BOYCOTT all businesses associated to Alex Waters, Matt Mellon, and Yifu Guo!

[yayayo]

Alex Waters has not worked for BitInstant for a long time, you should take that down. He helps run the Apex Incubator as far as I'm aware.

edit: source, i've met him in person. also his linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-waters/10/605/29b

Thanks for the info, updated.


Whoever has additional information, feel free to post.


ya.ya.yo!

[1714293485]

1714293485

[1714293485]

1714293485

[1714293485]

1714293485

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

If you run a full mining node, blacklist the whitelist.

You're assuming the white-list will be public. It needn't be.

The alternative is to give up on "law abiding businesses"

How would you know in advance which business are helping the thugs create their whitelist and which are not? It's not like they need to publicly advertise it.

[Carlton Banks]

If you run a full mining node, blacklist the whitelist.

You're assuming the white-list will be public. It needn't be.

A determined Belarusian computer hacker should put a stop to that.

Also, I don't see how disallowing public queries of the list could work. If you receive coins from a dirty address, you have no way of checking whether or not you can accept them.

[adam3us]

Adam Back sums the situation up nicely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333882.0

Well towards getting some kind of reasoned response from Coin Validation I tweeted a link to Alex Waters & Yifu Guo for the above thread.  Couldnt find their email, but their twitter handle are easy to find, and they appear to be very current.

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/401104148558397440

Adam

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Well towards getting some kind of reasoned response from Coin Validation I tweeted a link to Alex Waters & Yifu Guo for the above thread.  

With all due respect, but I feel that's analogous to a Jew in the early 30s trying to reach Nazi leaders in order to convince them of how wrong they were.

You're just putting your ass on the line. These people are working with regulators.

[DeeSome]

Adam Back sums the situation up nicely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333882.0

Well towards getting some kind of reasoned response from Coin Validation I tweeted a link to Alex Waters & Yifu Guo for the above thread.  Couldnt find their email, but their twitter handle are easy to find, and they appear to be very current.

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/401104148558397440

Adam

I think I speak for many in saying thanks for your input Adam, it seems to me there are too many business minds involved in the decision making of Bitcoin whose only concerns are the profit for themselves aspect.

[yayayo]

I think I speak for many in saying thanks for your input Adam, it seems to me there are too many business minds involved in the decision making of Bitcoin whose only concerns are the profit for themselves aspect.

Agree. After reading a bit about Matthew Mellon (info updated) I'm even more concerned.



ya.ya.yo!

[jedunnigan]

Alex Waters has not worked for BitInstant for a long time, you should take that down. He helps run the Apex Incubator as far as I'm aware.

edit: source, i've met him in person. also his linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-waters/10/605/29b

Thanks for the info, updated.


Whoever has additional information, feel free to post.


ya.ya.yo!

np, love your username btw!

Brendan Diaz works with Alex Waters at Apex (who I assume is "incubating" this startup) as the COO, you should put him down under Alex's "people" as well

Alex on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/alex_waters
yifu:     www.linkedin.com/in/yifuguo

[yayayo]

np, love your username btw!

Brendan Diaz works with Alex Waters at Apex (who I assume is "incubating" this startup) as the COO, you should put him down under Alex's "people" as well

Alex on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/alex_waters
yifu:     www.linkedin.com/in/yifuguo

Thank you! Updated.

Everybody feel free to contribute.


ya.ya.yo!

[sergio]

i agree boycott coin validation scam. bitcoin shoild me made more anonymous for the average joe to use

[westkybitcoins]

can we stop this?

Yes, but not by negotiating with every fool who attempts it, for there are far too many fools in the world.  I've personally talked two startups out of similar business models in the past.

We can stop this by making sure that its not viable, by tweaking our practices and the ecosystem to be an environment that things like this just can't work in. This means: Anonymous mining, Discouraging address reuse, coinjoin, etc.  Importantly, people need to step up and fund the development of privacy tools.  Today there is no business model for decenteralized privacy tools that people can use casually and thus pervasively.

We must vote with our wallets— not our spending, but how we choose to transact and what developments we fund. As a spending group the people who really realize the importance of privacy and fungiblity will always be a small enough minority that short-sighted business people will find it all too easy to go without their business.

I agree and support everything you said here, Gregory, but I'm afraid that might not be enough.

Working around balcklists is feasible, through the means you cite. But the threat here are not blacklists, the threat are mandatory whitelists.

You may coinjoin your coins as much as you want. If you want to use them in "the land of the free" you'll have to give away your freedom and privacy by declaring them to Big Brother. Otherwise your output might just be frozen by the "law abiding merchant" that receives it.
Mixers are not enough to fight back. But I fail to see alternatives.

I know you and many other bitcoin developers have brilliant minds... I hope you manage to come up with a solution.

The solution seems obvious (if difficult to implement):

A setup where you know the address you send money to... but where no one can determine where the funds in a given address came from.

This has downsides of course; you can't prove you sent a payment, only that payment was sent.

But developing this scheme seems worthwhile enough, as it will stop this nastiness cold.

EDIT: Frankly, the way bitcoin works, even if such an option was available, there will always still be an option to use direct payment, and the tendency will be to force users to do so. It's looking like we need a new cryptocurrency where direct payment isn't even possible.

[Luckybit]

You libertarians are just crazy, your whole focus on wrapping your self in secrecy and eliminating any accountability in society you create the very Dystopia you fear.  To stretch a metaphor from TLOTR (a better work of fiction then anything Ann Rand ever wrote btw), your think passing out copies of the one ring will make the world a better place because the common man will somehow be 'equal' to elites.  Equally unaccountable and equally likely to abuse that power I think (you know even Frodo succumbs to the temptation, because you know know power corrupts etc etc).  If you want a world free of abuse of power then you can't fight fire with fire, you need universal accountability and transparency so abuse of power can be seen by everyone rather then fester in the shadows.  

And seriously of all the realms of our lives were privacy might be justified, out financial and business transactions are the last ones that are deserving of privacy.  I would really expect more libertarians to understand how markets work, they require information and the more the better.  Information asymmetry between two parties makes a fair meeting of the minds impossible and thus leads to market inefficiency.

See David Brin (my favorite author btw) on the subject of privacy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society  And
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.06.97/cover/brin1-9706.html

Privacy should exist everywhere but there should be a balance. A way to follow the money trail must exist to prevent institutional corruption. For this reason we cannot have secrecy in financial transactions. We can have privacy though. I don't think everyone needs to know what books everyone else is buying.

But I want to know if a politician or police officer is being bribed because democracy depends on it. A free society depends on transparency.

[Luckybit]

there are a lot of services out there which are a serious threat to privacy.

take Coinapult.  This company has an enormous database of Bitcoin Addresses to Email Addresses.  The NSA routinely buys such companies out(through their partner VC firms) and adds the database to their system for monitoring the populace.

But you can mask your email address fairly easily. I think a public key would work better than an email address because then the communications channel between you and the business would be entirely encrypted but also verifiable through a digital signature.

Anyway there is probably a technological solution to this but right now everyone is reacting with angry and talking about trying to mix their coins. Mixing the coins will not solve this problem but it might help protect fungibility.

[BitchicksHusband]

Remember a couple of years ago all the conspiracy theorists were talking about one world currency, one world government, chips, all that stuff? Every day Bitcoin looks more and more similar to it. Sometimes I think we have been tricked into using a currency that offers us no privacy at all.

Yeah we may become insanely rich, but there is a price we pay for it.

And people say the Bible isn't accurate...

[WillBit]

Coin Validation LLC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vkF-k56b2g

[yayayo]

Must read, copied over from reddit

Preface: Your upvotes contribute to his google search.

I believe it is worth exposing each person in this new CoInvalidation team. Yifu is a dishonest criminal of bitcoins, dollars, time, and his actions speak to a nefarious character. Google him, it's been covered.

Well, what about the other guys? The coin purse, cofounder, and government connections guy is Matthew Mellon.

First, let me preface this with saying Matt has really great family lawyers. They have attacked (and removed) a lot of articles exposing him and reporting on his past. If you report on this on your blog, he will send legal to come after you.


So, who is Matt?

Matthew Mellon is part of one of America’s most influential and wealthy families — with ties like Gulf Oil, Carnegie Mellon University and Alcoa. Matthew inherited a $25 million trust fund at only 21, and started blowing it on cocaine, guns, celebrity company, and whatever other ridiculous or dangerous things he could get his hands on. He almost overdosed, and instead of reforming, he divorced his wife went back to hit the slopes some more. He fired his next fiancee, and left her financially dry, only to jump to another woman shortly after.


Some stuff he's done that went public:

Matthew Mellon historically had a nasty breakup which exposed his crack, cocaine, and business embezzlement.

Matthew Mellon is friends enough with this ex-Paris Hilton boyfriend asshat, having borrowed him funds which also funded Brandon's drug use.

Matthew Mellon was likely involved in a hacking scandal which his lawyers cleaned up nicely. The problem with making a website also apologize is it leaves traces.

Matthew Mellon also threatened lawsuit to take another article down here. "the wealthy Matthew Mellon thought they needn't act as average people, so instead they've, through their attorneys, tried to scare us."

A report still up shows that Matthew Mellon allegedly hired wire-tapping on his ex-wife. Do you trust him with your validation? On further research, he was arrested and charged.

For you political folks, I will let you make your own decision on Matthew Mellon's contributions to Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. He has donated both separately (majorly to Ryan) and combined. This includes the defunding of Medicare and Medicaid.

I'm sure I could keep digging wonderful things, but this post is getting too fucking long. Matthew Mellon, and associates Alex Waters & Yufi Guo, if you read this: fuck. you.

Alex Waters, you're next. And Kashmir Hill - thanks for your previous exposure but you are a shill. Your spin shows your lack of spine and willingness to suck the institutionalized finance dick. Fuck you too.

TL;DR: Alleged criminal Matthew Mellon eager to help government in fighting "bitcoin criminals".


ya.ya.yo!

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

A setup where you know the address you send money to... but where no one can determine where the funds in a given address came from.

And how would that be possible in a decentralized way?

The only setup I'm aware of that could do what you say is e-cash (blind signatures, part of Open Transactions). But this algorithm requires a server to perform the settlement. Perhaps the servers could evolve to multiple hidden servers where very few trust is needed. If you could easily move money from one e-cash server to another (can we?), and if you could be sure they can't steal from you (multi-signatures!), then we could practically have an e-cash decentralized network. Perhaps it's time to study Open Transactions...

[niothor]

Nope , i'm not going to quote this.

Your last paragraph just kills your initiative.The usage of such language is just inappropriate and it will turn into a double edge sword.. There are lots of people who although might be angry at Yifu&Company , when reading that will say "Fuck You" not "Fuck Yifu"

[justusranvier]

The only setup I'm aware of that could do what you say is e-cash (blind signatures, part of Open Transactions). But this algorithm requires a server to perform the settlement. Perhaps the servers could evolve to multiple hidden servers where very few trust is needed. If you could easily move money from one e-cash server to another (can we?), and if you could be sure they can't steal from you (multi-signatures!), then we could practically have an e-cash decentralized network. Perhaps it's time to study Open Transactions...

There is a concept in Open Transactions known as "voting pools" where a network of independent but cooperating transaction servers share public keys accept bitcoin deposits to multisig address and then issue BTC-backed OT assets for users to transact with in the OT system.

What this means is that several servers have to cooperate in order to process withdrawals therefore no single person can steal the bitcoins.

Open Transaction's security model is not as strong as Bitcoin's, but transaction servers in a voting pool can be set up to allow realtime public auditing of both their blockchain holding and the OT assets they issue based on them (to check for fractional reserve, etc).

I'm not a fan of off-chain transactions in general, but I think OT has enough additional features that it's worth building on right now, and in the long term we should get the necessary opcodes added to Bitcoin such that we would no longer need the OT transaction servers and could just process smart contracts directly on the blockchain.

[QuantumQrack]

I'll be joining the boycott.