1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam?

[rjk]

The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.

[bittenbob]

There is absolutely nothing to establish the depth of the halogen light within the frame. You are speaking tinfoil hat jibberish at this point. Furthermore:


http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/9eba598/

I think its safe to say it isnt below the soldering station which is where the light would have to be coming from to show the shadow on the board on the right and chip/cover on the left. There are some points of reference in that I can say it is behind her head and in front of the soldering station. The lens also appears to be around the level of her hairline. I work with lights so I know all about them. You can also see the light on her hand that defines the distribution angle of the light from the lamp.

There is no tinfoil hat. I wear many hats but none of them physical and definitely not tinfoil. As I said there is proof we landed on the moon to any naysayers because there are mirrors we can bounce lasers off of.

I am someone who believes in proof and so far I have seen nothing that would convince me that they are legit.

[bittenbob]

The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.

And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam. Like I said before it is entirely possible that this could exist but all signs point to it being a scam. If I am wrong I will eat my dirty socks.


I also work with a lot of electrical engineers who would also challenge the legitimacy of this. We even discussed earlier today about making FPGA boards that would be better optimized and cheaper than the current generation for bitcoin mining. I would have to wait until monday but I could ask them if they believe this is a scam but I already know what their answers will be.

[rjk]

The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.

And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam.

I would say it was more directed at you because you (like Goat) have spammed the thread totally to death. I like a reasoned discussion, but I hate endless reposted spam.

[bittenbob]

The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.

And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam.

I would say it was more directed at you because you (like Goat) have spammed the thread totally to death. I like a reasoned discussion, but I hate endless reposted spam.

I am not trying to repost or spam but when other people are trying to say that I am a liar and only doing it for money then I am going to defend myself. I hate endless reposted spam too but I did bring new information with trying to track down the supposed business registration. The place they are registered to said they never existed there so I performed some investigation of this myself. I did not think this would bring me vitrol and hatred. I guess my mistake was hoping maybe someone would maybe donate to me because mining takes so long to make bitcoins. In fact I think I am going to remove the original reference to my wallet just to prove this (as expected no one dontated anyting anyways lol). I also added some analysis of the only photo on the website that showed a person. 2 fake adresses+ no names+ questionable (but not impossible) performance numbers = scam.

Update (to avoid extra posts)

Removed other reference to my wallet. I don't care about money, Im just trying to prevent people from getting scammed. If you still send them money, don't say you weren't warned.

[RandyFolds]

The amount of vitrol and bile in this thread is astounding.

And it seems to be directed towards me for pointing out holes in what I believe is a scam.

I would say it was more directed at you because you (like Goat) have spammed the thread totally to death. I like a reasoned discussion, but I hate endless reposted spam.

I am not trying to repost or spam but when other people are trying to say that I am a liar and only doing it for money then I am going to defend myself. I hate endless reposted spam too but I did bring new information with trying to track down the supposed business registration. The place they are registered to said they never existed there so I performed some investigation of this myself. I did not think this would bring me vitrol and hatred. I guess my mistake was hoping maybe someone would maybe donate to me because mining takes so long to make bitcoins. In fact I think I am going to remove the original reference to my wallet just to prove this (as expected no one dontated anyting anyways lol). I also added some analysis of the only photo on the website that showed a person. 2 fake adresses+ no names+ questionable (but not impossible) performance numbers = scam.

Update (to avoid extra posts)

Removed other reference to my wallet. I don't care about money, Im just trying to prevent people from getting scammed. If you still send them money, don't say you weren't warned.

Oh yeah. The business registration that DeathAndTaxes posted like, ten pages ago.

[bittenbob]

The business registration that no one challenged or investigated. I investigated and it doesnt add up.

Point?

[2112]

The needs for mining are so out of wack with other sha256 engine uses...

The SHA256 isn't really a big intelectual property development. To me it seems like a single-semester student project in microcoding. Off-the-shelf SHA256 cells are ususally designed for fast streaming. And the various designs published (or alluded to) here looked like they were unrolled and limited by the signal propagation over the long interconnects. I haven't seen anyone doing the opposite extreme: packing a lot of slow but small hash cells into a single chip.
 

unless perhaps a batch of 22nm FPGAs "fell off a truck".

Maybe not "fell off a truck", but a straight "dumpster diving" at some research or test facility. I have no current knowledge of the foundry business, but in they days past I've met people selling analog and mix-sig ICs that were mismatched or half-operational rejects. One person's trash was the other person's treasure.

[sadpandatech]

She could be posing for the picture as I have done this at work but this is not the only problem with this picture. There are the shadows on the boards and furthermore the soldering tool that is holstered beside the station is a pretty wide tip to be using on circuit boards. Then there are the questions of the adresses supplied by the company and the lack of being able to find any information about any employee names. It is interesting the one person lives across the road from the place in KC and still hasnt been granted any sort of confirmation.

I believe they metnioned they had pictures of people going in and out of this building so I have to play devils advocate as well and ask if any of them were this lady. If not its just another thing that makes this smell fishy. Maybe this is the infamous Nancy Hernandez?

  Maybe they just made up that manual or found it, but I highly doubt it. It would be about the equiv of my bringing home one of the DeltaII/III project manuals from work to keep on my desk. I'd have better odds robbing the White House. ;p  And there are 3 solder guns tools holstered to her right, presumably to do more than just the tiny chips on this board here.

  bah, let me go look it up for ya, m8.  

  No idea which model of Mydata pick and place machine they are using or if they are just using the TPsys software on something else. But, that manual is for the software for those type of machines and specificly a 'MY' series one. And they are far, far from being cheap.

    http://www.alternativesmt.com/equipment/Mydata-TP91-Mydata.asp
    http://keytechsolutions.com/?111000
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz_enzQ0akY&noredirect=1
    http://www.mydata.com/www2/main.nsf/content.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=8394789BD7CE07FFC125786A003208B7

  Which, brings me back to one of my much earlier posts on this thread. When I first read the info about their specs and mixed arch chips, etc, the first thought that came to mind was, 'Gov Contracter'...  Go hit up google for NIST System A, System B, I believe they are calling the rollout of new requirements for classified communications to all be of a minimum sha-256 encryption. Leading me to believe there would be a new surge of companies competing to build chips for those functions...

    *tinfoil Hat*  Bitcoin would sure be a nifty way to encourage briliant minds of an 'underground' nature to come build platforms for performing sha functions cheaply. ;p

  P.S.  BFL, if you wouldn't mind sharing some Geek Porn with us, a nice picture of a MyData or similar p&p would be mmmmmmmmmmmmm
    

[DeathAndTaxes]

SHA-256 is a hashing algorithm not an encryption algorithm.  You likely are thinking of AES-256.

Of course no company which exists on paper only in Wyoming under the wrong name as of a few months ago and just created a website without any prior products has any realistic chance of getting anywhere near a govt encryption contract.

The photo and equipment certainly does look legit.  Of course it may be possible these guys have real jobs in electronics field and snapped a photo of a coworker.

[Inaba]

Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake.

If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand?

You do not work on electronics.  How do I know this?  Because you think the device she's holding is a soldering iron.  heh.  It's not... but anyone who works with SMT would know exactly what it is really is.

[rjk]

Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake.

If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand?

You do not work on electronics.  How do I know this?  Because you think the device she's holding is a soldering iron.  heh.  It's not... but anyone who works with SMT would know exactly what it is really is.

This +1. SMT is not soldered at 800 degrees.

[sadpandatech]

6.5 of 20 coins sent to Inaba. I am working in Thailand for the Thai Government and we have a national disaster going on here right now.

  uh oh, we woke up Goat. ;p  Real life comes first, m8. Be safe over there!

   
Warning - while you were typing 11 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.    wow just wow

   Aye, we be stressin the lackin of the BFLin to come throughin!!

[Inaba]

And just as a point of fact, the soldering irons are in the upper right hand of the picture.  The "gun" you see below them is a desoldering gun.  I have a similar unit on my desk... it's attached to a hot air desolder unit along with the wand.  Except theirs is nice and mine is a cheap Chinese knock off

[bittenbob]

Look at the photo of the lady again and look at the shadows on the chips. They just dont make sense and there are no way those are real. I work on electronics myself and I know this is fake.

If she is a so called ninja guru why would she be holding a soldering iron at 800F so close to her hand?

You do not work on electronics.  How do I know this?  Because you think the device she's holding is a soldering iron.  heh.  It's not... but anyone who works with SMT would know exactly what it is really is.

I know its a solder iron... Not a gun. I do work on electronics but not at the same level as these boards but I have worked on silicon boards. 900F is the max temp of my iron but I like to run it around 750-800F just to make it quicker. Regardless it is very hot and can/will burn you if you touch it if its hot enough to work with lead.

I have already said what I do before but I will repeat it for you (even if it ticks RPK off). I do certification and testing of solar panels which I have created and refurbished several peices of electronic equipment for. So to answer your question yes I do work with electronics and I never said what she was holding wasnt a soldering iron. Just that it was big which it is.

[Inaba]

That's the problem with your assertion.  It's NOT a soldering iron.  You may "know" it is, but what you "know" is wrong.

[sadpandatech]

SHA-256 is a hashing algorithm not an encryption algorithm.  You likely are thinking of AES-256.

of course.  my statement should have read "to be sha-256 hashed" instead..

  Edit; But I am refering to this in part; http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/fips180-4/Draft-FIPS180-4_Feb2011.pdf

Of course no company which exists on paper only in Wyoming under the wrong name as of a few months ago and just created a website without any prior products has any realistic chance of getting anywhere near a govt encryption contract.

 That they could have such capabilities and just kind of came out of no where is exactly why I am suggesting they are hiding their identities......

The photo and equipment certainly does look legit.  Of course it may be possible these guys have real jobs in electronics field and snapped a photo of a coworker.

  yeppers, I could have snapped some photos in one of the Nasa labs and then used them to say I was building sha hashing rockets out of. ;p

[bittenbob]

And just as a point of fact, the soldering irons are in the upper right hand of the picture.  The "gun" you see below them is a desoldering gun.  I have a similar unit on my desk... it's attached to a hot air desolder unit along with the wand.  Except theirs is nice and mine is a cheap Chinese knock off

Ok even if it is a desoldering iron that doesn't prove anything. Just that wherever this picture was taken the person has some electronic equipment. I know many people that work with electronics that are more than questionable and many of whom wouldnt hesitate to steal expensive soldering equipment from work given the opportunity. There is nothing to indicate where this picture was taken and could very well be an electronics manufacturer (hey grandma want to come into work with me? Hey lets take a picture like you are doing something). Also as I mentioned a few suckers buys you a lot of capital with whcih you can buy equipment to make yourself look legitimate and attract more suckers.

If this is a scam (which it most likely is) then whoever is purporting it obviously has a good knowledge of electronics and electrical engineering. Just because someone is scamming you doesn't mean they wont buy some good equipment in which to build something similar and to convince more people they are legit. It will be interesting when Nov 25 passes and their second box becomes available for pre-order. If they are around that long it is.

Edit:

I see deathandtaxes beat me to the fact that this pic could have been taken anywhere. I agree it does not prove anyting.

[grubles]

As per one of my other posts did you look at the shadows on the chips in this picture? Not to mention if that iron is hot (which I use a similar one all the time) I would not be taking my eye off it as they leave one heck of a burn. I deal with testing and certification of solar panels so I know all about ligthing and I do not see any possible objects that would create the shadows in this picture.

Obviously there is more than one light source in the picture, hence any kind of shadow weirdness you might be seeing.

[bittenbob]

Obviously there is more than one light source in the picture, hence any kind of shadow weirdness you might be seeing.

I know there is more than one light source and I fully understand the implications. I work with SOLAR PANELS and deal with some very unique light sources myself. I am saying that the shadows on the two boards she is supposedly working on still do not add up. And yes I have dealt with multiple light sources and do on a regular basis. Specifically the shadows I mentioned are unlikely to occur given the arrangement of lights shown in the photo. and would require certain lighting conditions.

Again even if the picture was unaltered the boards could be dummy boards but I admit that they do appear similar to the other pictures listed in thius forum and on the website. This lends some apparent credibility to their case but if you were running a scam would you release any photo that would discredit you? No. If the photo appears legit to you its because it's supposed to.

If they grant a tour and testing session to the user across the road from their so called office in the welfare lofts then I might give them more credit but they have yet to do so.