[Emergency ANN] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation

[repentance]

I do not think it is up to them to disclose who the owner is, that would be really irresponsible? Would you like your employees going around and disclosing personal information about you? If you sign an agreement, and then you decide not to follow it, why would anyone trust you after that? You need to use the same standards when analysing any situation, not just particular cases.

The owner I think decides such things, and not the employees, and I understand they are just working there, not actually owning the company, its basically not their money.

Pontius Pilate was a team player.  The "team" purposely hid the change of ownership from Bitcoinica customers.  They still refuse to answer questions about who now owns Bitcoinica and they absolutely deserve any suspicion and negative assumptions their deception has created.  Do you really think they would have hidden this information if they thought the Bitcoin community would embrace the new owners?

The new owners are responsible for getting money back to the customers.  If they refuse to reveal themselves to the customers, they have no right to expect the trust of their user-base.  By hiding behind intermediaries who have no authority, they are failing to display leadership.  They are failing to provide any evidence that they are even able to cover the losses.  People have no reason whatsoever to trust the new owners right now because the new owners won't come forward and present their credentials.  If they feel that they must hide behind someone, it should be their lawyer or their accountant - someone who is on the hook for any public statements made on behalf of the owners.  People have no reason to trust Bitcoinica Consultancy either.  Right now the "official" statements have about as much credibility as those which came "from the desk of Tom Williams" following the MyBitcoin debacle.

Someone needs to assume leadership here and that needs to be someone identifiable and with actual authority.  If the owner's not willing to step up to the plate and personally guarantee that customers will be made whole, they only have themselves to blame if they cannot salvage the organisation's reputation.

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[aq]

....
People have no reason to trust Bitcoinica Consultancy either.  Right now the "official" statements have about as much credibility as those which came "from the desk of Tom Williams" following the MyBitcoin debacle.
...

Could it be that this Tom Williams is the new owner?

[S3052]

Edited to add:

1. Unfortunately Zhou himself has delayed greatly the reclaim process.

How exactly has someone who reportedly has no access, done that?  Are you claiming he has deleted data?  I can't see any other way in which he could delay the claims process.

2. We hope that users wait until there is more disclosure to judge what has happened.

You seem to think we, at present, care one jot about disclosure.  What difference will it make to us and our access to our money if you were all to publish your chat logs right now?  Answer: none.

You are being judged on the number of days that go by without access to our money; without explanation of why we have no access to our money; and without statements of facts.  You addition of mud slinging is making neither you nor Zhoutong (despite what he might think about restoring his reputation) look good.

3. We do apologise for the turn this discourse has taken. However, we hope to show how important this disclosure is and our dissatisfaction with how things were being handled and continue to be handled.

Apologies imply regret; regret implies a wish that something hadn't happened; and yet you continue this public mud slinging.  The pair of you seem to know nothing about professionalism.  Customers are allowed to be noisy, ignorant, irrational pigs.  Professional companies are not.

See below for the questions you should be answering.



By "we want information", we didn't mean we wanted to see your internal squabbles over who's fault it all is, and who signed what piece of paper.  Go and get some lawyers and a court case and sort it out between yourselves.

What we want to know is:

• Whether you have a database backup?
• Whether you have control of the remaining 'cold wallet' deposits?
• Whether you have control of the remaining USD deposits
• How much of the customer-owned funds are left?
• Why is the claim process taking so long?  We all still know our passwords and if you've got a copy of the hashes of those passwords, we can ID ourselves.  Surely a small web page to let us log in and look at our balances is about a days work?  Even if we can't withdraw them yet?
• What is the name of the person or persons (not a shell company) responsible for Bitcoinica's debts?  Note: the person responsible for the damned I.T. cupboard is an internal matter of your own.

These are simple factual questions.  They require no mud to be slung and revealing them can't possibly be covered in an NDA, since the NDA wouldn't have predicted this theft.

+1
This is exactly what is needed.
And if those answers will not be given by a reasonable deadline which to me would be 24 hours, people affected could consider filing a class action lawsuit.
And if the ownership / responsibility is not revealed to do that, could get a court order to reveal this quickly.

[arby]

The owners are responsible, not intersango, or other people that seem to take the blame on this thread, and I think you knew exactly what I was referring to when I was talking about the 'team', but just to better prove your point decided to semi-twist my words. About the trust, yes, you are right, nobody should trust these people, but would that change anything? Will your money come back if you dont trust them anymore? Will your money come back if you start issuing death threats? Will your money come back if you eat eachother?

The only one enjoying this show is the 'hacker'.

I do not think it is up to them to disclose who the owner is, that would be really irresponsible? Would you like your employees going around and disclosing personal information about you? If you sign an agreement, and then you decide not to follow it, why would anyone trust you after that? You need to use the same standards when analysing any situation, not just particular cases.

The owner I think decides such things, and not the employees, and I understand they are just working there, not actually owning the company, its basically not their money.

Pontius Pilate was a team player.  The "team" purposely hid the change of ownership from Bitcoinica customers.  They still refuse to answer questions about who now owns Bitcoinica and they absolutely deserve any suspicion and negative assumptions their deception has created.  Do you really think they would have hidden this information if they thought the Bitcoin community would embrace the new owners?

The new owners are responsible for getting money back to the customers.  If they refuse to reveal themselves to the customers, they have no right to expect the trust of their user-base.  By hiding behind intermediaries who have no authority, they are failing to display leadership.  They are failing to provide any evidence that they are even able to cover the losses.  People have no reason whatsoever to trust the new owners right now because the new owners won't come forward and present their credentials.  If they feel that they must hide behind someone, it should be their lawyer or their accountant - someone who is on the hook for any public statements made on behalf of the owners.  People have no reason to trust Bitcoinica Consultancy either.  Right now the "official" statements have about as much credibility as those which came "from the desk of Tom Williams" following the MyBitcoin debacle.

Someone needs to assume leadership here and that needs to be someone identifiable and with actual authority.  If the owner's not willing to step up to the plate and personally guarantee that customers will be made whole, they only have themselves to blame if they cannot salvage the organisation's reputation.

[Raoul Duke]

Bitcoinica Consultancy: You are full of shit when you say you already dealt with a good number of the more simple claims.
My friend who has a whole bitcoin(lol) in your service still haven't got a response after he filled your stupid claim form.
I guess 1 open position with a 1 BTC balance is fucking complicated for you to deal with.
Also, one question my friend asked me: Where are you going to return his Bitcoin to if you don't even ask for a Bitcoin address?

Just stop lying.

[arby]

This is why, as I stated above, some progress and/or some information about these claims should be constantly updated on their website.

Bitcoinica Consultancy: You are full of shit when you say you already dealt with a good number of the more simple claims.
My friend who has a whole bitcoin(lol) in your service still haven't got a response after he filled your stupid claim form.
I guess 1 open position with a 1 BTC balance is fucking complicated for you to deal with.
Also, one question my friend asked me: Where are you going to return his Bitcoin to if you don't even ask for a Bitcoin address?

Just stop lying.

[repentance]

....
People have no reason to trust Bitcoinica Consultancy either.  Right now the "official" statements have about as much credibility as those which came "from the desk of Tom Williams" following the MyBitcoin debacle.
...

Could it be that this Tom Williams is the new owner?

I doubt it.  MyBitcoin was registered in Nevis for a lot of reasons, but New Zealand is hardly a haven which is beyond the reach of national and international authorities.

Patrick Hartnett would probably be a good person to give people an idea of what remedies are available under New Zealand law if Bitcoinica doesn't make a good faith effort to return people's funds.

One thing which I can't recall Bitcoinica addressing and which I hope Zhou can shed some light on is the extent to which law enforcement has been involved in investigating this incident.  No legitimate company would not involve them in the investigation.

[bitcoinBull]

And the dam has finally burst..

If I had any control: I would like Patrick to be in the team. Donald should resign. Amir didn't involve much so I don't make any judgement.

Zhou, why would you want Patrick on your team after you said that it was specifically his e-mail server being compromised which led this whole fiasco?

What we want to know is:

• Whether you have a database backup?
• Whether you have control of the remaining 'cold wallet' deposits?
• Whether you have control of the remaining USD deposits
• How much of the customer-owned funds are left?
• Why is the claim process taking so long?  We all still know our passwords and if you've got a copy of the hashes of those passwords, we can ID ourselves.  Surely a small web page to let us log in and look at our balances is about a days work?  Even if we can't withdraw them yet?
• What is the name of the person or persons (not a shell company) responsible for Bitcoinica's debts?  Note: the person responsible for the damned I.T. cupboard is an internal matter of your own.

+1

[Bitcoinica Consultancy]

Bitcoinica Consultancy: You are full of shit when you say you already dealt with a good number of the more simple claims.
My friend who has a whole bitcoin(lol) in your service still haven't got a response after he filled your stupid claim form.
I guess 1 open position with a 1 BTC balance is fucking complicated for you to deal with.
Also, one question my friend asked me: Where are you going to return his Bitcoin to if you don't even ask for a Bitcoin address?

Just stop lying.

I'm not sure were you got that. Please show us the post so it can be altered. This is what we said:

Right now, we believe the best thing for all parties involved is that we continue with the reclaims process. We have investigated many of the claims but have many left. There were still claims being filed as of at least yesterday. Our intention is to have a secure platform where users can claim their accounts and everyone will be able to claims their accounts once the claims process is finished. We cannot offer a concrete timeline for exactly when this will happen but we are working as fast as possible. Please be patient. We are truly sorry for the grave inconveniences.

[naima53]

I beat it guess. What does this red selection frame? This means that a hacker - the same "mystery investor"! Made a backup on own disk. Then, remove the server. He is the only owner of the database! Now he - BOSS. But that's not enough. What would need to get more - you need to make Bitcoinica work as before ... Make a profit for the boss. But you need the consent of previous owners (cool wallet from them). While the hacker and former owners did not agree - money is not returned. I suggest a compromise quickly. Reputation at stake. In any case, we, the users do not lose anything, just run bitcoinica will be an expert on security.

[naima53]

Or is not true? Yes or no?

[kokjo]

I beat it guess. What does this red selection frame? This means that a hacker - the same "mystery investor"! Made a backup on own disk. Then, remove the server. He is the only owner of the database! Now he - BOSS. But that's not enough. What would need to get more - you need to make Bitcoinica work as before ... Make a profit for the boss. But you need the consent of previous owners (cool wallet from them). While the hacker and former owners did not agree - money is not returned. I suggest a compromise quickly. Reputation at stake. In any case, we, the users do not lose anything, just run bitcoinica will be an expert on security.

you know that this is highly likely to be fake pic, right?

[repentance]

Your answer is either YES, NO, or NDA.

Please!

Guys can someone please pull public information from NZ companies house (even if it costs to get some by paying 10 dollars or so) and post it here.

Certification of Incorporation: http://www.societies.govt.nz/scanned-images/17/BC10060962017.pdf

Application for registration of a Limited Partnership: http://www.societies.govt.nz/scanned-images/06/BC10060962006.pdf

http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/3715077
http://www.linkedin.com/in/cheaslip

So general partner is Core Credit Limited, with accountant as probably nomini director. Very shady if so.

By law, details of limited partners are private.

Whatever questions you have Chris Heaslip is your guy, email or call and ask him.

So it is basically a limited partnership with a limited company as General Partner having it seems a sole nomini director AND a sole nomini shareholder. And who knows how many limited companies in how many jurisdictions are below that. These guys are well prepared for any (civil) legal assault and any civil case would be pointless.

Zhou made an interesting post regarding Core Credit on 5 May.

Bitcoinica has started using a new bank account in New Zealand for wire transfers. This account is opened with Bitcoinica's banking partner Core Credit Limited (an approved FSP in New Zealand).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79688.msg883562#msg883562  Post number 3 contains the banking details which Zhou edited out of his OP.

Pretty deceptive really given that they're actually a general partner in Bitcoinica rather than just a "banking partner".  No-one thought to question it at the time, unfortunately.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Now would be  agood time to come out with a competing bitcoinica

[naima53]

you know that this is highly likely to be fake pic, right?

yes. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81045.msg910403#msg910403 But Yes or No?

[hazek]

Now would be  agood time to come out with a competing bitcoinica

You do know that exactly this is in beta testing right?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81748.0

[repentance]

Found this on Chris Heaslip's website.

Twitter has lessened the distance between businesses and customers, and it allow customers to contact businesses directly. Those businesses which don’t use twitter (and other SM platforms) are missing out on opportunities to gain customers,and to put things right when things don’t go well for customers.

http://www.chrisheaslip.com/2011/08/social-media-a-waste-of-time/

Perhaps y'all should take him at his word and tweet him so he can "put things right" regarding the Bitcoinica clusterfuck.

http://twitter.com/#!/chrisheaslip

[Clipse]

Few people practice what they preach.

[Raoul Duke]

Bitcoinica Consultancy: You are full of shit when you say you already dealt with a good number of the more simple claims.
My friend who has a whole bitcoin(lol) in your service still haven't got a response after he filled your stupid claim form.
I guess 1 open position with a 1 BTC balance is fucking complicated for you to deal with.
Also, one question my friend asked me: Where are you going to return his Bitcoin to if you don't even ask for a Bitcoin address?

Just stop lying.

I'm not sure were you got that. Please show us the post so it can be altered. This is what we said:

Right now, we believe the best thing for all parties involved is that we continue with the reclaims process. We have investigated many of the claims but have many left. There were still claims being filed as of at least yesterday. Our intention is to have a secure platform where users can claim their accounts and everyone will be able to claims their accounts once the claims process is finished. We cannot offer a concrete timeline for exactly when this will happen but we are working as fast as possible. Please be patient. We are truly sorry for the grave inconveniences.

Really, I'm not going back to search, this thread is damn long. If that was all you said, my apologies for misunderstanding.

Now a simple question: How do you expect everyone to claim their accounts if you didn't warn them about the theft and the fact that the website went down? Is sending a simple email to your user base beyond your possibilities?
My friend only knew about it because I told him. And I'm sure there are many other users in the same situation.

[tseale]

Hi all. I'm making my first post here to offer my heartfelt apology to those affected by the security breach at Bitcoinica.

The investment fund I work with first put money into Bitcoinica because I had identified it as a promising start-up in this exciting space. It is my job to find potential investments and conduct related due diligence. In doing so, I learned a lot about bitcoin trading and Bitcoinica.

Like many early stage companies, Bitcoinica experienced growing pains as its success outgrew the capacity of its initial founder to handle alone. It was I who sought out expanded management to help take Bitcoinica forward.

I chose the Bitcoin Consultancy team due to their early involvement with bitcoin, their experience operating an exchange, and their reputations for expertise in online security.  

Bitcoin Consultancy was first retained to perform a comprehensive security audit on March 27 and they became owners and operators of Bitcoinica LP on April 24*. As General Partner, they have exclusive legal authority to manage the company.

Because their time with the company is relatively short, the present situation is especially challenging. Zhou Tong has continued to assist in an unofficial capacity. I've offered what insights I can based on my knowledge of the business. In spite of the challenges, I know the Bitcoin Consultancy team would like to bring about the best possible outcome.

Per standard practice, Bitcoin Consultancy entered into a non-disclosure agreement which extends to Bitcoinica's proprietary systems and processes. They are free to discuss their role and history with the company.

For those who wish to blame someone, blame me. Perhaps if I'd pushed for expanded management sooner or in a different way, the incident might have been avoided.

For avoidance of confusion, I wish to reiterate Bitcoinica Consultancy's prior statement: Mr. Heaslip is an accounting professional who assisted with company formation. He has his own business interests in New Zealand which are otherwise unrelated. I have facilitated investments in dozens of other companies, including some in the bitcoin space. Those companies are also unrelated.

I’m unable to follow most public postings here, but you can reach me through this forum by private message. Questions about processing of funds should be directed to Bitcoin Consultancy as they alone control that process.

I've advised Bitcoin Consultancy to focus their efforts on processing claims rather than public debate. Please extend them your continued patience.


------
*The members of Bitcoin Consultancy operated Bitcoinica via a separate New Zealand Ltd company formed for this purpose.