Last week was before another ~$350,000 was stolen.  I suspect that everyone will now be waiting more than a few additional days for the processing of claims to resume.

I totally agree that this should have been done.  Patrick was dismissive of suggestions that it be done following the Rackspace incident - saying that the police wouldn't do anything and that an investigation meant it would just take longer for people to get their money - and it's even more insane if they don't file one now (this time around, no-one's going to replace the missing funds).  As I've said before, I suspect that many people's aversion to involving law enforcement isn't based so much on a belief that the police would do nothing as it is on concern that investigation would discover AML/KYC/tax evasion issues which could result in funds being frozen/seized and users themselves, as well as Bitcoinica, being investigated for financial offences.

Neither analogy really works.  People chose to leave their funds on Bitcoinica after the Linode hack and they also chose to keep them on Bitcoinica after they'd been told of the management change.  It's only after the second significant intrusion that Bitcoinica was taken offline and users had no means of withdrawing their funds.  Between the first and second intrusions, users did have options.

According to Amir, Patrick has "walked away".  No-one has clarified what that means, though.  Has he resigned as one of the general partners?  Refused to take any further part in the claims process?  Leaving Intersango?  It seems as though Amir has often been kept out of the loop so he may not even have that information.

For shit and giggles, here are the two threads announcing the changeover in Bitcoinica management.  One of them only got two replies and the other got ten. 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77975.msg867445#msg867445

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77958.msg867160#msg867160

Both the FBI in the US and the Australian Federal Police are well aware of Bitcoin as a means of exchange and stored value.  An internal FBI document regarding Bitcoin was leaked and the AFP has publicly commented on Silk Road before (and the difficulties of prosecuting people using it).

Financial intelligence agencies also regard digital currencies and stored value items as a major means for money laundering and tax evasion.

You honestly don't need to understand how a Bitcoin is created in order to address legal issues regarding its value, its possession or its theft.  I also think its wrong to assume that law enforcement is comprised of people who could never wrap their heads around Bitcoin.  It's full of young, tech-savvy people who are just as capable of understanding it as many community members.

I'm morbidly curious about who will be the next person to jump ship from Bitcoinica and/or the Consultancy.  I sure as shit wouldn't want to be left as the last man standing in the general partnership.

Interpol is not a police force, it's more of a clearing house which facilitates co-operation between world-wide law enforcement agencies.

USD were stolen in the latest intrusion but even if they weren't, unauthorised intrusion and the destruction of critical data (the Rackspace) intrusion is a criminal offence in and of itself.  BTC have value but even if they didn't, people have been prosecuted for stealing virtual furniture from Habbo Hotel in the past - it isn't required that something have intrinsic value in order for taking it to be a criminal offence.  Nothing was stolen in the HB Gary hacks, but Anonymous members were prosecuted for those.

I don't believe for a minute that the failure to report previous thefts to law enforcement was based on the belief that criminal prosecution wasn't possible or that the police would not investigate.  I believe that choice was based more on the knowledge that a comprehensive investigation of the thefts would reveal illegal activity on the part of users and open exchanges up to allegations of being complicit in avoiding tax/AML/KYC compliance.

You're right that the constable at your local police station might look at you strangely, but the computer crime units of state and federal police (Australia has these and I know that the US and UK do too) are perfectly capable of investigating computer crimes (jurisdiction is the bigger issue - where did the crime actually take place for the purposes of prosecution?).

See upthread.  Zhou ended up doing it himself yesterday afternoon.

In order to avoid confusion, you might want to lock this thread now Zhou.

Zhou has stated that a new Bitcoinica account was established at MtGox when management of Bitcoinica changed (and I seem to recall MtGox saying the same thing).  It's possible that the new accounts were set up somewhat differently.

And I'm quite sure that the possibility of this being an inside job is one of the first things the police will investigate.  This time around, there's an independent entity which has some records of how the event went down.  To our knowledge, Linode never involved law enforcement following the February intrusions and Bitcoinica didn't involve them following the Rackspace intrusion.  We know that MtGox has some information about this latest intrusion and that they intend handing the information they have to law enforcement (something beyond Bitcoinica's control and something the intruder may not have counted on).

Could Zhou be the intruder?  Of course he could.  And because of that possibility he has more reason than anyone to demand Bitcoinica file a report with law enforcement.  He can't be exonerated if there's no independent investigation.

Let's remember that the explanations about why Patrick's email was able to be used to reset the Rackspace password and why the LastPass master password wasn't changed are also inadequate.

Amir has stated all along that the refund process was being handled by Patrick and Donald and that he had little to do with it.  Patrick also openly said on here that people were dependent on him to get their money.  Amir says that Patrick has now "walked away" but nobody is certain whether that means he's walked away from handling the claims process or whether he's walked away from Bitcoinica altogether.

It's not fair to Amir to say that he should be able to pay back even faster when we know he had little involvement in the claims process before and that Donald was one of the people who delayed the initial refunds.  It's not like Amir is now the only one in control of Bitcoinica records and funds and can do whatever the hell he wants.  Whoever assumes responsibility for the refund process now is taking a huge legal risk.  The Intersango guys are not accountants or auditors, and they probably shouldn't even attempt to continue handling the refund process themselves at this point.

The Intersango guys were not the owners of Bitcoinica when they were brought in to do the security audit.  That's a rather important point in itself because it means that they assumed responsibility for operating the company knowing there were existing vulnerabilities.  Whether Bitcoinica should have been taken offline at that (ie, prior to the Rackspace intrusion) point until those vulnerabilities were addressed is an interesting question.

Tihan said in his first post that Intersango was brought in to do a security audit in March.  No-one has disputed that.  When asked about why the Rackspace hack happened after they'd completed the audit and become general partners, they said they'd been focusing on the fixing the code.  All of this was publicly known prior to the MtGox intrusion.

He says in his resignation thread that he was CEO and lead developer from 4 September 2011 to 21 April 2012 and that his position after that was unknown (that's not as implausible as it might sound - it doesn't sound like the general partners were in any hurry to deal with mundane issues like defining roles within the new structure).

Apart from the thread in which it was announced that the Intersango guys would be running Bitcoinica, I seem to recall that Zhou also started a separate thread in which he explicitly said he was getting out of Bitcoin projects for the time being and would be developing other ideas.  I don't recall either of those threads getting much traction until after the May intrusion.

If it weren't for the recent losses, many people would have hailed the change in Bitcoinica management as the best thing since sliced bread - remember that many people doubted Zhou's ability to run the business as it expanded. Those people would probably have been ecstatic to learn that behind the scenes deals had resulted in the Intersango guys were taking over Bitcoinica operations...had the two most recent intrusions not happened.

This is absolutely the best decision you can make for yourself and your future.  It would have saved you a lot of personal aggravation if you'd made it a month ago, but hindsight is always 20/20.

You have plenty of time ahead of you to develop your business skills and bring other projects to fruition.   Whether in the Bitcoin world or the mainstream, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about you and your projects in the future and I wish you well in your future endeavours.

Not only that - the change in management was announced publicly on 24 April.  People did have the option of withdrawing their money when that change was announced.  Zhou certainly can't be blamed for people not doing that - he's not responsible for users choosing to put their faith in the
Intersango guys.  

It's highly possible that the final of the sale of the domain and the IP was not completed until January (when Zhou says he ceased to have any financial interest in Bitcoinica).  It's not unusual for business sales to include a period where the vendor works with the new owners to ensure a smooth transition and for the deal not to be final until that transition is completed. Tihan's an experienced venture capitalist.  I have no doubt that his group's investment was contingent on certain conditions.

And the reason some people got so badly burned because they treated Bitcoinica like a bank offering interest on their savings.  Mark has consistently said that people should not treat MtGox as a wallet service, but people will do so nonetheless.

If, indeed, she lost any.  She refused to file a claim, remember, and tried to get people to pressure Zhou into giving her 16,000+ BTC by promising to donate to the forum and individuals when she received "her" funds (and blamed Zhou for her being unable to honour those donations).  She's a lot more transparent than she believes.

It's Maria.  She likes people to believe that she's rich as fuck and powerful (she once claimed that she helped Satoshi launch Bitcoin).  She's perfectly happy to "help" her people in Venezuela by gouging them on the price of pre-paid cards, though.  She knows she can't intimidate the other Bitcoinica players and thinks that she can bullshit and intimidate Zhou due to his youth.

I think people were intimating that he could be arrested in relation to the Bold Funding judgement which he has never paid.  I suspect that the Illinois judgement has never been domesticated in New York, otherwise he could have been found in contempt long ago.  I'm not sure how long judgements remain enforceable in Illinois or what the tolling provisions are.  I don't think anyone ever followed up on the NY court cases which were pending against him.