And just as a point of fact, the soldering irons are in the upper right hand of the picture. The "gun" you see below them is a desoldering gun. I have a similar unit on my desk... it's attached to a hot air desolder unit along with the wand. Except theirs is nice and mine is a cheap Chinese knock off  Ok even if it is a desoldering iron that doesn't prove anything. Just that wherever this picture was taken the person has some electronic equipment. I know many people that work with electronics that are more than questionable and many of whom wouldnt hesitate to steal expensive soldering equipment from work given the opportunity. There is nothing to indicate where this picture was taken and could very well be an electronics manufacturer (hey grandma want to come into work with me? Hey lets take a picture like you are doing something). Also as I mentioned a few suckers buys you a lot of capital with whcih you can buy equipment to make yourself look legitimate and attract more suckers. If this is a scam (which it most likely is) then whoever is purporting it obviously has a good knowledge of electronics and electrical engineering. Just because someone is scamming you doesn't mean they wont buy some good equipment in which to build something similar and to convince more people they are legit. It will be interesting when Nov 25 passes and their second box becomes available for pre-order. If they are around that long it is. Edit: I see deathandtaxes beat me to the fact that this pic could have been taken anywhere. I agree it does not prove anyting. |
|
|
|
Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake.
If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand? You do not work on electronics. How do I know this? Because you think the device she's holding is a soldering iron. heh. It's not... but anyone who works with SMT would know exactly what it is really is. I know its a solder iron... Not a gun. I do work on electronics but not at the same level as these boards but I have worked on silicon boards. 900F is the max temp of my iron but I like to run it around 750-800F just to make it quicker. Regardless it is very hot and can/will burn you if you touch it if its hot enough to work with lead. I have already said what I do before but I will repeat it for you (even if it ticks RPK off). I do certification and testing of solar panels which I have created and refurbished several peices of electronic equipment for. So to answer your question yes I do work with electronics and I never said what she was holding wasnt a soldering iron. Just that it was big which it is. |
|
|
|
|
The business registration that no one challenged or investigated. I investigated and it doesnt add up.
Point?
|
|
|
|
The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.
And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam. I would say it was more directed at you because you (like Goat) have spammed the thread totally to death. I like a reasoned discussion, but I hate endless reposted spam. I am not trying to repost or spam but when other people are trying to say that I am a liar and only doing it for money then I am going to defend myself. I hate endless reposted spam too but I did bring new information with trying to track down the supposed business registration. The place they are registered to said they never existed there so I performed some investigation of this myself. I did not think this would bring me vitrol and hatred. I guess my mistake was hoping maybe someone would maybe donate to me because mining takes so long to make bitcoins. In fact I think I am going to remove the original reference to my wallet just to prove this (as expected no one dontated anyting anyways lol). I also added some analysis of the only photo on the website that showed a person. 2 fake adresses+ no names+ questionable (but not impossible) performance numbers = scam. Update (to avoid extra posts) Removed other reference to my wallet. I don't care about money, Im just trying to prevent people from getting scammed. If you still send them money, don't say you weren't warned. |
|
|
|
The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.
And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam. Like I said before it is entirely possible that this could exist but all signs point to it being a scam. If I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks. I also work with a lot of electrical engineers who would also challenge the legitimacy of this. We even discussed earlier today about making FPGA boards that would be better optimized and cheaper than the current generation for bitcoin mining. I would have to wait until monday but I could ask them if they believe this is a scam but I already know what their answers will be. |
|
|
|
I think its safe to say it isnt below the soldering station which is where the light would have to be coming from to show the shadow on the board on the right and chip/cover on the left. There are some points of reference in that I can say it is behind her head and in front of the soldering station. The lens also appears to be around the level of her hairline. I work with lights so I know all about them. You can also see the light on her hand that defines the distribution angle of the light from the lamp. There is no tinfoil hat. I wear many hats but none of them physical and definitely not tinfoil. As I said there is proof we landed on the moon to any naysayers because there are mirrors we can bounce lasers off of. I am someone who believes in proof and so far I have seen nothing that would convince me that they are legit. |
|
|
|
As for something that isn't proven I think the evidence speaks for itself. A company without a real address asking for $500 per person for something on good faith when they dont list any names, just the picutre of the lady in this picture who appears to be working on some of the boards. If she is soldering, where is her solder bulb?
I can't disagree with the idea of sending money to a fictional address being unsettling at the least. I believe you are mistaken about her equipment though. That gun is slightly more advanced than one that is used for solar panels(I've placed a few). She appears to be holding a pick in her left hand and I would assume that solder gun has the 'bulb' built in, i.e., bead type. Not real up on those but I know its a lot more advanced than your standard, tamp controlled gun. Note the Cute Tape ships there behind her working platform. And, look closely at the edge of the white binder there. It bears the name of some equipment that is not cheap and jsut wouldn't be thought of to fit 'the scam', imho. hell, that Dry keeper alone is about a grand.. $300+ magnifying light. The shadows from the boards look right to me and the luminescence and sharpness of the photo seems to match enough to be from the same or similar quality camera as their others. Though, I suppose it is possible they hijacked a picture of a lady working at a desk at a lab and imposed the boards into it...  Lots of people have equipment and I tried to look up the manual but could only make out "Machine Manual - MY Series Vxxxxxx Series 2.4". Just because you have the manual to something doesnt mean you have the actual item. It could be another part of an elaborate ploy to make them seem legit or maybe she really does work with electronics. The shadows do not add up no matter how you look at them on what some people called the heatsink covers (unmarked silver casings). They do for the one in the bottom left but not for what she is working on. The one on the bottom left you can see the reflection of the capactiors but this is also possible to do in photoshop. Even if the boards are real other people have stated that they could have ordered some that are mocked up for them for cheap. The shadows on the ones she is working on and the fact she is soldering on a side that doesnt have solder connections is indeed strange. It is possible to build a bulb into a soldering gun and I assure you I do not use a standard solar panel one as I test and certify them. I build custom electronics to test and verify them however and it does seem a little large. As I said I hear all kinds of claims and always view them with a degree of skepticism. I have been proven in the past and it would be interesting if I was. Even so they could have raised a lot of capital to further this scam at $500/pop already though. Once again, just playing devil's advocate here, but you don't think that she could have just held up a tool and a board to pose for the picture that she's obviously posing for? She could be posing for the picture as I have done this at work but this is not the only problem with this picture. There are the shadows on the boards and furthermore the soldering tool that is holstered beside the station is a pretty wide tip to be using on circuit boards. Then there are the questions of the adresses supplied by the company and the lack of being able to find any information about any employee names. It is interesting the one person lives across the road from the place in KC and still hasnt been granted any sort of confirmation. I believe they metnioned they had pictures of people going in and out of this building so I have to play devils advocate as well and ask if any of them were this lady. If not its just another thing that makes this smell fishy. Maybe this is the infamous Nancy Hernandez? |
|
|
|
As per one of my other posts did you look at the shadows on the chips in this picture? Not to mention if that iron is hot (which I use a similar one all the time) I would not be taking my eye off it as they leave one heck of a burn. I deal with testing and certification of solar panels so I know all about ligthing and I do not see any possible objects that would create the shadows in this picture.
You really don't see that halogen light there? Pointing down on the boards at an angle consistent with their shadow? I see the halogen light but it doesnt make sense even with that. The shadow on the board on the right she is working on for the chip/cover on the right is possible but not the one on the left. The light would have to be coming from below her soldering station and would also be longer. The board on the left the shadown on the one on the left doesnt make sense at all. The chip on the right of the left board with the shadow on the edge mean there would have to be another light source coming from table level on the left out of frame. This would cancel that shadow out however with the magnifying light (top left) and halogen on the right. The angles dont make sense and even then if it is real then the boards could still be fakes. A couple of suckers buys a lot of capital to further a scam. |
|
|
|
Look at the pictures with the lady from the update... If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand? Its very easy to get some fake boards and the more elaborate the hoax the more willing people will be to believe it. Someone has been offering for weeks to come over and verify that this is real and they live across the street from the KC address.
This entire hoax could have been done for under $1000 and anyone with any technical knowledge about FPGA's and ASIC could easily pull this off. I personally know a dozen people off hand that could do this easily and probably would if they thought of it first.
Like I said before if I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks. If it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck... its probably a duck.
This is my post damn near verbatim from a few pages back. Bullshit, you read the thread. I read about shadows and the granny thing. I thought the reference to the shadows was about an earlier picture of the board. I also thought it wouldnt hurt to show the picture and reinterate it. It appears you agree with me though so I don't know why you would take offence. I was going to circle the shadows that were questionable but then I would have to host the pictures to display them which is too much effort right now lol. I meant the second part about how this could be done by anyone with $1000, a bit of technical knowledge, access to google, and three months to work on it. You wouldn't even need 3 months. Suppose it was a member of the Bitcoin community and from what I have read there have already been a few. The longer they can keep this going and having people believe they are legit the more money will be made off this. I did read your post on that and its a very valid point. Most good scammers do their research. |
|
|
|
As for something that isn't proven I think the evidence speaks for itself. A company without a real address asking for $500 per person for something on good faith when they dont list any names, just the picutre of the lady in this picture who appears to be working on some of the boards. If she is soldering, where is her solder bulb?
I can't disagree with the idea of sending money to a fictional address being unsettling at the least. I believe you are mistaken about her equipment though. That gun is slightly more advanced than one that is used for solar panels(I've placed a few). She appears to be holding a pick in her left hand and I would assume that solder gun has the 'bulb' built in, i.e., bead type. Not real up on those but I know its a lot more advanced than your standard, tamp controlled gun. Note the Cute Tape ships there behind her working platform. And, look closely at the edge of the white binder there. It bears the name of some equipment that is not cheap and jsut wouldn't be thought of to fit 'the scam', imho. hell, that Dry keeper alone is about a grand.. $300+ magnifying light. The shadows from the boards look right to me and the luminescence and sharpness of the photo seems to match enough to be from the same or similar quality camera as their others. Though, I suppose it is possible they hijacked a picture of a lady working at a desk at a lab and imposed the boards into it... Lots of people have equipment and I tried to look up the manual but could only make out "Machine Manual - MY Series Vxxxxxx Series 2.4". Just because you have the manual to something doesnt mean you have the actual item. It could be another part of an elaborate ploy to make them seem legit or maybe she really does work with electronics. The shadows do not add up no matter how you look at them on what some people called the heatsink covers (unmarked silver casings). They do for the one in the bottom left but not for what she is working on. The one on the bottom left you can see the reflection of the capactiors but this is also possible to do in photoshop. Even if the boards are real other people have stated that they could have ordered some that are mocked up for them for cheap. The shadows on the ones she is working on and the fact she is soldering on a side that doesnt have solder connections is indeed strange. It is possible to build a bulb into a soldering gun and I assure you I do not use a standard solar panel one as I test and certify them. I build custom electronics to test and verify them however and it does seem a little large. As I said I hear all kinds of claims and always view them with a degree of skepticism. I have been proven in the past and it would be interesting if I was. Even so they could have raised a lot of capital to further this scam at $500/pop already though. |
|
|
|
Look at the pictures with the lady from the update... If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand? Its very easy to get some fake boards and the more elaborate the hoax the more willing people will be to believe it. Someone has been offering for weeks to come over and verify that this is real and they live across the street from the KC address.
This entire hoax could have been done for under $1000 and anyone with any technical knowledge about FPGA's and ASIC could easily pull this off. I personally know a dozen people off hand that could do this easily and probably would if they thought of it first.
Like I said before if I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks. If it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck... its probably a duck.
This is my post damn near verbatim from a few pages back. Bullshit, you read the thread. I read about shadows and the granny thing. I thought the reference to the shadows was about an earlier picture of the board. I also thought it wouldnt hurt to show the picture and reinterate it. It appears you agree with me though so I don't know why you would take offence. I was going to circle the shadows that were questionable but then I would have to host the pictures to display them which is too much effort right now lol. |
|
|
|
So this is my hypothesis. Is there anyone here who's really familiar with the current black-market for the defective and out-of-spec silicon? If so, please post your speculation with a new account through Tor or some other proxy.
The needs for mining are so out of wack with other sha256 engine uses... 1MH/s ~= 1 Gbit/sec of sha256 that the idea of using an engine used for something else seems implausible. Grey market ("fell off truck") FPGAs? More plausible... but their power figures don't really support FPGAs unless perhaps a batch of 22nm FPGAs "fell off a truck". SASIC is basically plausable and the upfront costs aren't that crazy. Of course, you'd want to keep it as private as long as possible— because anyone else could go and do it too once you've proven the demand. The work is not trivial but it's not a moat either. On their job tab they claim to be looking for people with knowledge in: •Semiconductor design •Telecommunications •Encryption •Mathematics •Fiber optics •PCB design •ASIC Engineering •Software •Routing I suspect yet another layer to make them sound legit but they do mention ASIC. I never said what they were claiming was impossible, just unlikely given the lack of any real information about the company itself. If anyone has experience with this I encourage you to apply to them and verify for the rest of the community that their claims are legit and that the company is as well. |
|
|
|
Stopped reading on the part you asked me for 100BTC... really? lol
He claims I only want a donation for discrediting a supposedly legitimate scam. Look at my posts. I removed one of the references in good faith as I had said. 100BTC was an arbitrary number and was just to prove a point. I do not want to see people fall victim to a scam. Period. You are also soliciting money for informations you can't prove to be true(yet), so you are as much of a scammer as butterfly labs is. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. I encourage you not to send me money by all means. You will have more of a chance of getting one of these boards from me as this so called company. As for something that isn't proven I think the evidence speaks for itself. A company without a real address asking for $500 per person for something on good faith when they dont list any names, just the picutre of the lady in this picture who appears to be working on some of the boards. If she is soldering, where is her solder bulb? Edit: One more point to this picture. There are no solder points on the side of the board she appears to be working on. Guru my ass. |
|
|
|
As per one of my other posts did you look at the shadows on the chips in this picture? Not to mention if that iron is hot (which I use a similar one all the time) I would not be taking my eye off it as they leave one heck of a burn. I deal with testing and certification of solar panels so I know all about ligthing and I do not see any possible objects that would create the shadows in this picture.  |
|
|
|
Stopped reading on the part you asked me for 100BTC... really? lol
He claims I only want a donation for discrediting a supposedly legitimate scam. Look at my posts. I removed one of the references in good faith as I had said. 100BTC was an arbitrary number and was just to prove a point. I do not want to see people fall victim to a scam. Period. |
|
|
|
bittenbob, why is it that I have the feeling that you are one of the other FPGA developers in this forum that registered a new account just to come to this thread and say it is a scam until everybody is convinced because you are afraid that butterfly labs will kill your current business? Looking at your post history, as soon as you could get out of newbie jail you came right to this thread, highly suspicious if you ask me...  Just man up and use your real account. Look at my posts. I jsut started mining a week ago and am running a single 6950. I do not make FPGA boards, in fact I test solar panels. This is my real account. Deal with it and grow up. I am trying to help you in telling you to get your money back. Let the scammers have it though, I do not care. Actually at this point I think it would look good on you. Helping me? I'm not even a miner... As far as helping others, you might, but i seriously doubt it. You are only trying to help yourself. Fuck, I've jumped the gun and called scammer to some dudes to warn other people, but i never had the nerve to ask them for money, just like you did. lol There is no nerve at all... Would you feel better if I remove the address all together? I will gladly do this but under the condition you pay me 100 BTC if I am right. I did not by any means jump to say they are scammers. I looked at the evidence and did some research myself. All of which pointed to that it is a scam. Like I replied to the other person, I believe we landed on the moon because we can bounce lasers off mirros left there by the apollo mission. Its called facts and its the only thing I believe in (I do testing and certification - I hear claims all the time that don't add up). Just for good faith I will remove one of the addresses to my wallet so you can stop bitching. I do not care about the money and I only want to prevent people from falling victim to this elaborate hoax. Check those posts 5 minutes from now and one of the references to my wallet will be gone. |
|
|
|
Your ease at which you try and insult and discredit me only makes me believe you have sunk money into this scam and are hoping it isnt. Try reading the thread from the beginning and you will see how wrong you are. Lots of people pointed out the possibility of a scam, you were the only one lame enough to spam a request for money in each post. Two posts and only once I had shown that it was a scam. Hardly spamming. Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake. Keep on trying to discredit me to tell yourself that your money is safe though. By all means. Edit: I read every single post before I posted the first time. How else could I have gotten to so called registration from half way through the thread. Its called denial and you are in it. Hah, the shadow idea reminds me of people who think we lied about going to the moon. I know we went to the moon. We can confirm this by bouncing lasers off the moon that were placed there on the apollo missions. This is called definitive proof. I am not saying what they are claiming is impossible just that every aspect about this whole thing sounds like a scam. Especially the 100 units only being available for pre-order. This creates a sense of urgency to buy the item before quantities run out. I have said it before and I will say it again. If I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks (and I have pretty bad foot odor). If I am right then what will you who think this is legit despite the mounting evidence do? My guess is nothing. |
|
|
|
bittenbob, why is it that I have the feeling that you are one of the other FPGA developers in this forum that registered a new account just to come to this thread and say it is a scam until everybody is convinced because you are afraid that butterfly labs will kill your current business? Looking at your post history, as soon as you could get out of newbie jail you came right to this thread, highly suspicious if you ask me... Just man up and use your real account. Look at my posts. I jsut started mining a week ago and am running a single 6950. I do not make FPGA boards, in fact I test solar panels. This is my real account. Deal with it and grow up. I am trying to help you in telling you to get your money back. Let the scammers have it though, I do not care. Actually at this point I think it would look good on you. |
|
|
|
Your ease at which you try and insult and discredit me only makes me believe you have sunk money into this scam and are hoping it isnt. Try reading the thread from the beginning and you will see how wrong you are. Lots of people pointed out the possibility of a scam, you were the only one lame enough to spam a request for money in each post. Two posts and only once I had shown that it was a scam. Hardly spamming. Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake. Keep on trying to discredit me to tell yourself that your money is safe though. By all means. Edit: I read every single post before I posted the first time. How else could I have gotten to so called registration from half way through the thread. Its called denial and you are in it. |
|
|
|
|
Look at the pictures with the lady from the update... If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand? Its very easy to get some fake boards and the more elaborate the hoax the more willing people will be to believe it. Someone has been offering for weeks to come over and verify that this is real and they live across the street from the KC address.
This entire hoax could have been done for under $1000 and anyone with any technical knowledge about FPGA's and ASIC could easily pull this off. I personally know a dozen people off hand that could do this easily and probably would if they thought of it first.
Like I said before if I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks. If it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck... its probably a duck.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
