LOL

They've already said that explicitly to one of you?
I imagined that AurumExchange being an important client of Liberty Reserve, they would be OK with at least saying Yes or No to the "Did such transfer happen?" question.
Anyways... guess the way is to start a criminal complaint then.



Seriously, you 3 together have done a much better investigation than any "actual investigation" most official judges or police bureaus in the world would. The only think you lack is "authority".

If I understand this correctly, the only "missing link" that would definitely prove Zhou to be guilty is the transfer from the LR account the hacker used to withdraw from Aurum to the LR account Zhou used the next day to deposit in Aurum and request the wire.

The only entity which can provide such information with authority is Liberty Reserve itself.
AurumExchange, MtGox and Bitinstant, please, try to contact Liberty Reserve, in an official manner. If they don't respond, try to reach them via lawyers or something. I know it's possible that they'll just ignore the requests, but you'll never be sure if you don't try.

Zhou Thong, if you are innocent as you claim, I guess the best take for you is to abandon your financial privacy and make it clear, at least for the 3 exchanges above, where did the funds come from, and where they were going to. If you can prove a clean source for this money, I guess your fine. Everybody knows you're rich, so you having such money is reasonable. It is just that there are so many coincidences in place that's perfectly natural everyone to be suspicious of you.

Come on, you can't say it's a "bitcoin bug" the fact that so many "bitcoin-banks" have failed. It is really unfortunate and even tragic to some, but it is not a "bug".

Most people, even professionals, don't really know how to secure critical private data. Even Sony lost lots of its private data once. Is it really such a surprise that small companies, however motivated they are, fail in something that big companies with tons of money to spend in security have also failed?

The main "problem", if you will, is that in bitcoin, differently from the "fiat world", your private data is your money. But that's also an advantage of the system, in some situations.


Agreed. But again, that's not that easy to solve either.
I expect these dedicated devices like bitcoincard and Ellet to be a huge contribution into solving this issue.

Perhaps not quite "however you want". Threats are a form of aggression too, and the use of proportional force to repeal such threats is acceptable. The same way you cannot shoot towards an innocent crowd - even if you don't hit anyone -, you can't drive totally recklessly, threatening other drivers or pedestrians - even if you haven't yet damaged anyone, your behavior can be seen as a threat.
But more important, we should note that in a free society, streets and roads would have owners, who would be free to set their arbitrary rules for the usage of such roads if they want to.

To vampire:
Blasting strong sounds over somebody property is an obvious aggression, as with any so-called "negative externality". Important to remember that the principle of "proportional force" always remains when dealing with any [attempt of] aggression.

And finally, concerning "public obscenity" in a free society, then it really depends on the owner of the place you are. If, for example, you are in a condominium where people are allowed to have sex on the streets during daylight, then well, they are allowed, I think we can safely conclude most places would not allow such things though.

Now, seriously, would it be that difficult to realize what I've just wrote you by yourself? Are you limited in your imagination and deductive reasoning, or you just like to throw here whatever comes up in your mind instantly, without even trying to think for a couple minutes what the answer to your challenges would be? If this was your first contact with libertarianism I could understand it, but I don't think this is the case - or is it? I really think you could answer those things yourself, if you actually wanted to.

Perhaps, but you cannot deny that they are less likely to even start it if the costs are too high. Check this related interview: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/stagnaro5.html
Plus this again, which has already being linked here: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/john-joe-grays-militant-group-texas-compound/story?id=9819578#.T-x1N7WXRS0

Also, there's police brutality too. I already gave an example here in this same thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90086.msg994129#msg994129

My point is clear in the same paragraph you quote, Mr Attentive Reader : comparing different countries violence rates is dumb, as there are too many variables.


Did you even read the paragraph that follows the one you quoted above? A guy did try to isolate other variables (by comparing the same place after/before legal changes concerning guns) and he did conclude that More Guns, Less Crimes (name of the book). I realize his comparison is probably not perfect, but it's certainly better than comparing different countries/regions.

The situation would probably not have happened if something like 20% of the crowd was armed.


Comparing countries like this is dumb. Why don't you compare with Brazil, then? Stricter gun laws than most European countries. I've already met French legal gun owners after a couple years living here, whose guns were not part of their jobs. The only Brazilian legal gun owner I've ever met after more than 20 years living there was a professional body-guard. Having a legal gun in Brazil is extremely difficult. Now go take a look in the crime rates there.

If you want statistical data - what's never a good start point when studying societal behavior, as Mises already explained - at least make some attempt of isolating other variables. Thousands of variables influence criminality. The research done by the author of More guns, less crimes at least tries to do such, by comparing each USA county against itself, after and before legal changes concerning gun permits. The name of the book already states the conclusion. I'm sure it's not the perfect, but at least is less lame than comparing different countries/regions.

I used to believe gun control is important to reduce violence, as that's taught in Brazil repeatedly. But then I've decided to check what I've been told.

And plus, there's always the ethical argument you people just ignore. If some dude is carrying a gun, but not hurting everyone, who the hell you think you are to point your gun to him and order him to give away his weapon, and eventually even throwing the guy in a cage? Seriously? That's your idea of "civic behavior"?

A nice (and fun, as usual with Penn & Teller ) video to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCXtfR0_roE

Good points. I highlighted an important part of your post.

If criminals are never punished, innocents will always pay for it one way or another. Security is not free. If we didn't have to worry much about criminals, we could use these resources in better ways. And I know no better way to create a counter-incentive to crime then to punish those who commit it.


Me too, except that I don't think this problem is exclusive to bitcoin. It's a "cyberspace problem". Hackers are almost never punished, and the costs of their actions fall over everybody else. Actually, as Timo Y quoted below notes, it's a little better in BTC-world than in CC-word as here the costs of a hack are not totally diluted. (I wouldn't be so harsh on all those who put their money on Bitcoinica though...)

I consider myself an optimist concerning Bitcoin. But this is too optimistic even for me. You can't compare with Skype like that. It's pretty easy to create a Skype account, and most important, there's no commitment in doing so: you don't have to spend a penny.
Putting ~$700 on this "weird new technology" though, it's a whole different thing.

What about Detlev Schlichter's talk? Is it available somewhere?

Every full node. Only pool operators and solo miners need to be full nodes.

I understand this, I just wonder if some rationale was given for this "weird" rule.


For sure, definitely not worth the trouble. Particularly since it was Satoshi himself who created this rule, which only concerns his own coins.

Why can't the very first 50 bitcoins be spent?

This is indeed amazing!
Do you have any sources for that?

And what about that story that ECDSA is not quantum-proof? I suppose that's a "cryptographic flaw" then, meaning that a quantum computer can take a much shorter path than brute force. Is that the case?

Fair enough.
But not being the victim doesn't make you the criminal either...

Criminal negligence (unintended crime) normally applies when your negligent action directly caused the crime. Like, if instead of paying attention to the road while driving you prefer to look to the tiny skirts of some lady passing by and you end up hitting someone, that's criminal negligence. If you are watching some woman's purse on an outside restaurant, and a thief grabs it and run away, you're not the criminal, the thief is. At least that's how I see it. It's not a crime to be stupid/naive or not to know good security practices. It's a crime to steal.

Anyways, I don't feel like defending Bitcoinica either. This was way too much fail.
I just hope the actual criminal is caught. If he withdrew USD, he did leave a clearer trail.

That's what this whole thread is about, blaming the victim. Assuming OP is true, then Bitcoinica is the victim of a theft. Everybody here is blaming Bitcoinica, not the thief.

If this is really a theft, and the thief wired money to accounts of his own, I really hope all this AML crap is for once put to good use and this asshole is caught, and forced to return everything he's stolen.
If it's not a theft*, then MtGox at least would know. I hope in this case they break the silence, otherwise they would be accomplices.

*EDIT: If it's not a theft done by a third party. Either way the costumers' money was stolen.

Can't you apply most or all of these items to pretty much every bitcoin business available?
AFAIK, none of the exchanges had their source code audited, for ex.

But as dollars or jewelry, you can, theoretically, insure them. It just happens that bitcoin is so new and unknown that I don't think there's any insurance available yet.