I still don't understand how you can just suddenly change the final words weeks later and change it to words that would hint at suicide. And now they don't even know who spoke the last words?  

Before: All right Good Night
After: Good Night Flight 370

And people wonder why I keep ending up with a tinfoil hat on.  

Stop cheating on your wife! 

Why would you assume it doesn't belong to him/her? 

Not to challenge your intelligence, but I assume you've done a simple 'search' on your entire drive for 'wallet.dat'  in case you drag & dropped it somewhere??  

And have you checked the blockchain to see if any of your coins have moved?  

There is also the off chance that the updated client you downloaded was not authentic or maybe you just have a wallet stealing trojan sitting on your machine…

Unfortunately, in either situation, it seems unlikely you will recover the coins.

If it is an extreme amount of coins, you may be able to pay for a forensic data recovery service?  



EDIT: I will also add you could attempt using 'system restore', but I am pretty sure it doesn't backup the AppData folder

'Recuva' was a program I have used in the past, and appears to still be free on first look. You could give this a try and have it attempt to recover from the specific location of the wallet.dat

http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

It really depends on how these files disappeared, but you could attempt to use undelete utilities to recover the files... there used to be a few free ones out there, I haven't used one in a while.

Have you looked directly at the location that the client keeps the wallet.dat?
if Vista/7/8, I believe this is C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\BitCoin
Curious what files/folders are in there right now...

I've never had the client touch the wallet.dat file before, amongst many different corruptions of the blockchain and full re-downloads, so I would be surprised if it was the Bitcoin client itself that removed the wallet.dat... what version are you using?

What OS?  

I can't say I care much for the trust system here, but doesn't the fact that he would have this contest flaw BFL's own trust system because its fluffing up 3 of his accounts with fake unique positive feedbacks?  Do we believe he is intending on removing them after the contest?  

And if this were just an experiment/demonstration, why the need for unique comments each day?  

So the theory apparently is that he wanted to go on a last joyride to see what he had never seen before… I assume locked himself in the cockpit and disabled multiple communications systems. All the while, nobody on the plane knew this was happening until it was too late?

Who joy rides to the southern indian ocean??… Even as a pilot I would think I'd get bored after the first 3 hours of looking at water    

It is also hard to imagine nobody on the crew realizing the plane had made a turn… multiple times… and that they weren't on a different path. I assume this route had been flown many times before.
 
and I'm still not understanding why he would disable multiple communication systems to do this, couldn't he just mute audio from the tower and just go on about his joyride?  

Do you believe that terrorists will continue to repeat their same patterns and just continue crashing planes into buildings, car bombing and blowing up busses?  Will they not evolve?  Will they not see James Bond movies and get ideas?

There is, unfortunately, a fine line today between some of the movies out there and the real world. Do you not see things in todays world that were influenced and/or inspired by movies & shows from the past?

While I do believe that fringe groups inside of terrorist-harboring countries are near the top of my list, they would likely need help from a larger organization/government that have similar interests in the outcome of such an attack.

Hijacking a plane and flying it to wherever will not link it to that country - unless its found in that country… and they didn't *hope* that no one would notice or track where it went, I would assume they were trying to disable the multiple communication systems to try and prevent and avoid anyone from tracking or noticing.

I wouldn't say the plan went very well, just a thought as to what the initial plan may have been in the event of a hijacking like this.

Maybe the malaysian government eventually figured out it was hijacked and have no clue where it is and started playing cover up or damage control until they can try to figure it out. Maybe they eventually gave up and decided everyone's dead in the indian ocean because we saw these pictures... we have the evidence, now everyone stop watching!

In any case, the whole situation doesn't make traditional sense and was handled very poorly.

If true, would definitely lend some credibility towards suicide… up until now, I hadn't seen any indication either pilot had any care or desire to commit suicide, especially in this fashion. If he's trying to make a statement to his wife with suicide, I'm still not sure why you would disable communication systems… but ok… so where the hell has the wife been this entire time?

(don't post TLDR... I don't care.)

Why is it so unlikely and far-fetched to want a plane that isn't linked to the country you are at?   I'm not saying its necessarily been taken by a government themselves but potentially groups in those countries. However, I wouldn't put it past any government to do something like this and then point the fingers at those fringe groups... another reason to take a plane from another country)

If it was hijacked, for whatever reason they do not want to be discovered or want take any immediate 'credit' for it. I would assume this plays into why they didn't use their "own planes". My guess is that if it has been loaded with a weapon, it would be detonated for the sole purpose of destroying an infrastructure as opposed to people, which is why I went with EMP.
(Not that the people wouldn't start dying off after this type of event, but you get the idea)

If those groups do not want immediate repercussion for their actions, they will want to hide their actions and cause confusion until they are ready for whatever their intent is.

Why steal a plane that you know will be searched for?
To learn intelligence agencies capabilities of finding a jet. To determine if the plane you will be using can get past modern radar & tracking systems. If the facts are all accurate, it doesn't make sense why you would disable radar communications and then make a turn... this seems to me that they were trying to steal a plane and give the impression it went down in the Gulf of Thailand.

I think the radar blip that was picked up after that radar system was disabled was not intended to happen by whoever took the plane. ...maybe testing out China's intelligence capabilities? plenty of Chinese on board, and I assume China would have had a bigger role in the search if we were still looking in the Gulf of Thailand.

The goal would be that they would never find the plane in that location and would need to exhaust all resources to find it - without any chance of ever finding it.

Suicide is the other plausible theory to fit what facts I have seen released to the public... but I just can't understand the need to hide the plane to go kill yourself?   Maybe thinking it would create a legend around the disappearance and forever live in our memory?    Hard to get yourself in the mind of someone psychotic, but I just can't see these particular pilots doing this.

Conspiracies aren't what they used to be... Conspiracy theories exist because conspiracy exists. We have evolved as a civilization and have made huge advancements in technology and I am not sure why people can't wrap their head around the fact that corruption, evil, and conspiracies have also evolved, and they all still exist.

Anything they have found *could* be part of the mh370,  they just can't seem to confirm any of it BUT they still feel they have the evidence necessary to determine the plane crashed & all survivors dead - based on a mathematical calculation that has never been used before to determine the location of a jet.

They just need to delay a little longer so they can plant some reasonable evidence that will make people believe, the satellite images with random shapes and a mathematical calculation never tried or tested before isn't (and shouldn't) justify their conclusion.

-OR- (my favorite) its been hijacked and is being loaded with a weapon, my guess would be an low altitude EMP that is being deployed by Iran or Russia (sorry Russia... this would just be speculation based on the timing and possible motive of this jet disappearing)

and if you really want to get into a conspiracy theory - someone doesn't believe they have all of the intelligence they want and are trying to delay it to see what other countries are capable of pulling from their satellites and how quickly they can pull it.


I'm going to go sit in silence now.  

Trust system sucks.  It only uses certain members to calculate the results of those visible numbers. Although nobody seems to even be attempting to utilize it to post negative feedback.

I received my refund (did not purchase hosting) so I have a hard time leaving negative feedback, even though it took forever and it appears like SB may be playing games with people's money, but I do hope you all get your coins back

I'd personally go with my tinfoil hat theory #1, but I am finding myself more and more falling into the tinfoil hat group.... and, I'm scared. 

Why would you ask about rules when this forum has no rules?

*tinfoil hat on*
#1 Plane has been pre-planned to be taken and is now being loaded with some type of weapon or explosive in which the plane will be used to carry out an attack on something/someone. Malaysian government is aware of who took it and is attempting to confuse & complicate the search.

#2 Someone has stolen a plane full of people for human trafficking 
*tinfoil hat off*

Let's just go with the plane crashed somewhere and the Malaysians don't know how to manage airplanes.
 

When wisdom is shared in small amounts, does it not offer those that are wise an unfair advantage?  

Why only provide 2 cents worth of information?

May not be his turf, but his turf usually involves making money and he probably wants to get involved for that reason. But Warren Buffet is too big headed to buy at rates like this.
Maybe if he barks enough he can drive the price down... but I don't think he's that important of a figure to listen to about Bitcoins, so I don't think he will succeed.

Who knows what he's doing, but its obvious he knows nothing about technology and shouldn't be commenting on it at all, which IMO implies there is a motive for his comments. 
But good try Mr. Buffet.