mtgox.com has blocked my account with 45 000 USD in it!

[kiba]

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

On the internet, you can't detect sarcasm.

[BCEmporium]

In American courts a jury decides what is right and wrong.  Right and wrong is based on personal experience.  So, FatherMcGruder is right, in my opinion.

MtGox's opinion pretty much represents the opinion of the people on the forums of bitcoin.org.

Juries do not decide right and wrong.  They decide guilt or innocence.

Juries get to judge the law in addition to the person.  I suggest you familiarize yourself with the one of the most IMPORTANT checks and balances, jury nullification.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Juries are organized and subject to Jurisprudence. This is more sort of mob-justice I'd been see around.
Under other circumstances, like real life, Baron would be already hang by the neck in some pole, if happens to be the guy was innocent... too bad! Mob-justice lacks appeal.

[nanotube]

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

On the internet, you can't detect sarcasm.

percontation point to the rescue!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation

[dmiceman]

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

On the internet, you can't detect sarcasm.

Are you sure you can fulfil a Turing test then?

[kiba]

Are you sure you can fulfil a Turing test then?

Humans are already failing turing test like really-difficult-captcha.

[joe]

45k$ is a significant amount of money. I am wondering why is it still being discussed here at all. This is a matter for police and/or civil litigation.

I personally do not like how operator of mtgox has appointed himself as investigator, judge and executioner, as well as treasury for fines/confiscated property. How he simply ignores presumption of innocence, dishes out "guilty" verdicts and keeps the money.

However, there is another possibility here. Mtgox is paying homage to money laundering regulations which probably require them to freeze and report suspicious accounts and they cannot tell about it "the client". Mtgox public statements do not quite fit this version, though.

Mtgox is being rather economical with words here.

Until this matter clears up, for me personally, mtgox is a no go zone.

Please do correct me if I am wrong.

Agree. Mtgox did worse than paypal. While paypal's funds freezing scams usually begin with reversed credit card transactions that put paypal at a loss that they need to recover, in this case here, mtgox has not had any liberty reserve or coins pulled away from itself, but continues with a funds freeze anyway. Especially foolish since this community is comprised of many people that absolutely despise paypal's model and instead value economic privacy and freedom.

[breandan81]

I've already made some comments on my views on this, but I think this whole affair is a symptom of a greater problem.  We have a functioning medium of exchange that is roughly (very roughly) equivalent to digital cash, backed only by market pressures and community interest, and the problems are cropping up at the interface between this and the highly regulated world of national currencies.  Try to walk into a bank with 45k in 100 dollar bills and exchange them for euros and see how they look at you.  The future of bitcoin is clearly dependant on the availability of direct peer to peer exchange of currency, rather than some sort of central exchange point.  I'm going to look into bitcoin otc now, this thread has taught me a lesson.   The primary problem with only doing peer to peer exchanges is the ability to create a false persona when you get caught scamming, this problem was solved with cryptographic signatures decades ago. I'm thinking of a system in which a market is created where you can buy and sell bitcoins for any currency, any payment method, peer to peer, and your identity is attached to a gpg key generated for this purpose, and kept on your own computer.  Each time a transaction goes through another member of the community can sign this key.  The obvious flaw here is that I could make a hundred identities and sign my own keys.  I think if scammers could be identified with a sort of negative signature, that would show up as a demerit against their credit rating this might be held in check.  Any thoughts of a better implementation of some sort of scheme like this?

[Anonymous]

I've already made some comments on my views on this, but I think this whole affair is a symptom of a greater problem.  We have a functioning medium of exchange that is roughly (very roughly) equivalent to digital cash, backed only by market pressures and community interest, and the problems are cropping up at the interface between this and the highly regulated world of national currencies.  Try to walk into a bank with 45k in 100 dollar bills and exchange them for euros and see how they look at you.  The future of bitcoin is clearly dependant on the availability of direct peer to peer exchange of currency, rather than some sort of central exchange point.  I'm going to look into bitcoin otc now, this thread has taught me a lesson.   The primary problem with only doing peer to peer exchanges is the ability to create a false persona when you get caught scamming, this problem was solved with cryptographic signatures decades ago. I'm thinking of a system in which a market is created where you can buy and sell bitcoins for any currency, any payment method, peer to peer, and your identity is attached to a gpg key generated for this purpose, and kept on your own computer.  Each time a transaction goes through another member of the community can sign this key.  The obvious flaw here is that I could make a hundred identities and sign my own keys.  I think if scammers could be identified with a sort of negative signature, that would show up as a demerit against their credit rating this might be held in check.  Any thoughts of a better implementation of some sort of scheme like this?

bitcoin-otc is my recommendation. It already has all of the features we need and use . On some days the trading volume surpasses that of mt gox.

There is also the credit/wot agency in development stages that will make it difficult for scammers to setup a new account and start trading.

[Dude65535]

Any thoughts of a better implementation of some sort of scheme like this?

Slower to set up and kind of hard on new users, but if you set up the system to tell you how much someone is trusted by people you trust rather than just anyone it is harder for scammers to pump up their reputation.

[sturle]

Agree. Mtgox did worse than paypal. While paypal's funds freezing scams usually begin with reversed credit card transactions that put paypal at a loss that they need to recover, in this case here, mtgox has not had any liberty reserve or coins pulled away from itself, but continues with a funds freeze anyway.

You are wrong.  Read the thread.  A large sum of coins were stolen from a customers account, and were transferred via Baron's Bitcoin client to Baron's account on Mt Gox.  When Mt. Gox finds a heap of stolen goods, mixed with goods of unknown origin, he is required by law to lock access to it until the matters are resolved.  Would it be better if Mt. Gox was a criminal and went to jail, risking the assets of everyone at Mt. Gox?  It is extremely important to us, his customers, that Mt. Gox abides by the law.  If you don't like that, you should put your money on some black market where you risk to loose everything to a scam or police raid.

PayPal's locking of accounts often has nothing at all to do with reversed credit card transactions.  Often a reversed PayPal transfer is enough, and often not even that.  E.g. the Wikileaks donation account, and the donation account for Brian Manning's defence fund.  Those were purely political.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

More than that, I'm not up to discuss Mythology either.

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

Mythology my ass...

[BCEmporium]

Moved to off-topic.

[ribuck]

ShadowOfHarbringer and BCEmporium, if you'd care to start a thread in Off Topic I'll be very happy to join in.

Religious discussion doesn't belong here in "Marketplace" (unless you're selling crucifixes for bitcoins).

[BCEmporium]

ShadowOfHarbringer and BCEmporium, if you'd care to start a thread in Off Topic I'll be very happy to join in.

Religious discussion doesn't belong here in "Marketplace" (unless you're selling crucifixes for bitcoins).

You're right. Market has no religion and should stay that way. 

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

ShadowOfHarbringer and BCEmporium, if you'd care to start a thread in Off Topic I'll be very happy to join in.

Religious discussion doesn't belong here in "Marketplace"

I just get used to the fact that every thread on this forum goes offtopic sooner or later...

(unless you're selling crucifixes for bitcoins).

I think I just invented a new buisness model

/Nah, just kidding.

[Drifter]

I just get used to the fact that every thread on this forum goes offtopic sooner or later...

When you get the same few people filling up 27 fucking pages on one thread, I guess I'd run out of things to talk about too.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I just get used to the fact that every thread on this forum goes off topic sooner or later...

And dang it, it is only in the threads that I'm commenting in ... I wonder why that is, eh fella?

[eMansipater]

Only read the first 21 pages, but promise I'll finish when I have the time.  I just have one question:

Has nobody searched the IRC logs for Baron's address?  Seems like a pretty simple thing to do.  If his story is real he had to hand over the destination address at some point.  If he didn't use the standard channel then his explanation of the whole thing is badly lacking (how did he end up in some random channel, trading BTC, but have no memory of the nicks, channel, and no way to get them from a history, etc.)

And to Jed (Mt. Gox) I sincerely hope you aren't having to read this thread repeatedly but if you are my trust is with you.  Freezing is a safe middle ground since the money is still there and in good hands.  Sill behind you and all the work you do for the bitcoin community!  Some of us out here still have a little patience


sincerely,
eMansipater

[kiba]

Many days later...we don't know if the situation is resolved or what? Is Baron refusing to talk to MtGox?

[FatherMcGruder]

Many days later...we don't know if the situation is resolved or what? Is Baron refusing to talk to MtGox?

Why would Satoshi ever call any of us little people?