[Archive] BFL trolling museum

[Bitinvestor]

BFL happens to employ a previously convicted felon. Lots of companies do.

Yeah, to clean their toilets. NOT as managers.

Ha, seems you're overlooking just about every single company in the banking/financial industry...

Really? Care to give a few examples?

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[crazyates]

It's also been handled very very poorly. If BFL had said, prior to opening their pre-order window, look we've got this guy that got into some trouble and we're giving him a second chance because we believe he's changed then that would've been one thing.

They did not do this and instead hid his last name, failed to disclose his past, and then shuffled his job description once he was found out. They've handled this even worse than they have their numerous delay announcements.

Those who are in that situation are usually open about it, but some are not. In either case, you don't publicly advertise that fact! Show me a single commercial company that makes it a point to point out one of their employees as a felon. You're more likely to get sued by the employee then gain more customers thru "transparency".

[creativex]

It's also been handled very very poorly. If BFL had said, prior to opening their pre-order window, look we've got this guy that got into some trouble and we're giving him a second chance because we believe he's changed then that would've been one thing.

They did not do this and instead hid his last name, failed to disclose his past, and then shuffled his job description once he was found out. They've handled this even worse than they have their numerous delay announcements.

Those who are in that situation are usually open about it, but some are not. In either case, you don't publicly advertise that fact! Show me a single commercial company that makes it a point to point out one of their employees as a felon. You're more likely to get sued by the employee then gain more customers thru "transparency".

Again, Sonny is NOT just "one of their employees", he was their CEO and is now an officer with the company as is his brother. If their janitor was a crook I wouldn't care much, but a company officer and former CEO? Yeah that's important investor information and should plainly be disclosed PRIOR to accepting funds.

[Syke]

A) That has no bearing on their business operations. He is one of their 25 employees.

That's quite a mischaracterization of his position. Sonny is a "high-level executive" and a company owner.

[organofcorti]

Again, Sonny is NOT just "one of their employees", he was their CEO and is now an officer with the company as is his brother. If their janitor was a crook I wouldn't care much, but a company officer and former CEO? Yeah that's important investor information and should plainly be disclosed PRIOR to accepting funds.

I don't think BFL is accepting investors yet.

[creativex]

Again, Sonny is NOT just "one of their employees", he was their CEO and is now an officer with the company as is his brother. If their janitor was a crook I wouldn't care much, but a company officer and former CEO? Yeah that's important investor information and should plainly be disclosed PRIOR to accepting funds.

I don't think BFL is accepting investors yet.

Agree or not, according to SEC & FTC guidelines pre-order customers are investors and not customers.

[Korbman]

Ha, seems you're overlooking just about every single company in the banking/financial industry...

Really? Care to give a few examples?

Naw, you know how to use Google. You'll probably have trouble finding data under finance, but it's pretty widespread in IT as well.


EDIT:

Agree or not, according to SEC & FTC guidelines pre-order customers are investors and not customers.

Ah, very cool. I wasn't aware of the guidelines already in place for such circumstances, though I never doubted their existence.

[organofcorti]

Again, Sonny is NOT just "one of their employees", he was their CEO and is now an officer with the company as is his brother. If their janitor was a crook I wouldn't care much, but a company officer and former CEO? Yeah that's important investor information and should plainly be disclosed PRIOR to accepting funds.

I don't think BFL is accepting investors yet.

Agree or not, according to SEC & FTC guidelines pre-order customers are investors and not customers.

I should probably thank you for passing that information on, but that was a rather aggressive way to let me know. Not everyone's trying to piss you off, you know.

[creativex]

Again, Sonny is NOT just "one of their employees", he was their CEO and is now an officer with the company as is his brother. If their janitor was a crook I wouldn't care much, but a company officer and former CEO? Yeah that's important investor information and should plainly be disclosed PRIOR to accepting funds.

I don't think BFL is accepting investors yet.

Agree or not, according to SEC & FTC guidelines pre-order customers are investors and not customers.

I should probably thank you for passing that information on, but that was a rather aggressive way to let me know. Not everyone's trying to piss you off, you know.

I apologize if I sounded harsh, it was not intended. The "Agree or not" portion was actually placed there because *I* disagree with classifying pre-order customers as investors. I've nothing but respect for your informative and comprehensive posts here.

[niko]

Also, people change...

Did any of you READ Sonny's write up about what happened?

I'm guessing no.

Yes, sounded like he maintained that he has always been a nice guy, had nothing to apologize for, and in fact was a victim of an evil government. People change, right.  A BFL engineer/executive Nasser then also chimed in, denying that Sony was a scammer, and in fact defending his past. Not even a tiny sign of remorse about the documented, well planned scam carried out by Sony. Inaba responded by derailing threads, offending concerned customers, etc. It is hard for me to believe that anyone would take BFL seriously or treat them with respect, not to mention giving them money for some future product.

[Chalkbot]

Not even a tiny sign of remorse about the documented, well planned scam carried out by Sony.

I was of the understanding that the business Sonny participated in was about taking bets on upcoming lottery numbers. Is that wrong? Where can I read the correct information if so?

Also, in his judgement order it states that any business that he is even part owner of, he needs to fully disclose all business records and client lists to the probation officer. I'm not pointing that out to debate on whether he is/isn't part owner or whether he is complying with those terms, just saying that if a company had something devious planned, they probably wouldn't bring on this guy as he would be a huge liability to their operation.

I assume this has been considered already, but didn't read all of the pages of this thread since there is a lot of baseless flaming going on.

[Jason]

Quite a few months ago, I started down the path of creating a custom ASIC with another member of this forum.  We spoke with a number of companies that do structured ASIC designs but ultimately decided to go with a full custom ASIC design since it seemed like it would required to be competitive with the numbers being promised by the competition.  Ultimately, we entered into discussions with a company in Shanghai that does ASIC design with the intent of having them do the entire ASIC design for us.  Like BFL, we already had a working HDL design that we had verified on FPGA hardware.  Ultimately we chose not to move forward with the venture for business reasons, but it looks like BFL is on a similar path to what we were on.

Based on what I've been reading, it seems that BFL does not have in-house ASIC engineering experience (neither did we), but rather they have opted to farm out their design to a company experienced in these matters (a very positive thing IMO).  Silicon Valley probably has the highest concentration of ASIC design houses in the US, so it is encouraging to read that Josh is going there next week to meet with their ASIC design team.  Using an experienced ASIC design team in combination with a straightforward logic-only design like SHA256 and a conservative 65nm process is a good formula for minimizing risk and the number of respins.

I'm out of the mining business at the moment, but if I wanted to get back in now, I'd probably choose BFL based on the information currently available.

I have no affiliation with BFL or any of it's employees.

--
Jason

[YipYip]

augustocroppo - don't bother there is almost nothing in this thread worth reading except the latest update on the BFL site.
I'm not vouching for it's validity, just simply pointing out that there is almost nothing else worth spending the effort to read even 20 pages of the crap in here

Including the crap u just added ..lol

[ElectricMucus]

Quite a few months ago, I started down the path of creating a custom ASIC with another member of this forum.  We spoke with a number of companies that do structured ASIC designs but ultimately decided to go with a full custom ASIC design since it seemed like it would required to be competitive with the numbers being promised by the competition.  Ultimately, we entered into discussions with a company in Shanghai that does ASIC design with the intent of having them do the entire ASIC design for us.  Like BFL, we already had a working HDL design that we had verified on FPGA hardware.  Ultimately we chose not to move forward with the venture for business reasons, but it looks like BFL is on a similar path to what we were on.

Based on what I've been reading, it seems that BFL does not have in-house ASIC engineering experience (neither did we), but rather they have opted to farm out their design to a company experienced in these matters (a very positive thing IMO).  Silicon Valley probably has the highest concentration of ASIC design houses in the US, so it is encouraging to read that Josh is going there next week to meet with their ASIC design team.  Using an experienced ASIC design team in combination with a straightforward logic-only design like SHA256 and a conservative 65nm process is a good formula for minimizing risk and the number of respins.

I'm out of the mining business at the moment, but if I wanted to get back in now, I'd probably choose BFL based on the information currently available.

I have no affiliation with BFL or any of it's employees.

--
Jason

You are full of shit Jason.

[YipYip]

Well I like that they agreed to 'the' queue request finally

I am also looking forward to this feature.

This. It'll definitely be nice. Would also be kinda cool if we could see exactly where in the queue we are (relative to other orders & quantities), so we could start theorizing (if they have at least X chips, my order will be filled, but I have a Y% chance of getting my units if only X-N chips are supplied). Well, I'd love to do that anyway.

So u can feed your greed gland about all the $$$$$$$$$$ i will be making with "my precious"

[YipYip]

So, you all saw this right?

Some did, others just thought "lol another delay" without realising that the timeline is actually pretty consistent with their December update. The update also happens to be their most detailed ever (ie. it actually includes a timeline...).

Well I'm totally fine laughing at you guys when the actually consistent date is pushed down for another month.

Btw what does week of feb. 10th actually mean? That's kinda ambiguous since it is a sunday. Is it the week before the sunday or after it?

+1

[CharlieContent]

I was of the understanding that the business Sonny participated in was about taking bets on upcoming lottery numbers. Is that wrong? Where can I read the correct information if so?

Basically it was an advance fee fraud where he sent people letters saying they had won a foreign lottery, but they needed to pay an admin fee to have the money released. He deliberately targeted the elderly, believing them to be more vulnerable.

He came on the forums and claimed to be basically running a numbers racket (i.e. an illegal lottery) and claimed that it was perfectly reasonable to run an unregulated, unsupervised lottery and it was just those god damned government regulations that stopped him from making an honest buck by doing so. That would be bad enough but what he was doing was even worse.

He then posted a picture of him with his girlfriend and his new born baby, as if to say "look at me with this little baby, how could I be a bad guy?"

It was one of the most pathetic and insidious things I have ever seen.

This guy is not just "an employee". He is the founder and CEO of the company

[YipYip]

So, you all saw this right?

I have seen it already a month ago, 2 months ago, 3 months ago, 4 months ago... How many times should I watch this movie again and again?

Its got action,adeventure,drama,heros,vilians and most important of all

"The holy ASIC Chip relic"

Starring Nicolas Cage

Who knows how it ends ...but it wont be what we expect ..lol

[YipYip]

So, you all saw this right?

I have seen it already a month ago, 2 months ago, 3 months ago, 4 months ago... How many times should I watch this movies again and again?

Tis certainly entirely up to you.  Get a refund if you're tired of it.

Do u work for BFL ?

[Chalkbot]

Basically it was an advance fee fraud where he sent people letters saying they had won a foreign lottery, but they needed to pay an admin fee to have the money released. He deliberately targeted the elderly, believing them to be more vulnerable.

Thanks Charlie. Is there a place where this is documented? I'm interested in getting the facts myself, as the people of these forums are completely unreliable for this purpose.

Also, if Sonny actually owns the company, then my original question stands. Doesn't that put them and everything they do in the government spotlight? Seems like a silly way to run a scam, when the owner of the company makes no difference in the grand scheme if you're planning to take the money and run.