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381  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation on: May 24, 2012, 08:23:15 AM
If you get the consent to publish both in full please do. Realise that "cherry picking" though through a partial log might not be a smart long term strategy.

I have browsed through both. I have not responded you in the group. It's just a few consecutive complaints of you about my wrong-doing.

I received some advise from other people too, but the "advise" is irrelevant here.

We'll never have permission to post the group chat most likely. And you don't give me the permission to post the private chat. The private chat starts with a greeting and was never continued after the day. It's not partial log.
382  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation on: May 24, 2012, 08:15:43 AM
I have already apologised about the violation with a Skype message promise. And I confirm that all I stated was pure fact. (You are welcome to take legal actions against me if anything in the apology post in untrue.)  Sincerity is rather a subjective concern. I think I'm sincere.

If total transparency is ever granted, people will be able to answer all their questions and they will know that this is a complete lie. I urge people to wait until they have all the information. While it may appear as though Zhou is being more forthcoming please do not mistake it for honesty.

They only have one question: "When will I get my money back?"

The other questions are really not important.

You can blame me however you want on the troubles I have caused (and I did apologize for denying full responsibility), but I'm not in the dispute resolution team.

I'm here because I have nothing to do, I don't even know how many claims we have currently (I have to chat with Patrick to get some information). Am I associated with Bitcoinica at all? Well I don't know. Can I resign? No, because that will imply that you're unreasonable and such implication can damage your reputation, even though I have no such feeling.

I'm taking all the responsibility here. If customers are not getting their money back I'm the one being hurt, because a lot of people trusted me with their funds and they assumed that I have major controlling power over Bitcoinica.

I have honestly posted everything according to all the information I have. If there are more changes on the Bitcoinica's ownership structure beyond my information, and you identify the misinformation as "lie", please go ahead.

Here's the a list of statements that are currently verifiable without violating any NDAs:

1. I assume I don't have any control over Bitcoinica, at least over the dispute resolution process.
2. Some customers are blaming me for the problem (especially in first 20 pages of this thread).
3. I apologised and gave a self-criticism publicly (about my incompetency in security system).
4. Bitcoinica Consultancy is not paying for the losses directly.
5. Bitcoinica Consultancy's compromised system (which was already in production before Bitcoinica's transition period) is the direct cause (i.e. if the transition didn't start the problem wouldn't have happened, and the transition didn't cause the initial compromise on the email server).
6. Customers have waited 7 days for a claim form (please don't bring up the 3rd party form issue, I suggested that only because you are taking too much time. I could have done it must faster with same security features).
7. I was prohibited from expressing anything that may damage Bitcoinica Consultancy's reputation (this is from your long post recently [1]).
8. I have not officially resigned from Bitcoinica, and my current position is unknown.
9. I have not signed any NDA with any one in 2012.
10. I do not have access to the funds and the claims form.
11. I have suggested several ideas to speed up the claim process in Skype group chat, and Patrick has selectively adopted some. (Not really valuable ones I admit.)
12. I assume that I obtained the permission from the person who may grant you the transparency (I'm not sure) to post the apology.
13. I have been asked to co-author an apology in my name. (And my own one doesn't sound sincere enough. [2])
14. I'm neither an insider who has access to information, nor an outsider who is not liable for communicating information (which should be treated as pure speculation).
15. I have not been paid by Bitcoinica for any work since 1 April 2012 and I have voluntarily given up the payment.

I kindly ask whoever working on the dispute resolution to work more efficiently. My original intent was to deny the responsibility considering the customers are blaming me, who has no control over the dispute resolution for the unresponsiveness of the team. My words have damaged Bitcoinica Consultancy's reputation because I should take part of the responsibility.

Everything here is in no way criticism. I'm willing to take responsibility on anything that I'm involved.

But honestly, customers are not satisfied. That's the worst reputation damage you want to have. Again, I have nothing to do here. I know everyone could be happier if I post the evaluation result of this Ruby statement here everyday:

["We are working on the claim process.", "You'll get paid very soon!", "Our team is working 24/7 to deliver our promise.", "We are working extremely hard.", "I'm very happy that the whole team is working together.", "You have been trusted Bitcoinica for over half a year, and we won't disappoint you this time."][(rand()*6).to_i]

But it's just not how PR works (in my opinion).

I might be immature (I have no age privilege to disprove this). I might just suck at PR. I might be the 17-year-old kid causing endless troubles for you. I'm truly sorry.

My final suggestions:

- Return the money as soon as you can.
- Tell the truth.


[1]:
Quote
After being confronted on the issue, he agreed not to post anymore. After breaking that promise only hours later, we confronted him again privately.


[2]:
Quote
He posted an insincere and politically worded apology.
383  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation on: May 24, 2012, 07:19:29 AM

These statements are not directed to Bitcoinica Consultancy. They are directed to facts. I officially grant Donald Norman the right to disclose any private communication on Skype between Donald and me in recent 14 days.

Unfortunately, disclosing the skype conversations of our group would would largely be in violation of our NDA. You know this though. We would also like to give much greater detail as to the nature of the incident but are not able to due to our inability to disclose information.

I don't think there's any problem with the group conversation.

You only pointed out the problem to me privately, and the verbal promise is not in the group conversation later. i.e. If the private conversation didn't happen, I have done absolutely nothing wrong.
384  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation on: May 24, 2012, 06:05:52 AM
Let me start off by saying the information in this post is gathered from already public statements, separate knowledge or, in individual cases has been preapproved. We have been disgusted by the fact that we cannot speak liberally. Once the reclaims process is finished, if we are not allowed to speak publicly we will stop all activity with bitcoinica.

Right now, we believe the best thing for all parties involved is that we continue with the reclaims process. We have investigated many of the claims but have many left. There were still claims being filed as of at least yesterday. Our intention is to have a secure platform where users can claim their accounts and everyone will be able to claims their accounts once the claims process is finished. We cannot offer a concrete timeline for exactly when this will happen but we are working as fast as possible. Please be patient. We are truly sorry for the grave inconveniences.



As for recent incidents:

We first got involved with Bitcoinica after we discovered a security vulnerability where we could liberally withdraw and empty bitcoinica's live wallet. It became apparent to us that the site was a poorly constructed security nightmare. We started talks with bitcoinica in the hopes that they would see us as being an indispensable asset to help secure their site. The site currently is far more secure then previously.

While Zhou has made a lot of public statements, I assume his doing so has violated agreement(s) which he may have. He has stated publicly that he does have some non-disclosure agreement. Many of his posts were either untrue or certainly misleading. Many of these posts were directed at us. After being confronted on the issue, he agreed not to post anymore. After breaking that promise only hours later, we confronted him again privately.

He posted an insincere and politically worded apology.

Within the apology he made it sound as though we were trying to stop him from posting. As if he had not respected some secrecy that we wished to maintain. This of course is entirely misleading. He also posted the link to the reclaims page before it was finished and without our consent. He also continued to make very important decisions without our consent which has effected our ability to recover. In fact, even as of the 17th, we were often still in the dark and learning things through Zhou's posts on the forums. We may decide later to take action against Zhou as he has offered no public recompense. He was the owner of bitcoinica, sold bitcoinica keeping earlier profits and it seems he was paid and that he was responsible for its security until at least very recently. We even hope to release our private conversations with him if there is deemed to be no liability for us doing so. These issues should never have been made public and we took many measures speaking with him many times so that it would not get to this level. Right now though this needs to be put on the back-burner. It is immaterial until the claims process if resolved.

As for the current owners of Bitcoinica, they have by far exceeded their legal obligations in helping Bitcoinica recover from the previous hack and have pledged their continued support in seeing this incident fully resolved. I am not sure they knew how insecure the site was when they first bought it. We applaud their generosity. The inability to disclose pertinent information however we vehemently disagree with. We believe this information is critical to restoring the trust a business like bitcoinica requires.

The only agreement I have signed is in last year, with a non-disclosure clause.

I have already apologised about the violation with a Skype message promise. And I confirm that all I stated was pure fact. (You are welcome to take legal actions against me if anything in the apology post in untrue.)  Sincerity is rather a subjective concern. I think I'm sincere.

In the past few days, I have been quite supportive about the account claim issue. I have communicated some ideas with Patrick.

I admit that the security features of the site are not up to standard. But the compromised system belongs to Bitcoinica Consultancy, and I have neither knowledge nor control. Being a target is the worst thing to have in the security world, and no system is 100% secure. The uncompromised systems are simply not the targets. Bitcoinica was not the initial target of the hacker.

These statements are not directed to Bitcoinica Consultancy. They are directed to facts. I officially grant Donald Norman the right to disclose any private communication on Skype between Donald and me in recent 14 days.
385  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 10:40:09 AM
Funny logic. To not pay with PayPal you must click "Pay with Paypal" to be able to access "Don't have a Paypal account", which when clicked doesn't give you any option at all, but takes you to Paypal.

rjk already suggested Bit-Pay so I won't.

I have already developed the whole credit card billing system, but I don't have a merchant at the moment (minor can't apply).

I will probably build another site for Bitcoin payments, so that the banks won't mind.
386  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 06:10:35 AM
I have started working on another project (not Bitcoin-related) that is going to make a little difference on the Internet

the best way to be known in the Internet industry is to build products that save people time, money and headaches.

is this that project?

Yes, I have started working on NameTerrific since late March.

So it took you 8x longer to make NameTerrific than Bitcoinica? 

About 3x, I guess. I still need to study and handle Bitcoinica stuff during the last two months. Interacting with the legacy system used by registrars is very hard. A lot of exception handling and debugging (and eNom's test system always fails).
387  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 06:08:24 AM
Well, you don't have to reopen your PayPal account. Just choose "Don't have a PayPal account" and you can use your credit card directly.

Hmm... well I guess the "Don't have a PayPal account" must be hiding somewhere I can't find (although I have already provided my CC details).

Can you tell me which link I need to click on to find this option?


Just click "Pay with PayPal" and then click the "Don't have PayPal account?" option below the login box.

I'm adding Google Checkout soon. (It doesn't support Australia, sigh...) The merchant account will be slow (possibly in August).
388  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 05:02:19 AM
I have started working on another project (not Bitcoin-related) that is going to make a little difference on the Internet

the best way to be known in the Internet industry is to build products that save people time, money and headaches.

is this that project?

Yes, I have started working on NameTerrific since late March.
389  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 04:27:55 AM
You don't actually ever touch the coins yourself with an MSP.

Or sell egiftcodes at least so that some other vendor (e.g., SpendBitcoins.com, BTCBuy.info, GiftCoin.net ) can sell them.

Good idea. I'll create a discount/voucher code system and make another site to exchange BTC with NameTerrific credit!
390  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 04:26:32 AM
You should click the "Sign Up" link to create a new account.

Oh - okay - didn't notice that - got through now but also didn't realise you are only taking PP at the moment (should have read the OP more carefully).

By strange coincidence I decided to close my PP account (which I hadn't used for years anyway) just recently and am not planning to reopen it.

Anyway I've placed an order which hopefully you can process for me when your direct CC processing comes online.

Smiley


Well, you don't have to reopen your PayPal account. Just choose "Don't have a PayPal account" and you can use your credit card directly.

Or sure, I will email you when my merchant account is ready.
391  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 04:01:12 AM
NameTerrific doesn't suck like everyone else. And the prices are not insane.

Not insane but still pretty high.

Are you an accredited registrar or are you a reseller for another registrar?

EDIT: From a WHOIS query it looks like its a reseller.

NameTerrific is a reseller of eNom.

The price is cheaper than separate services. Route 53 charges you at least $0.5/month, and that's already $6 a year! With NameTerrific, it's included (with 500k free queries).

It's definitely worth it to use the cloud-based DNS.
392  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 03:58:25 AM
Got as far as the checkout but when trying to create an account it keeps telling me "Invalid email or password".

Sad


You should click the "Sign Up" link to create a new account.

Sorry for the confusion, I'll definitely improve the UI.
393  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 03:29:12 AM
Currently only PayPal is supported (I know we all hate it, but there isn't a choice at the moment). Your feedback is definitely welcome!
Huh

Too bad. I wanted to accept Bitcoin but I'm applying for a merchant account at the moment and the bank doesn't seem to like it. There's only one bank for me to choose from.

This is a mainstream product so Bitcoin support has to be dropped. :-(
394  Other / Off-topic / Re: My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 03:28:00 AM
A registrar with a built-in Route 53 frontend. That's actually pretty cool.

:-D

NameTerrific doesn't suck like everyone else. And the prices are not insane.
395  Other / Off-topic / My New Project - NameTerrific (now in Alpha) on: May 20, 2012, 03:19:05 AM
This purely off-topic. I posted on bitcointalk.org simply because I'm deeply associated with Bitcoin, and nothing else.

I have launched the Alpha version of NameTerrific to a small group of people (including you). Currently it's already production-ready, so you can really register or transfer your domain names to NameTerrific and enjoy the cool Cloud-based DNS!

Currently only PayPal is supported (I know we all hate it, but there isn't a choice at the moment). Your feedback is definitely welcome!

EDIT:

I forgot the link!

https://www.nameterrific.com/

EDIT 2:

If you want to order a domain by Bitcoin. Just generate an invoice, and then PM me with your invoice number. I'll give you a Bitcoin address for you to pay. :-D

EDIT 3:

Bitcoin payment is now automated. Comes with discounted exchange rates!
396  Economy / Currency exchange / Re: BitPiggy - bank account locked (again) 16th May 2012 on: May 19, 2012, 04:06:45 AM
Will BPay solve the problem?

I'm not experienced with Australian banking system but my business banker says domestic bank transfers have less chargeback problems than international wire transfers. Well, I don't seem to agree with that.

Perhaps cheque via mail is a good solution too, if online banking is that unsafe. It will take longer time though.
397  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation on: May 19, 2012, 02:31:26 AM
Approximately, how many clients/users did/does Bitcoinica have? I'm guessing about a couple hundred.

~Bruno~


Almost 5000
398  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: A public apology to Donald, Patrick and Amir ("Intersango guys") on: May 18, 2012, 08:20:07 PM
Regarding the Bitcoin Consultancy and questions about why they haven't been more active in this mess...I don't know what their arrangement with Bitcoinica is, but if they hadn't fully taken over the operation of Bitcoinica and had no responsibility for the security or theft, then they might be wise put their relationship on hold until Bitcoinica sorts everything out first.  If the Bitcoin Consultancy had nothing to do with the security issue there's no reason they should have to clean up someone else's mess.  At the minimum they would probably want to first arrange compensation for the time and effort that will be required for them to clean up the mess.

It's very hard to judge whether they had anything do to with the security issue, because everything contributes to the disaster.

Patrick - compromised email server.
Me - improper access control.

Bitcoin Consultancy has fully taken over the management and the relationship is final. However, during the transition period, the access control is not defined properly and resulted in this problem. I have no knowledge of an insecure email server but I assigned admin rights to its user.
399  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: A public apology to Donald, Patrick and Amir ("Intersango guys") on: May 18, 2012, 08:13:44 PM
If "Bitcoinica Consultancy" is handling things now, why didn't they notify us of the claims page rather than zhoutong? The more I hear from zhoutong, and less from intersango or whatever they call themselves, the more I lose confidence in the new owner/operators.
This +1. To start with, we never saw any communication from them indicating that anything that Zhoutong said was in any way incorrect, or that there was need of an apology to begin with. Of course, that could have been communicated privately, but from what I have seen so far even Zhoutong himself is becoming frustrated with the obvious stonewalling that we are seeing from the Consultancy.

Indeed, stonewalling is the best description that I can imagine for this series of events; to the public, and to those that wish to fix the problems, as it appears - since access to even the domain name has been fraught with problems such as a poor DNS implementation, leading to those that don't even use the forum to be forced to come here and find out the problem, and wait here for a resolution.

From what I've observed, I have a different perspective. The Intersango guys were brought to help with security not PR. For them to take any position of public communications would have been a breach of contract. The fact that Zhou had to become a team player for his creation caused him a lot of frustration. He was the main PR man up till the incident and should have followed through with a splash page and daily email updates (not just the forum), but instead we got a "I'm leaving Bitcoin" thread. He left when the going got tough. Sure, feelings were hurt and emotions were high. Zhou, if you really want to be proud of what you started then get back to doing the PR and be a team player even if you don't agree. You should leave Bitcoinica on much better conditions if it something you really want to be proud of!



The "I'm leaving Bitcoin" has nothing to do with Bitcoinica hack. I'm still here, but I'm not doing other Bitcoin business any more.

I was the main operator before Bitcoinica joins forces with Intersango. After that, neither the investor nor I possesses full decision power. Intersango guys took over the management entirely. Even my position in PR was not fully recognized.

I did suggest some ideas internally, but I shouldn't have criticized them for different ways of doing things (even though I disagreed).

They are working very hard, but at the same time, I have nothing to update either.
400  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: A public apology to Donald, Patrick and Amir ("Intersango guys") on: May 18, 2012, 08:06:46 PM
Apparently, Zhou Tong, wich had access to the server "temp" folder holding the session data, didn't knew how to invalidate a php session also.
Are you trying to tell me that Rackspace still had root access to that server? Pretty slick, actually...
Or are you trying to say that the Virtual Machine is not suited to host such a website? Even more slick.

One way or the other, their fault, and I don't mean Rackspace Roll Eyes
No, what I am saying is that the admin console/portal is hosted by rackspace themselves, not bitcoinica. It is the page that allows them to provision new hardware, file support tickets, creeate backups, etc. Bitcoinica has no access to those servers for obvious reasons (other RS customers use the same portal).

blah blah blah... Stop kissing Zhou tongs ass, dude.
Now tell me: How much money do you have hostage in Bitcoinica at this exact moment?
Jesus Christ, I am not responsible for how badly Rackspace fails at server administration, I'm just telling you how the fucking setup WORKS. If you can't comprehend how it works, you have no right to be placing blame.

Now obviously, using cloud services in this manner was not a good idea, and there should have been some actual dedicated hardware in use, in a locked cage, "blah blah blah", but it's too late for that now.

It seems you are the one not to understand how things work. Not even going to argue this with you. It's really not worth it lol

I still want Zhou Tong to tell me how much did he pay Rackspace for a FULLY managed server...
For people who understand 1 word is more than enough. You're not such a person, rjk...

We used cloud services and what rjk just described is right...
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