Sonny Vleisides (Butterfly Labs CEO) 2014 Court Transcript [The TL/DR version]

[LostDutchman]

PARIIALLY UNTRUTHFUL?

YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?

PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

I AM NOT IN THE MOOD!

Yes, I am.  You are going to try to make it appear that BFL is doing something that they are not by using an overseas posting shop, according to your web page, and you mention the risk of getting caught.  It is fraudulent.

You are getting down in the mud with them.  I think it will hurt your chances. 

It will give the BFL people the opportunity to say that they aren't really that bad, that they are victims of a smear campaign.  It is a step backwards that gives them an advantage.

I know you're angry.  I think you should use your anger to energize your planning against BFL.  I think you are letting your anger muddy your mind, and diminish your chance for success.

"Yes, I am.  You are going to try to make it appear that BFL is doing something that they are not by using an overseas posting shop, according to your web page, and you mention the risk of getting caught.  It is fraudulent."

Oh, really?

Like BFL ISN"T robbing Bitcoin users blind?

Actually, I'm not going to suggest that BFL is donig a damn thing and never said I would.

You boviously have no clue how this kind of SEO works.

some other fool suggested tht I was going to try to embarrass BFL online.

Nope.

Not even going to metnion the problems.

I have never seen such a bunch of namby-pamby, no-ball pussies outside of the old Pink GArter as I see in the Bitcoin world.

"Oh, BFL fucked me?"

"Well, yeah, but I only want to play FAIR with tht lot of scumbickets, reprobates, felons and thieves".

"I want to hold the MORAL HIGH GROUND!"

This while BFL continues its rape an pillage of the crypto world.

"Moral High Ground" my ass.

Pussies and scared shitless more like it.

What don't you all just bend over again for BFL?

oh wait

That's already what you are doing.

never mind

[ProfMac]

There is no emotion involved on my end at all.

I think you're drowning in anger.  I've been there, the energy from righteous anger can help push a mighty effort.  I think it is good for you to embrace it and use it.

Ever heard of a backburn?

Standard forest fire fighting technique.

Blackburn removes fuel in a controlled way before the wild-fire gets there.  Typically, they are small enough to stay under control.  Usually, there is an attempt to prevent collateral damage.

You know how that letter reads to me?

Like this:

(Voce Truman Capote)

Cool, I've never been read by Truman Capote.  Though I'd really like to go for Morgan Freeman.

You don't seem to think that BFL will do anything because of the letter.  You think it reads a bit wimpy and over civilized.  I think you are 100% right.  The letter isn't written for BFL, it is written for the judge and the prosecutor.  It just has to address BFL and be sent to them.  It is to make the judge and prosecutor go for the kill. 

It is up to you if you want to thump your chest and type in all caps, or want to cause a maximum punishment for Sonny.

[LostDutchman]

There is no emotion involved on my end at all.

I think you're drowning in anger.  I've been there, the energy from righteous anger can help push a mighty effort.  I think it is good for you to embrace it and use it.

Ever heard of a backburn?

Standard forest fire fighting technique.

Blackburn removes fuel in a controlled way before the wild-fire gets there.  Typically, they are small enough to stay under control.  Usually, there is an attempt to prevent collateral damage.

You know how that letter reads to me?

Like this:

(Voce Truman Capote)

Cool, I've never been read by Truman Capote.  Though I'd really like to go for Morgan Freeman.

You don't seem to think that BFL will do anything because of the letter.  You think it reads a bit wimpy and over civilized.  I think you are 100% right.  The letter isn't written for BFL, it is written for the judge and the prosecutor.  It just has to address BFL and be sent to them.  It is to make the judge and prosecutor go for the kill.  

It is up to you if you want to thump your chest and type in all caps, or want to cause a maximum punishment for Sonny.

"Thump my chest"?

Right.

I take it you've never heard Truman Capote speak!

Tyr this on for size!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySkwEXDVgEg&list=RDySkwEXDVgEg#t=76

I know the difference between you and me now.

You are all about punishing Sonny.

You've made it personal.

I'm all about getting the money back for all those poor people scammed by BFL.

Get the money back first, punish Sonny later.

For me it ain't personal; it's business.

There will be lots of time to propely punish Sonny later.

Locking up Sonny at this point will not get one thin dime back for the people scammed by BFl.

The judge couldn't order it because he/she would have no power to do so.

Bend BFL over backwards and you might get some money back to the victims.

My plan could bend them like a pretzel but you do what you like.

[vayvanne]

LD, spam and that kind of pressure IMHO will give nothing. BFL should be punished legally as a company and in persons both. I more like the professor's approach though it is very first of steps what community could do. BFL took out very much of resources which could develop bitcoin industry and community too and should be set responsible in modern ways until the legal system elephant will stop this scam covered by hi-tech shawl.
Edit: I reported it as a scam on facebook yesterday.

[LostDutchman]

LD, spam and that kind of pressure IMHO will give nothing. BFL should be punished legally as a company and in persons both. I more like the professor's approach though it is very first of steps what community could do. BFL took out very much of resources which could develop bitcoin industry and community too and should be set responsible in modern ways until the legal system elephant will stop this scam covered by hi-tech shawl.
Edit: I reported it as a scam on facebook yesterday.

No.

Overloading their email box, melting down their phone system, causing a serious drop in SERPS and couple of other nifty effects will go a long way towards getting their attention. My  plan would cripple thier ongoing ability to do business.

[LostDutchman]

One thing I notice whch permeates all threads concering the BFL scam and that is "punishment" for BFL.

Punishment for BFL, its workers, shills anad associates is not on my agenda at all right now.

"Punishment" will be handed down by the courts.............................eventually.

I am not saying that BFL should not be punished but for the moment, let's get our priorities in order.

My goal is to force BFL to start issuing refunds where there is still money to refund.

Most who talk about punishment have made the issue a personal one.

Neither my partners nor myself have a single Satoshi, not a single dollar, not one thin dime and not one red cent at stake in this matter, having gotten our Minirig refunds some time back.

My goal is to make BFL's life so miserable that they beg me to stop and with the support of the community, I can indeed do that.

The lawsuits are going to take months, if not years to force an action and by that time, BFL will have had time to move assets, disguise wallets, spend down the corporate treasury and have things set up just right for a bankruptcy, which most likely would be what we in certain businesses call a "Straight Fuck You!, which means "The money is gone, we fucked up, we're broke, so have a nice day!"


I've see int before and so have you.

Terrahash come to mind?

We can't stop BFL from doing a Terrahash but we can maybe make all their lives miserable enough to force them into beginning refunds.

This aint' personal.

It's just business.

The Dutchman.

[ibminer]

One thing I notice whch permeates all threads concering the BFL scam and that is "punishment" for BFL.

Punishment for BFL, its workers, shills anad associates is not on my agenda at all right now.

"Punishment" will be handed down by the courts.............................eventually.

I am not saying that BFL should not be punished but for the moment, let's get our priorities in order.

My goal is to force BFL to start issuing refunds where there is still money to refund.

Most who talk about punishment have made the issue a personal one.

Neither my partners nor myself have a single Satoshi, not a single dollar, not one thin dime and not one red cent at stake in this matter, having gotten our Minirig refunds some time back.

My goal is to make BFL's life so miserable that they beg me to stop and with the support of the community, I can indeed do that.

The lawsuits are going to take months, if not years to force an action and by that time, BFL will have had time to move assets, disguise wallets, spend down the corporate treasury and have things set up just right for a bankruptcy, which most likely would be what we in certain businesses call a "Straight Fuck You!, which means "The money is gone, we fucked up, we're broke, so have a nice day!"


I've see int before and so have you.

Terrahash come to mind?

We can't stop BFL from doing a Terrahash but we can maybe make all their lives miserable enough to force them into beginning refunds.

This aint' personal.

It's just business.

The Dutchman.

From website:

What we at WeDemandJusticeFromBFL.com are going to do is this………………….
….we are going to flood the internet and I mean FLOOD, not with hundreds, not with thousands, not with hundreds of thousands but with MILLIONS of forum posts all across the world and the internet, with each and every post containing some kind of contact information for BFL.

There is no way to launch a campaign/attack like this against BFL and not punish them in some way.

Regardless, I am curious what else would be contained in these millions of posts besides contact info?  would this be BFL bashing posts or BFL loving posts (to make it appear like BFL).  If bashing, most are not going to believe its BFL making the posts.  If its 'BFL is the greatest' types of posts, wouldn't this just help them with SEO, publicity, and possibly sales?

I am also not entirely sure about the anticipated meltdown of ISP's and Forum mods. Do you realize how many emails it would take for an ISP to feel the need to go in and block email addresses. And even if they did, it would probably be temporary. These would be legitimate complaint emails in your scenario - not necessarily something ISP's or spam filters would even care about.  

BFL will quickly change its number and invalidate your posts and if the emails overwhelmed them, I wouldn't doubt seeing them change their domain from butterflylabs to BFL-labs.com or just changing their email aliases entirely and then making an announcement about hackers trying to attack them, etc, etc. and play the pity card. Again, invalidating all of the prior posts with old contact info. They are not just going to sit down and say "ah, they got us".  You would need to continually do something like this for a long time to really have any type of impact, and I don't really see it being a business-crippling impact.

I would also think this type of campaign (or attack) would really just cause more people to look into who/what BFL is (especially if they know nothing about Bitcoin)... and I am not sure BFL is the best company I want people researching when they first learn about what Bitcoin is - not the best example.  

[LostDutchman]

One thing I notice whch permeates all threads concering the BFL scam and that is "punishment" for BFL.

Punishment for BFL, its workers, shills anad associates is not on my agenda at all right now.

"Punishment" will be handed down by the courts.............................eventually.

I am not saying that BFL should not be punished but for the moment, let's get our priorities in order.

My goal is to force BFL to start issuing refunds where there is still money to refund.

Most who talk about punishment have made the issue a personal one.

Neither my partners nor myself have a single Satoshi, not a single dollar, not one thin dime and not one red cent at stake in this matter, having gotten our Minirig refunds some time back.

My goal is to make BFL's life so miserable that they beg me to stop and with the support of the community, I can indeed do that.

The lawsuits are going to take months, if not years to force an action and by that time, BFL will have had time to move assets, disguise wallets, spend down the corporate treasury and have things set up just right for a bankruptcy, which most likely would be what we in certain businesses call a "Straight Fuck You!, which means "The money is gone, we fucked up, we're broke, so have a nice day!"


I've see int before and so have you.

Terrahash come to mind?

We can't stop BFL from doing a Terrahash but we can maybe make all their lives miserable enough to force them into beginning refunds.

This aint' personal.

It's just business.

The Dutchman.

From website:

What we at WeDemandJusticeFromBFL.com are going to do is this………………….
….we are going to flood the internet and I mean FLOOD, not with hundreds, not with thousands, not with hundreds of thousands but with MILLIONS of forum posts all across the world and the internet, with each and every post containing some kind of contact information for BFL.

There is no way to launch a campaign/attack like this against BFL and not punish them in some way.

I don't care about any "punishment" aspect.

Regardless, I am curious what else would be contained in these millions of posts besides contact info?  would this be BFL bashing posts or BFL loving posts (to make it appear like BFL).  If bashing, most are not going to believe its BFL making the posts.  If its 'BFL is the greatest' types of posts, wouldn't this just help them with SEO, publicity, and possibly sales?

Makes no difference but mere contact info with a statement like "Contact us for the best in ASIC mining euipment!"  No, a few bazillion posts quickly drive down their SEPS, piss off people and no one is going to buy from a company they're already pissed off at.

BFL will get "loved" to death.  It is a common misconception that oper-promotion actually leads to increased sales.  It does not.

I am also not entirely sure about the anticipated meltdown of ISP's and Forum mods. Do you realize how many emails it would take for an ISP to feel the need to go in and block email addresses. And even if they did, it would probably be temporary. These would be legitimate complaint emails in your scenario - not necessarily something ISP's or spam filters would even care about. 

ISP blocking is not important or significant.  It can happen though by simply shutting down deliveries of all emails to BFL.  I've seen it happen.  The main thing is to clog up BFL's inbox with so much shit that they can't handle it.  This is easily done.

BFL will quickly change its number and invalidate your posts and if the emails overwhelmed them, I wouldn't doubt seeing them change their domain from butterflylabs to BFL-labs.com or just changing their email addresses entirely and then making an announcement about hackers trying to attack them, etc, etc. and play the pity card. Again, invalidating all of the prior posts with old contact info. They are not just going to sit down and say "ah, they got us".  You would need to continually do something like this for a long time to really have any type of impact, and I don't really see it being a business-crippling impact.

No, they won't.  there will be far too many posts out there for them to try to play the Google "invalidate links" game.  Just can't be done.

So they change all the domains and lose all the SERPS connected with the old ones.  Good deal!  We'll know if and when we do that and we then change our postings and go after the new ones.  They'd have to publish the new info someplace or forward the old domains to the new and well, there ya go!.

I would also think this type of campaign (or attack) would really just cause more people to look into who/what BFL is (especially if they know nothing about Bitcoin)... and I am not sure BFL is the best company I want people researching when they first learn about what Bitcoin is - not the best example.   

Yeah, people will look and when they Google BFL the first couple of dozen pages acre littered with posts from this forum and others describing what a shitload of dirtbags BFL really is, so few if any worries on that count.  Mure buuthurt for BFL!

You need to undersantd that this kind of campaign is good old-fashioned Negative SEO; strictly blackhat stuff and it works.

I really works and it workd well.

Try it, you'll like it!

[JorgeStolfi]

Sigh.

I have tweeted a warning about the BFL scam to my Brazilian followers (if there are still any active ones), with links to this thread and the "20 million mail fraud" thread.  That is the kind of appropriate action anyone can take to help.

Spamming the BFL inbox is sort of OK, but will only give them an excuse to ignore client emails. 

Pestering CoinDesk, the Bitcoin Foundation, and other bitcoin outfits that are guilty by their silence on the matter would only be fair, and may be more effective.

But mass spamming other sites and people who have nothing to do with bitcoin or BFL is a terrible idea.  Add up the time spent by users and admins of all the sites you intend to spam, and it will easily be more than the amount BFL owes, and certainly much more than what they are likely to return as a result of this campaign (which is quite probably zero).

It is not a matter of "keeping the high moral groud in the fight against BFL": people who do that sort of thing for that sort of motive are scumbags, no matter what their grievances are.

(And, since I or my employer may end up being a target of that spamming, of course I have all the right to complain here.)

[ibminer]

I dunno man, these types of blackhat techniques have worked in the past but I am not optimistic with this working today.

Clogging up an inbox isn't as easy as it once was, there are many rules that could be created to block out or move these types of emails to their own folder... most of them are going to be people screaming 'stop posting' or would contain words like 'forum' & 'post' & 'stop', etc. They would be able to filter out a good chunk of the complaints generated from these posts.

In an extreme case, they could create a contact form on the website as the only method to contact them and block all emails to their direct inbox, of course while still specifically allowing frequent domains they communicate with directly to their inbox.

IMO, I see a lot of potential failure points in your plan, although I do agree that it could potentially lower their search rankings because most search engine bots out there do not like this type of post spamming, but your also increasing the amount of times butterflylabs is mentioned across many many sites on the internet, so I feel like it could be a double-edged sword. I would also think a lot of forum mods/admins would be removing these posts before search engines even cared about them?

In any case, I do hope BFL gets what they deserve.

[LostDutchman]

I dunno man, these types of blackhat techniques have worked in the past but I am not optimistic with this working today.

Clogging up an inbox isn't as easy as it once was, there are many rules that could be created to block out or move these types of emails to their own folder... most of them are going to be people screaming 'stop posting' or would contain words like 'forum' & 'post' & 'stop', etc. They would be able to filter out a good chunk of the complaints generated from these posts.

Nope.  Too many emails delivered from too many different ISPs, different content in each email.  No way to block them.

In an extreme case, they could create a contact form on the website as the only method to contact them and block all emails to their direct inbox, of course while still specifically allowing frequent domains they communicate with directly to their inbox.

So what?  The complainers will simply use the contact form and soon overlaod it as well.

IMO, I see a lot of potential failure points in your plan, although I do agree that it could potentially lower their search rankings because most search engine bots out there do not like this type of post spamming, but your also increasing the amount of times butterflylabs is mentioned across many many sites on the internet, so I feel like it could be a double-edged sword. I would also think a lot of forum mods/admins would be removing these posts before search engines even cared about them?

Makes no difference if they do remove them

They still complain.

No double'edged sword here at all!  It's alll bad for BFL.

Look man, I got a PH fucking D in Negative SEO and I know what I am doing.

There are enough open forums blogs and wikis that zillions of the posts stick, even if only for a short time.

Google caches them and even if down the road, the search results lead to a dead link, the still affect BFL's SERPS.

In any case, I do hope BFL gets what they deserve.

If I get enough support rom the community, if the community decides what it is willing to do to get BFL to start refunidng it will indeed get what it deserves and it will come right out of their deep pockets before the money is gone.

The clock is running.

The Dutchman.

[colinistheman]

LostDutchman, If you get the money and donations to fund your campaign then you are free to do as you please of course. But what happens if you don't get the funding? Are you going to do anything? or nothing at all? There's a lot of words spoken on this page about what "is going to be done to BFL". But words are different from actions. I personally disagree with your method for the record, but again, you are free to do as you wish.

Please stop being so defensive and stop attacking others who even slightly disagree with you. It's making you look bad. You seem to be one big ball of pent up hate and anger and it's tiresome to read over and over.

My OP was made to provide the facts of the court case and to allow the user to decide for themselves what to think about BFL.

So again, what happens if you don't get the funding to do your plan?

[LostDutchman]

LostDutchman, If you get the money and donations to fund your campaign then you are free to do as you please of course. But what happens if you don't get the funding? Are you going to do anything? or nothing at all? There's a lot of words spoken on this page about what "is going to be done to BFL". But words are different from actions. I personally disagree with your method for the record, but again, you are free to do as you wish. Please stop attacking others who disagree with you. You seem to be one big ball of pent up hate and anger.

I have no "pent up hate and anger".

How "liberal" and poitically correct of you to suggest that going after a bunch of bottom feeding, scumbucket liars, robbers, theives, con men and crooks is an indicator of having "pent up hate and anger"!

I like that.

Pussified but original.

I am not "attacking" anyone; I have only replied reasonably and rationally to criticisms of my plan.

If there is no community support I will do nothing.

Nothing at all and BFL can go right on robbing, deceiving and stealing from both current and future members of the crypto community, continuing with the wild abandon it is engaging in now.

Won't be my problem.

Should that turn out to be the case, have fun in the courts; you'll certainly be there long enough, so you'd better learn to like it.

In the meantime of course, nothing at all will be done to "encourage" BFL to start refunding before the money is hidden andrtuns out.

In the meantime those owned money, who desperately need those funds returns will just have to suck it up.

I'll make my decision soon.

Have a nice day now, ya hear?

[ibminer]

Given the recent shady behavior of the Marketing group for BFL and what they did with "buttcoins".... am I putting on my tinfoil hat when thinking that the real LostDutchman could have sold his account to the BFL marketing group and now they are attempting to pull in funds for a positive marketing campaign using bitcointalk forum users funds and then later blaming things on technical issues with the software/proxies not working correctly and not making enough posts, resulting in a positive SEO campaign for BFL  

 

[colinistheman]

Given the recent shady behavior of the Marketing group for BFL and what they did with "buttcoins".... am I putting on my tinfoil hat when thinking that the real LostDutchman could have sold his account to the BFL marketing group and now they are attempting to pull in funds for a positive marketing campaign using bitcointalk forum users funds and then later blaming things on technical issues with the software/proxies not working correctly and not making enough posts, resulting in a positive SEO campaign for BFL  

 

This makes more sense.

I too wondered if his technique wouldn't backfire and actually help BFL.

[LostDutchman]

If there is no community support I will do nothing.
...
Won't be my problem.

That's what I thought. Please take a hike.

And Good Morning to you there, Colin!

I see you're in fine form so you must have eaten your Cheerios!

One thing though, you're really supposed to put milk on them, not whiskey or beer.

Only real men put whiskey or beer on their Cheerios.

[colinistheman]

Hearts and kisses to you too. Good-bye!

Go start your own thread please

[LostDutchman]

Hearts and kisses to you too. Good-bye!

Go start your own thread please

See ya later Colin!

Have fun!

Now back to the main theme of this little internet syposium!

Any ieas what to do about BFL and Sonny besides sit back and wait for the court dockets to count down?

[Lassi]

Given the recent shady behavior of the Marketing group for BFL and what they did with "buttcoins".... am I putting on my tinfoil hat when thinking that the real LostDutchman could have sold his account to the BFL marketing group and now they are attempting to pull in funds for a positive marketing campaign using bitcointalk forum users funds and then later blaming things on technical issues with the software/proxies not working correctly and not making enough posts, resulting in a positive SEO campaign for BFL  

 

Case details