Laissez Faire City (a BFL connection(?), et al.)

[jojo69]

well...so much for that 1300 bucks

damn

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The follow books may offer up clues:

I don't think the authors of those books have any personal connections to the subjects of your current investigation (which has been outstanding).

As I was so close, too.

History of Laissez Faire City: http://www.liberalismo.org/bitacoras/7/2487/historia/laissez/faire/city/

In 1994, a group of investors from various countries visited some regions of Latin America. It was on that trip that James Dale Davidson took notes on his laptop that would eventually constitute the famous The Sovereign Individual . During the trip, these capitalists recalled some idea that Ayn Rand had decades ago. The liberal author had wondered what would happen if a poor country for 50 years cede few dozen square miles to a group of investors. He quickly warmed to the idea and decided to get to work.      

    They founded the Laissez Faire City International Trust and a former diplomat appointed trustee Russian named Mikhail Larguine to coordinate efforts. At first, they threw the eye to a hundred square miles in Peru. During the summer of 1995, the Trust published an advertisement in The Economist and Newsweek reporting project. Several media outlets, mainly British, echoed the news, while the United States spent almost unnoticed. Thousands of people contacted the Trust and some paid the hundred dollars initially asked to become Founder. In March 1996, created the website Laissez Faire City (hereinafter LFCity).

When these young people took the reins in 1997, his first goal was to develop software to ensure user privacy. They understood that it was of utmost importance to protect themselves from attacks by government agencies and any other thieves and snoopers.

    The first real fruit of this new approach was the MailVault, an email system based on advanced encryption techniques to ensure privacy of the messages. On this foundation, was to build a network of tools to enable future citizens to create their own businesses LFCity electronic banking with which to develop the city's economy.

At the beginning of 2001 came into operation on Digital Monetary Trust (DMT) that began to develop the necessary tools for a digital currency. Mainly, the lodgment Asset Trust Accounts (ALTA) and Laissez-faire Electronic Stock Exchange (LESE).

It was discovered that one of those involved in the scam of DC had participated for years in a silver fiddle with various U.S. states And I suspect that had something to do with disreputable people of Russia for some comments that made ​​me a beta tester of the Eastern countries.

    Years later, many of the participants are still in touch. At least, served to make friends, learn four little things and see the gross, Hayek was right that when he spoke of "the socialists of all parties". Freedom is practiced, not designed.

I am so glad that there's not a single parallel between Laissez Faire City and Bitcoin.

[benjamindees]

Bob Chapman lived in Costa Rica.

So, I read some of those links and I still don't get the story on LF City.  Did it ever actually exist?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Bob Chapman lived in Costa Rica.

So, I read some of those links and I still don't get the story on LF City.  Did it ever actually exist?

No. The best I can explain it is that the original idea forked, and the computer geeks' camp recognized that money could be made in a somewhat cloaked fashion.

Fast forward to Bitcoin.

We are Bitcoin! We can do it better. Welcome to our new campsite, boys, and who among us brought the giant marshmallows?

~Bruno~

[Robert Goldstein]

There's something about that Laissez Faire City deal I'm missing, but can't put my finger on it.

To start with, you are missing this, the definitive history of the Laissez Faire City project, written nearly ten years ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021210112835/http://www.scamdog.com/freedom_projects/?view=laissez_faire_city

More from me later.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

There's something about that Laissez Faire City deal I'm missing, but can't put my finger on it.

To start with, you are missing this, the definitive history of the Laissez Faire City project, written nearly ten years ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021210112835/http://www.scamdog.com/freedom_projects/?view=laissez_faire_city

More from me later.

Thanks, Robert G. I'm reading it now.

Bruno H
Phinn Labs LLC

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Selected quotes, with emphasis mine, gleaned from http://web.archive.org/web/20021210112835/http://www.scamdog.com/freedom_projects/?view=laissez_faire_city

Even with considerable talent at their disposal, LFCity was very slow in releasing its products. They sometimes published roll-out dates that they missed badly (although mainly during the initial period 1997-99). At the end of 1999 this lack of timely delivery came to a head, and the initial younger group from 1997 left the project, leaving the second wave of technical people to continue onwards. A new City Clerk (CEO) and Chief Technology Officer were appointed from their ranks. An additional and very significant factor in the resignation of this first younger group involved their attendance at offshore seminars around the world soliciting grants on behalf of LFCity.

Not long after, they received a warning that this man was actually a government agent. He tried to associate LF City with several disreputable offshore firms. LFCity had reason to believe that this man was trying to set up a sting, and walk away with a pile of money. Such government scams are said to operate out of the US Department of Commerce, and are said to be conducted as follows (none of which ScamDog.com can confirm): An offshore bank is set-up, people are somehow induced to make deposits - preferrably of unreported income, when deposits hit a sufficient level, the operators take the money and leave town. The operators of the scam get 20 percent. The US Attorney (if the operation takes place under the aegis of one) gets 30 percent. The rest is left in the bank. If no government official is involved, the operators may get 50 percent.

WOW! (wanted to bold it all) Surely there's no parallel to Bitcoin in this regard, is there?

Like all new country projects, LFCity attracted its fair share of eccentrics, scoundrels and pirates.

I feel better now. No parallels.

We are told that the title character from the 1988 movie Beetlejuice starring Michael Keaton greatly resembles a younger version of this man. We’ve never seen the movie, but we can confirm that this original Founder shares the same nervous energy (even now in his late middle-age), and need to entertain those around him, as well as other characteristics of that this fictional character is known for.

For BitcoinTalk to have a similar character, you would have to roll three of its users into one: Atlas, Matthew and that guy with a metal rod in his head.

While the LFCity programmers were working under DMT's management finishing off MailVault 2.1, ALTA and LESE, this gentleman was running riot in this discussion board, creating new characters, stories, and ultimately his own US$-based deposit system (Digital ATM Company) and 'over the counter' (OTC) trading system with the help of another programmer who joined him a few months later.

I'm just going to leave this here (just found, and haven't read): http://www.offshorealert.com/WorkArea/threadeddisc/print_thread.aspx?id=60&g=posts&t=37303

Some aspects of the Dodge City experiment were worthwhile - LFCity did need a forum in which Founders and beta testers could hold conversations pseudo-anonymously. However, this man ran the forum like a fiefdom, secretly using multiple-pseudonyms (at the peak, at least 8 different ones known) to reinforce each other's views in a bad faith manner, including passing himself off as the LFCIT Trustee. When challenged publicly about this behavior he denied that he was doing it, and acted to intimidate and threaten the accusers (and other participants) in a very heavy handed fashion.

He also manipulated the trades on his OTC market as the self-styled 'center of liquidity' and 'town banker' in what was basically a pump-and-dump scheme - creating elaborate contests, number games, financial mumbo-jumbo, limited time offers, and other bread and circuses to distract people from the key question of how all his future promises for Dodge City were actually going to be fulfilled in practice.

No parallels there, either.

The final nail in the coffin occurred when the original Founder began a large drive to solicit funds for deposit into his ATM system. Unknown to those depositing he was practicing extreme fractional reserve banking with those funds and did not disclose these business practices. In fact he flat out denied this when challenged on several occasions, ensuring that the whistleblowers who asked the right questions were ostracized for bad faith and negativity.

I can't wait to get to the end of this article to see how it all ends.

...
After the initial shock wore off for those close to the project, it because apparent that he had created his own faction - those recruited for Dodge City - and that they now outnumbered those working on Laissez Faire City itself.
...

Their version of a 51% attack.

At this same time, a number of mis-deads and reported mis-deeds of this man were coming to light. An investigation was undertaken, and although insufficient evidence was found for a clear determination, the investigation established enough fact to convince the people of Dodge and LF City that it was better not to continue with this man. A record of this investigation can be found here.

here = http://web.archive.org/web/20021210174223/http://ica.citystateinc.com/notices/?action=detail&id=9

(to quote the article in order, the quote that I'm leaving out here, will be the last quote in this post)

If you are an LFCity Founder or write freedom tools for a living, you may already know where the people in this informal network now meet. If not, you are likely to receive an invitation through the grapevine.

The truth is that libertarians and freedom-lovers talk much, and do little. For better or worse, LFCity was action. Things were done, not just talked about. And from action can come great learning. Life is very complex, and it is very difficult to form theories that take all important possibilities into account. But when the theories are actually put to use, all of those possibilities come into play, and truly functional products and services begin to take proper shape.

SOB! At least I wear the union label proudly.

But it is clear that wehave various useful tools to show for the LFCity experience. If it all works out as we expect, in future times LFCity Founders will say "I was there," with pride in their hearts. "I was there at the very beginning and did my part in developing the tools and creating the laissez-faire economy you guys now take for granted."

I bet the following two guys do.

I'm new to this forum. I am thrilled to be here. In a previous life, I lived at Laissez Faire City and had some involvement with the Digital Monetary Trust venture of Orin Grabbe.

Dr. Steve!

It's been a long time. Both newbies here, at almost the same time.

it must be a conspiracy!

Closing quote below, out of sequence.

An important part of the Laissez Faire City experiment was the community it engendered. Many people from all corners of the globe met either in person or virtually through LFCity and its projects. There now exists a pseudo-anonymous network of these people. They are still working towards the same goals, albeit with a lower profile.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

There's something about that Laissez Faire City deal I'm missing, but can't put my finger on it.

To start with, you are missing this, the definitive history of the Laissez Faire City project, written nearly ten years ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021210112835/http://www.scamdog.com/freedom_projects/?view=laissez_faire_city

More from me later.

We look forward to reading more about you. Glad you met up with Dr.Steve.

I'm new to this forum. I am thrilled to be here. In a previous life, I lived at Laissez Faire City and had some involvement with the Digital Monetary Trust venture of Orin Grabbe.

Dr. Steve!

It's been a long time. Both newbies here, at almost the same time.

it must be a conspiracy!

Note that the local times are the same, inferring that they're in the same time zone (western Europe), set their settings to simple reflect such, or there's a default setting I'm missing of which both didn't bother to set. Both last active only six minutes apart today.

Tomorrow I will prove that an Amish guy named Pinkiert Piepous built Rassah's coffee table.  

I wonder if the Dr. Steve mentioned here is the same as our Dr.Steve. (centered text is linked)

When Osama Bin Ladin
Was 'Tim Osman'
Michael Riconosciuto & Ted Gunderson's 1986 Meeting with
'Tim Osman' (Osama bin Laden)By J. Orlin Grabbe
The Laissez Faire City Times
Nov. 8, 2001
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/2001/riconosciutoandtimosman8nov01.shtml

Or this one: http://www.offshorealert.com/WorkArea/threadeddisc/print_thread.aspx?id=60&g=posts&t=37064

One, Fake dividend distribution.
Second, confirmation that Houston's identity was known and kept from founders by the insiders.
Three, the email list of founders was available to this guy.
Four, Sealand connection. Holmes and Davidson info is on this page
http://www.ezez.com/free/sealand/prop.htm

Five, ATM and stock was manipulated by Houston and Huge , along with Trustee to "submarine" Harry Gordon.
Six, strong hint that Dr. Steve was a Houston stooge all along.
Seven, Houston claimed connection with "Schultz" and Hunt. I guess he has some fixation on silver.
Seven, in the second email, confirmation of the book, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand being used illegally and that this was the sole "business plan".
Eight, the info, very specific, about Mailvault being insecure.

[benjamindees]

And the important thing to take away from all of this is that the US Government are the biggest criminals of all.  They run all of the other criminals, from the scammers who prey on naive libertarians, to the hackers who have been attacking Bitcoin for the last year, to your local petty thieves and drug dealers, to all of the hilariously inept "terrorists" who plotted attacks on US soil, to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in Libya and in Syria and anywhere else that the interests of the criminals in charge of the US government can be furthered.

They are on these forums.  They have been watching Bitcoin for a long time.  They have the resources and the motivation to plan for the long-term, and to create and operate seemingly legitimate businesses in furtherance of their interests.  And any of you who naively believe that the government is your friend, or the "good guys", and that they are going to let you in on their little money-printing racket and maybe even use your plucky start-up currency to fund their black-ops, should have his head examined.

[Robert Goldstein]

Note that the local times are the same, inferring that they're in the same time zone (western Europe), set their settings to simple reflect such, or there's a default setting I'm missing of which both didn't bother to set. Both last active only six minutes apart today.

It's a testament to the general quality of people posting here on Bitcointalk that you assume by default a new poster must be some kind of sockpuppet.

However, I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now, and assume good faith.

(If you were trying to crack a joke, well, best to do that in a separate post, and not in one where you are also trying to bring potentially serious accusations to light.)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Note that the local times are the same, inferring that they're in the same time zone (western Europe), set their settings to simple reflect such, or there's a default setting I'm missing of which both didn't bother to set. Both last active only six minutes apart today.

It's a testament to the general quality of people posting here on Bitcointalk that you assume by default a new poster must be some kind of sockpuppet.

However, I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now, and assume good faith.

(If you were trying to crack a joke, well, best to do that in a separate post, and not in one where you are also trying to bring potentially serious accusations to light.)

Hey, Robert. First off, I would like to thank you and Steve for joining the forum. (sincerely)

With all honesty, surely you know the ropes here, or will soon learn, that a myriad of paranoid fuckoids (colloquially speaking) reside here and, unfortunately, I may be becoming one.

To get it out of the way now, further down the road somebody may question how you got out of Newbie with only one post. I'm sure the answer lies in that you removed them for some reason. Feel free to use that when if it's ever bought up.

My post above was not meant as a joke, but to bring awareness to the facts as they were first known to me at the time. I started the long thread without even knowing the connection between you and Dr.Steve existed until after I posted the reply post to your suggestion which, BTW, was kindly appreciated, not even then making the connection of your low post count and that this thread in not in Newbie. But enough about all that low post count BS.

Neither of my posts after your post above was of a joking nature. They were published all in good faith--to let the community know stuff no matter how mundane. Yes, when I decided to pen the comparison post above, it was done to show that possibly a sock puppet may be in play here. Personally, I do have a slight doubt that that's the case, but nonetheless I felt it needed to be share and let the community decide.

My best suggestion to you is to not reply to this post, for that would bring further attention to yourself, whereupon others, and possibly myself, will start digging to see what, if any, connection could be made. Simply put, let my post here stand on its own, for if you knew my current track record, you'll know that my voice doesn't carry as far as it used to, but make the mistake of continuing the dialog, and sure enough another user or two will pick up the mantel and start looking for skeletons with fireplace poker in hand. Done of this is a threat of any kind but, unfortunately, a fact due to the human nature of certain members of this board, again myself sadly included.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn't have a reason to question your presence here one iota until I read the following:

I'm new to this forum. I am thrilled to be here. In a previous life, I lived at Laissez Faire City and had some involvement with the Digital Monetary Trust venture of Orin Grabbe.

Dr. Steve!

It's been a long time. Both newbies here, at almost the same time.

it must be a conspiracy!

It was when I read that I thought to myself you must have registered in May of this year, the same time as Dr.Steve. But that proved to not be the case. You registered after the first new mention of Laissez Faire City by me, penned while trying to make a connection between it and BFL.

I'm only stating facts, Robert, and again, at the moment, don't have any harsh words for either your or Dr.Steve.

That said, I felt it important to address you first before I go and pen an epic post connecting Josh W and Bitforce Consultancy (no smiley, for such an entity exists and you'll soon learn what the W stands for).

Peace, bro. (sincerely)

~Bruno~

[Bitcoin Oz]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112249.msg1224772;topicseen#msg1224772   any connection to this ?

[Robert Goldstein]

~Bruno~
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bitcoin100: 1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac

My job is to uncover the truth and be unwavering, even in the light of louder voices and big business.

BTCitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Re: the slogan currently set in your profile:
"My job is to uncover the truth and be unwavering, even in the light of louder voices and big business."

The CliffsNotes response: You are doing this self-appointed job badly. The way you have been posting anything you find as a 'stream of consciousness' without much filtering, but with interpretation by you, needs to stop.

The Long Response:

Just restricting this analysis to your recent posts about LFCity, what I find fascinating about your choice of sources, is that instead of linking to the small number of high quality articles available on the web, you concentrated on the trashy, deliberately misleading posts spewed in several places during 2002-2005 by disinfo agent 'Witchdoc' AKA 'Simon Jester' AKA 'uppity' (AKA several other aliases).

However, having lurked here at Bitcointalk for a few months, and getting a feel for how this place has been developing, unfortunately it's not surprising.

Applying the old joke to this board: Bitcointalk posters require no physical fitness program. Everyone gets enough exercise jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle, knifing friends in the back, dodging responsibility and pushing their luck.

1. Your current 'stream of consciousness' style makes it difficult to sift valid information from the irrelevant or most worrying of all, the unproven and false.

2. Reposting user-generated content from other boards without understanding - or perhaps caring about - the difference between alleged facts and checked out facts, but with the addition of your own interpretation, will get you into all kinds of trouble (both reputational and legal).

Those who use open-source intelligence understand the difference between alleged and checked out facts, and set a high bar to ensure that 'raw' alleged facts are not published.

3. The Bitcointalk community is toxic enough as it is, without adding libellous materials from other places, or making new posts that due to the carelessness with which they have been constructed, make them afresh, and even mint new libellous assertions.

You have already stated false things in this thread. They are not only false but are likely to cause provable harm.

In my next post I will point out your specific libels in more detail. How you (and the board moderators) are going to deal with cleaning up afterwards is the subject for later discussion, i.e. simply deleting the original posts is probably not the correct way to deal with it.

[fm1234]

Can't believe I missed this thread.   I was searching to see to what extent Orlin Grabbe has been mention on this forum, and was going to post this link to his seminal essay "The End of Ordinary Money," which I thought would be interesting to some people here (although no doubt kind of quaint from a technological perspective, given its age.)   

Today would have been Grabbe's birthday.   He is missed. 


Frank

[Phinnaeus Gage]

~Bruno~
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bitcoin100: 1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac

My job is to uncover the truth and be unwavering, even in the light of louder voices and big business.

BTCitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending

Re: the slogan currently set in your profile:
"My job is to uncover the truth and be unwavering, even in the light of louder voices and big business."

The CliffsNotes response: You are doing this self-appointed job badly. The way you have been posting anything you find as a 'stream of consciousness' without much filtering, but with interpretation by you, needs to stop.

The Long Response:

Just restricting this analysis to your recent posts about LFCity, what I find fascinating about your choice of sources, is that instead of linking to the small number of high quality articles available on the web, you concentrated on the trashy, deliberately misleading posts spewed in several places during 2002-2005 by disinfo agent 'Witchdoc' AKA 'Simon Jester' AKA 'uppity' (AKA several other aliases).

However, having lurked here at Bitcointalk for a few months, and getting a feel for how this place has been developing, unfortunately it's not surprising.

Applying the old joke to this board: Bitcointalk posters require no physical fitness program. Everyone gets enough exercise jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle, knifing friends in the back, dodging responsibility and pushing their luck.

1. Your current 'stream of consciousness' style makes it difficult to sift valid information from the irrelevant or most worrying of all, the unproven and false.

2. Reposting user-generated content from other boards without understanding - or perhaps caring about - the difference between alleged facts and checked out facts, but with the addition of your own interpretation, will get you into all kinds of trouble (both reputational and legal).

Those who use open-source intelligence understand the difference between alleged and checked out facts, and set a high bar to ensure that 'raw' alleged facts are not published.

3. The Bitcointalk community is toxic enough as it is, without adding libellous materials from other places, or making new posts that due to the carelessness with which they have been constructed, make them afresh, and even mint new libellous assertions.

You have already stated false things in this thread. They are not only false but are likely to cause provable harm.

In my next post I will point out your specific libels in more detail. How you (and the board moderators) are going to deal with cleaning up afterwards is the subject for later discussion, i.e. simply deleting the original posts is probably not the correct way to deal with it.

+1

Damn good post! (seriously)

My job is to uncover the truth and be unwavering, even in the light of louder voices and big business.

As far as the above sentence in my sig is concerned, I borrowed it from Matthew N. Wright: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84042.msg1094337#msg1094337

Overall, you nailed how I go about things rather well. I honestly didn't realize that that's I how go about the things you mention. On rare occasions I was conscience of pulling only selected content to further some concern, but now see that I probably did it more than I thought.

I have no intention of deleting any posts, but truly look forward to reading the pointing out of errors and your suggestions on cleaning this up.

That said, I like you, Robert. Feel free to put me on my paper anytime in the same non-abusive tone as above, and I promise to not get into a dung tossing contest with you, for I feel it would be a losing battle on my part.

Peace, bud.

~Bruno~

[Gleb Gamow]

Can't believe I missed this thread.   I was searching to see to what extent Orlin Grabbe has been mention on this forum, and was going to post this link to his seminal essay "The End of Ordinary Money," which I thought would be interesting to some people here (although no doubt kind of quaint from a technological perspective, given its age.)   

Today would have been Grabbe's birthday.   He is missed. 


Frank

Hey, James, how much longer are you going to go by your dead father's name?

ref.:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=eufaula&id=I1708
https://analytx.co/shortercemetery.org.html
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=86312654
https://www.bizapedia.com/al/friends-of-shorter-cemetery-inc.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Frank_Mottley&oldid=306622418 (dad had yet to decompose)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ripple_(payment_protocol)&oldid=661889597
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150803.msg9131875#msg9131875 (ptr@fm1234.cotse.net)

[mister-black]

I worked on the web-based version of DMT around 1999-2001.  Great group of people down there.  I was friends with Orlin before LFC and DMT, visionary guy.  There's a lot of negative commentary on this thread about LFC and DMT.  I didn't see that.  Knowing Orlin, and what I saw in CR, they were a committed group with strong convictions working to do good.  No one was trying to rip anyone off.  The whole concept was ahead of its time.  Definitely a precursor to BTC, perhaps a direct connection through some of the team members, not sure.  I was not part of the core team, more of a mercenary to bang out code and get parts of the system built.

I'd really like to reconnect with any of the CR team from the old Nicaraguan embassy. Especially haxaw - if you get this, please ping me.

[Gleb Gamow]

I worked on the web-based version of DMT around 1999-2001.  Great group of people down there.  I was friends with Orlin before LFC and DMT, visionary guy.  There's a lot of negative commentary on this thread about LFC and DMT.  I didn't see that.  Knowing Orlin, and what I saw in CR, they were a committed group with strong convictions working to do good.  No one was trying to rip anyone off.  The whole concept was ahead of its time.  Definitely a precursor to BTC, perhaps a direct connection through some of the team members, not sure.  I was not part of the core team, more of a mercenary to bang out code and get parts of the system built.

I'd really like to reconnect with any of the CR team from the old Nicaraguan embassy. Especially haxaw - if you get this, please ping me.

Hello, Sonny Vleisides, how you've been?

If you're not Sonny, then call me at 702-981-5600.

[jojo69]

well...so much for that 1300 bucks

damn

Hey Sonny, just did the math on that...$1.6 million today

hope you and Josh are sleeping well, I am not the only one.

[mister-black]

I worked on the web-based version of DMT around 1999-2001.  Great group of people down there.  I was friends with Orlin before LFC and DMT, visionary guy.  There's a lot of negative commentary on this thread about LFC and DMT.  I didn't see that.  Knowing Orlin, and what I saw in CR, they were a committed group with strong convictions working to do good.  No one was trying to rip anyone off.  The whole concept was ahead of its time.  Definitely a precursor to BTC, perhaps a direct connection through some of the team members, not sure.  I was not part of the core team, more of a mercenary to bang out code and get parts of the system built.

I'd really like to reconnect with any of the CR team from the old Nicaraguan embassy. Especially haxaw - if you get this, please ping me.

Hello, Sonny Vleisides, how you've been?

If you're not Sonny, then call me at 702-981-5600.

Hi Gleb,  I'm not Sonny.  I was a friend of Orlin's before LFC.  He and I worked on systems for capital markets together and he brought me into a project at LFC to build a web-based client for DMT.  I visited the Costa Rica campus for about a week, I think back in '99 or thereabouts. 

Met a bunch of folks down there and stayed with a guy known as haxaw -- had a lot of late nights drinking rusty nails.  LOL  My team and I worked on the project remotely after that, our codenames were Mr. Black (me), Mr. White, Mr. Blue.  I'm trying to see if I can reconnect with haxaw, but I never knew his real name.  He's probably in his 50s or 60s now, and all I know is that he worked on the Linux kernel with Linus in the early days, and he also patented data networking over electrical power infrastructure in the UK. You'd think I could find him with that info, but it's been a while and the scent is fading. 

Did I meet you down there in CR?  You probably wouldn't recall me, was just there for a brief time.  I remember a girl down there who went by the codename Nova.  She came to pick me up at the airport.  You remember her?  I guess I'm just trying to piece together recollections and reconnect with folks and see if there's a connection between DMT and the early concepts of bitcoin.  There's some mythology building that some of the DMT team are actually Satoshi.  Who knows.  Could be a good movie in there somewhere.