Pool Operators - PLEASE BAN & BLOCK GPUMAX getwork/proxy access to your pool

[DonShrents]

In light of recent events, I would plead to all Pool Operators to Ban and/or Block access to your Mining Pools from the GPUMAX proxy getwork system.

Please show the community at large, that you as a Pool Op will not support a user such as Trendon Shavers (pirateat40) who is responsible for defrauding the community in a theft of Bitcoins worth anywhere from 1 million to 5 million (as claimed by pirate himself) US Dollars.

Trendon has claimed to have the community's 500,000 Bitcoins at his disposal from the failed Bitcoin Savings & Trust fiasco, so please help the community to take a stand.

It seems as though even with the dissapearance of Trendon and the closing and default of Bitcoin Savings & Trust, GPUMAX has been able to continue operating as if nothing had happened. Please help stop it now.

Thank you for your time.

~DonShrents


Addition:

As many users simply refuse to stop using GPUMAX, forcing them to stop, with the lack of steady passthrough work would seal the deal.
On top of this, with GPUMAX being blocked, purchases from this company wouldn't have anywhere to go but a private money laundering pool of GPUMAX's choosing, to mint fresh coins for it's operators. At this point, it's intentions would be clear and not open to further debate, as no pools would accept either public passthrough work or private purchased work from clients.

Thank you again.

[1715036591]

1715036591

[1715036591]

1715036591

[1715036591]

1715036591

[totaleclipseofthebank]

In light of recent events, I would plead to all Pool Operators to Ban and/or Block access to your Mining Pools from the GPUMAX proxy getwork system.

Please show the community at large, that you as a Pool Op will not support a user such as Trendon Shavers (pirateat40) who is responsible for defrauding the community in a theft of Bitcoins worth anywhere from 1 million to 5 million (as claimed by pirate himself) US Dollars.

Trendon has claimed to have the community's 500,000 Bitcoins at his disposal from the failed Bitcoin Savings & Trust fiasco, so please help the community to take a stand.

It seems as though even with the dissapearance of Trendon and the closing and default of Bitcoin Savings & Trust, GPUMAX has been able to continue operating as if nothing had happened. Please help stop it now.

Thank you for your time.

~DonShrents

+1

[max in montreal]

this is a great idea.

+1

[Monster Tent]

+1

[Graet]

well no-one leases GPUMAX shares on my pool anymore, so this would effectively block miners that mine on Ozcoin through GPUMAX when not leasing - not sure who that helps
zuxor does most of the GPUMAX work
Payouts from GPUMAX to miners that choose to take the risk continue - that is those miners choice.


I don't have a horse in this race, but just say Pirate was planning to pay back - would cutting off an income stream help or hinder this?

[DonShrents]

well no-one leases GPUMAX shares on my pool anymore, so this would effectively block miners that mine on Ozcoin through GPUMAX when not leasing - not sure who that helps
zuxor does most of the GPUMAX work
Payouts from GPUMAX to miners that choose to take the risk continue - that is those miners choice.


I don't have a horse in this race, but just say Pirate was planning to pay back - would cutting off an income stream help or hinder this?

With zero communication to the contrary, we have only the pool operators to help the rest of the community make a stand until his silence is broken and his master plan is revealed.

I would hope that everyone sees this as an opportunity to make a stand and show those who might do wrong to the community, that the community can fight back and call it's own shots.

Please show your support.

[DonShrents]

Allowing GPUMAX passthrough work keeps miners connected to GPUMAX and gives that hashing power to Trendon/Pirate to do with as he choses at any point he sees fit.

By blocking passthrough work, miners will be forced to connect to their chosen pools directly, leaving the GPUMAX system behind and taking that power away from those that would do what they chose with it, such as money laundering etc.

Please consider this, all Pool Ops, please. Help miners reclaim their power, as well as your own as TRUSTED POOL OPERATORS.

thank you.

~DonShrents

[Graet]

so
let me get this straight
a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members
the scheme went bad
people lost money (unexpected???)
Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.
Some interesting allegations/conspiracy theories don't make fact.


"Help miners reclaim their power"
Sorry? I help miners reclaim their power by blocking them from my pool? - how about miners are adults and can make their own choices? they have the power to choose, how is forcing a choice on them..huh what???
many miners have already used the power they have and moved from GPUMAX, just as they do with any pool or other mining operation they don't feel comfortable with.

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

Pools are not the "Bitcoin police"

I am truly sorry that people have lost money in Pirates venture, I really don't see blocking GPUMAX will help fix that.
best wishes
Graet

[totaleclipseofthebank]

so
let me get this straight
a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members
the scheme went bad
people lost money (unexpected???)
Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.
Some interesting allegations/conspiracy theories don't make fact.


"Help miners reclaim their power"
Sorry? I help miners reclaim their power by blocking them from my pool? - how about miners are adults and can make their own choices? they have the power to choose, how is forcing a choice on them..huh what???
many miners have already used the power they have and moved from GPUMAX, just as they do with any pool or other mining operation they don't feel comfortable with.

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

Pools are not the "Bitcoin police"

I am truly sorry that people have lost money in Pirates venture, I really don't see blocking GPUMAX will help fix that.
best wishes
Graet

The goal is to raise awareness, and possibly create a list of GPUMAX-free pools that people should prefer since they do not have known scammers in control of the coins at any time.

[ShadowAlexey]

Em, this service was brought and presented by pirate. And until it stays so, why not.
This service used money from BS&T to pay to its customers. So it`s not just fellow of pirate, they have shared financial interest.

[Graet]

so
let me get this straight
a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members
the scheme went bad
people lost money (unexpected???)
Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.
Some interesting allegations/conspiracy theories don't make fact.


"Help miners reclaim their power"
Sorry? I help miners reclaim their power by blocking them from my pool? - how about miners are adults and can make their own choices? they have the power to choose, how is forcing a choice on them..huh what???
many miners have already used the power they have and moved from GPUMAX, just as they do with any pool or other mining operation they don't feel comfortable with.

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

Pools are not the "Bitcoin police"

I am truly sorry that people have lost money in Pirates venture, I really don't see blocking GPUMAX will help fix that.
best wishes
Graet

The goal is to raise awareness, and possibly create a list of GPUMAX-free pools that people should prefer since they do not have known scammers in control of the coins at any time.

the logic in this thread confuses me, pirate has nothing to do with my pool nor control over any of my pools coins.
some miners mine on my pool through gpumax and get paid by my pool, when people run leases on my pool they make a user account and get paid for those shares by my pool to the wallet they nominate .
GPUMAX pays miners for leased shares - nothing to do with the pool
tell me what scammer has control of coins on my pool please!!!!

please please I beg of you all do some research into how stuff works before making up imaginary scenarios and inflaming even further the level of crap around this situation

raise awareness? It is a bit hard to miss...

[totaleclipseofthebank]

so
let me get this straight
a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members
the scheme went bad
people lost money (unexpected???)
Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.
Some interesting allegations/conspiracy theories don't make fact.


"Help miners reclaim their power"
Sorry? I help miners reclaim their power by blocking them from my pool? - how about miners are adults and can make their own choices? they have the power to choose, how is forcing a choice on them..huh what???
many miners have already used the power they have and moved from GPUMAX, just as they do with any pool or other mining operation they don't feel comfortable with.

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

Pools are not the "Bitcoin police"

I am truly sorry that people have lost money in Pirates venture, I really don't see blocking GPUMAX will help fix that.
best wishes
Graet

The goal is to raise awareness, and possibly create a list of GPUMAX-free pools that people should prefer since they do not have known scammers in control of the coins at any time.

the logic in this thread confuses me, pirate has nothing to do with my pool nor control over any of my pools coins.
some miners mine on my pool through gpumax and get paid by my pool, when people run leases on my pool they make a user account and get paid for those shares by my pool to the wallet they nominate .
GPUMAX pays miners for leased shares - nothing to do with the pool
tell me what scammer has control of coins on my pool please!!!!

please please I beg of you all do some research into how stuff works before making up imaginary scenarios and inflaming even further the level of crap around this situation

raise awareness? It is a bit hard to miss...

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

[organofcorti]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

[totaleclipseofthebank]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

risk of GPUMAX operators having control over your hashing power...

[Graet]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

risk of GPUMAX operators having control over your hashing power...

organofcorti doesn't mine
risk of what?
please re-read the second line of my last post
thank you

[organofcorti]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

risk of GPUMAX operators having control over your hashing power...

organofcorti doesn't mine
risk of what?
please re-read the second line of my last post
thank you

I still don't understand where the risk is.Sorry if I'm being dense, but I don't see how a proxy pool can affect anything other than a pool's hashrate (and probably the number of stales submitted). What am I missing, Graet?

[Graet]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

risk of GPUMAX operators having control over your hashing power...

organofcorti doesn't mine
risk of what?
please re-read the second line of my last post
thank you

I still don't understand where the risk is.Sorry if I'm being dense, but I don't see how a proxy pool can affect anything other than a pool's hashrate (and probably the number of stales submitted). What am I missing, Graet?

the same thing I am I think
I really don't follow the logic of most of this thread

I see people are angry at Pirate, I don't see how banning GPUMAX from my pool will help anything, and stuff about scammers having control of pool funds are just baseless accusations aimed at innocent pool operators to try increase the level of hysteria

Please keep the Pools subforum to verifiable facts guys, there are plenty of places in these forums to speculate on all sorts of stuff

[DutchBrat]

Obviously there would be no real risk unless a very large percentage of the pool was using GPUMAX, which is unlikely.

Risk of what?

risk of GPUMAX operators having control over your hashing power...

organofcorti doesn't mine
risk of what?
please re-read the second line of my last post
thank you

I still don't understand where the risk is.Sorry if I'm being dense, but I don't see how a proxy pool can affect anything other than a pool's hashrate (and probably the number of stales submitted). What am I missing, Graet?

the same thing I am I think
I really don't follow the logic of most of this thread

I see people are angry at Pirate, I don't see how banning GPUMAX from my pool will help anything, and stuff about scammers having control of pool funds are just baseless accusations aimed at innocent pool operators to try increase the level of hysteria

Please keep the Pools subforum to verifiable facts guys, there are plenty of places in these forums to speculate on all sorts of stuff

Reasoning:

1. Pirate controls GPUMAX
2. Pirate profits from GPUMAX
3. People are mad at Pirate
4. People don't want Pirate to profit from anything
5. People ask pool-operators to ban GPUMAX so Pirate has nowhere to direct it's hashes
6. Pirate does not profit anymore

My 3 bitcoins worth of Psych 1-0-1

[Puppet]

I dont think its up to pool ops to take position on this. What if Pirate had a mining operation, should pool ops ban him? What if pirate buys hashrate from gigavps, should pools ban giga?

Miners can vote with their feet and stop using gpumax (at current prices, its no big loss), but I think its unreasonable to demand pool ops to do this.

[zyk]

I dont think its up to pool ops to take position on this. What if Pirate had a mining operation, should pool ops ban him? What if pirate buys hashrate from gigavps, should pools ban giga?

Miners can vote with their feet and stop using gpumax (at current prices, its no big loss), but I think its unreasonable to demand pool ops to do this.

Its all about the BCST accounting as it shared, shares wallets with GPUmax. It should be eliminated as long as the trails of the loot are not obvious.

Its in the interest of the means to a fair judgement communitywise , when the die is cast.

My two coins

Zyk

[HDSolar]

My POV:

Pirate40 + GPUMax involvement or control = Trust?

Got sent an account access approval on the 9th when things were going to happen in the whole repayment farce and so checked it out but basically I am staying far away.

I would think we would want to promote more trusted ops then non-trusted ops but I get why some feel it should be left alone.

[max in montreal]

This is a funny argument. It's not a question of trust. It is allowing a known scammer to make money. Graet, by allowing gpumax to connect to your pool, you are helping gpumax do its thing. If gpumax can do its thing pirate still profits.

ON THE OTHER HAND...If I had a pool, I would not change a thing, because like you, I am a little greedy and I would not want to see people leave my pool because they think gpumax is more valuable than my pool. there are many different pools to choose from, but only one gpumax.

The right thing to do would be to stop gpumax from using your pool to profit, even though this migh lower the members using your pool. BUT...if people that do not mine using gpumax see and agree that this is the honest thing to do, they might just join your pool...

On the other other hand...what is taking so long for someone to come up with something similar to gpumax?

[bulanula]

+1 I used GPUMAX and could trace some coins from BTCST wallets to GPUMAX payments.

This is simply a laundry for the pirate, make no mistake about that.

[imsaguy]

+1 I used GPUMAX and could trace some coins from BTCST wallets to GPUMAX payments.

This is simply a laundry for the pirate, make no mistake about that.

Only partially.  Basically, it could be a laundry for anyone.  You pay for your lease with dirty coins.  Your lease provides coins from the pool which are probably clean. 

[nathanghart]

Here are some facts:
* Pirate owes a great deal of money and has defaulted.
* Pirate has not communicated a repayment plan since his first announcement that said it should take a week.
* Pirate is one of the original investors, founders and at one time a director in GPUMAX, LLC.

We are all free to make our own choices and that is great. It's fine if pool ops don't care whether they do business with someone who is an accused and suspected scammer.
What I can't seem to make sense of is that while they are hiding behind freedom of choice for their pool members, they are denying their own freedom of choice. Pool ops are smart people in general. I don't think they would purposely deny their freedom of choice.

They should just say, " I care more about making money than the community, or potential victims or a scam" than to use lame excuses like adults are free to do what they want or they don't have to take part.

It's not about the miners. It's about you pool op. What is your choice? Community or profit? Victims or self? Justice or Money?

I'd like to know so I can make mine when selecting a pool.

 

[fcmatt]

Most pool operators wont agree to this because they are greedy. Helping to shut down an operation that pirate was involved in will cost them a few bucks.

[the_thing]

This obsession with everything related to Pirate is becoming both stupid and counterproductive.

Guys, it's time to move on.

[DonShrents]

This is beyond silly. Asking a community without walls to block access for a service that people willingly choose to feed is anti-Bitcoin.

If those same pool operators do and have in the past, blocked access by Botnets, then I don't see why they choose to remain on the fence this time.

By them choosing to do nothing, they are saying loud and clear that they passively support fraud that affects the community.

~DonShrents

[DonShrents]

Well, if this was a social experiment by Trendon Shavers to expose greed on nearly every level of Bitcoin, then he has succeeded.
Greedy Investors, Greedy Miners, Greedy Pool Operators.

It's now clear that the spirit of Bitcoin is, freedom to advance, whatever the cost and it clearly doesn't matter who it affects.
You can argue all day long that BTCST Investors were the worst, due to the size of their losses, yet everyone else seems to be fine to continue to be a part of this scam and justify their continued participation by the minimal size of what they continue to risk.

Great job people. You should all be proud.

~DonShrents

[Graet]

Don,
what a crock of shit
Greedy people INVESTED in Pirates scheme and AS EXPECTED (by all the  non greedy people that advised against investing) they lost their money
so NOW everyone else is greedy because???
LMFAO
Only 1 pool operator makes a living from running a Bitcoin pool, I offered a fee free mining service for 14months before introducing fees when faced with closing the pool as I could not afford to subsidise it any more (I had hoped miners would contribute a little back to a service they liked - most did not)- does this makes me a greedy person? - or should I have mortgaged my house to continue subsidising miners??? would that make me non-greedy in your eyes?
It is easy to hide behind an anonymous nick and sling mud eh.
Once again some research and facts will strengthen your case or maybe even give you one....



Look I know you guys hate pirate, I don't know him well enough to like or dislike him
I did my due diligence and did not invest in ANY of his operation or passthrus - I do not now feel it is my duty to help people recover inadvisedly invested funds.
There are organisations with skills and resources to do this work, please contact them.

Has anyone commenced any legal proceedings? - seriously has anyone? or is this a lynch mob?
As I said previously if contacted by law enforcement I will comply if possible but vilification and lies on a forum are unlikely to get me to comply.

Talk to the miners that support GPUMAX, or the (very few) people purchasing leases on GPUMAX - they are the feeding GPUMAX money, attacking pool operators and spreading lies does nothing good for Bitcoin.
There are many ways to avoid poolside bans too, I do not have time or interest in playing IP whack-a-mole, some miners already mine direct on Ozcoin with most of their rigs but have them setup to move to GPUMAX on lease - my banning gpumax affects nothing here.



who is DonShrents anyway? google says its pirate
Is this person to be trusted and listened to?
Date Registered:   September 07, 2012, 12:32:15 PM
I see
Guess I should have looked at that before responding 1st time

Best wishes
Graet
(for those interested my real name and business details are still listed in the 1st post of the Ozcoin thread)

[DeathAndTaxes]

Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.

Um isn't that kinda minimalizing it.  Pirate owns GPUMAX, he always had.  He never hid that fact.  Not sure what "legal justification" has to do with it.   Pirate has no legal right to connect to your pool (private property).  You don't need any legal justification to tell a third party they can't connect to your server.  Do you require a court order to kick botnets from your pool?  I mean a pool is private property why hide behind a need for "legal justification"?

If you answer is no ... why not just say no. Pretending Pirate, the same guy who defrauded millions, doesn't own and profit from GPUMAX is kinda lame though.   I mean if nothing else the fact that he has absolutely no ethical standards should make people at least question if it is a good idea for a significant fraction of global hashing power to be in his (indirect) hands.  Right?

BTW: Never invested or lost anything in Pirate stupidly transparent ponzi scheme and have little symathy for those who did despite the overwhelming evidence that it would end exactly how it ended.  None of this has anything to do with getting funds back from victims or seeking vengance.  It is about pools not associating with a known scammer (possibly the biggest one in Bitcoin history).

[DeathAndTaxes]

Which I think it a .... load.  So ozcoin supports suspected botnets?  trojan horse infected miners?  Does it wait for a court order signed by a judge before kicking malicious users.

[Graet]

omg now lets really twist everyones words up

Has anyone reported this to relevant authorities anywhere?
Are all these hurt people actually doing anything to recover their own funds? Or are they hoping everyone else will do it for them?



If not this thread has  no point
make up all the lies you want,

Just looks like people trying to shift responsibility.

DeathAndTaxes when you trade Bitcoins do you check whether they were mined with a botnet? or a GPUMAX account? check they have never been part of a theft or ponzi or anything or just accept them? I guess most of the people you trade with use anon nicks and sometimes hide behind proxies etc - are you sure you aren't associating with known scammers?
it is very easy on a pool with open signups to make a new account from a new IP for anyone with half a clue. I think I mentioned whack-a-mole before...and a lack of interest in wasting my time on it...

I will leave you a something to ponder on:
where is the "miners please stop mining on GPUMAX thread" and the "gamblers please stop purchasing leases at GPUMAX thread?" why is it pool ops responsibility?

his thread is pointless and I will leave now
Peace
Graet

[Minor]

{ ... Something about GPUMAX ...}

Thank you for your time.

~DonShrents

Hey Matthew, I thought you said you were going away:

I will now leave how I came.

Did I miss your coming back party?

(If you have any doubt that DonShrents ==Matthew N. Wright, see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102918.msg1169904#msg1169904 )

Note that I don't mind Matthew sticking around, in fact I usually rather enjoy his posts, but wasn't the whole point of his bet that he would get a scammer tag if he lost and didn't pay?
His sock-puppets should also get the scammer tag otherwise it kinda defeats the purpose.

[bitlane]

I was thinking about mining on Ozcoin, but I heard that they support scammers, fraud and illegal botnets....although I could be wrong. Perhaps I need some red oversized text to help get the point across to me  

So basically what the Ozcoin OP is saying is, he will kick a botnet if it affects HIS pool's performance and HIS bottom line, but he will allow scammers and fraudsters to stay connected and access his pool although they have negatively affected an entire community ?

Please tell me that you are not part of a Neighborhood Watch program at home where you live, because I would feel sorry for the protection you were offering to your neighbors when they weren't at home to protect their own homes....lol

Let me think out loud (or in text) here for a minute:

Block GPUMAX access---->Force miners to connect directly to their pools, as no work gets passed through = Tons of hashing power able to be directed anywhere HE wishes, is taken out of the control of a known scammer and as D&T said, perhaps the biggest (paraphrase) Douchebag in Bitcoin history ?

Hey Graet. Imagine that you have a young wife and a young son. Your wife's Gynecologist (you know, pussy Doctor) is your son's baseball coach on the side and physically abuses your son, say, in a 'private' nature. Would you still allow him to work on your wife's private parts because 1 has nothing to do with the other ?

[totaleclipseofthebank]

Hey Graet. Imagine that you have a young wife and a young son. Your wife's Gynecologist (you know, pussy Doctor) is your son's baseball coach on the side and physically abuses your son, say, in a 'private' nature. Would you still allow him to work on your wife's private parts because 1 has nothing to do with the other ?

lmao

[flower1024]

I was thinking about mining on Ozcoin, but I heard that they support scammers, fraud and illegal botnets....although I could be wrong. Perhaps I need some red oversized text to help get the point across to me 

So basically what the Ozcoin OP is saying is, he will kick a botnet if it affects HIS pool's performance and HIS bottom line, but he will allow scammers and fraudsters to stay connected and access his pool although they have negatively affected an entire community ?

Please tell me that you are not part of a Neighborhood Watch program at home where you live, because I would feel sorry for the protection you were offering to your neighbors when they weren't at home to protect their own homes....lol

Let me think out loud (or in text) here for a minute:

Block GPUMAX access---->Force miners to connect directly to their pools, as no work gets passed through = Tons of hashing power able to be directed anywhere HE wishes, is taken out of the control of a known scammer and as D&T said, perhaps the biggest (paraphrase) Douchebag in Bitcoin history ?

Hey Graet. Imagine that you have a young wife and a young son. Your wife's Gynecologist (you know, pussy Doctor) is your son's baseball coach on the side and physically abuses your son, say, in a 'private' nature. Would you still allow him to work on your wife's private parts because 1 has nothing to do with the other ?

why dont you leave bitcoin because it is used for scamming?
why do you use fiat - its also used by scammers?
do you want to grocery to not sell food to scammers?

if no: whats your point again?

[muyuu]

Don,
what a crock of shit
Greedy people INVESTED in Pirates scheme and AS EXPECTED (by all the  non greedy people that advised against investing) they lost their money
so NOW everyone else is greedy because???
LMFAO
Only 1 pool operator makes a living from running a Bitcoin pool, I offered a fee free mining service for 14months before introducing fees when faced with closing the pool as I could not afford to subsidise it any more (I had hoped miners would contribute a little back to a service they liked - most did not)- does this makes me a greedy person? - or should I have mortgaged my house to continue subsidising miners??? would that make me non-greedy in your eyes?
It is easy to hide behind an anonymous nick and sling mud eh.
Once again some research and facts will strengthen your case or maybe even give you one....



Look I know you guys hate pirate, I don't know him well enough to like or dislike him
I did my due diligence and did not invest in ANY of his operation or passthrus - I do not now feel it is my duty to help people recover inadvisedly invested funds.
There are organisations with skills and resources to do this work, please contact them.

Has anyone commenced any legal proceedings? - seriously has anyone? or is this a lynch mob?
As I said previously if contacted by law enforcement I will comply if possible but vilification and lies on a forum are unlikely to get me to comply.

Talk to the miners that support GPUMAX, or the (very few) people purchasing leases on GPUMAX - they are the feeding GPUMAX money, attacking pool operators and spreading lies does nothing good for Bitcoin.
There are many ways to avoid poolside bans too, I do not have time or interest in playing IP whack-a-mole, some miners already mine direct on Ozcoin with most of their rigs but have them setup to move to GPUMAX on lease - my banning gpumax affects nothing here.



who is DonShrents anyway? google says its pirate
Is this person to be trusted and listened to?
Date Registered:   September 07, 2012, 12:32:15 PM
I see
Guess I should have looked at that before responding 1st time

Best wishes
Graet
(for those interested my real name and business details are still listed in the 1st post of the Ozcoin thread)

Nobody is denying people scammed by Pirate have a part of the responsibility for it. What DonShrents (newly created user/sockpuppet after the Pirate scam, obviously) is saying makes all the sense in the world.

We know Pirate is a scammer. You can ban his operation from your pool, and you don't need any justification to do so. It's simply your choice, nothing to do with the law or anything. Stop diverting the issue, you either choose to ban a known malicious user (nobody is asking you to do lengthy research in finding out who's malicious or not, they are just pointing you to one) or you choose to ignore the issue.

Again, nobody is saying this is a legal obligation. They are just asking pool operators to go ahead and help stop feeding scammers bitcoins a little bit.

Freedom also means freedom to suggest, organise and act. If you knowingly continue supporting GPUMAX indirectly, that's simply your choice. Don't make it a matter of not being legally forced to do it.

As for your question "has anyone reported this to relevant authorities anywhere?", apparently yes. Not that it matters in the slightest for the issue at hand.

[Transisto]

How is this going to help you get your BTC and how little profit do you think GPUMAX generate ?

I support your cause but As a GPUMAX miner,,, Moving my miners to another pool = to much work, and at this time of low profitability, I do not even bother reviving dead rig within a week or so.

I promise to move elsewhere once I get my ASICs.

In the meanwhile,  The same could be said of anyone attending the London conference, or using Intersango exchange.

[muyuu]

How is this going to help you get your BTC and how little profit do you think GPUMAX generate ?

I support your cause but As a GPUMAX miner,,, Moving my miners to another pool = to much work, and at this time of low profitability, I do not even bother reviving dead rig within a week or so.

I promise to move elsewhere once I get my ASICs.

In the meanwhile,  The same could be said of anyone attending the London conference, or using Intersango exchange.

It will help changing his attitude and that of his associates. I'd say it's a good idea (and I never put a single coin in any HYIP scam).

As for the London conference and Intersango, these belong to a radically different issue. One thing is a scam, the other was by the looks of it just criminal negligence. Since these people run a registered business that's fully responsible for all their operations, normal legal procedures apply. Don't look there for justification. Also, if you choose to boycott the London Conference that's also respectable, many have done so.

That's why it would be preferable to have pools banning GPUMAX miners, because there are too many lazy bastards out there who simply won't bother doing anything at all.  I'd rather turn my rig off to be honest, than to mine for Pirate. Especially if profitability is so low it's not worth even dedicating 5 minutes changing the miner's config.

[Graet]

I was thinking about mining on Ozcoin, but I heard that they support scammers, fraud and illegal botnets....although I could be wrong. Perhaps I need some red oversized text to help get the point across to me  

So basically what the Ozcoin OP is saying is, he will kick a botnet if it affects HIS pool's performance and HIS bottom line, but he will allow scammers and fraudsters to stay connected and access his pool although they have negatively affected an entire community ?

Please tell me that you are not part of a Neighborhood Watch program at home where you live, because I would feel sorry for the protection you were offering to your neighbors when they weren't at home to protect their own homes....lol

Let me think out loud (or in text) here for a minute:

Block GPUMAX access---->Force miners to connect directly to their pools, as no work gets passed through = Tons of hashing power able to be directed anywhere HE wishes, is taken out of the control of a known scammer and as D&T said, perhaps the biggest (paraphrase) Douchebag in Bitcoin history ?

Hey Graet. Imagine that you have a young wife and a young son. Your wife's Gynecologist (you know, pussy Doctor) is your son's baseball coach on the side and physically abuses your son, say, in a 'private' nature. Would you still allow him to work on your wife's private parts because 1 has nothing to do with the other ?

wtf?
another that has never spoken to me nor asked about policies or anything to do with my life just making up stuff...the words you are trying to put onto my mouth are not mine.
I heard lots of stuff about bitlane - but I form my own judgements and don't make up lies about him and post them in the forum ...

still no thread asking miners and gamblers to stop using gpumax - why not target everyone "associated" as you people call it,are the exchanges cooperating and giving "scammed coins" back to scammed people are they not "associated" too? why just pool ops?
easy target for fud?
I would be interested by the meaning you attach to "associated"
associated like a business partner  or associated like a customer and a supermarket?

If there is legal action being taken against GPUMAX LLC I would love to hear from the relevant authorities and on their request will spend the time and resources to block GPUMAX from Ozcoin.
In the past Ozcoin Pooled Mining Pty Ltd has complied with requests from agencies of the law to ban botnets and has assisted users infected by botnets that have contacted us on ways to remove the offending software from the machine with advice to contact local authorities. Even tried to point out the positive aspect of BTC to some.


once again there is no effective way to ban gpumax without playing "whack a mole"
gpumax has barely been leasing, hardly anyone buying shares it is dieing its own death....
If this actually is MNW I just lost the last shred of respect I had for the man.

I will respectfully ask that anyone else wanting to post defamatory comments to PM me with their real name and street address for ease of serving legal papers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

thank you
Graet

[bitlane]

How is this going to help you get your BTC and how little profit do you think GPUMAX generate ?

It's simply a matter of principal.

How many Jews do you know that today proudly drive a VW Beetle ? or perhaps even a Porsche ?

[totaleclipseofthebank]

How is this going to help you get your BTC and how little profit do you think GPUMAX generate ?

It's simply a matter of principal.

How many Jews do you know that today proudly drive a VW Beetle ? or perhaps even a Porsche ?

[bitlane]

wtf?
another that has never spoken to me nor asked about policies or anything to do with my life just making up stuff...the words you are trying to put onto my mouth are not mine.
I heard lots of stuff about bitlane - but I form my own judgements and don't make up lies about him and post them in the forum ...

still no thread asking miners and gamblers to stop using gpumax - why not target everyone "associated" as you people call it,are the exchanges cooperating and giving "scammed coins" back to scammed people are they not "associated" too? why just pool ops?
easy target for fud?
I would be interested by the meaning you attach to "associated"
associated like a business partner  or associated like a customer and a supermarket?

If there is legal action being taken against GPUMAX LLC I would love to hear from the relevant authorities and on their request will spend the time and resources to block GPUMAX from Ozcoin.
In the past Ozcoin Pooled Mining Pty Ltd has complied with requests from agencies of the law to ban botnets and has assisted users infected by botnets that have contacted us on ways to remove the offending software from the machine with advice to contact local authorities. Even tried to point out the positive aspect of BTC to some.


once again there is no effective way to ban gpumax without playing "whack a mole"
gpumax has barely been leasing, hardly anyone buying shares it is dieing its own death....
If this actually is MNW I just lost the last shred of respect I had for the man.

I will respectfully ask that anyone else wanting to post defamatory comments to PM me with their real name and street address for ease of serving legal papers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

thank you
Graet

So... you  are not a man of Principals then ?

[Graet]

wtf?
another that has never spoken to me nor asked about policies or anything to do with my life just making up stuff...the words you are trying to put onto my mouth are not mine.
I heard lots of stuff about bitlane - but I form my own judgements and don't make up lies about him and post them in the forum ...

still no thread asking miners and gamblers to stop using gpumax - why not target everyone "associated" as you people call it,are the exchanges cooperating and giving "scammed coins" back to scammed people are they not "associated" too? why just pool ops?
easy target for fud?
I would be interested by the meaning you attach to "associated"
associated like a business partner  or associated like a customer and a supermarket?

If there is legal action being taken against GPUMAX LLC I would love to hear from the relevant authorities and on their request will spend the time and resources to block GPUMAX from Ozcoin.
In the past Ozcoin Pooled Mining Pty Ltd has complied with requests from agencies of the law to ban botnets and has assisted users infected by botnets that have contacted us on ways to remove the offending software from the machine with advice to contact local authorities. Even tried to point out the positive aspect of BTC to some.


once again there is no effective way to ban gpumax without playing "whack a mole"
gpumax has barely been leasing, hardly anyone buying shares it is dieing its own death....
If this actually is MNW I just lost the last shred of respect I had for the man.

I will respectfully ask that anyone else wanting to post defamatory comments to PM me with their real name and street address for ease of serving legal papers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

thank you
Graet

So... you  are not a man of Principals then ?

I believe I have already shown the Bitcoin "community" I am.
Defamation/vilification/lies and FUD will not change that

[makomk]

still no thread asking miners and gamblers to stop using gpumax - why not target everyone "associated" as you people call it,are the exchanges cooperating and giving "scammed coins" back to scammed people are they not "associated" too? why just pool ops?
easy target for fud?

GPUMAX and BS&T are more than merely just "associated" - they're run from the same wallet by the same person. The initial lot of payments from BS&T after it closed down also appear to have been made using funds laundered through GPUMAX in a way that isn't available to normal users of GPUMAX (they were mined on a private pool that wasn't used for anything else, which isn't normally allowed).

Also, people have been seeing shares mysteriously go missing on the way to their pools and someone may mistakenly blame you or the other pool owners for their drop in earnings.

[Graet]

still no thread asking miners and gamblers to stop using gpumax - why not target everyone "associated" as you people call it,are the exchanges cooperating and giving "scammed coins" back to scammed people are they not "associated" too? why just pool ops?
easy target for fud?

GPUMAX and BS&T are more than merely just "associated" - they're run from the same wallet by the same person. The initial lot of payments from BS&T after it closed down also appear to have been made using funds laundered through GPUMAX in a way that isn't available to normal users of GPUMAX (they were mined on a private pool that wasn't used for anything else, which isn't normally allowed).

Also, people have been seeing shares mysteriously go missing on the way to their pools and someone may mistakenly blame you or the other pool owners for their drop in earnings.

I am being told I am associated with Pirate because some GPUMAX users mine on my pool as their backup pool when there are no leases running - I am trying to get some clarification of this alleged "association".

I guess some people missed the bit where I explained how easy it was for miners to mine on Ozcoin direct and switch to GPUMAX when a lease started? Making time and effort taken to block GPUMAX wasted anyway.
with respect wouldn't the pools blocking gpumax force them to only mine on their "private pool" would this actually help?

for sometime now when users have complained about stale or "missing" or whatever shares when mining through GPUMAX or any other proxy I have asked them to mine directly on Ozcoin to see if it was a pool issue or not -for those that did issues went away and were not Ozcoin related. Pretty easy to avoid that blame angle I am sure other pool operators have experienced the same

[DutchBrat]

Funny how everyone is blasting Graet because he is the only pool operator to actually take a stance

Whereas I have seen none of the others comment in this thread or anywhere else saying they would ban GPUMAX

Users will always find a dealer, so go after the users not the dealers

the United States war on drugs has made that much clear

[muyuu]

Again, nobody is saying you have an obligation to do it. You can just go ahead and do it if you wish, but the rationale is already clear.

If you simply want to leave the choice to users that's just a stance like any other. The only association you may have is that you are knowingly allowing it, that's all. To each his own with the interpretation of that.

[totaleclipseofthebank]

Funny how everyone is blasting Graet because he is the only pool operator to actually take a stance

Whereas I have seen none of the others comment in this thread or anywhere else saying they would ban GPUMAX

Users will always find a dealer, so go after the users not the dealers

the United States war on drugs has made that much clear

This is such an unnecessarily antagonistic thread. Pool ops have no obligation to do anything about GPUmax, although it would be nice if they would. Same thing with miners. There is no reason to act like Graet or anyone else is some outrageous person for not going out of their way to block it.

[organofcorti]

This is ridiculous. I doubt any pro posters apart from D&T even mine.

If you do, start asking the miners not to use GPUMax to proxy their shares. Or provide a better proxying service. Or something. Asking pool operators to ban a service on ideological grounds is a slippery slope.

If you want to show your support for this proposal and you mine, then why not boycott all pools that don't ban GPUMax? If enough miners go back to solo mining you might change their minds. However, I think your time will be better spent convincing miners not to use GPUMax, rather than forcing policing powers on pool operators.

Bitlane, I usually enjoy your vitriol and it's often aimed in directions I find amusing. I do not find it amusing when you when you attempt to slight the character of a man who has done far more for the mining community than you are ever likely to, and has always looked out for his miners and miners in general. Why not direct your rage at all pool ops? Or is it just that you like to pick on victim at a time because it's easier?

I challenge the OP to start a "Miners, don't mine using GPUMax" thread and hash it out with the people using the proxy.

[bitlane]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I think it's great the way that Trendon has screwed over nearly half this forum community and continues to profit off the other half in an attempt to further prove just how stupid people are when it comes to being overpowered by greed.

What's even better is the fact that the same people that call the BTCST Investors IDIOTS for investing in a so-called 'Ponzi' are most of the same ones using GPUMAX ...still today.

Let me put it a bit more bluntly...
The same people that have laughed at many of us for taking it in the ass from Trendon, are the same ones with his balls resting on their chins right now.

I am done vilifying Trendon. He is a genius. If he writes a book, you can bet I will be the first one to purchase an autographed copy.

From now on, not only will I turn a blind eye to Scammers in this community, in regards to their past 'victories' but I will do everything in my power to support them to continue to be a part of this community using the precedent that has been set here today.

It's all OK....I say, 'Scam Away' !

[organofcorti]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I think it's great the way that Trendon has screwed over nearly half this forum community and continues to profit off the other half in an attempt to further prove just how stupid people are when it comes to being overpowered by greed.

What's even better is the fact that the same people that call the BTCST Investors IDIOTS for investing in a so-called 'Ponzi' are most of the same ones using GPUMAX ...still today.

Let me put it a bit more bluntly...
The same people that have laughed at many of us for taking it in the ass from Trendon, are the same ones with his balls resting on their chins right now.

I am done vilifying Trendon. He is a genius. If he writes a book, you can bet I will be the first one to purchase an autographed copy.

From now on, not only will I turn a blind eye to Scammers in this community, in regards to their past 'victories' but I will do everything in my power to support them to continue to be a part of this community using the precedent that has been set here today.

It's all OK....I say, 'Scam Away' !

Strawman.

You're not responding to any comments, you're just making up things against which you can argue. Try again?

[Serenata]

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

If person A helps a thief (I suppose you can't argue on the fact that pirate -up to now- appears to be a thief, and that GPUMax is owned by pirate, can you?) would you trust person A? I wouldn’t. In fact I'd expect more or less the same from him as well.

Pool operators who accept people's shares through GPUMax, to my understanding, help GPUMax make money (with whatever it is that GPUMax is doing). The same goes for other services as well. I don't know though how hard or easy it is to block GPUMax or for exchanges to not accept coins from pirate's GPUMax' wallet.

How about us, miners, decide what pool to mine on? I'd sure wouldn't mind moving pools, if my pool operator decided not to block GPUMax. Purely democratic; people decide (both operators and miners).

Another point...
Lets not forget that if one steals from a not-so-smart person (like>

a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members

) he's still considered a thief, isn't he? (by the way, if people COULD afford to lose their money, would that make it OK for anyone to deceive them? ). Let me take it into another context... If you leave your front door wide open and thieves break into your house, would you consider yourself the only one responsible and wouldn't do anything else?

What I'm saying is that at this point, it doesn't really matter if people were stupid/silly/greedy/anything. What matters is that one person did something completely wrong to a lot of people. This person needs to either correct his mistake or pay for it.

Now, about the going to the authorities part... I think this thread is NOT about people getting their coins back. We discuss about if it's a good idea or not, to NOT help a thief continue with his business and how we could accomplish that.

The best thing to do, in my opinion, is for people to decide to use or not GPUMax.

Graet, please don't see my post as a personal attack on you, as these are by far NOT my intentions. I may disagree with some of your points but that doesn’t change the fact that I recognize you as a respectful member of this community. As already mentioned above, only the fact that you took a stand for your opinion, although you could have quietly done nothing, shows a lot already.

[organofcorti]

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

If person A helps a thief (I suppose you can't argue on the fact that pirate -up to now- appears to be a thief, and that GPUMax is owned by pirate, can you?) would you trust person A? I wouldn’t. In fact I'd expect more or less the same from him as well.

Pool operators who accept people's shares through GPUMax, to my understanding, help GPUMax make money (with whatever it is that GPUMax is doing). The same goes for other services as well. I don't know though how hard or easy it is to block GPUMax or for exchanges to not accept coins from pirate's GPUMax' wallet.

I think the main "persons A" to which you refer are miners. They are paying for a service with GPUMax. This is nothing to do with pool ops, and everything to do with miners. Try to convince the majority of the people you think are thieves - the GPUMax users.

[Graet]

well the people "helping the thief" are the ones still buying shares and miners leasing them
the pools that still run exploitable payout systems are the ones leases most often run on

like I said before people don't buy leases to run on Ozcoin anymore (leases are where gpumax make their money) the only thing happening is some miners that use gpumax to manage their miners are using Ozcoin as a backup pool.
as I have pointed out before it is trivial for miners and gpumax to get around bans

I am not helping any thief make money, sorry to dispel illusions
best
Graet

[bitlane]

Graet, are you really that THICK ?

I don't think this has anything to do with purchases. I read the thread title and understood the request right away.

STOP PASSTHROUGH WORK FORCING MINERS TO LEAVE GPUMAX BECAUSE NO WORK GETS RELAYED, TAKING THE POWER OUT OF TRENDON'S HANDS.

...NOT 'help us get our money back'....NOT "stop purchases'.....NOT EVEN CLOSE.

[organofcorti]

Graet, are you really that THICK ?

I don't think this has anything to do with purchases. I read the thread title and understood the request right away.

STOP PASSTHROUGH WORK FORCING MINERS TO LEAVE GPUMAX BECAUSE NO WORK GETS RELAYED, TAKING THE POWER OUT OF TRENDON'S HANDS.

...NOT 'help us get our money back'....NOT "stop purchases'.....NOT EVEN CLOSE.

You would fix the problem at it's source if you convinced miners not to use GPUMax.

If you're going to target pool ops anyway, why not target the ones receiving the lion's share of GPUMax work. As Graet said, his pool is rarely used by GPUMax.

[Graet]

Graet, are you really that THICK ?

I don't think this has anything to do with purchases. I read the thread title and understood the request right away.

STOP PASSTHROUGH WORK FORCING MINERS TO LEAVE GPUMAX BECAUSE NO WORK GETS RELAYED, TAKING THE POWER OUT OF TRENDON'S HANDS.

...NOT 'help us get our money back'....NOT "stop purchases'.....NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Dear bitlane why do you persist in spreading misinformation?
I used to value some of your input, unfortunately you are missing the mark on this occasion.

I am convinced you are not reading what I am typing, responding with the same words again seems pointless.

something I haven't said
many miners are already part mining on gpumax (1 rig )while keeping the bulk of their hashrate on various pools, they switch to gpumax when leases start. they have had this setup for some time now due to some bad stale issues. banning gpumax at the pool would have no real effect on these miners and others would soon duplicate what they are doing - it is even automated on miners side.

another fact you might not be aware of, the hashrate drop for Ozcoin when a lease starts is currently about 70Ghash, it used to be closer to 300Ghash (post introduction of fees) closer to 800Ghash before fees.
I am not sure how much power you imagine gpumax actually get these days...or leases, I idle in their IRC, seems pretty thin pickings...

go wage your war against someone that can actually do something to make a difference.
Thank you
Graet

[makomk]

I guess some people missed the bit where I explained how easy it was for miners to mine on Ozcoin direct and switch to GPUMAX when a lease started? Making time and effort taken to block GPUMAX wasted anyway.

Actually, I did miss that bit. How is it easy to only switch to GPUMAX when a lease starts? From what I can tell, GPUMAX requires you to back every worker you create with a valid, functioning worker login on a pool that GPUMAX obtains work from when no-one's leasing shares - and yes, it does check that the pool configuration you gave it works. There's no way to tell GPUMAX to only send you leased work even though a lot of people have demanded one, and there doesn't seem to be any way for mining software to tell whether the work is from your own pool account or leased either.

[Graet]

I guess some people missed the bit where I explained how easy it was for miners to mine on Ozcoin direct and switch to GPUMAX when a lease started? Making time and effort taken to block GPUMAX wasted anyway.

Actually, I did miss that bit. How is it easy to only switch to GPUMAX when a lease starts? From what I can tell, GPUMAX requires you to back every worker you create with a valid, functioning worker login on a pool that GPUMAX obtains work from when no-one's leasing shares - and yes, it does check that the pool configuration you gave it works. There's no way to tell GPUMAX to only send you leased work even though a lot of people have demanded one, and there doesn't seem to be any way for mining software to tell whether the work is from your own pool account or leased either.

miners leave one rig on GPUMAX usually with a slightly low price and move other rigs to mine direct on their backup pool,
when the rig on gpumax stops mining on the passthrough pool it must be leasing
when gpumax rig is leasing other rigs are set to failover to gpumax ie: start leasing.
most rigs mine direct on backup pool avoiding a higher stale rate for most of the time

I have never had an account on gpumax, the information I have is from the gpumax irc chanel and the rather active #ozcoin chanel on freenode

[DeathAndTaxes]

Funny how everyone is blasting Graet because he is the only pool operator to actually take a stance

While I don't think I blasted Graet as I pointed out if he simply said "no or sorry it isn't worth the effort" that would be fine.  His pool (private property), his rights, his choice. 

The thing drawing the ire is the dubious counterarguments.  Acting like he needs legal action to choose who he lets connect to his pool.   Then pretending that GPUMAX is only loosely associated with Pirate.  That people are jumping on it as a result of guilt by association or some kind of mob justice.

The absurdity of those rebutalls is well .. annoying. I am done but I will leave this:
http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx

Priate (aka Tredon Shavers) is one of three direct owners of GPUMAX.  It is insulting to pretend otherwise.

[Graet]

Funny how everyone is blasting Graet because he is the only pool operator to actually take a stance

While I don't think I blasted Graet as I pointed out if he simply said "no or sorry it isn't worth the effort" that would be fine.  His pool (private property), his rights, his choice. 

The thing drawing the ire is the dubious counterarguments.  Acting like he needs legal action to choose who he lets connect to his pool.   Then pretending that GPUMAX is only loosely associated with Pirate.  That people are jumping on it as a result of guilt by association or some kind of mob justice.

The absurdity of those rebutalls is well .. annoying. I am done but I will leave this:
http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx

Priate (aka Tredon Shavers) is one of three direct owners of GPUMAX.  It is insulting to pretend otherwise.

pretending what?
one of 3? interesting I thought he was 1 of 2...
so he has less control than I thought.
and zuxor does most of the work including running leases and doing payouts. but we can just ignore that....
Obviously the board of gpumax should be voting him off if they want to continue operation.Companies have had scammers on their boards and continued operation after they have been removed. Well I don't know US law but that's my understanding of how it works in my country.
has anyone contacted the govt mob in charge of regulating companies in USA? Surely this would be the strongest lead on pirate? Surely more effective than attacking pools.
In Australia it would be ASIC (no not mining hardware )

I love the backward thinking in this forum....
anyone is allowed to connect to my pool, actually often I have said all miners are welcome at my pool. Please show me where I said "needs legal action to choose who he lets connect to his pool".
to ban miners from my pool because of a lynch mob is unreasonable and will only hurt miners, remember miners - they are the people I set Ozcoin up for, not gpumax or any of the other mobs.
to ban miners when asked by law enforcement is required
you know, companies, legal obligations....stuff a lot of Bitcoiners think do not apply because "like its Bitcoin..."


I'm a bit over it too, should have just ignored the thread from the start like the other pool ops.
but I'm sure someone will want to go round the mulberry bush one more time

I particularly enjoyed bitlanes schoolyard threat - not seen one of them for nigh on 40 years "I was going to mine on your pool but...." what a  load of codswallop lmao
my humour was dampened by the outright fabrications that followed..and I imagine will remain there to be taken out of context by people for a long time to come.

have a nice day
Graet

[makomk]

miners leave one rig on GPUMAX usually with a slightly low price and move other rigs to mine direct on their backup pool,
when the rig on gpumax stops mining on the passthrough pool it must be leasing
when gpumax rig is leasing other rigs are set to failover to gpumax ie: start leasing.
most rigs mine direct on backup pool avoiding a higher stale rate for most of the time

I'm not sure I'd call anything that requires custom-written mining farm management software "easy".

[Graet]

miners leave one rig on GPUMAX usually with a slightly low price and move other rigs to mine direct on their backup pool,
when the rig on gpumax stops mining on the passthrough pool it must be leasing
when gpumax rig is leasing other rigs are set to failover to gpumax ie: start leasing.
most rigs mine direct on backup pool avoiding a higher stale rate for most of the time

I'm not sure I'd call anything that requires custom-written mining farm management software "easy".

depends on your skill level I would suppose, people that are experienced at setting up rigs for hopping and moving from pool to pool when pools have issues might find it fairly simple
apparently APIs are awesome
thing I have noticed - miners help and support each other, wanna hop, go ask someone that hops - they will help you get going, I imagine this situation would be no different
I have ever only mined on 3 pools Slushs when I first started, then Ozcoin and 1 rig on RFC pool for a few hours when they were having a "hell block"
I might not find it easy, but then I have no need or desire.

[amgomez]

so
let me get this straight
a bunch of people invested money they couldn't afford to lose in a "too good to be true scheme" - against the advice of many of the smarter "community" members
the scheme went bad
people lost money (unexpected???)
Now without any legal justification you are asking pool operators to block a Bitcoin business that has done nothing wrong apart from paying miners a few days late a couple of times and being associated with this Pirate fellow.
Some interesting allegations/conspiracy theories don't make fact.


"Help miners reclaim their power"
Sorry? I help miners reclaim their power by blocking them from my pool? - how about miners are adults and can make their own choices? they have the power to choose, how is forcing a choice on them..huh what???
many miners have already used the power they have and moved from GPUMAX, just as they do with any pool or other mining operation they don't feel comfortable with.

Are you saying any pool operators that don't block gpumax are untrusted? if so by who? you?

Pools are not the "Bitcoin police"

I am truly sorry that people have lost money in Pirates venture, I really don't see blocking GPUMAX will help fix that.
best wishes
Graet

+1

Thanks for putting things clear!

As a miner I do not have to pay for your lack of common sense

[the_thing]

Please, stop trying to move the fault for your losses on other people. Graet is not responsible for your losses. It's you and Pirate.
Also it is strange that you're not grilling Goat this hard.

(I'm not a miner, but I couldn't read this thread without expressing support to Graet.)

[abracadabra]

"load of codswallop"

I'll have to google that 

You aussies sure do talk funny

[ChrisKoss]

I'm pretty taken aback by how Graet is being treated in this thread. I found his explanations to be very patient and thoughtful.  Ozcoin is "our competitor" but I feel like some are trying to unfairly turn him into a scapegoat for the BTCST collapse, for which he is not responsible.

The OP of this thread seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how GPUMAX works.  There is intermittent >100%PPS public work, and then private work.  Ozcoin is only getting private work, which means he is effectively running as a failover server.  When Ozcoin gets your mining power through GPUMAX's proxy, that is when GPUMAX is NOT making money (unless GPUMAX is siphoning shares from miners when they are working privately, but that the miner's problem and pool operators couldn't detect if they wanted to).  When GPUMAX is sending shares to Ozcoin they are sent to the miner's own personal account on Ozcoin.  The getworks flow through GPUMAX, but the mined coins flow directly from the pool to the miner. GPUMAX never touches these coins, and gets no financial gain from them.

If a pool operator wants to block GPUMAX they have to:
1. Find someone with a GPUMAX account
2. Get that person to send shares to your pool through GPUMAX (while making sure they send no shares from their own IP, which would give false positives)
3. Inspect which IPs these shares are being submitted from.
4. Block these IPs

This process could take multiple hours to find someone to cooperate and carry out the test.  To get around it, GPUMAX just needs to get a new IP address, which, depending on their ISP, could be as easy as reseting their router. Any method of blocking GPUMAX proxy work could be circumvented in a small fraction of the amount of time needed to figure out which IPs to block. And then you'd have to repeat the whole tedious process all over again.

TL;DR - There is no effective way for a pool operator to block GPUMAX.  GPUMAX could get around any attempt to block them in minutes.

Do I support GPUMAX?  Would I trust that they will forward all my shares? Would I trust they are paying out accurately?  Personally, no.  But these questions should really be addressed to the miners: they are the only ones with the power to stop GPUMAX from profiting from them.  

The only effective way to stop GPUMAX is to convince miners not to use it.  I don't care either way whether anyone chooses to continue using GPUMAX or not: freedom of choice, none of my business.

I completely understand why there is so much anger towards Pirateat40 for stealing so much from the Bitcoin community. However, taking it out on innocent, productive members of the community won't help - it will only fragment us more.  I don't know Graet personally, but from what I have seen of him through the forums, it seems like he's been a rational, benevolent force in the community. He doesn't deserve being made the target of a witch-hunt for explaining why the premise in the OP is flawed.

[AndrewBUD]

GPUmax seemed like a scam to me from day 1. I made my normal amount for my hashing power I was not taking a chance using a service like GPUmax.





Boycott GPUMAX

[Jack1Rip1BurnIt]

I will continue my 2.8 Gh/s on OZCOIN because it is an awesome pool.
To Graet...Keep doin' what your doin'
To the ones that are giving Graet grief...Why aren't you giving Pirate grief? Oh thats right because you can't! That's why you have redirected your anger towards an innocent pool operator that has never had any association with that Trendon fuck. Hell why aren't you all just mad at yourselves for just giving the scam artist more and more bitcoins to bail out with that much faster?

Here's a proposed thread for you to start:
Damn dude why did you have to give him all that shit so fast?!
OP "Leroy" first post- "Shit Johnny I told you not to give him 15,000 bitcoins that fast man! It's all your fault he bailed this soon!!! I'm gonna fuck you up!!!!"
"Johnny" second post - "Hell nah fuck you Leroy! It was the last batch of 10,000 bitcoins you invested that sent him over the edge and made him close up shop! If anyone is gonna get fucked up it's you bitch!"
"Leroy" - "Don't trust Johnny! His fault!!!"
"Johnny" - "Don't trust Leroy! His fault!!!"

To the guy who said he can't believe how people are treating Graet in this thread... forgive me but I have to ask the you a question. Are you really asking that question about a Bitcoin Forum thread?  

[cuz0882]

You guys need to get over it, and take responsibility for your own actions. It was clear to everyone that pirate may have been running a ponzi scheme.

[AndrewBUD]

now that it's known why would people continue to use his service? To fill a scammers pockets some more?



This is supposed to be a community,,, Stop using his stupid GPUMAX... stay on OZcoin or BTCGuild....MTred whatever.. just don't use anything that has PIrate's name attached to it.

[CJGoodings]

Shits hilarious, people are defending BFL the same way they would when somebody called out "scam" back when pirate was still paying out on a regular basis.

Its just part of the cycle of the btc community. Not exactly the brightest bunch, but we still call them family.

[Bit LC Inc.]

Funny, we've banned them just days after their beta-launch.

[AndrewBUD]

Funny, we've banned them just days after their beta-launch.

Banned ? Gpumax ?

[Bit LC Inc.]

I can write the short version of the story:

* I detected a huge increase in hashrate on our pool, and traced it back to GPUMAX (nothing strange there, so far, I've had heard about the service before)
* I checked which account it was mining against (and found that it was a private account by pirate40 (or who ever was/is behind GPUMAX))
* All mining-activity related to that account came directly from the same IP-addresses as GPUMAX used at the time.
* I spoke with pirate40 (I guess?) a year ago or so, in their official IRC channel regarding what was going on, and why he was using his "own" account to mine at our pool, with GPUMAX resources
* He pretty much asked me to fuck off and mind my own business, as he said he didn't do anything "wrong", it was some "load balancing between multiple pools"-feature he said.
* ... which still didn't explain why he was using his own account, and sending the earned funds directly to him self (Or well, his "personal" wallet, i think the IP was showing up on blockchain.info) - Not to anything related to GPUMAX as far as i could see.
* He wrote a few lines privately to me on IRC "trying" to explain "again", but at this time i was so suspicious that i doubted every word he said.
* I asked him a day later, again on exactly what was going on, and he mentioned the same thing about it was a load-balancing between pools - but i didn't really get how exactly his account and his IP became involved in everything - i asked why he was using his "own" account for it - but never got any response.
* I suspected, back then, that he was taking a bit of "extra" hashrate and mined (pool-hopped) to compensate for the 105% earnings (or whatever it was) and to earn some for himself. (Which i honestly still think)
* I issued a firewall ban against all EC2 nodes i could find, associated with GPUMAX, and disabled all related accounts.

Those bans maybe not be effective anymore, things might have changed during the past years, but i know that he disabled https://www.bitlc.net (Bitcoins.lc) on GPUMAX and posted an announcement of it here on the forums.

I never heard from him again.

--
Regards, Jim
Bit LC Inc.
https://www.bitlc.net

[Puppet]

I can write the short version of the story:

* I detected a huge increase in hashrate on our pool, and traced it back to GPUMAX (nothing strange there, so far, I've had heard about the service before)
* I checked which account it was mining against (and found that it was a private account by pirate40 (or who ever was/is behind GPUMAX))
* All mining-activity related to that account came directly from the same IP-addresses as GPUMAX used at the time.
* I spoke with pirate40 (I guess?) a year ago or so, in their official IRC channel regarding what was going on, and why he was using his "own" account to mine at our pool, with GPUMAX resources
* He pretty much asked me to fuck off and mind my own business, as he said he didn't do anything "wrong", it was some "load balancing between multiple pools"-feature he said.
* ... which still didn't explain why he was using his own account, and sending the earned funds directly to him self (Or well, his "personal" wallet, i think the IP was showing up on blockchain.info) - Not to anything related to GPUMAX as far as i could see.
* He wrote a few lines privately to me on IRC "trying" to explain "again", but at this time i was so suspicious that i doubted every word he said.
* I asked him a day later, again on exactly what was going on, and he mentioned the same thing about it was a load-balancing between pools - but i didn't really get how exactly his account and his IP became involved in everything - i asked why he was using his "own" account for it - but never got any response.
* I suspected, back then, that he was taking a bit of "extra" hashrate and mined (pool-hopped) to compensate for the 105% earnings (or whatever it was) and to earn some for himself. (Which i honestly still think)
* I issued a firewall ban against all EC2 nodes i could find, associated with GPUMAX, and disabled all related accounts.

Those bans maybe not be effective anymore, things might have changed during the past years, but i know that he disabled https://www.bitlc.net (Bitcoins.lc) on GPUMAX and posted an announcement of it here on the forums.

I never heard from him again.

--
Regards, Jim
Bit LC Inc.
https://www.bitlc.net

Hmm.. interesting. Was he hopping with it, or just mining nonstop? Either way, it strongly supports my theory that gpumax' biggest customer was pirate himself.

[muyuu]

That's my guess to, but i have to ask.

It was our hopper-detection that found the user, as he begin mining at the start of a round.
So it has to be intentional, either from his or from pirateat40's side.

Update:

We have added the following pool to the non-supported list.

• Bitlc.net - Doesn't Like The HEAT!

[Bit LC Inc.]

As confirmed above, it was GPUMAX (or pirate40, to be precise - even tho I have no real proof for that) that was pool-hopping us, using his own account (registered with a fake e-mail of course).

[cuz0882]

Why would anyone want to earn less by not using gpumax? It's not possible to lose money on it. Even if he stole a days worth of mining, which would be extremely unlikely. Customers would still have earned more then elsewhere. You guys decided to take the risk of investing in something that had ponzi written all over it. The only person you should be mad at is yourselves.

[AndrewBUD]

Why would anyone want to earn less by not using gpumax? It's not possible to lose money on it. Even if he stole a days worth of mining, which would be extremely unlikely. Customers would still have earned more then elsewhere. You guys decided to take the risk of investing in something that had ponzi written all over it. The only person you should be mad at is yourselves.

Why doesn't the majority of the bitcoin network mine with gpumax? To a lot it's very unattractive..

[cuz0882]

Why would anyone want to earn less by not using gpumax? It's not possible to lose money on it. Even if he stole a days worth of mining, which would be extremely unlikely. Customers would still have earned more then elsewhere. You guys decided to take the risk of investing in something that had ponzi written all over it. The only person you should be mad at is yourselves.

Why doesn't the majority of the bitcoin network mine with gpumax? To a lot it's very unattractive..

There has a been a long waiting list to get a gpumax account. Not sure how you conclude people must not want accounts from that.

[AndrewBUD]

? I don't, never did... I put my email in that thing to see how long it took to get an invite. Never used it.

[cuz0882]

? I don't, never did... I put my email in that thing to see how long it took to get an invite. Never used it.

So because you didn't, that must mean everyone else feels the same way? Most people like getting paid extra. I would have at least sold the account if I didn't want to use it. That's another 5 btc right there.

[P_Shep]

I fiannly got a GPUMAX invite the other week... don't think I'll be taking it up.

[Shadow383]

? I don't, never did... I put my email in that thing to see how long it took to get an invite. Never used it.

So because you didn't, that must mean everyone else feels the same way? Most people like getting paid extra. I would have at least sold the account if I didn't want to use it. That's another 5 btc right there.

I actually stopped using mine because it was causing all sorts of problems with miners dropping out...

[ThiagoCMC]

In light of recent events, I would plead to all Pool Operators to Ban and/or Block access to your Mining Pools from the GPUMAX proxy getwork system.

Please show the community at large, that you as a Pool Op will not support a user such as Trendon Shavers (pirateat40) who is responsible for defrauding the community in a theft of Bitcoins worth anywhere from 1 million to 5 million (as claimed by pirate himself) US Dollars.

Trendon has claimed to have the community's 500,000 Bitcoins at his disposal from the failed Bitcoin Savings & Trust fiasco, so please help the community to take a stand.

It seems as though even with the dissapearance of Trendon and the closing and default of Bitcoin Savings & Trust, GPUMAX has been able to continue operating as if nothing had happened. Please help stop it now.

Thank you for your time.

~DonShrents


Addition:

As many users simply refuse to stop using GPUMAX, forcing them to stop, with the lack of steady passthrough work would seal the deal.
On top of this, with GPUMAX being blocked, purchases from this company wouldn't have anywhere to go but a private money laundering pool of GPUMAX's choosing, to mint fresh coins for it's operators. At this point, it's intentions would be clear and not open to further debate, as no pools would accept either public passthrough work or private purchased work from clients.

Thank you again.

This kind of blocking is almost impossible to do.
GPUMax can just change a few networking things (re-routing/default gateways/vpn/proxies/etc) to hit the pools from a varied range of IPs...
I'm still hopping that Pirate will pay back all the money.

Best!
Thiago

[AndrewBUD]

Good luck on that.

[Shadow383]

As confirmed above, it was GPUMAX (or pirate40, to be precise - even tho I have no real proof for that) that was pool-hopping us, using his own account (registered with a fake e-mail of course).

Do you happen to still have some record of the payout address used?

[Intention]

So I've been browsing through here, I find the whole crusade against GPUMAX a little pointless.  Why not ban all proxy pools? What is being asked of pool operators is totally unreasonable in the sense that it can hurt their regular miners (blocking wrong ips etc).  I got caught up in the whole BCTST deal with a pass through losing a massive 20 coins.  Frankly I couldn't care, this service is something different from BTCST so I treat it that way.  I've been using GPUMAX for the last few months and the going is good, granted it has slowed down a lot recently.  As long as there are people purchasing shares (and proportional pools) there will always be work.  Can I tell if the owners are taking a few shares off the top? Honestly not really.  What I do know is that I've always been making more than straight mining somewhere without it.

Why not ask: Pool owners why aren't you paying more? But we all know the answer to that, it's unreasonable to expect them to pay higher rates and not be sustainable.

[organofcorti]

Why not ask: Pool owners why aren't you paying more? But we all know the answer to that, it's unreasonable to expect them to pay higher rates and not be sustainable.

Why aren't they paying more what? And to whom?

[Intention]

Why not ask: Pool owners why aren't you paying more? But we all know the answer to that, it's unreasonable to expect them to pay higher rates and not be sustainable.

Why aren't they paying more what? And to whom?

Sorry I was referring to PPS rates to miners.

Like Graet was saying not many people use it on his pool - I think that holds true mostly for everyone now considering how little public work is being done on the proxy now.  You can more or less effectively "block" this service by not having a proportional pool or just convince people to stop rolling the dice and purchasing the service.

I'm in the process of slowly moving off the service myself simply because the amount of public work I get is next to nil and now there isn't really much of a point any more, however I am not doing this because I feel I was cheated or anything.

[gyverlb]

Wow, just read the whole thread as I use GPUMAX. I was curious about arguments against GPUMAX mining.

My conclusion: a bunch of crybabies that believed in Santa Claus want other people to punish the man for them. So this is about setting up a lynch mob basically. And a pointless one at that: if some of what I read is true, pirateat40 is on top of 500,000 BTC from his scam. If people think that crashing GPUMAX into the ground is going to make any difference, they are down right delusional (as you must have been to believe in a sustainable weekly 7% interest).

As GPUMAX pays regularly the risk of being scammed is very low so I'll continue mining on it, carefully monitoring expected income/actual income. If you really want me to stop, put a similar service up to compete against it or make law enforcement close the service (assuming the law is on your side on this one, good luck with that) otherwise get lost. You already have the legal means to make yourself heard and seek compensation so use them: I'm not part of your personal vendetta squad. In fact in some jurisdictions free market laws make what has been asked here illegal (the irony!).

Miners at GPUMAX don't owe these people anything and personally I don't care about their problems.

[os2sam]

I'm just sick of seeing this thread popup on the pools support board.

[Graet]

as predicted before I stopped reading the fud in this thread, its almost over
topic from #gpumax
pirateat40> GPUMAX will be down on 10/08 at 12:00 AM CST.  The system may or may not come back up depending on the new owners.

miners (for their own reasons) have already been leaving gpumax too

hopefully the pools forum can gt back to pools
oh
wait
it cant
bonuspool is the new hot topic