Statement about the suspect of recent Bitcoinica hack

[cypherdoc]

remember when Bruno accused Stefan Thomas of being Tom Williams?  Bwahahahahaha!  Stefan was cool and just laughed it off....

[Gavin Andresen]

For the record:

I've never met Zhou Tong, and wasn't involved in any with with Bitcoinica.

I have met Tihan, Charlie and Patrick (Murck), and they are all responsible grown-ups who, like any of us, occasionally make mistakes. I think they're making a mistake getting stuck to the Bitcoinica tar-baby, but I think y'all should give them a little space because I think they're genuinely trying to help clean up this mess.

[Gyrsur]

For the record:

I've never met Zhou Tong, and wasn't involved in any with with Bitcoinica.

I have met Tihan, Charlie and Patrick (Murck), and they are all responsible grown-ups who, like any of us, occasionally make mistakes. I think they're making a mistake getting stuck to the Bitcoinica tar-baby, but I think y'all should give them a little space because I think they're genuinely trying to help clean up this mess.

Thanks Gavin for your statement!! For me you are the one who is the most trustable in this whole bitcoin thing because you're thinking like a developer not like a financial bastard!!

[cypherdoc]

don't get me wrong; i love Bruno.  he's got a good heart and has done more for the community than me.  and his investigations are just intriguing enough to reel you in.  i remember following him and trying to verify all his twists and turns he unveiled during his Who is Tom Williams investigation.  my mind ended up exploding.  oh yes, and he also has this nasty habit of parsing out his findings in a veiled and obtuse way, purposely.  i guess he likes getting everyone's panties twisted up.  

[ribuck]

Thanks Gavin for your statement!! For me you are the one who is the most trustable in this whole bitcoin thing ...

Yes, if only Gavin's avatar didn't look like he was wearing a yellow life-vest, about to bail at any moment

[cypherdoc]

Thanks Gavin for your statement!! For me you are the one who is the most trustable in this whole bitcoin thing ...

Yes, if only Gavin's avatar didn't look like he was wearing a yellow life-vest, about to bail at any moment

its called body armor.

[shad0wbitz]

Matthew has to protect his reputation, if it turns out he was being supported by and received funds from a criminal scammer it would not look so great. Kinda have to take anything he says with a grain of salt, that is if you were going to take anything he said seriously anyway.

Matthew needs to respond immediately to the allegations that the money to print the first issue of his laughable magazine came from Zhou Tong, and explain why he is acting like his bitch.

Take a good look. I'm sure that page will disappear within the hour.

Oh wow, all the bitcoin degenerate whores in bed with each other.

Charlie: If I understand correctly, you are the INVESTMENT director for these shady fucks? You are somebody I respect in this industry. Care to share why oh why you will mix yourself up with the likes of Matthew N. Queer et al?

[shad0wbitz]

From http://dcao.org/?p=39

In July 2011, BitTalk.TV was unofficially announced. Later in December 2011, BitTalk Media Ltd. (UK) was formed with 7 members of the DCAO: Matthew N. Wright as Director of Operations, (...) Since its inception BitTalk Media has received funding from several sources, including a gracious monetary donation of $11,000USD from Zhou Tong, as well as high-end rendering and audio equipment from Ken Armitt, both members of the DCAO.

No wonder you were squealing like the whore on Zhou's defense. Shame on you writing that shilling article on your shody blog. You are a disgrace to journalism and to this community.

[Matthew N. Wright]

From http://dcao.org/?p=39

In July 2011, BitTalk.TV was unofficially announced. Later in December 2011, BitTalk Media Ltd. (UK) was formed with 7 members of the DCAO: Matthew N. Wright as Director of Operations, (...) Since its inception BitTalk Media has received funding from several sources, including a gracious monetary donation of $11,000USD from Zhou Tong, as well as high-end rendering and audio equipment from Ken Armitt, both members of the DCAO.

No wonder you were squealing like the whore on Zhou's defense. Shame on you writing that shilling article on your shody blog. You are a disgrace to journalism and to this community.

Here, I'll quote the post I already made to you an hour ago since you selectively drew information from it for your agenda.

[...] it aggravates me to see him among us like it never happened.

+1

I can not understand why theymos pulled this deal with this scammer. Oh sorry - of cause he can not be called scammer, because it's not proven. There is no evidence at all.

Now this thread has been moved to off-topic to ensure that ZT's new "customers" do not get distracted by totally irrelevant information...

Well, maybe ZT will use some of the new funds from NameTerrific to refund some of the Bitcoinica victims... out of pure generosity...

Careful. They are going to ban you and pretend you never existed. Maged (a moderator here) has pledge over and over his support for Zhou. Here is Theymos explanation of why taking the funds from Zhou was an ok thing to do (disturbing if you ask me). You judge for yourself:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94475.msg1062355#msg1062355

I just found out that the Bitcoin Magazine took a "large donation" from Zhou. It seems he knows how to buy friends with high exposure, and with a clear ability of control the information in the bitcoin world. It would be interesting to get anybody from this forum to fully disclose how much money Zhou Tong has "donated" to the same.

You just found out he donated money to BitTalk.TV (not Bitcoin Magazine. Bitcoin Magazine didn't exist at that time)? Why did you just find that out? I posted that literally 8 months ago. http://dcao.org/?p=39

Since its inception BitTalk Media has received funding from several sources, including a gracious monetary donation of $11,000USD from Zhou Tong, as well as high-end rendering and audio equipment from Ken Armitt, both members of the DCAO.

That was of course for cameras back when BitTalk Media was just bittalk.tv. The magazine came way later and -that- funding was 100% from Vladimir, myself and recent investments through angel.co. Thanks for the free publicity though! http://bitcoinmagazine.net

I guess that ends -that- conspiracy theory. Now excuse me while I go purchase a domain on NameTerrific.

[augustocroppo]

As promised here are details of the transaction: http://blockchain.info/address/1LH6Q1ZXvdQepz8hfQd7kx6XHrggz1VkzD.

(...)

Additionally, so there isn't any confusion or misunderstanding. The funds that have been most recently recovered are being moved to a safer form of cold storage. I will post details of the transaction here shortly.

Thank you for your patience,
Patrick

The new transaction was made inside an Intranet:

Received Time   2012-07-31 01:26:27
Included in blocks   191619 (2012-07-31 01:36:47 +10 minutes)
Relayed by ip   127.0.0.1 (whois)

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/14019256/cce8c325893d90e1d99e116e9279cf2e3e3f5ae6703854020726a660d8491289

Could you elaborate to where exactly the funds were transferred? Technical details is appreciated.

The funds are being tracked by the sender address 15R3YhPh49hmic4KPNPhFzStjjrCtwgUCX. The sender is investing one satoshi per transaction to create branches with the funds.


http://blockchain.info/address/15R3YhPh49hmic4KPNPhFzStjjrCtwgUCX

[shad0wbitz]

If someone donated money to my cause I would take it. Is it my responsibility to look into their financial background first? You must never have worked at a charity. LOL

Absolutely, or do you think the Red Cross will take money from a drug cartel?

The point is: Matthew has CLEARLY taken donations from Zhou Tong, ergo, he is not independent on his claims, or his articles.

If he was a serious journalist, he should have put a disclaimer on his blog article big as a fucking house indicating that he has received money from Zhou, and that he is involved in business ventures (or whatever you want to call that http://dcao.org/ transvestite) together with Zhou.

You see this all the time on magazines (i.e. disclaimer: I own MSFT stock on a Microsoft article, etc).

He has proved, once again, to be a world-class ass clown.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Ironically, the only thing that $11k covered was the Christmas Special. Camera equipment here in Korea cost us about $8k, and scenery, source files (many which we still haven't released because we didn't finish about 10 of the skits we had planned) and editing software + some hardware upgrades for rendering ate up the rest of it.

I can't say it was a waste though as I still feel this community is stale and lacking character (or the character it has chosen is basically anti-social and troll infested). I mean, look at this thread as a clear example. The only times anyone is passionate and involved in something is when they're out for blood. It's really sad. Whenever a member of the bitcoin community stands up for what they believe in and makes a mistake, they are treated like some sort of plague by the trolls here. It's a vivid reflection of world politics, "I can't stand what's going on but I refuse to get involved, learn a skill and help change it!". Zhou Tong developed and supported an idea, as a child. Adults, with logic and reason dumped way too much money into a child's website. The website is sold to someone else. The child no longer runs or owns it, and it gets hacked. The forum's solution? Blame the child. What a sick bunch of losers they must be.

I've known Zhou Tong (never met him personally) for only about a year, but the whole time I've known him as someone who doesn't care about short term financial gain. He's turned down many offers for partnerships from exchanges and businessmen right in front of me just because he didn't see it being a good thing for bitcoin, and saw it as only a means to an end. He wanted to provide merchant services, fixed exchanges, etc, not scammy sites. He also sees Bitcoin realistically-- that it has no future through these forums and should be included alongside other real world applications, not exclusive and restrictive, constricted from ever growing.

I do know his ego and naivety all too well though. I remember getting mad at him (Vladimir was even -more- angry with him) for not changing his security policies when Vladimir basically warned him over several days to not host shit in the cloud as a practice, and Vladimir was right. Basically they had a long term disagreement. Vladimir is for linux jails, perl and collocation. Zhou is for Apple -anything-, marketing bullshit ("Our products are secure! Trust us!"), Ruby on Rails and is absolutely in love with the cloud.

It -was- stupid and careless the way Zhou ran things and Vladimir called it a hundred times. I hadn't enough experience to comment too much but always kept involved in the debates back when we casually discussed exchange's security policies etc. We all tried our best to give Zhou (a 16 year old kid at the time) the best of our collective experiences in the DCAO while he did his thing because we wanted to help keep him out of trouble. My side of the advice was mostly legal and business related (things like-- "hey, did you know running bitcoinica is probably illegal for you? You should get licensed or sell it to someone who is licensed before you end up in prison!").

I believe I was a big force in convincing him to sell Bitcoinica in the first place but I can't possibly prove that. I didn't get any commission from that sale either, I wasn't part of any bargain, I just didn't want a 17 year old ruining his life for something he saw as just a project for bitcoiners. He was very passionate about it and as a fellow developer since I was 12ish, I share the same passion. I trusted that the supposedly professional individual he was selling to (whom demanded his identity be kept private and forced an NDA although we know now it was Tihan) would take charge of the business. We also learned that this mysterious owner would also reveal his identity once it was licensed and I was told that that was why it took so long because they were working on getting a licensed company involved (which I know now was the Intersango guys).

Once things started getting rocky with the Linode hack though I realized that there was some serious trouble going on but Zhou Tong had already left the DCAO so he wasn't really accessible to me to get involved, and didn't seem keen to taking much advice anymore (I think we all pretty much assumed it was now the new owners problem). That's why when all these newbies (Whom I've already confirmed are mostly SA goons trying to troll for emotional responses) call Zhou a serial scammer and play up the situation as if he planned this from day one, I have a hard time not breaking out in laughter. I'm truly sorry for your losses (wtf@Roger!) but just as I said in the BitScalper thread, stop trusting strangers with all your money and you'll probably be better off (especially when that stranger is not even a legal adult who can't make contracts  )

Who knows, maybe Zhou is really a 40 year old dude and I've been duped. I've actually had that theory thrown to me by someone else in BitTalk Media back when we were recording the BitTalk.TV Christmas Special. I thought it was a bit absurd since I've spoken to him on the phone, but then again, maybe he was just holding a child at gunpoint to speak for him! All I know is, I still think he's only doing what he believes is best for bitcoiners and I haven't seen any arguments against him that weren't basically hearsay. (I've also been less than satisfied with his responses, but I have some common sense and realize that it could be because he's 17 years old).

For those of you who have a hard time believing things just because you're handicapped, I have a confession: I'm Atlas, Charlie Shrem is Bruno, Gavin Andreson is Satoshi and this forum is all hosted in my bedroom in Korea.


EDIT: Aww, the shad0wbitz SA troll was already banned before I could finish this response. Drat. I guess I'll settle for the other 2 SA goons in the thread.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Charlie: If I understand correctly, you are the INVESTMENT director for these shady fucks? You are somebody I respect in this industry. Care to share why oh why you will mix yourself up with the likes of Matthew N. Queer et al?

No, let me clear this up.

Bitinstant nor Charlie Shrem has any involvement with Bitcoinica, Mathew N Wright, Bittalk Media, ect.
Bitinstant has not invested any money into any Bitcoin companies.

My involvement in this as follows:

Patrick Murck is on our legal team, as he works for Coinlab and a few other clients.

I traveled to the west coast to meet with Tihan, Patrick Murck and Patrick S of Intersango last week on behalf of Roger Ver who is a credit holder.

I have no funds in Bitconica, have no claim to any funds, not involved in any litigation whatsoever.

-Charlie

For the record:

I've never met Zhou Tong, and wasn't involved in any with with Bitcoinica.

I have met Tihan, Charlie and Patrick (Murck), and they are all responsible grown-ups who, like any of us, occasionally make mistakes. I think they're making a mistake getting stuck to the Bitcoinica tar-baby, but I think y'all should give them a little space because I think they're genuinely trying to help clean up this mess.

Thanks Gavin for your kind words.

[ninjarobot]

Zhou Tong developed and supported an idea, as a child. Adults, with logic and reason dumped way too much money into a child's website. The website is sold to someone else. The child no longer runs or owns it, and it gets hacked. The forum's solution? Blame the child. What a sick bunch of losers they must be.

...said the guy who accepted $11.000 from that child.

I only committed a significant amount of money to Bitcoinica after it became a licensed FSP ran by the Bitcoin Consultancy group. (which I mistakenly believed to be the among best in the business at that time). Recent evidence from MtGox, Bitinstant and AurumXchange points directly at Zhou. And Zhou points to some mystery man named Chen. Please excuse me for being skeptical.

[zhoutong]

Public clarification #1

"Transfer for a friend" is not "third-party transfer" and is not "money laundering".

I was not merely doing a simple transfer, I was doing a business with this friend by giving him preferential foreign exchange rates compared to his banks, for a return of a small commission.

The supposed procedure:

Friend's LR                ->   My LR (my revenue to perform the service)
My LR                      ->   My USD bank account (my own exchange activity through AurumXchange, et al.)
My USD bank account ->   X (my own exchange activity for forex)
X                            ->   My SGD bank account (my own withdrawal in another currency)
My SGD bank account ->   Friend's SGD bank account (my cost to perform the service)

Only the first and last part are related to both my friend and me. It's a common business procedure for all kinds of legitimate trades, and the procedure itself is completely legal.

The suspicion comes from a Bitcoinica hack which happens to involve an email address that I used for testing purpose on mtgox.com, and a transfer on AurumXchange at similar timeframe with an amount of similar order of magnitude. However, "third-party transfer" is strictly defined to be using an exchange service as an intermediary between two different accounts not controlled by the same person.

For example,

My LR -> AurumXchange
AurumXchange -> Friend's bank account

This is third party transfer, and it should trigger an AML investigation immediately.

A common use of third-party transfer is scamming:

Trader A: I want to buy some Bitcoins
Trader B: Sure, send the funds to *** (AurumXchange's bank account), and make sure you have transaction reference XXX
Trader A: Done
Trader B gets a Mt. Gox code from AurumXchange, and deposits into an unverified Mt. Gox account, and cash out Bitcoins.
Trader B never pays Trader A anything.
Trader A: You are a scammer! I'm reporting to the police with your bank account.
AurumXchange will be investigated, and Trader B may never appear again.

This IS the real (third-party transfer == money laundering) you're talking about.

EDIT:

I only post public clarification when too many people are questioning the same thing when I deem to be factually wrong and worth a public clarification. You should continue contacting me at bitcoin@zhoutong.com for other clarifications or explanations. You shouldn't expect me to read/reply every single post in this thread.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Zhou Tong developed and supported an idea, as a child. Adults, with logic and reason dumped way too much money into a child's website. The website is sold to someone else. The child no longer runs or owns it, and it gets hacked. The forum's solution? Blame the child. What a sick bunch of losers they must be.

...said the guy who accepted $11.000 from that child.

I only commited a significant amount of money to Bitcoinica after it became a licensed FSP ran by the Bitcoin Consultancy group. (which I mistakenly believed to be the among best in the business at that time). Recent evidence from MtGox, Bitinstant and AurumXchange points directly at Zhou. And Zhou points to some mystery man named Chen. Please excuse me for being skeptical.

Meh, skeptical is fine. I'm skeptical myself because the Zhou talking here is -nothing- like the Zhou I've talked to either. Completely different personality. Maybe he's changed a bit. Maybe he's just busier. I'm just having a hard time swallowing the (now banned) abusive trolls here claiming hearsay as indisputable evidence is all.

[Rarity]

If someone falsely accused you of being a massive criminal and whipped up a mob after you with false and misleading information, you might change your tone too.

Public clarification #1

"Transfer for a friend" is not "third-party transfer" and is not "money laundering".

I was not merely doing a simple transfer, I was doing a business with this friend by giving him preferential foreign exchange rates compared to his banks, for a return of a small commission.

The supposed procedure:

Friend's LR                ->   My LR (my revenue to perform the service)
My LR                      ->   My USD bank account (my own exchange activity through AurumXchange, et al.)
My USD bank account ->   X (my own exchange activity for forex)
X                            ->   My SGD bank account (my own withdrawal in another currency)
My SGD bank account ->   Friend's SGD bank account (my cost to perform the service)

Only the first and last part are related to both my friend and me. It's a common business procedure for all kinds of legitimate trades, and the procedure itself is completely legal.

The suspicion comes from a Bitcoinica hack which happens to involve an email address that I used for testing purpose on mtgox.com, and a transfer on AurumXchange at similar timeframe with an amount of similar order of magnitude. However, "third-party transfer" is strictly defined to be using an exchange service as an intermediary between two different accounts not controlled by the same person.

For example,

My LR -> AurumXchange
AurumXchange -> Friend's bank account

This is third party transfer, and it should trigger an AML investigation immediately.

A common use of third-party transfer is scamming:

Trader A: I want to buy some Bitcoins
Trader B: Sure, send the funds to *** (AurumXchange's bank account), and make sure you have transaction reference XXX
Trader A: Done
Trader B gets a Mt. Gox code from AurumXchange, and deposits into an unverified Mt. Gox account, and cash out Bitcoins.
Trader B never pays Trader A anything.
Trader A: You are a scammer! I'm reporting to the police with your bank account.
AurumXchange will be investigated, and Trader B may never appear again.

This IS the real (third-party transfer == money laundering) you're talking about.

EDIT:

I only post public clarification when too many people are questioning the same thing when I deem to be factually wrong and worth a public clarification. You should continue contacting me at bitcoin@zhoutong.com for other clarifications or explanations. You shouldn't expect me to read/reply every single post in this thread.

Well that explains that.  It's noble of you to stay so above the fray here while others fling random insults and accusations back and forth.  I hope your funds are released soon as there is no justification to keep them frozen.

[Vod]

Public clarification #1

"Transfer for a friend" is not "third-party transfer" and is not "money laundering".

I was not merely doing a simple transfer, I was doing a business with this friend by giving him preferential foreign exchange rates compared to his banks, for a return of a small commission.

The supposed procedure:

Friend's LR                ->   My LR (my revenue to perform the service)
My LR                      ->   My USD bank account (my own exchange activity through AurumXchange, et al.)
My USD bank account ->   X (my own exchange activity for forex)
X                            ->   My SGD bank account (my own withdrawal in another currency)
My SGD bank account ->   Friend's SGD bank account (my cost to perform the service)

Only the first and last part are related to both my friend and me. It's a common business procedure for all kinds of legitimate trades, and the procedure itself is completely legal.

The suspicion comes from a Bitcoinica hack which happens to involve an email address that I used for testing purpose on mtgox.com, and a transfer on AurumXchange at similar timeframe with an amount of similar order of magnitude. However, "third-party transfer" is strictly defined to be using an exchange service as an intermediary between two different accounts not controlled by the same person.

For example,

My LR -> AurumXchange
AurumXchange -> Friend's bank account

This is third party transfer, and it should trigger an AML investigation immediately.

A common use of third-party transfer is scamming:

Trader A: I want to buy some Bitcoins
Trader B: Sure, send the funds to *** (AurumXchange's bank account), and make sure you have transaction reference XXX
Trader A: Done
Trader B gets a Mt. Gox code from AurumXchange, and deposits into an unverified Mt. Gox account, and cash out Bitcoins.
Trader B never pays Trader A anything.
Trader A: You are a scammer! I'm reporting to the police with your bank account.
AurumXchange will be investigated, and Trader B may never appear again.

This IS the real (third-party transfer == money laundering) you're talking about.

EDIT:

I only post public clarification when too many people are questioning the same thing when I deem to be factually wrong and worth a public clarification. You should continue contacting me at bitcoin@zhoutong.com for other clarifications or explanations. You shouldn't expect me to read/reply every single post in this thread.

So, you've had another day to think of another excuse, and you come here thinking we're going to believe you??

I would have had more respect for you if you had just admitted you stole the money and were returning it to avoid jail time.

[vampire]

Public clarification #1

"Transfer for a friend" is not "third-party transfer" and is not "money laundering".

I was not merely doing a simple transfer, I was doing a business with this friend by giving him preferential foreign exchange rates compared to his banks, for a return of a small commission.

The supposed procedure:

Friend's LR                ->   My LR (my revenue to perform the service)
My LR                      ->   My USD bank account (my own exchange activity through AurumXchange, et al.)
My USD bank account ->   X (my own exchange activity for forex)
X                            ->   My SGD bank account (my own withdrawal in another currency)
My SGD bank account ->   Friend's SGD bank account (my cost to perform the service)

Only the first and last part are related to both my friend and me. It's a common business procedure for all kinds of legitimate trades, and the procedure itself is completely legal.

The suspicion comes from a Bitcoinica hack which happens to involve an email address that I used for testing purpose on mtgox.com, and a transfer on AurumXchange at similar timeframe with an amount of similar order of magnitude. However, "third-party transfer" is strictly defined to be using an exchange service as an intermediary between two different accounts not controlled by the same person.

For example,

My LR -> AurumXchange
AurumXchange -> Friend's bank account

This is third party transfer, and it should trigger an AML investigation immediately.

A common use of third-party transfer is scamming:

Trader A: I want to buy some Bitcoins
Trader B: Sure, send the funds to *** (AurumXchange's bank account), and make sure you have transaction reference XXX
Trader A: Done
Trader B gets a Mt. Gox code from AurumXchange, and deposits into an unverified Mt. Gox account, and cash out Bitcoins.
Trader B never pays Trader A anything.
Trader A: You are a scammer! I'm reporting to the police with your bank account.
AurumXchange will be investigated, and Trader B may never appear again.

This IS the real (third-party transfer == money laundering) you're talking about.

EDIT:

I only post public clarification when too many people are questioning the same thing when I deem to be factually wrong and worth a public clarification. You should continue contacting me at bitcoin@zhoutong.com for other clarifications or explanations. You shouldn't expect me to read/reply every single post in this thread.

[Rarity]

If someone falsely accused you of being a massive criminal and whipped up a mob after you with false and misleading information, you might change your tone too.

Well that explains that.  It's noble of you to stay so above the fray here while others fling random insults and accusations back and forth.  I hope your funds are released soon as there is no justification to keep them frozen.

Friendship is Magic

It's good to see more pony fans here and I do enjoy art related to the show but we have a separate thread for that.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=30204.0