The pirate ponzi fiasco

[Bitcoin Oz]

Couldn't we just encourage Pirate to have sex with some women in Sweden, then let things run their course?

 

[1714820694]

1714820694

[imsaguy]

Mr. internet lawyer.

I can assure you, he's not an internet lawyer.  Let's not get into personal name calling.  You know as well as I do that if it goes legal, it will get messy for a bunch of people, regardless of how tenuous of a relationship they might seem to have.

[kmettke]

well since theymos  was just securing evidence to a possible crime, he was right to check the pm's.. he is in charge of this forum i believe,so he is responsible that if somebody makes criminal activities around here, that there has to be a possibilty to save the evidence... (at least in my country in europe he would be required to do so) which he checked.. so no point of him overreading the pm's... if u wanna communicate in silence, use encryption and most important, private communication channels...

cheers

this mess is funny

[imsaguy]

well since theymos  was just securing evidence to a possible crime, he was right to check the pm's.. he is in charge of this forum i believe,so he is responsible that if somebody makes criminal activities around here, that there has to be a possibilty to save the evidence... (at least in my country in europe he would be required to do so) which he checked.. so no point of him overreading the pm's... if u wanna communicate in silence, use encryption and most important, private communication channels...

cheers

this mess is funny

Wouldn't a db backup do just as much to 'secure' evidence.  Pretty sure reading/scanning messages isn't required.

[kmettke]

well a complete backup would secure and maybe dispose to investigating people pm's and entries which are not relevant to this... so i think  he needs to sort out...  but actually i gonna be checking our laws in detail on that....

[Frankie]

It's actually very difficult to waive protection of Sec. 230 of the CDA unless the management actually contributes the content.  For example, even if you intentionally disseminate an email you know to be false and probably libelous, you're OK as long as someone else wrote it (i.e. it was another "information content provider").

Precisely my point.  §230 protects carriers who do not moderate or monitor content.  Once you start contributing, you're boned.

Deleting spam and scams would almost certainly not invoke the paradoxical wrath of the good Samaritan duty.  What would expose thymos to liability is not investigating some scams while failing to shut down others (see Gentry v. eBay, Inc., 99 Cal. App. 4th 816, 830 (2002)), but contributing to tortious speech by, for example, writing prose or headings for the scam.  Cf. Hy Cite Corp. v. badbusinessbureau.com, 418 F. Supp. 2d 1142 (D. Ariz. 2005)  Maybe he did that somewhere else, but checking his SQL queries sure doesn't cut it, Mr. internet lawyer.

Theymos did not mention his location.  Given that my expertise is in international and IP law, I am very well aware of the implications of both common carrier status and the various definitions of good samaritan laws in different jurisdictions (and that they do not exist everywhere).  Theymos has admitted that he fucked up both of them.

Nice googling, even if it took you hours.  Maybe you can save up for the monstrosity that is gems.

Monitoring and moderating has not resulted in actual liability in any case, even though the law firm circulars caution against doing too much. The safe harbor is actually quite large unless he's actually contributed toward the content. That doesn't happen by removing posts and banning scammers.  A contrary rule would harm the industry, so any site operator sued on such a flimsy bases will receive top-notch industrial support. That ain't happening here, Mr. Internet Lawyer, your threats notwithstanding.

[imsaguy]

well a complete backup would secure and maybe dispose to investigating people pm's and entries which are not relevant to this... so i think  he needs to sort out...  but actually i gonna be checking our laws in detail on that....

How about actually waiting until a subpoena happens before going and filtering?

[imsaguy]

Monitoring and moderating has not resulted in actual liability in any case, even though the law firm circulars caution against doing too much. The safe harbor is actually quite large unless he's actually contributed toward the content. That doesn't happen by removing posts and banning scammers.  A contrary rule would harm the industry, so any site operator sued on such a flimsy bases will receive top-notch industrial support. That ain't happening here, Mr. Internet Lawyer, your threats notwithstanding.

Perhaps, but Theymos has already admitting to participating in the 'scheme'.  So now he's just not a spectator, he has/had an active role in it.

[cedivad]

Internet and law has always been a pain. You have to comply with every single law in every single country that your website is accessible from, and, let me say it, it won't happen.

And I hate all of this Americanism.

[imsaguy]

Internet and law has always been a pain. You have to comply with every single law in every single country that your website is accessible from, and, let me say it, it won't happen.

And I hate all of this Americanism.

this is an american site.

If nothing else, its a .org which does end up pushing certain legalities on it.

[Frankie]

Monitoring and moderating has not resulted in actual liability in any case, even though the law firm circulars caution against doing too much. The safe harbor is actually quite large unless he's actually contributed toward the content. That doesn't happen by removing posts and banning scammers.  A contrary rule would harm the industry, so any site operator sued on such a flimsy bases will receive top-notch industrial support. That ain't happening here, Mr. Internet Lawyer, your threats notwithstanding.

Perhaps, but Theymos has already admitting to participating in the 'scheme'.  So now he's just not a spectator, he has/had an active role in it.

I agree there could be a colorable claim for that. Such a claim could be maintained whether or not he allegedly waived Sec. 230 safe harbor protection by monitoring the PMs of scammers (hint: he didn't).

Silly talk about CDA Sec. 230 just happens to be a pet peeve of mine. Carry on.

[imsaguy]

Monitoring and moderating has not resulted in actual liability in any case, even though the law firm circulars caution against doing too much. The safe harbor is actually quite large unless he's actually contributed toward the content. That doesn't happen by removing posts and banning scammers.  A contrary rule would harm the industry, so any site operator sued on such a flimsy bases will receive top-notch industrial support. That ain't happening here, Mr. Internet Lawyer, your threats notwithstanding.

Perhaps, but Theymos has already admitting to participating in the 'scheme'.  So now he's just not a spectator, he has/had an active role in it.

I agree there could be a colorable claim for that. Such a claim could be maintained whether or not he allegedly waived Sec. 230 safe harbor protection by monitoring the PMs of scammers (hint: he didn't).

Silly talk about CDA Sec. 230 just happens to be a pet peeve of mine. Carry on.

IANAL nor do I fake to be.

[bitlane]

Irrelevant.  International criminals can have warrants waiting for them if they ever choose to enter the country, and if you are in a country with an extradition treaty with the US, depending on the severity of those emails, you won't have to choose.

If you're in Canada, you're hosed (seewhatIdidthere?) as US courts will happily entertain criminal and civil cases against Canucks.

US courts don't really care about jurisdiction, especially if there is racketeering or conspiracy involved.

I love Internet lawyers.  Especially ones who make up laws in their heads.

    (seewhatIdidthere?)

[greyhawk]

Internet and law has always been a pain. You have to comply with every single law in every single country that your website is accessible from, and, let me say it, it won't happen.

And I hate all of this Americanism.

this is an american site.

The forum isn't based in the US.

[Come-from-Beyond]

BTW, the forum has lots of good IP addresses logged for pirateat40 (he never used Tor) and 4077 PMs to/from him. This should help the investigation. I'd prefer to release this stuff privately to police, though I may release it publicly in a few months if no police officers contact me about it.

I suppose MtGox has Pirate's real identity...

[Vod]

You are going to make PMs public or give it to the police?

I will give them to the police if the police ask for them. Otherwise, I may post them publicly to help people find Pirate and obtain justice.

Pirates are hostis humani generis. I'm not going to preserve the privacy of someone who stole 500,000 BTC.

What is the limit?  Zhou Tong stole close to half a million dollars, but you actually took steps to make sure his privacy was protected.

In unrelated news, Zhou Tong donated a large amount of money to this forum.

[cedivad]

Anyway website is located somewhere in the middle of the us, hosted with softlayer.
Guessed by latency, looked the traceroute like 1 year ago...

Remember megaupload?

[bitlane]

Not a smart move.  Keep in mind that deleting your posts or backups at this point will compound your potential trouble.

Nice one reeses.

[bitcoinBull]

I would like to see pirate's ip addresses and PMs made public. If there are concerns about of the privacy of his (perhaps unwitting) co-conspirators, the names of senders and recipients could be redacted.

[Vladimir]

If privacy of other party (i.e. not pirate) is a concern for mods I hereby grant admins of this forum permission to publish all 3 PM (2 in, 1 out) between myself and pirateat40. (assuming pirate's permission is not required by the mods or they have it)

Not much interesting there, however. Just what I consider/guess a standard initial approach to recruit shills/marks along the lines of "I respect your posts, I am just pushing envelope here and doing some secret stuff that I cannot disclose yadayadayada..." with my noncommittal response.