door ?

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated .....

"... and how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward ..."

Freedom is indeed just another word for "Nothing Left To Lose".

what about the useless homeless men that were once abandoned children, abused children, terrorised children, who were never given the structure, positive enviromental upbringing, and mental and physical tools necessary to barely survive, let alone succeed and prosper ?

buck up mister, you are an adult now ??

personal responsibility is certainly important, but what if they never were exposed to it in the first place?

what if the extent of your exposure was only protecting what little you have on the streets, because someone will kill you for the little amount of possessions you have (shoes, clothes,a bible, whatever) ?

Convert bitcoin to money value and post them at that converted rate.

update a few times a day as the avarge conversion rate changes.

most educated buyers will buy based on the monetary values available at the exchanges.

if you give a good deal, they will buy.

if not, they wont.

what possible fraud is there if you want your BTC's.

I mean the BTCs are yours . (period)

there is no middle ground as each transaction is perminent and irreversible.

unless they are doing something nefarious and really dont have 100% of reserves on hand in case there is a run on the exchange.

New Batch of registrations for Silk Road in stock.

also have ONE Black Market registration.

first come first served.

PM me with your offer.

great post

thanks for the info