==== Eligius, please pay my 200+ BTC ====

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

whew...I'm stuffed on popcorn...this is getting good 

Yea this is ridiculous.

Not only that but noone has any real proof of any of this.

There is sufficient proof to easily hold up in a criminal court case, IMO.

I respect eligius a lot and would say that the reputation of eligius would be sufficient to believe you if you say that there is proof. However I would be very interested to see proof.

I respect eligius a lot and would say that the reputation of eligius would be sufficient to believe you if you say that there is proof. However I would be very interested to see proof.

That is something up to wizkid057 to try to organise and present.
If it were me, I'd consider the effort to try to put it in a form understandable by anyone to be more trouble than it's worth.

In regards to the proof holding up in a criminal case it is important to understand how complex Bitcoin is. You need to be smart to understand even much of the basics as to how Bitcoin works. I would be surprised if you could explain to a jury (made of up "average" people, most of which likely would not have any technical background) how a pool works or how miners work in enough detail that would allow you to explain the evidence.

I don't think courts usually require a full explanation of the technical details, just expert witness testimony that such and such is fact.

If you were to testify, the defense attorney would ask what you think he did. Your response would be something along the lines of he withheld blocks that he founds while mining on our pool (you would explain what mining, pools are and what with holding blocks mean). The next thing he would ask is "how do you know" you would respond by saying something along the lines of "I looked at our pool records and saw x y and z" The defense attorney would ask to see the records and for you to explain what they mean. Having the records in a presettable format may be the difference between guilty and not guilty or 400 BTC or 0 BTC

In regards to should he be paid if he is withholding blocks, if it appears that he withheld three blocks (for example) then 76 BTC (I would be aggressive with TX fees) should be withheld from his payment, at the very least. This is regardless if he was doing this intentionally or not and is especially true for such a large mining farm.

Unfortunately, even after withholding the ~200 BTC, he still owes us like ~400 BTC.

If you could find out his identity with relative certainty you could pursue civil charges against him. Assuming he was not mining via tor finding his identity shouldn't be more difficult then filing a lawsuit against the alias, then sending a subpoena to the ISP, data center until you can connect the dots to his identity.

Have you considered "flagging" accounts/addresses/ipaddresses that have more then x hashpower or less then y luck to be manually reviewed for this type of attack prior to them entering the payment que? IP addresses would probably be best.

If it is apparent that he was doing this on purpose (if this person is who he says he is then he was doing it on purpose) then there is no reason to provide payment at all IMO. Intentionally withholding blocks from pools will degrade confidence in pools, which would lead to a decreased number of people mining in the first place (they would only solo mine and only if they could do it when they have enough hahspower that luck will not be a big issue), which would lead to centralization of mining.

The more he talks, the more I get convinced it was intentional.
But we may never know for sure.

I read something somewhere that said BTC Guild banned a bunch of accounts that were having very bad luck. I don't think it was on these forums (it may have been one of those agitators that pull from the forums - it was defiantly not from the news page on BTC Guild -  here, I found it - http://www.bcoinnews.com/btcguild-bans-accounts/ but I am not sure where their quote is from) that said it appeared that those accounts were behind their very bad luck. It mentioned that they were contacted by the owner of one of the accounts and were going over the configuration to check for problems. The quote said they were having 90% and 80% luck, but I think their PPLNS page was showing even worse luck then that. Regardless if this is the same person then I would find it very doubtful it was anything but intentional. 
   

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

One additional thing-

I checked both the addresses from the OP on blockchain.info
https://blockchain.info/address/17JkL94B2ngJg4QQZuiozDQjnxXB6B7yTc?offset=50&filter=0
https://blockchain.info/address/1Gu8zxRi8cyENV8CQe52D7QEsiZ7ruT73u?offset=50&filter=0

And it looks like that both are receiving payouts from BTC Guild.

If they are selfish mining there BTC Guild would likely be appreciative of the heads up, if they are not selfish mining then it may be a possible source of a way to make somewhat of a recovery.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

One additional thing-

I checked both the addresses from the OP on blockchain.info
https://blockchain.info/address/17JkL94B2ngJg4QQZuiozDQjnxXB6B7yTc?offset=50&filter=0
https://blockchain.info/address/1Gu8zxRi8cyENV8CQe52D7QEsiZ7ruT73u?offset=50&filter=0

And it looks like that both are receiving payouts from BTC Guild.

If they are selfish mining there BTC Guild would likely be appreciative of the heads up, if they are not selfish mining then it may be a possible source of a way to make somewhat of a recovery.

EDIT: I would say that they are almost certainly selfish mining at BTC Guild: Here is the "luck" as per the BTC PPLNS stats page:

Approximate Pool Luck* (24H / 3D / 1W / 2W / 1M / 3M / All Time): 79.021% / 67.264% / 83.068% / 88.530% / 93.371% / 89.219% / 97.849%
*Luck is how much each share was paid compared to 0% fee PPS (ideal earnings). All-Time calculations started in Sept 2013.

[Luke-Jr]

In regards to the proof holding up in a criminal case it is important to understand how complex Bitcoin is. You need to be smart to understand even much of the basics as to how Bitcoin works. I would be surprised if you could explain to a jury (made of up "average" people, most of which likely would not have any technical background) how a pool works or how miners work in enough detail that would allow you to explain the evidence.

I don't think courts usually require a full explanation of the technical details, just expert witness testimony that such and such is fact.

If you were to testify, the defense attorney would ask what you think he did. Your response would be something along the lines of he withheld blocks that he founds while mining on our pool (you would explain what mining, pools are and what with holding blocks mean). The next thing he would ask is "how do you know" you would respond by saying something along the lines of "I looked at our pool records and saw x y and z" The defense attorney would ask to see the records and for you to explain what they mean. Having the records in a presettable format may be the difference between guilty and not guilty or 400 BTC or 0 BTC

Perhaps. But should criminal charges be filed, the prosecutors probably have a budget for discovery, which I presume would include doing this kind of organisation of data.

In regards to should he be paid if he is withholding blocks, if it appears that he withheld three blocks (for example) then 76 BTC (I would be aggressive with TX fees) should be withheld from his payment, at the very least. This is regardless if he was doing this intentionally or not and is especially true for such a large mining farm.

Unfortunately, even after withholding the ~200 BTC, he still owes us like ~400 BTC.

If you could find out his identity with relative certainty you could pursue civil charges against him. Assuming he was not mining via tor finding his identity shouldn't be more difficult then filing a lawsuit against the alias, then sending a subpoena to the ISP, data center until you can connect the dots to his identity.

Yes, but arguably it should be some high-loss miner who would file these charges.
I think wizkid057 is prepared to provide IP addresses to assist in any such lawsuit.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

In regards to the proof holding up in a criminal case it is important to understand how complex Bitcoin is. You need to be smart to understand even much of the basics as to how Bitcoin works. I would be surprised if you could explain to a jury (made of up "average" people, most of which likely would not have any technical background) how a pool works or how miners work in enough detail that would allow you to explain the evidence.

I don't think courts usually require a full explanation of the technical details, just expert witness testimony that such and such is fact.

If you were to testify, the defense attorney would ask what you think he did. Your response would be something along the lines of he withheld blocks that he founds while mining on our pool (you would explain what mining, pools are and what with holding blocks mean). The next thing he would ask is "how do you know" you would respond by saying something along the lines of "I looked at our pool records and saw x y and z" The defense attorney would ask to see the records and for you to explain what they mean. Having the records in a presettable format may be the difference between guilty and not guilty or 400 BTC or 0 BTC

Perhaps. But should criminal charges be filed, the prosecutors probably have a budget for discovery, which I presume would include doing this kind of organisation of data.

In regards to should he be paid if he is withholding blocks, if it appears that he withheld three blocks (for example) then 76 BTC (I would be aggressive with TX fees) should be withheld from his payment, at the very least. This is regardless if he was doing this intentionally or not and is especially true for such a large mining farm.

Unfortunately, even after withholding the ~200 BTC, he still owes us like ~400 BTC.

If you could find out his identity with relative certainty you could pursue civil charges against him. Assuming he was not mining via tor finding his identity shouldn't be more difficult then filing a lawsuit against the alias, then sending a subpoena to the ISP, data center until you can connect the dots to his identity.

Yes, but arguably it should be some high-loss miner who would file these charges.
I think wizkid057 is prepared to provide IP addresses to assist in any such lawsuit.

I think there are two issues with this:

1 - Per the top contributors page on the eligius website, the address with the most hashpower only contributes ~6.5% (6.4736%) of the hashpower of the pool over the last three hours. CPPSRB is really not something that people would generally leave and/or start mining with over the short term. Other major pool operators use PPLnS (discus fish uses PPS) and they are the same way. This isn't a discussion about what method is best, I am trying to say that miners have no real reason to go from pool to pool based on payment method (at least among the major pools). Therefore it would be fair to say that the 3 hour average would be roughly the same as a 1 week average or the average when the selfish miner was on eligius.

You previously said that eligius lost ~400 BTC, based on $571 for 1 BTC that comes out to ~$228,400 that was stolen. Your largest mining address lost ~$14,850 from the selfish miner. If you look at your number 5 mining address they only lost ~$3,300 from the selfish miner. The point is that the amounts of individual miners are relatively small and probably would not be worth hiring an attorney over, also attorneys would probably want to be paid by the hour for a case with that much is dispute. If you were to hire an attorney to bring a case trying to recover the entire $228,400 (400 BTC) then there would be a better chance that an attorney would work on a contingent basis (agree to only get paid if they win and the payment would be taken out of the settlement/judgment).

2 - Individual miners may not have standing to sue the selfish miner. In a civil case (involving money/damages) you must prove that damages be caused, but also that he damages were against you. There is clearly a relationship between the miners and the pool (the miners provide work for the pool and in exchange for each unit of work the pool provides a maximum amount of payment, if payment is less then the maximum then when the pool can afford to pay more then the maximum the units that got paid less get paid more). The relationship between miners at the pool are not as clear. I am not an attorney, but I think a likely ruling would be if a miner tried to sue another miner at the same pool, the judge would say that their "beef" is with the pool operator, not the selfish miner. On the other hand if the pool operator were to sue a miner the damages are more clear, as the miner did not provide the work, the miner said they provided the work, and the pool operator paid for the work that was not done. There is clearly a fraud here.

My analysis may or may not be correct. I do think that a pool operator sueing a scammer miner would send a strong message to scammers in the Bitcoin world. That they can no longer scam/steal and get away with it. To my knowledge none of the thefts/scams that have taken place that have been bitcoin related have been prosecuted (I think a few people have been doxed, but no prosecutions to my knowledge).

Just my two cents......

[Luke-Jr]

You previously said that eligius lost ~400 BTC, based on $571 for 1 BTC that comes out to ~$228,400 that was stolen. Your largest mining address lost ~$14,850 from the selfish miner. If you look at your number 5 mining address they only lost ~$3,300 from the selfish miner. The point is that the amounts of individual miners are relatively small and probably would not be worth hiring an attorney over, also attorneys would probably want to be paid by the hour for a case with that much is dispute. If you were to hire an attorney to bring a case trying to recover the entire $228,400 (400 BTC) then there would be a better chance that an attorney would work on a contingent basis (agree to only get paid if they win and the payment would be taken out of the settlement/judgment).

Probably right. Which would mean it'd have to be a class-action case (if there even is such a thing in China).
As far as I know, nobody ever wins in class-action lawsuits...

2 - Individual miners may not have standing to sue the selfish miner. In a civil case (involving money/damages) you must prove that damages be caused, but also that he damages were against you. There is clearly a relationship between the miners and the pool (the miners provide work for the pool and in exchange for each unit of work the pool provides a maximum amount of payment, if payment is less then the maximum then when the pool can afford to pay more then the maximum the units that got paid less get paid more). The relationship between miners at the pool are not as clear. I am not an attorney, but I think a likely ruling would be if a miner tried to sue another miner at the same pool, the judge would say that their "beef" is with the pool operator, not the selfish miner. On the other hand if the pool operator were to sue a miner the damages are more clear, as the miner did not provide the work, the miner said they provided the work, and the pool operator paid for the work that was not done. There is clearly a fraud here.

Pools don't pay miners for work, merely coordinate cooperation between miners who pay each other.
This is especially clear-cut on Eligius, where most of the funds never pass through the pool operator's hands.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

You previously said that eligius lost ~400 BTC, based on $571 for 1 BTC that comes out to ~$228,400 that was stolen. Your largest mining address lost ~$14,850 from the selfish miner. If you look at your number 5 mining address they only lost ~$3,300 from the selfish miner. The point is that the amounts of individual miners are relatively small and probably would not be worth hiring an attorney over, also attorneys would probably want to be paid by the hour for a case with that much is dispute. If you were to hire an attorney to bring a case trying to recover the entire $228,400 (400 BTC) then there would be a better chance that an attorney would work on a contingent basis (agree to only get paid if they win and the payment would be taken out of the settlement/judgment).

Probably right. Which would mean it'd have to be a class-action case (if there even is such a thing in China).
As far as I know, nobody ever wins in class-action lawsuits...

The attorneys usually win in class actions cases.

Are you located in China? Is the selfish miner located in China?

I am not sure where the appropriate venue for such a lawsuit would be. If you are located in the US and the selfish miner is located in China then federal court would be appropriate as there is a dispute over international commerce. You would need to prove that the "damages" were done in the US. If the pool is in the US and the pool was the entity that was damaged then this should be clear.

If it is determined that the individual miners were damaged then this is much less clear. If a class action lawsuit were to be filed then "class members" located in the US could be included and the suit would be filed in federal court. The definition of located complicates things significantly, does it mean the equipment is located there, does it mean the "owners" of the BTC addresses live there, does it mean they are US citizens/residents? I honestly do not know the answer to the question.

One thing I noticed lacking on your website is something that says what laws would be followed in the event of a dispute or what court cases would be held in (what state/district). If there is zero relationship between the pool and the miners this may be a non-issue. 

2 - Individual miners may not have standing to sue the selfish miner. In a civil case (involving money/damages) you must prove that damages be caused, but also that he damages were against you. There is clearly a relationship between the miners and the pool (the miners provide work for the pool and in exchange for each unit of work the pool provides a maximum amount of payment, if payment is less then the maximum then when the pool can afford to pay more then the maximum the units that got paid less get paid more). The relationship between miners at the pool are not as clear. I am not an attorney, but I think a likely ruling would be if a miner tried to sue another miner at the same pool, the judge would say that their "beef" is with the pool operator, not the selfish miner. On the other hand if the pool operator were to sue a miner the damages are more clear, as the miner did not provide the work, the miner said they provided the work, and the pool operator paid for the work that was not done. There is clearly a fraud here.

Pools don't pay miners for work, merely coordinate cooperation between miners who pay each other.
This is especially clear-cut on Eligius, where most of the funds never pass through the pool operator's hands.

That may be how it is on a logistics standpoint, but is that how it is in the eyes of the law? If you were BTC Guild or ghash I would say defiantly no, as both of those pools have block rewards (and tx fees) paid to the "pool" wallet, and the BTC is then eventually transferred to miners' wallets via automatic payouts. Eligius is very different in that it pays the block rewards (and tx fees) directly to miners via a TX in the found block. Someone could argue what you are saying but they could also argue that since the pool determines who gets paid how much via the payout cue (this being embedded into the header of work provided by the pool - I think this is how it works) that the pool does really control the found blocks. Even a attorney could likely not answer this question with certainty, as I don't think this kind of dispute has been litigated before. The only person who can answer would be the judge that hears the case (and any appellate panel of judges that hear any appeals).

I do question what this person's motive would be. In theory he paid good money for this equipment. As far as I can tell he has done this to multiple pools. Do you think it would be possible to modify mining software so that only the stratum shares are sent back to the pool with the correct header, but the other shares could use a different header (one that pay out to another address)? Do you have a way to determine when he withheld a block from the pool? If so can you compare that to other blocks found around that time, is there any consistency as to who found the blocks? I know that it has previously been determined that you cannot modify block headers to make a found block payout to your own address as the hash would be invalid, but someone who has the resources to have millions of dollars worth of mining equipment might have the resources to make this happen.

[Luke-Jr]

Are you located in China? Is the selfish miner located in China?

He claims to be named LiYi, and located in GuangZhou, China.

2 - Individual miners may not have standing to sue the selfish miner. In a civil case (involving money/damages) you must prove that damages be caused, but also that he damages were against you. There is clearly a relationship between the miners and the pool (the miners provide work for the pool and in exchange for each unit of work the pool provides a maximum amount of payment, if payment is less then the maximum then when the pool can afford to pay more then the maximum the units that got paid less get paid more). The relationship between miners at the pool are not as clear. I am not an attorney, but I think a likely ruling would be if a miner tried to sue another miner at the same pool, the judge would say that their "beef" is with the pool operator, not the selfish miner. On the other hand if the pool operator were to sue a miner the damages are more clear, as the miner did not provide the work, the miner said they provided the work, and the pool operator paid for the work that was not done. There is clearly a fraud here.

Pools don't pay miners for work, merely coordinate cooperation between miners who pay each other.
This is especially clear-cut on Eligius, where most of the funds never pass through the pool operator's hands.

That may be how it is on a logistics standpoint, but is that how it is in the eyes of the law? If you were BTC Guild or ghash I would say defiantly no, as both of those pools have block rewards (and tx fees) paid to the "pool" wallet, and the BTC is then eventually transferred to miners' wallets via automatic payouts. Eligius is very different in that it pays the block rewards (and tx fees) directly to miners via a TX in the found block. Someone could argue what you are saying but they could also argue that since the pool determines who gets paid how much via the payout cue (this being embedded into the header of work provided by the pool - I think this is how it works) that the pool does really control the found blocks. Even a attorney could likely not answer this question with certainty, as I don't think this kind of dispute has been litigated before. The only person who can answer would be the judge that hears the case (and any appellate panel of judges that hear any appeals).

I know for tax purposes, other pools are using this same interpretation.

In theory he paid good money for this equipment.

Supposedly he made it all himself.
That means his primary cost is electricity (actual chips and PCBs do not cost very much to produce).

As far as I can tell he has done this to multiple pools. Do you think it would be possible to modify mining software so that only the stratum shares are sent back to the pool with the correct header, but the other shares could use a different header (one that pay out to another address)? Do you have a way to determine when he withheld a block from the pool? If so can you compare that to other blocks found around that time, is there any consistency as to who found the blocks? I know that it has previously been determined that you cannot modify block headers to make a found block payout to your own address as the hash would be invalid, but someone who has the resources to have millions of dollars worth of mining equipment might have the resources to make this happen.

It's not possible. I don't understand this part of your post entirely.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Are you located in China? Is the selfish miner located in China?

He claims to be named LiYi, and located in GuangZhou, China.

US counts should have jurisdiction in this matter. If the damages were done in the US and one party is located internationally then Federal courts have jurisdiction.

2 - Individual miners may not have standing to sue the selfish miner. In a civil case (involving money/damages) you must prove that damages be caused, but also that he damages were against you. There is clearly a relationship between the miners and the pool (the miners provide work for the pool and in exchange for each unit of work the pool provides a maximum amount of payment, if payment is less then the maximum then when the pool can afford to pay more then the maximum the units that got paid less get paid more). The relationship between miners at the pool are not as clear. I am not an attorney, but I think a likely ruling would be if a miner tried to sue another miner at the same pool, the judge would say that their "beef" is with the pool operator, not the selfish miner. On the other hand if the pool operator were to sue a miner the damages are more clear, as the miner did not provide the work, the miner said they provided the work, and the pool operator paid for the work that was not done. There is clearly a fraud here.

Pools don't pay miners for work, merely coordinate cooperation between miners who pay each other.
This is especially clear-cut on Eligius, where most of the funds never pass through the pool operator's hands.

That may be how it is on a logistics standpoint, but is that how it is in the eyes of the law? If you were BTC Guild or ghash I would say defiantly no, as both of those pools have block rewards (and tx fees) paid to the "pool" wallet, and the BTC is then eventually transferred to miners' wallets via automatic payouts. Eligius is very different in that it pays the block rewards (and tx fees) directly to miners via a TX in the found block. Someone could argue what you are saying but they could also argue that since the pool determines who gets paid how much via the payout cue (this being embedded into the header of work provided by the pool - I think this is how it works) that the pool does really control the found blocks. Even a attorney could likely not answer this question with certainty, as I don't think this kind of dispute has been litigated before. The only person who can answer would be the judge that hears the case (and any appellate panel of judges that hear any appeals).

I know for tax purposes, other pools are using this same interpretation.

For tax purposes. But that interoperation is the same as if pools considered the block rewards as income (revenue) and the earning paid to miners (independent contractors for tax purposes) as expenses. It would be a wash. This is N/A for eligius but the pool fees would be income/revenue and the expenses (costs to rent servers, bandwidth, salaries if applicable) would be deducted from revenue to get the net profit to find what you owe in taxes.

Another argument is that the IRS has ruled bitcoin to be an "asset" but DPR aka Ross Ulbright has been charged with money laundering when dealing only in bitcoin. Just because something is considered one way for tax purposes does not mean that it is that way in "fact" and could be worked another way for "non-tax" purposes.

In theory he paid good money for this equipment.

Supposedly he made it all himself.
That means his primary cost is electricity (actual chips and PCBs do not cost very much to produce).

Electricity can add up. Probably not in the millions  but still not free. I would be interested to know how to build minors in a similar fashion but that is another conversation.

As far as I can tell he has done this to multiple pools. Do you think it would be possible to modify mining software so that only the stratum shares are sent back to the pool with the correct header, but the other shares could use a different header (one that pay out to another address)? Do you have a way to determine when he withheld a block from the pool? If so can you compare that to other blocks found around that time, is there any consistency as to who found the blocks? I know that it has previously been determined that you cannot modify block headers to make a found block payout to your own address as the hash would be invalid, but someone who has the resources to have millions of dollars worth of mining equipment might have the resources to make this happen.

It's not possible. I don't understand this part of your post entirely.

What is should happen when pool mining is the pool sends a block header (the header contains among other things where to send the block reward to) to the miner, the miner tries a random hash to check if the hash finds a valid block, and if so send the valid block to the pool, and if not then tell the pool they found one invalid (this may not be the correct terminology, but "invalid" meaning the miner did not find a block) hash. This is repeated until a valid block is found by the network. With GBT this is done with every single hash.

With stratum the same thing happens, only that only x% of "invalid" (see above explanation for "invalid" - did not find a block) hashes and every hash that does find a block. With every hash that the miner checks, it will use the same block header provided by the pool.

What my question was could someone, in theory, modify something so that only the x% of shares/hashes (the exact hashes that are sent to the pool) contain the header provided by the pool? For example, the software knows that hash1, hash 45, and hash 93 will be sent to the pool, only those three hashses will contain the header provided by the pool. The other hashes would contain some other header.

My question seems to have been answered by the fact that he spent much less on his equipment then his hashrate would indicate.

I am still interested to know what his motive would be in selfish mining. Even if he was not caught he would have a lower payout as the pool would find less blocks. This leads me to believe that he somehow reported that he had a higher hashrate then he really had.

[taipo]

I would say leave the courts out of this. As this issue affects all pools, all pool operators need to work together on this one to shut this mining operation out of pools or keep taxing them their mined BTC until they stump up what they stole.

Im surprised that they are not mining on Discus Fish. What happened there, did they try this already with them and got booted ( speculating here )?

[Harley997]

I would say leave the courts out of this. As this issue affects all pools, all pool operators need to work together on this one to shut this mining operation out of pools or keep taxing them their mined BTC until they stump up what they stole.

Im surprised that they are not mining on Discus Fish. What happened there, did they try this already with them and got booted ( speculating here )?

Without the involvement of the courts these miners would be stealing from the miners and receiving some level of profit.

[taipo]

I know y'all might think you have an all powerful all seeing eye Government, but the US Government does not have an extradition treaty with China - China being one of those countries that is opposed to the extradition of any of its citizens.

So unless you had the Government in China push for their prosecution, all you will end up with is a toothless conviction in absentia.

[Harley997]

I know y'all might think you have an all powerful all seeing eye Government, but the US Government does not have an extradition treaty with China - China being one of those countries that is opposed to the extradition of any of its citizens.

So unless you had the Government in China push for their prosecution, all you will end up with is a toothless conviction in absentia.

Even if that was the case then this person would have the risk that the Chinese reverse their policy. This person would also not be able to travel throughout the world nor would they be able to have assets outside of China.

[Angela8488]

Interestingly, I will continue to focus on this topic.

[taipo]

Even if that was the case then this person would have the risk that the Chinese reverse their policy.

China has never reversed its laws on extraditions of its citizens to any country, even countries it considered to be its own allies. Chances of them doing so in this situation is NIL. They would be more likely to mount their own prosecution against these people, which again, chances are about NIL.

There is a higher chance these people would be persecuted along with all BTC users in China, than that Government taking up the cause of miners in another country to get their 400 BTC back.

This person would also not be able to travel throughout the world nor would they be able to have assets outside of China.

Sure you could restrict their movement by having international arrest warrants issued for them in participating countries, keep in mind though there are about 70 or so countries that do not have extradition treaties with the USA, so while its true their movements would be limited, they would not be THAT limited.

But how does that get everyone's BTC back. It doesn't, even if you catch and lock this chap up while on an overseas jaunt, still no BTC unless you catch him or her with the private keys. But by then, you've spent 1000 BTC on legal fees, Jack Bauer and crew would charge you that amount again...and still not one single BTC returned to those they rightfully belong to.

This is the thing with BTC, when its gone. Its gone.....

You either have to get solidarity amongst all major pool operators to shut these cats out and for all of them to start doing what Eligius did, until they come to table to talk,

or move on with your lives.

[crashoveride54902]

well this escalated quickly *grabs some more popcorn*

but still sad...hardly any scammer is ever brought to real justice...or its very few n far between...the 200btc we got to hold from him is pretty much all we'll get

[philipma1957]

I would say leave the courts out of this. As this issue affects all pools, all pool operators need to work together on this one to shut this mining operation out of pools or keep taxing them their mined BTC until they stump up what they stole.

Im surprised that they are not mining on Discus Fish. What happened there, did they try this already with them and got booted ( speculating here )?

Well if all the bigger reliable pools offered miners a second fork for solo mining it would have stopped this guy.

And they need to offer that option….  As it gives them an out :

  if you are afraid of shit gear hurting your pools luck go to our solo fork.


Yet to hear of any major  1ph or bigger pool giving us a solo fork choice.  

below from btcguild's support page


Miner Connection Details
Stratum Servers

Host (USA)   stratum.btcguild.com:3333
Host (EU)   eu-stratum.btcguild.com:3333

Solo       = missing not available >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   just give a connection address to us miners   you don't.  And basically  the asshole  that fucked you and us   could do it again for hire …  yeah for hire   cex.io could hire the guy to attack your pools and crash the luck  give us a fucking solo fork !!!  He can not hurt a solo fork..  Solo forks are fucking safe from this attack !!!!!!  fix this now!!


Username     philipma1957
Password    (anything)



Just a simple shut out  to real pool ops do this before it is too late.    We will get slapped again and again.  It is clear this can be done on purpose.  even if what the op that did  this was completely innocent of any wrong doing 0 intent just an accident.  

He now knows what he can do with his gear  he can fuckup someones pool on purpose.  His hash power is a weapon of bad luck.  Only a solo pool stops this type attack perfectly.      and no big pool offers the option yet.

 Hey pool op  guys read the thread  tell me I am wrong .

 I am not wrong no solo pool will be hurt  by the attacker.

 So then tell me a solo pool is costly well then charge enough 1.5 coins out of a block of 25 coins is 6%.

 run btc and nmc take 6%  if very few use the option still run it as it clears you in case this guy  does it again. 

You can simply say we offered a solo pool  option to safegaurd you from a "bad luck" attack  you did not use the option .

[Harley997]

There is a higher chance these people would be persecuted along with all BTC users in China, than that Government taking up the cause of miners in another country to get their 400 BTC back.

I doubt they would spend $240k on legal fees

[Luke-Jr]

I am not wrong no solo pool will be hurt  by the attacker.

Um, so you get the worst of both worlds?
Just solo mine for real.

[S4VV4S]

well this escalated quickly *grabs some more popcorn*

but still sad...hardly any scammer is ever brought to real justice...or its very few n far between...the 200btc we got to hold from him is pretty much all we'll get

true, there is no chance of getting the other 400BTC back.

However, I believe that using the 200BTC to place a bounty for whoever comes up with a valid solution, either as new software or a tweak in the current software would be a great idea.