Re: Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence

[Viceroy]

If those look the same to you, you need to have your eyes checked.  I have owned many many many GPU's and none look the fake rendering provided by BFL.

The BFL version is a REALLY BAD RENDERING where they took a picture of a GPU and superimposed it on a rendered flat object.  (Not unlike the photo-shopped version of the singles they used to sell their last batch of pre-orders).  The fan shown should press up against the face of the card but if you draw a line from the edge of the metal straight back you'll see that the fan is simply a picture on a flat surface... the rendering shows no depth.  It's a camera trick.  The fake image they are showing implies the "gpu" is as much as a 1/4 inch narrower than the metal mount on each side. 

If you look at the fan in the image you supplied that fan would NEVER fit in the fake card the long con company is showing, it is too wide.



BFL is a long con.

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

[BR0KK]

If those look the same to you, you need to have your eyes checked.  I have owned many many many GPU's and none look the fake rendering provided by BFL.

The BFL version is a REALLY BAD RENDERING where they took a picture of a GPU and superimposed it on a rendered flat object.  (Not unlike the photo-shopped version of the singles they used to sell their last batch of pre-orders).  The fan shown should press up against the face of the card but if you draw a line from the edge of the metal straight back you'll see that the fan is simply a picture on a flat surface... the rendering shows no depth.  It's a camera trick.  The fake image they are showing implies the "gpu" is as much as a 1/4 inch narrower than the metal mount on each side. 

If you look at the fan in the image you supplied that fan would NEVER fit in the fake card the long con company is showing, it is too wide.



BFL is a long con.

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

It's probably our if google sketch up.....

[Rassah]

The BFL version is a REALLY BAD RENDERING where they took a picture of a GPU and superimposed it on a rendered flat object.  (Not unlike the photo-shopped version of the singles they used to sell their last batch of pre-orders).  The fan shown should press up against the face of the card but if you draw a line from the edge of the metal straight back you'll see that the fan is simply a picture on a flat surface... the rendering shows no depth.

If you look at the center cylinder of the fan, surrounded by a circle of blades with the empty space between the center cylinder and the blades, you'll notice that the empty space is narrower at the front (towards the viewer) than at the back. And it's obviously a rendering. They didn't take pictures of anything here. The whole thing is obviously rendered. But so what? That's not a sign of a con. They had bad renderings of a BFL Single circuit board, too, remember?

[Fiyasko]

The BFL version is a REALLY BAD RENDERING where they took a picture of a GPU and superimposed it on a rendered flat object.  (Not unlike the photo-shopped version of the singles they used to sell their last batch of pre-orders).  The fan shown should press up against the face of the card but if you draw a line from the edge of the metal straight back you'll see that the fan is simply a picture on a flat surface... the rendering shows no depth.

If you look at the center cylinder of the fan, surrounded by a circle of blades with the empty space between the center cylinder and the blades, you'll notice that the empty space is narrower at the front (towards the viewer) than at the back. And it's obviously a rendering. They didn't take pictures of anything here. The whole thing is obviously rendered. But so what? That's not a sign of a con. They had bad renderings of a BFL Single circuit board, too, remember?

I think people need to stop arguing weather or not the "BPU" in the image is physically there to have its photo taken.
I dont advocate or support BFL, but seriously guys, they stated that they dont expect to have them working until one year from now because they are still in development (all sales final, order now!) they also stated that the "bpu" would connect via PCI-E 1x for "maximum compatability" Not 16x like whats shown in the rendering.

Point is, BFL are big fucking liars who aren't even trying anymore, rather than bother to "sneak past" the "trolls on the bitcoin forum" who clarify all of BFL's bullshit, they have decided "hey lets just keep aiming at the new people who barely know about bitcoins, I bet they would see this them and go" "oh my god its like amd built a bitcoin hashing unit, these guys are pros!"

Seriously they need to be stopped before this longcon destroys the reputation of bitcoin

[Viceroy]

yep.

[elux]

Saved for future use:

This is hilarious... I actually have some BFL hardware and even I think this means they are finished..  
They are obviously trying to move payments to a medium that cant be refunded (bitcoin or wire xfer).  
They are using a design which alot of us *know* cannot dissipate that much heat, and they are moving at a snail's pace with current orders.

Guys... Ive never said this before, but i believe they are on the virge of folding and taking anyone who preorders money with them..

Regarding power consumption, Radeon 5970 and 5870 both consume more power than our card does, the very reason we took this design approach.

TDP of 5970 is 294W and 5870 is 224W.   The card is reported to be 350W which is significantly higher not lower.

Also this pretends away the challenges of the form factor and ignores it was AMD with three decades of experience, and the HD 5000 series was their 12th generation of graphics cards.

...

While 350W is possible in that form factor one would have to be willing to bet that unlike every other time the simulations aren't lower than reality AND that the company doesn't run into any cooling/power problems due to the extremely high energy density.   As for 350W being conservative?  I don't see it.  350W is 0.6 w/GH.  BFL current chips are 3.1 w/GH correct?  A die shrink conservatively means at best a 40% reduction in power (miners tend to be always on so we are really only interested in active load).  28nm is two die shrinks from current chip.  So 3.1 w/GH * 0.6 * 0.6 = 1.1 w/GH.  If the current generation was just a die shrink (Intel's tick/tock strategy) we would be looking at 1.1w/GH (660W for this card).  You stated you will both shrink and optimize (something Intel split up to reduce risk) but that is a rather significant optimization wouldn't you say?  Nearly an 86% (1.1/0.6) improvement in performance per watt outside what is gained from the die shrink.  Intel (that small rookie ASIC designer) is happy for a 10% improvement in performance per watt from architectural changes.

Given the aggressive improvement in performance per watt necessary, combined with the lack of any headroom (if it misses by even 20% then it can't be cooled in that form factor at that speed), it would need to be a nearly flawless design and execution from start to finish.   It certainly "can" be done (it isn't beyond the theoretical limits of silicon on forced air cooling) but given BFL past promises on power and cooling well one would be betting that "this one will be different".  

Due to double node jump, the max power should be 0.77W/GH (3.1W/GH divided by 4). Based on everything we know from any chip industry (FPGA, CPU, GPU, etc), that should be the ceiling in power-consumption.

Regards,
Nasser

Picture says 600 GH/s @ 350W.
BFL "engineer" (who's area of expertise is Visual Basic and .NET) says 0.77W per GH/s

Unfortunately, multiplication says 600 GH/s * 0.77W per GH/s = 462W

Based on everything we know about multiplication (FPGA, CPU, GPU. etc) that should mean you are just as good at guessing TDP in August of 2013 as you were in August of 2012.

Regarding 5970 and 5870, it was my mistake looking at some charts (I'm not good with GPUs generally), what I meant was 6990. The actual design was modified, stray capacitance and flip-flop instability was resolved (which were causing the majority of consumption). The numbers we have are lower, and were reported here with margin. The migration between Stratix 3 and Arria 2 GX (Original single vs. MiniRig FPGA cards), proved a 50% reduction in power. As both were doing SHA256, taking 50% for this case would be a reasonable number. Including the corrections made to stray capacitance and flip flop instability, the final figures arrive at an even lower number. The number announced by us is the worst case scenario based on what we have in our hands; however, as stated, these are estimations.

Presumably, they started development on this 6 months ago.

Why would you presume that? BFL has no internal ASIC or FPGA design experience. Everything is outsourced.

This is the resume for their "CTO/CEO" who supposedly resides in France.

Note the total lack of relevant experience.

[LorenzoMoney]

At this point, a good segment of the Bitcoin community is accusing Butterfly Labs of fraudulent behavior.

Butterfly Labs seems unable to deliver products for which they accepted payment.
They refuse to provide refunds for unshipped goods and their employees are rude, condescending and ridicule unhappy customers.

Now, they are offering more vaporware.

What can the bitcoin community do?

Some people are so anarchic, that they abhor contacting civil authorities.

At some point, as a community, what recourse do we have? I suggest that PayPal, Dwolla and the Kansas Attorney General all be contacted.

[zeroblock]

Has any major news source written an article about BFL yet?  I haven't seen any and I've literally read every single news source out there.

Sounds like a good first article for ZeroBlock. 

[Fiyasko]

I'd like to know "where the fuck is the guy who has a paid lawyer"
If we dont have someone with money to hire a lawyer, Could we atleast fund a "lawyer pool" for some trusted forum member to use the pool fund to hire a lawyer to look meanly at BFL?

[btcdrak]

Surely the next step is for people to involve the FTC and law-enforcement? All this talk is doing nothing.

[Rassah]

The only people who can involve lav enforcement and the legal system are people with "standing," i.e. people who are actually directly involved with BFL, such as customers with pre-orders. Random Citizen can't just sue or sick the cops on a company because they don't like the way it's doing business. If you do have pre-orders, and feel you should be compensated in some way, feel free to go after them yourself, or start putting together a class action lawsuit. Though I suspect that even a (legitimate) threat of a lawsuit would force BFL to give you a refund, at which point you'll no longer have (much) "standing."

[Viceroy]

You are quite mistaken.  An average citizen can contact the FTC, the FCC, state regulators, etc.    
Go back a few posts and find Phinneas's proposed letter the BFL's kansas landlord...

The investigators need volume to investigate.  So even if you are just suspicious you should reach out to law enforcement and tell them about this long con put on by a known criminal fraudster.  Let the government decide what to do with your report.  It is YOUR DUTY to contact the FTC TODAY!


Why file a complaint with the FTC?

"Your complaints can help us detect patterns of wrong-doing, and lead to investigations and prosecutions. The FTC enters all complaints it receives into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database that is used by thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement authorities worldwide. The FTC does not resolve individual consumer complaints."

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/


Following your logic I could only report a fire if it were happening on my property but not if it happened at the neighbors house?

[Epoch]

Following your logic I could only report a fire if it were happening on my property but not if it happened at the neighbors house?

Your analogy is flawed.

You see smoke, not a fire. There's a big difference. You are *assuming* that there is a fire, but you cannot know for sure. It may be that the neighbors are barbecuing steaks in the back yard.

People would be prudent to keep their eyes on it, but I doubt many would call the fire department under such circumstances. But you go right ahead.

[Viceroy]

Lol, around here if you see smoke you sure as hell call the fire department else you lose 500 homes in 3 days...

[elux]

The only people who can involve lav enforcement and the legal system are people with "standing," i.e. people who are actually directly involved with BFL, such as customers with pre-orders. Random Citizen can't just sue or sick the cops on a company because they don't like the way it's doing business. If you do have pre-orders, and feel you should be compensated in some way, feel free to go after them yourself, or start putting together a class action lawsuit. Though I suspect that even a (legitimate) threat of a lawsuit would force BFL to give you a refund, at which point you'll no longer have (much) "standing."

Following your logic I could only report a fire if it were happening on my property but not if it happened at the neighbors house?

I'm hearing "never mind the smoke, go back to sleep"...

After all, if your house burns down tonight, maybe you can sue to get your money back later.

And if it's only your neighbour's house that is on fire, why even worry?

You see smoke, not a fire. There's a big difference. You are *assuming* that there is a fire, but you cannot know for sure. It may be that the neighbors are barbecuing steaks in the back yard.

People would be prudent to keep their eyes on it, but I doubt many would call the fire department under such circumstances. But you go right ahead.

So... "You should always wait until your house is a heap of burning ashes before calling the fire department."

[boost75]

It's a Ponzi scheme.

" In reality, Ponzi was paying early investors using the investments of later investors. This type of scheme is now known as a "Ponzi scheme".

[Frizz23]

It's a Ponzi scheme.

" In reality, Ponzi was paying early investors using the investments of later investors. This type of scheme is now known as a "Ponzi scheme".

Maybe later generations will call it the "Inaba scheme" 

[Viceroy]

Maybe later generations will call it the "Inaba scheme" 

That's worth quoting!

[elux]

To whom it may concern:

ENTITY DETAIL
Name:   BF Labs Inc.   Status:   Active
Filing ID:   2011-000606261   Sub Status:   Current
Type:    Profit Corporation - Domestic   
Standing - Tax:   Delinquent

https://wyobiz.wy.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=149144214231010201167112190255028042109060235081

HISTORY ... 2013-001524987   Delinquency Notice - Tax   08/02/2013 ...

[mantler]

I'd like to know "where the fuck is the guy who has a paid lawyer"
If we dont have someone with money to hire a lawyer, Could we atleast fund a "lawyer pool" for some trusted forum member to use the pool fund to hire a lawyer to look meanly at BFL?

I'd throw in on this.