Bitinstant brokering extortion threats?

[eldentyrell]

My jaw is still on the floor after reading this:

  http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/9/6/a-friendly-offer-for-mitt-romney.html

Have the people who run bitinstant gone completely and utterly nuts?

Never mind the fact that the threat is certainly a hoax; the hoaxers didn't bother including even the simplest proof that they actually have the goods (i.e. FY2009 page 12 line 13 is $18.99).  The average person on the street who reads the Forbes article about your idiotic offer does not know this.  All they see is the biggest retail player in the bitcoin world offering to broker an extortion threat.  How on earth could you possibly think this would be a good thing either for bitcoin or for your business?

Congratulations, Erik Voorhees.  You are responsible for event most damaging to bitcoin's reputation thus far.  Way to go.

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[FreeMoney]

My jaw is still on the floor after reading this:

  http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/9/6/a-friendly-offer-for-mitt-romney.html

Have the people who run bitinstant gone completely and utterly nuts?

Never mind the fact that the threat is certainly a hoax; the hoaxers didn't even bother including even the simplest proof that they actually have the goods (i.e. FY2009 page 12 line 13 is $18.99).  The average person on the street who reads the Forbes article about your idiotic offer does not know this.  All they see is the biggest retail player in the bitcoin world offering to broker an extortion threat.  How on earth could you possibly think this would be a good thing either for bitcoin or for your business?

Congratulations, Erik Voorhees.  You are responsible for event most damaging to bitcoin's reputation thus far.  Way to go.

Maybe your next OP can be "MTGOX funding online gambling!"

[finkleshnorts]

TBH, it seemed a bit distasteful to me.

[eldentyrell]

Maybe your next OP can be "MTGOX funding online gambling!"

You appear to misunderstand the general public's relative opinion of gambling vs extortion.  Or drug use vs extortion if your next post was going to mention silk road -- let me save you the trouble of posting.

[benjamindees]

It isn't extortion.  It's a tax.

[eldentyrell]

It isn't extortion.  It's a tax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion

[BitPay Business Solutions]

It isn't extortion.  It's a tax.

 

[cypherdoc]

I agree -- between this and the Satoshi Dice "IPO" I think Erik is doing irreversible damage to Bitinstant's reputation.

I don't understand what he is thinking/going through to be acting in such a volatile way.

whats going on with the SD IPO?

[JoelKatz]

All they see is the biggest retail player in the bitcoin world offering to broker an extortion threat.

There is nothing wrong with helping someone who is blackmailed come up with the money, assuming you played no role in the blackmail itself. If someone's child was kidnapped at 6PM on Christmas eve and a ransom was demanded in cash by the following evening, would there be something wrong with a bank offering to open on Christmas to allow the ransom to be paid should they choose to pay?

[Bitcoin Oz]

Its not extortion its community service 

[eldentyrell]

All they see is the biggest retail player in the bitcoin world offering to broker an extortion threat.

There is nothing wrong with helping someone who is blackmailed come up with the money,

This is not about some fine point of theoretical law, it is about public relations.  Show the Forbes article to your grandmother and ask for her immediate gut reaction.

[JoelKatz]

This is not about some fine point of theoretical law, it is about public relations.  Show the Forbes article to your grandmother and ask for her immediate gut reaction.

I do agree that it's a cheezy way to get free publicity. But I'm not convinced people will have that kind of reaction to the Forbes article.

[FreeMoney]

Besides the whole thing (taxes, hiding tax paperwork from people you expect to vote for you, pretending (or actually doing it) to steal tax paperwork) being a huge farce, lets just say someone wanted to pay a million dollars worth of bitcoins to some anonymous punk, they would probably appreciate free help from someone who can get that done.

[Matthew N. Wright]

This is not about some fine point of theoretical law, it is about public relations.  Show the Forbes article to your grandmother and ask for her immediate gut reaction.

I do agree that it's a cheezy way to get free publicity. But I'm not convinced people will have that kind of reaction to the Forbes article.

I did, and I'm a troll.

Besides the whole thing (taxes, hiding tax paperwork from people you expect to vote for you, pretending (or actually doing it) to steal tax paperwork) being a huge farce, lets just say someone wanted to pay a million dollars worth of bitcoins to some anonymous punk, they would probably appreciate free help from someone who can get that done.

"Hey, you want to pay the terrorists, you can use our Bitcoin services! We want to be involved in this terrorist transaction, because that's basically what bitcoin is for anyway!"

[FreeMoney]

All they see is the biggest retail player in the bitcoin world offering to broker an extortion threat.

There is nothing wrong with helping someone who is blackmailed come up with the money,

This is not about some fine point of theoretical law, it is about public relations.  Show the Forbes article to your grandmother and ask for her immediate gut reaction.

The severely mentally handicapped is the only demographic coming to mind that matters less than grandmothers here.

[benjamindees]

Aren't you a miner?  Are you sure you want to make this argument?

[eldentyrell]

Are you sure you want to make this argument?

I don't run a blog and Forbes doesn't write articles about me, so I'm not sure I follow you here.

If you're referring to the fact that Romney accepting the offer might increase the bitcoin price and therefore increase my fiat-denominated revenues, I can do without it.  In fact I think in the long term it will damage the value of BTC more than it will boost it.

[FlipPro]

Are you sure you want to make this argument?

I don't run a blog and Forbes doesn't write articles about me, so I'm not sure I follow you here.

If you're referring to the fact that Romney accepting the offer might increase the bitcoin price and therefore increase my fiat-denominated revenues, I can do without it.  In fact I think in the long term it will damage the value of BTC more than it will boost it.

This is an important point in all of this. I am in BTC for the long term. This may help the PRICE in the short run, but it is detrimental to BTC in the long term. I pray that people do their research, and truly understand that this is an important open source project with thousands of individual developers/investors/contributors. And that NOT everyone in this community feels and/or operates in this fashion. Bitcoin is a beautiful new technology that can solve the great debt crisis that humanity currently faces itself with. It can reinvigorate old legacy markets that are worn and tired. It can give industries that may have dim futures a chance to rehash themselves in innovative ways that can only better humanity. It can open up the finance world to fresh new ideas that would have not been possible before, because of cost and/or redundancy. Point blank - It's more than just an "unregulated" online currency. It's a new technology that can free up capital, and potentially turn the world around from a great depression.

[benjamindees]

Are you sure you want to make this argument?

I don't run a blog and Forbes doesn't write articles about me, so I'm not sure I follow you here.

If you're referring to the fact that Romney accepting the offer might increase the bitcoin price and therefore increase my fiat-denominated revenues, I can do without it.  In fact I think in the long term it will damage the value of BTC more than it will boost it.

I'm not.  I'm referring to the fact that you, personally, could be responsible for relaying or hashing the actual Bitcoin transaction that goes to the actual "extortionist".  And you seem to be fine with that.  In fact, your sig is hilariously ironic:

Miners are apolitical.  Hashpower has no ego.

Yet you somehow want to heap scorn upon Bitinstant for offering to do something similar, in offering their services to both sides of what is basically a political tuffle.

And the worst part, I think, is that you aren't actually the least bit concerned with the actual "extortion" itself.  You're only concerned with how it might make you, or Bitcoin, look bad.  In short, you seem to be a hypocritical dipshit.

[JoelKatz]

I'm referring to the fact that you, personally, could be responsible for relaying or hashing the actual Bitcoin transaction that goes to the actual "extortionist".

You mean he might be helping the extortion victim to minimize the damage he suffers as a result of the extortion, right? If someone receives a ransom note and chooses to pay the ransom, there's absolutely nothing wrong with helping them do so.