Very helpful! Bitcoin raises issues of tax avoidance, money laundering, and corporate governance as you suggest. Beyond the tax advantages, what other benefits would corporations have for adopting the model you suggest? Do you think states would be amenable to this new type of organization and why(pros and cons here)?
I'll pose another question to the thread. If state A is 100% a proponent of Bitcoin, going so far as to encourage its adoption, while state B has outlawed Bitcoin, making it illegal to deal in... what happens? Would there need to be an IMF/UN treaty to deal with these disagreements? Based on what precedent?
I'm not sure if in that case it's actually tax avoidance per-se, since the corporation doesn't actually have a specific home base. Plus taxes will have to be paid when currency is converted to the home currency of the employees, just like a corporation based in US earns revenues in Euros isn't required to pay taxes until it repatriates the currency back into USD. The benefits I would would be a more stable accounting system, using a single currency independent of world currencies instead of having to deal with currency conversions and changing rates. On the other hand, suppliers and customers will still want prices comparable to their home currency values. Being able to transfer money over the web without having to go through bank wire transfers and, again, currency exchange rates, will be a definite plus as well. I can easily pay my employees without worrying about where they are or what currency they need me to pay them in, all from the same company cash account. Since a large part of state income is payroll, I think they will dislike this idea. It's essentially a state being invaded by another entity, with its residents living within the jurisdiction, but not having to pay for their use of roads and government services. Sales taxes will be a problem for states, too. Just as Amazon doesn't charge me state sales tax when I order stuff from another state, an online bitcoin-based business won't have any home residence, so won't know what sales taxes to pay. I don't think State B will have much success, since there isn't really a way to track Bitcoin purchases. It would be like online casinos servicing people in US while being based in countries where online gambling is legal. It's difficult enough to track it with regulated financial entities, but with Bitcoin it'll be impossible. Of curse this also depends on the nature of the business. Services will be difficult to monitor and stop, while products may be a bit easier, though the main targets f legal prosecutions will be the customers. Treaties may be one way to deal with it, though I have a feeling the political issues caused by this will be significant. Just look at Mexico's frustration with easy access to guns from US. And guns aren't even really illegal in Mexico, I don't think. State A would also likely not want to get into any treaties, since that would hurt their own economy and give them nothing in return. All in all, though, these are somewhat boring political issues. I think the idea of a nebulous, entirely online, borderless business is way more exciting  |
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One issue we have been exploring in my international business and global sourcing type classes is the nature of new globally distributed companies. There are companies out there that have a P.O. box as their office address, employees in one or two countries, and databases and warehouses in completely other countries. They essentially exist in the cloud, which makes mit difficult for them to figure out which laws and regulations to follow. For example, some countries require that employee's personal information is not allowed to leave the country, which means that your employee database has to be separate from your main database, and stored locally. Some countries have more lax financial regulation laws than others, and it may be an issue figuring out whether you should be following the laws of your home country, or the country you are doing business in.
I think, laws aside, Bitcoin may be the tool required for a truly distributed, cloud-based, business to exist. One that may not have a base of operations, may not be tied to any one specific country's laws, and operate entirely within its own currency system, possibly even entirely anonymously, with laws and currencies only taking effect when its earnings or products actually reach specific people. Kind of as if the Internet was a whole separate nation, and people only have to follow specific rules when they repatriate their earnings or products.
Not sure if this will help you in any way, since your topic is rather broad, but here you go.
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The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding would locate and secure private funding, for a fee, for homeowners in foreclosure; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not intend to provide such services and did not provide such services.
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had failed to secure private funding for homeowners on only one (1) or two (2) previous occasions; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding had not secured private funding for most, if not all, of its customers.
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding was a private real estate investors' group; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not invest, directly or indirectly, in real
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had been a member of the Better Business Bureau for twelve (12) years; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding joined the Better Business Bureau for the first time in 2004.
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had staff attorneys who assisted homeowners in foreclosure; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not have any attomeys on staff who assisted homeowners in foreclosure.
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had helped homeowners save their homes for the past twelve (12) years; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not save homes from foreclosure and Defendant Bold Funding had only existed since 2004.
The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had seventy-four (74) regional offices; when in f,act, Defendant Bold Funding maintained and staffed only one (1) office. Thank you! Now, where did this quote come from? I need to know if that is a list of charges, results of fact finding, or court decision. That's important, since I can make a legal document, recorded in court, that says "DrZaius is a thief" as just a charge, during fact-finding present evidence of DrZaius's wrongdoing, but the court may find that nothing actually illegal was done. And yes, while its true that misrepresenting yourself in that manner is a shit thing to do, sadly false advertising is not illegal in US like it is in other countries. Its still a shit thing to do, and I hope Bruce learned his lessons from this. |
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Being gay, a part of the furry fandom, and on SecondLife since 2003, I've had the (dis)pleasure of observing the SA goons for many years (possibly since the group formed). So, if the accusations against Bruce are true, it's too bad they are coming from attention-whore, flame-baiting, drama queen trolls with almost zero credibility, and zero distinction between fact and hyperbole. That group should have a giant [Citation Needed] warning label.
Wow, a self-identifying Secondlife furry and a bitcoin proponent. You should join the TVtropes forums too so you can complete the trifecta of shit communities that goons love to make fun of. I'm bi, only in that because I like the art and met friends through that, and liked SL because of it's potential for coding, hacking, and economics. I'm quite comfortable with all that, so making fun of me for that is rather pointless. Especially since I have a damn good life, and SA goons project an image of poor, ugly, lazy slobs (you know, the type of people who hate their life, so make themselves feel better by tearing down others). Also, I've never heard of TVtropes... |
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Standard of proof required for trolls: court documents not good enough, signed confession maybe? Standard of proof required for bbit: forum post from crazy guy who got banned for threatening SA members It's not that the standard of proof is required court documents, it's that what the documents say (almost no details) and what people pointing to them say (speculation and assumptions) don't match up. If you're going to use those documents as proof of some rather serious accusations, I want to see more than just the title and the charge. Failure to provide services paid for doesn't automatically mean "SCAM." Until there are details, I'm withholding judgement. |
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Being gay, a part of the furry fandom, and on SecondLife since 2003, I've had the (dis)pleasure of observing the SA goons for many years (possibly since the group formed). So, if the accusations against Bruce are true, it's too bad they are coming from attention-whore, flame-baiting, drama queen trolls with almost zero credibility, and zero distinction between fact and hyperbole. That group should have a giant [Citation Needed] warning label.
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Did he give false information, or no information at all?
False information, including having "review letters" from "other satisfied clients." Wow, at the trial? Now I'm really curious. Do you know where I can find the transcript? I just completed my Law class, and it would be nice to put my new learnin' to the test  |
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That's interesting. I don't actually remember you at all, or ever having discussed anything with you. But if you think I am unreasonable, I guess I'll have to work on that.
Actually, you weren't the guy I was thinking of. I did argue with you for a couple pages in the politics forum, but I was thinking of someone else I argued with when I made that post. Sorry. Heh, it's OK. I make that mistake too sometimes. It's even difficult to throw off the crappy association you have with someone's name in your mind even after you realize that you were thinking of someone else... |
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What got him nailed was that he had been telling people he had successfully saved many homes, but he couldn't actually prove that: cover-your-ass contracts are not actually enforceable to protect the business owner when you can prove intent to defraud, and giving false information about what the business's success rates are is sufficient to prove intent to defraud.
Did he give false information, or no information at all? |
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Rassah has been rational and reasonable, there's no justification to get hostile with him. Let's just say that I've dealt with him before on this forum and I've found him to be exactly the opposite of reasonable. That's interesting. I don't actually remember you at all, or ever having discussed anything with you. But if you think I am unreasonable, I guess I'll have to work on that. |
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Don't know why no one they actually helped was brought up. I have many guesses, Really? You have many guesses? Because I only have one. Well, since you asked: 1) It was all just a scam and he got caught (how was he expecting to get away with the scam without providing any services though?) 2) They were sued while still in the process of getting their first mortgage-investor match, and thus never had time to actually conclude any business before they were forced to stop (seemingly-good idea so overwhelmed them that it crashed before getting off the ground) 3) Just as their lawyer had suggested they don't go to the court proceedings, their lawyer may have also suggested that they don't provide any information regarding this business's customers. I don't know why. Maybe it was a privacy issue, or maybe it was because Bruce's company was obviously at fault (the business did crash) and there was no point in providing that information since they knew they would lose the case anyway. I haven't actually read the detailed court proceedings, so I can't say for sure. Frankly, I don't even know where to look for those. Also, I was not aware of the multiple cases when I posted my original reply. Not knowing all the details, I would conclude that either Bruce is a major scam artist (albeit a crappy one, since he keeps getting busted and doesn't have exit strategies), or Bruce is a gung-ho entrepreneur who keeps having either bad luck, or a severe lack of business skills. Again, I would have to see the cases in more detail. I do know that many entrepreneurs have a LOT of crappy history and failures, including amassing huge debts and legal issues. That's the road you have to be willing to travel if you want to strike it rich with one of those single business ideas people actually remember you by. |
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Bruce Wagner HAS been found guilty by a court of law. So I don't see why we shouldn't be highly suspicious of him.
People who don't know anything about the court and law system, and confuse criminal court's "guilty in a court of law" with civil court's "losing in a civil case" are kind of annoying. There was no government law that Bruce was found guilty of. The civil court simply agreed with the plaintiffs that they have been wronged. And based on Bruce's explanation, if what he did was scamming people, then likewise MtGox having people give them money, growing too fast, and losing people's money to hackers or whatever other unfortunate incident was also "scamming people." So is every start-up that has ever taken investor's money and ended up losing it because the business idea sucked. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but losing other people's money in unfortunate business screw-ups isn't "scamming," it's reality of business and happens often. Just because the type of people that got hurt makes your heart bleed doesn't change that fact. Bruce's explanation leaves out things like: * He was doing the business without the required license * When brought into court he was unable to name a SINGLE customer he actually provided the "service" for The comparison to Mt.Gox isn't accurate. Mt.Gox actually handled things until they got overloaded. Bruce was unable to demonstrate he provided service for even _one_ client. That isn't getting overwhelmed. That is scamming. Especially since, well... There were positive "reviews" posted of his service. Supposedly-happy-customers. Except Bruce couldn't produce even one of those supposedly happy customers for the court. Note it said he didn't have a mortgage or real estate license. I used to have one because I would actually sell mortgages. What Bruce was apparently doing in his business was not selling mortgages, but pairing owners with investors/buyers. I wouldn't think you would need a mortgage license for that. My guess is the investors would need some sort of license to sell the loans themselves. Perhaps the state court dissagreed. Don't know why no one they actually helped was brought up. I have many guesses, but that's all they are. Bruce will have to explain that one himself. |
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Bruce Wagner HAS been found guilty by a court of law. So I don't see why we shouldn't be highly suspicious of him.
People who don't know anything about the court and law system, and confuse criminal court's "guilty in a court of law" with civil court's "losing in a civil case" are kind of annoying. There was no government law that Bruce was found guilty of. The civil court simply agreed with the plaintiffs that they have been wronged. And based on Bruce's explanation, if what he did was scamming people, then likewise MtGox having people give them money, growing too fast, and losing people's money to hackers or whatever other unfortunate incident was also "scamming people." So is every start-up that has ever taken investor's money and ended up losing it because the business idea sucked. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but losing other people's money in unfortunate business screw-ups isn't "scamming," it's reality of business and happens often. Just because the type of people that got hurt makes your heart bleed doesn't change that fact. |
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I think whoever uses that botnet will make a lot more money mining bitcoins and selling them on the market than using it to try to take down Bitcoin.
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Sorry, I was out for a week. Running with -vV causes it to crash out. -S doesn't help; still crashes out. Running without -vV and without -S dumps out a lot of stuff. I posted the output here: http://pastebin.com/hxuenQ79Most interesting! Unfortunately, the crash was caused by stupidity on my part in the process of building it against 32-bit OpenSSL. Here's a new one that has been tested with the CPU device. Beware, the output goes to stderr now, so to get the output to a file, use oclvanitygen -d0 -vV 1 2>file. As for the result you got, 3b4df4363caa9e3bd9da58020d3080be8230a4ae is indeed significant, it's the hash of the zero point. At the very least, this validates that the hash functions are working. Probably at least one zero is being introduced into the z_heap, and since the heap_invert function doesn't check for zeros, it's producing zero for all outputs. If the validation output works this time, maybe the root cause will be clear. If it doesn't crash this time and produces interesting results, would you also be willing to test it against the CPU device? Thanks. New one creates 26meg text files before finishing. I posted the first sections of each, cutting out the middle part. file (-d0 -vV 1): http://pastebin.com/PvcvCwKvfile (-d0 -vV 1cat): http://pastebin.com/YqGJtFcvFor the CPU one file (-d2 -vV 1): http://pastebin.com/e88vBWFaHope that helps. It does't really mean anything to me  |
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Tested with both new and old with -S. Same thing happens on both: the probability cunts up, then goes away, and it just keep counting the # of completed attempts without ever finding anything.
Thank you Rassah! I posted a binary of oclvanitygen with verification functions here. Run it with the -vV flags to enable verification mode. It should run extremely slow, maybe 20-30 Kkey/s. If either the first or second kernel is producing incorrect results, it should produce copious output to your terminal. If it does this, pipe the output to a file ( >error.txt), post it to pastebin or such, and post the link. This may not be enough to isolate the problem to a specific function. In case it's not, I'm currently working on a more comprehensive test suite, one that provides device-side unit tests for the various bignum arithmetic primitives. Sorry, I was out for a week. Running with -vV causes it to crash out. -S doesn't help; still crashes out. Running without -vV and without -S dumps out a lot of stuff. I posted the output here: http://pastebin.com/hxuenQ79 |
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Care to explain how this type of society will motivate it's people to expend energy and time to benifit it?
I mean, why would anyone want to be an advanced engineer if there is no benefit for them?
Why a lot of engineers and computer programmers is involved in plenty of open source project if there is no benefit from it. Why there is plenty of people around the globe that works for free by for example helping poor people in 3rd world countries. Would you like to spend your life just lying around and doing nothing instead of doing something meaningful. Me defiantly not. "A lot" and "plenty" is not very specific. Do you have any estimates on how many computer/network systems out there run open source software/hardware versus paid for (like Microsoft or paid-for Linux systems)? Or how many engineers have invented things and provided their inventions for everyone for free instead of going through the trouble of patenting and selling their invention? Inwould guess that despite there being "plenty" of those, the percentage compared to the overall number is really small. I know my grandfather did not use his few post-doctorate and doctorate degrees, and spend ten years of his life working hard to invent something, just to give his invention away, no matter how much he enjoyed working on his project (part of it was him enjoying it, part of it was to leave a legacy, and a big part was to help make our whole family financially wealthy). Also, you are only mentioning services here. How many examples of free products do you know of? Are there any free cars, free phones, free computers, free furniture, or something similar out there, provided by generous labor of workers who made them without asking for any compensation for their work or materials? |
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Murwa, your lck of English skills is causing you to misunderstand what jtimon is writing, and to assume he is either insulting you, or talking about something else. Don't take offense to his post. The islands comment was not about you. Also, I have a feeling that due to the communication barrier, this discussion will go nowhere fast.
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Bitcoins can be printed on paper, copied, bound, copyrighted, and self-published. One could then tear out pages and transmit them. Shall we outlaw books?
Certain types of pornography is illegal. There are more types in Canada than in US. US has outlawed books with those, and there are certain types of books that you can buy in US from Japan, but is illegal to poses in Canada. I like the claim that government can outlaw anything. Especially if it's to "save the children," and it's very easy to see how Bitcoin can be targeted with that. Pornography is illegal because it depicts actual acts taking place between people. That photo is a tangible item and can be traced and destroyed. Pornography is not illegal anyways, only child porn, and that means there has been some child victim. But to make an image of a child from scratch and show it being molested, is not against the law. So, in order to enforce child porn laws in the US, there has to have been a child victim and that photo stems from such an illegal act, so the photo can be held to be illegal as well. How this can be applied to bitcoin is nonsensical. Aaaactually, even drawn images are still in legal limbo in US, and the books I was talking about are certain types of manga (all drawn) that may depict a mature relationship between underage people. All drawn, no one harmed, legally questionable in US, and illegal in Canadia. |
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I think the issue may be something else now. Then again, maybe it DID work back when I had 0.16, and something changed between then? Damn. I hate debugging things. Sorry :/
A lot changed between them. It would be interesting to know for sure whether 0.16 in safe mode works for a simpler pattern, one that should take a minute or two instead of three days. If you're interested in trying this and need old binaries, you can get them here. Tested with both new and old with -S. Same thing happens on both: the probability cunts up, then goes away, and it just keep counting the # of completed attempts without ever finding anything. |
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