Should Giga be tagged as a scammer?

[jamesg]

Question for giga: people contacted by you via email was on the Nefario's list, or you have some other sources?

I have been sent PMs on the forum with claims that are currently not on the GLBSE lists given.

Question to everyone: How can revealing of identity prove you are rightful shareholder, if giga doesn't have trustworthy source to compare with (if we consider Nefarios list untrustworthy)?

Revealing your identity provides legal recourse should you not be entitled to payments received. Verifying that you own a public key does little other show you own the address.

[Deafboy]

My previous question about non-complete shareholders list is answered here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118354.msg1353048#msg1353048

...users who have not claimed their GLBSE account, and users who have not returned the double payment of bitcoin have not been included.

[EskimoBob]

To the bitcoin community:

We are all in the very unenviable position of riding in the wake of the aftermath of James McCarthy. I have been placed in a very bad spot in this wake, and my only goal is to protect and serve Gigaminers as I have over the last half year.

I would like to point out that I am the only asset issuer on GLBSE, as far as I am aware, who is trying to move forward and abide by all the laws of local, state, federal and international law. I am the only asset issuer, as far as I am aware, to hire legal counsel and to send via certified mail, a demand letter to James McCarthy after multiple unanswered emails and phone calls. I am fairly confident that the asset lists only started arriving once the letter was received.

Nice of you to NOT pay any attention to the law when BTC was collected. But lets not dwell on that.

Further more, how exactly would you like me to handle situations where claims are made against gigamining that are not in the list provided from GLBSE? Should I and all Gigaminers just keep trusting nefario? This is the exact reason to have a claims process in the first place. Nefario is withholding information for a mistake he made, Gigaminers should not have to suffer because of Nefario's mistakes any longer.

This NOT a news that the list will be incomplete. Why? Because James sent out some coin twice by mistake. Some returned the coin, some did not.
Those who did not return the coin got the warning that their names will be removed from asset holders list until they return the coin (some thread in the forum)
There is a good chance, that some people have not even returned to GLBSE and completed the simple step required to be on the list.
1) Deal with people who ARE on the list
2) Collect the claims from those who are NOT on the list and call James to find out, wtf is going on wit them
[/quote]

I have received claims for over 10% of Gigamining that are NOT on the lists given to me by GLBSE. This is a significant percentage and it warrants the claims process.

see 2

Finally, what should happen if I pay the wrong individual a large amount of the held coins? Guess what, I'm still on the hook according to the law. It is only right to protect the interests of all Gigaminers by making sure I have legal recourse should such a situation occur.

Wow, nice hyperbole indeed.
See 1 and 2

I hope it is clear that I am only trying to clean up and move forward from the situation at hand.

Best regards,
James

No James, it is not. All you have done is pissed everyone off because you changed the rules and now you demand information, costly to share holders,  that will not! help you in any fkn way to clear up this mess.

Put on your thinking hat and tell your blood sucking lawyer to piss off and fuck himself
Cheers darling

[conspirosphere.tk]

I've decided that gigavps will not get a scammer tag for this. Nefario has proven himself to be untrustworthy, so it would be unreasonable for gigavps to pay out large sums of money based entirely on Nefario's list. Requiring affidavits and proofs of identity are reasonable precautions. It's impossible to strictly follow the contract in a safe way.

Do you realize that if Nefario gave fake info in the list is his exclusive responsibility? Now this is a good alibi isn't it? Since that info could be incorrect Giga is going to keep all the assets of the investors who have too little to lose money in translations, lawyers and official b/s.

[Deprived]

I've decided that gigavps will not get a scammer tag for this. Nefario has proven himself to be untrustworthy, so it would be unreasonable for gigavps to pay out large sums of money based entirely on Nefario's list. Requiring affidavits and proofs of identity are reasonable precautions. It's impossible to strictly follow the contract in a safe way.

On what basis did you conclude that it wasn't unreasonable for gigavps to make agreements as a private individual and now attempt to alter history (and limit his own liability) by falsely claiming that those agreements were made with an LLC?  This is about the only issue on which I believe it likely giga deserves a scammer tag right now.

Do you believe it reasonable that someone holding say 1 giga share who doesn't live in the US is now expected to pay probably $50-$100 in fees to satisfy giga's requirements and obtain back their <1 BTC worth of assets?  Or is it reasonable that they should just give up on their claim "because nefario"?

I could partially understand giga's position if the requirements for ID etc were applied only to investors who EITHER:

a) Had large holdings,
OR
b) Didn't have details in the list provided by nefario.

But requesting it from all?  Is that really reasonable?

Next: let's imagine I submit a claim (with all the relevant documents) - I'm either on the list or I'm not.  Now what?  Is my claim approved regardless?  If so - then it's a scammer's charter as there's no likely means by which it could ever be proven that I DIDN'T own the shares.

Or is my some other basis used to determine whether the claim is approved?  If so - what value is the ID actually adding to the process?  There's nothing it can be compared against.  Sure - in theory it allows recourse against me - but that's a theory that could almost certainly never be put into practice (how to prove I didn't believe I owned shares).

This approach WILL totally deter small scammers - and equally totally make it impractical for smaller investors to reclaim their assets.  It's a minor to middling inconvenience for large investors - and a huge bonus for any big scammers, as it adds a negligible amount of risk whilst giving a greatly improved chance of them actually getting something.  

If the argument gos along the lines of "well we won't pay out big claims until nefario's confirmed their details" then what's the point of requesting ID from anyone not on the list?  Surely they should just be told to contact nefario and get themselves on the next updated list - and the ID becomes irrelevant as the list is (essentially) being relied on.

For the record I'm not submitting a claim and am 99.99% sure I didn't hold any giga when GLBSE closed (the .001% is the chance that other assets sold and a buy order for giga filled in the last 10 minutes of trading, but I don't believe I even had a giga buy order up).

[stochastic]

My previous question about non-complete shareholders list is answered here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118354.msg1353048#msg1353048

...users who have not claimed their GLBSE account, and users who have not returned the double payment of bitcoin have not been included.

No this is incorrect, there is another group of people besides those that have received double payments or those that have not submitted a claim to GLBSE that are not in the asset list provided by Nefario.  These are people, like me, who have submitted a claim and not received a double payment, yet are still not listed in the asset lists.

Do your homework before acting like Nefario's parrot.

[MPOE-PR]

On what basis did you conclude that it wasn't unreasonable for gigavps to make agreements as a private individual and now attempt to alter history

Probably on the grounds that he's never met a private individual by the name of Gigavps.

This approach WILL totally deter small scammers - and equally totally make it impractical for smaller investors to reclaim their assets.  It's a minor to middling inconvenience for large investors - and a huge bonus for any big scammers, as it adds a negligible amount of risk whilst giving a greatly improved chance of them actually getting something.  

This actually sounds pretty convincing.

No this is incorrect, there is another group of people besides those that have received double payments or those that have not submitted a claim to GLBSE that are not in the asset list provided by Nefario.  These are people, like me, who have submitted a claim and not received a double payment, yet are still not listed in the asset lists.

Do your homework before acting like Nefario's parrot.

Ooof. So this group actually exists.

[meowmeowbrowncow]

The problem when the issuer does not maintain their pseudonymity.

Feels insecure and lawyers up.  The liability is def on the part of the issuer.


This is not acceptable with contracts written under pseudonymity.  What we are seeing is what happens when the issuer fails to maintain the integrity of their pseudonymous contract.  Negligence?

Probably the one correct summation.

I agree with you and myself


But seriously.  This is an evident problem with securities issued in the Bitcoin space.  Because issuers don't formally establish pseudonymity status in the contract language they are *free to reveal personal details that jeopardize asset holders that wish to maintain their pseudonymity when the issuer faces meatspace regulatory problems.

* Free to reveal their own personal details and then request the personal data of others while not being prosecuted for it in the pseudonymous community.
As evidenced by Theymos' ruling not to give Giga a scammer tag.

What I wish to see is exchanges taking up the matter of whether an asset contract should be considered supporting pseudonymity.  This would be part of the asset listing process where pseudonymity status would have to be contractually defined.

Then, when the shit hits the fan we can persecute these asset issuers that don't really care about the privacy of others.

[MPOE-PR]

But seriously.  This is an evident problem with securities issued in the Bitcoin space.  Because issuers don't formally establish pseudonymity status in the contract language

Let us together read one such contract:

INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING AGREEMENT

This INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING AGREEMENT (the "Agreement") is made and entered into as of April 7, 2012, by and among BitVPS, Inc. (BitVPS), an unregistered corporation ; James "rg" Edward (GPG fingerprint 58EB 24DB C867 E706 F459 9CD3 F303 5DFA 1D14 9C84), an individual ; Dan "grubles" Williams (GPG fingerprint 7B0D 607C 91AD B1E9 DCDE E505 56B7 AB94 A71E A99F), an individual and MPEX (GPG fingerprint 8DDE 8C2B 4DE2 278A 95C3 D65B 9214 FC6B F1B6 9921), an unregistered corporation. Certain capitalized terms used herein are defined in Section 1 of this Agreement.

The fact that GLBSE failed to handle anything properly is not really either news or a big deal. GLBSE was a failed attempt at an exchange, never really reached the volume of MPEx nor its importance in the financial space. That a large number of people chose the way of Inaba stupidity is not something that changes "things". Things are what they are, and even if the entire class fails to do its homework SAT exams will still require what they require. Even if the entire idle forum population decides "MPEx is too hard" or "30 BTC is too expensive" that still doesn't make whatever place they choose to congregate an exchange just because they're there. It makes them pseudo-investors, as they're not on an exchange.

* Free to reveal their own personal details and then request the personal data of others while not being prosecuted for it in the pseudonymous community.
As evidenced by Theymos' ruling not to give Giga a scammer tag.

MPEx in fact is set up in such a manner that IT COULD NOT reveal anything. Let's read from the FAQ:

Step 1. Create a new GPG key on a machine that never connects to the Internet. Do not advertise this key anywhere, do not register it with gribble, do not use it anywhere at all.
Step 2. Email the public key encrypted as described above.
Step 3. Make your first deposit (make sure it covers for the account registration fee). Note that due to the encoding it does not matter where the payment comes from. You can withdraw the money from a pool or MtGox or pretty much any public service which allows bitcoin withdrawals to a specified address.
Step 4. Your account is now set up, you can use it in full confidence. Yes, this includes the inconvenient step of transferring GPG-encoded strings from a cold machine to a hot machine. Security always comes at a cost of convenience.

[finkleshnorts]

Yes, GPG would have solved this issue and many others associated with the collapse of GLBSE.

[BadBear]

* Free to reveal their own personal details and then request the personal data of others while not being prosecuted for it in the pseudonymous community.
As evidenced by Theymos' ruling not to give Giga a scammer tag.

This is atually a major problem, people are too dependent on scammer tags and consider it  "prosecution".

[finkleshnorts]

This is atually a major problem, people are too dependent on scammer tags and consider it  "prosecution".

Agreed. And it fills up the forum with garbage.

[Daily Anarchist]

* Free to reveal their own personal details and then request the personal data of others while not being prosecuted for it in the pseudonymous community.
As evidenced by Theymos' ruling not to give Giga a scammer tag.

This is atually a major problem, people are too dependent on scammer tags and consider it  "prosecution".

Better than going to the state. Granted, for the people who lost a ton of coin, a scammer tag is hardly restitution.

The truth is that we're in the process of creating a new economy. There are going to be trials and errors. There's already been some positive that's come of this, like people working towards a decentralized exchange and such.

[finkleshnorts]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

[Daily Anarchist]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

I think it's a short term vs. long term debate.

In the short term yes, you may be able to go to the state and rely on their muscle to get some money back. But in the long term our reliance on the state prevents us from discovering better alternatives.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

Name one person who has gotten bitcoins back from going to the state ?

I think scammers would have  a field day if it got involved, only the scammers would be the government workers and they would have the guns to back the theft. They can use laws to avoid any repurcussion at all such as bankruptcy. Better to find a third way, that we are in fact on an island and there are no police. Say what you like about the mafia but if you rip them off there are consequences. The cops dont even investigate if your house gets burgled, unless you are famous or rich.

[finkleshnorts]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

Name one person who has gotten bitcoins back from going to the state ?

Name one person who has gotten their bitcoins back from a scammer otherwise. Anyway sorry for taking this off topic.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

Name one person who has gotten bitcoins back from going to the state ?

Name one person who has gotten their bitcoins back from a scammer otherwise. Anyway sorry for taking this off topic.

The point is neither will work. And the state prevents you from taking the only option that does.

The state exists to protect criminals and without it they would face real consequences. Its not there for your protection.

[Bitcoin Oz]

The only thing that will work in the current system is if someone rich or famous gets stolen from. They dont care if you get your drug money stolen.

[SAC]

Better than going to the state.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

Name one person who has gotten bitcoins back from going to the state ?

Name one person who has gotten their bitcoins back from a scammer otherwise. Anyway sorry for taking this off topic.

The point is neither will work. And the state prevents you from taking the only option that does.

The state exists to protect criminals and without it they would face real consequences. Its not there for your protection.

The state exists to guarantee your rights as a citizen until such time as they are taken from you by a court of law.