The psychology of a con man - Zhou

[goodlord666]

Am I missing something?

What about the relic collection?

Can it be woven into the story somehow? Like, the relics are being used to launder the stolen coins or something. Or maybe just as a setting for the final fight or so.

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[bitlizard]

I'm sorry folks around here were ripped off, but that is the inevitable result of the free market beliefs so many people around here believe in, not the fault of an honest man like Zhou tong.  A well regulated market with the government looking over our shoulder to keep everybody in line is the only way to solve this scamming issue.  Believing in an article about a phony, fraudulent science is just falling for one more scam.

"A well regulated market with the government looking over our shoulder to keep everybody in line is the only way to solve this scamming issue"

Is this a joke? are you trolling?

[rjk]

I'm sorry folks around here were ripped off, but that is the inevitable result of the free market beliefs so many people around here believe in, not the fault of an honest man like Zhou tong.  A well regulated market with the government looking over our shoulder to keep everybody in line is the only way to solve this scamming issue.  Believing in an article about a phony, fraudulent science is just falling for one more scam.

"A well regulated market with the government looking over our shoulder to keep everybody in line is the only way to solve this scamming issue"

Is this a joke? are you trolling?

Yes. Yes, she is as usual.

[ninjarobot]

So, if I'm all caught up on everything, the community is currently trying to decide which scenario is more likely?

1. The guy who has all of the tools, knowledge and access required to steal the bitcoins did it.

2. Actually, it was a non-english speaking Chinese man who makes a livelyhood of credit card fraud that had a "business" conversation with him online several years ago, in which he revealed that he was a millionaire, but also not very technically inclined. The subject of bitcoin came up in their discussions, and the Chinese millionaire not having heard of it, took this information to one of his more technical associates, who figured it all out for him, commited the crimes, and gave him all the money (he's very loyal). Afterward, he explained every step of what he did to the Chinese millionaire, in case his associate from long ago who's email account he used for the crime would call him up asking about it, he would be able to provide all of the details if pressured with the threat of "people on the internet are looking into this". As someone who makes millions in the credit card fraud industry, this is something that he is genuinely unprepared for.

Am I missing something?

The tooth fairy just told me that #2 is the correct answer.

[Rarity]

It's almost like it's in a psychologist's business interest to promote the idea of an "elusive phantom" lurking around every corner, who people will be extremely fearful of because they sound so realistic.

Exactly this.  Why trust someone who is just trying to make money off your fears and a false promise of feeling better when there are better, more real solutions out there?

By now everybody figured out this is a sock puppet. Give it up and get a lawyer.

Your paranoia is disturbing, your accusations against me are even more baseless than your witch hunt against Zhou Tong.  This is why we need government involved in this, every witch hunt will always find new victims and I guess I'm up!

[Chalkbot]

What about the relic collection?

Forgot about the relics!


Here is a transcript from their business conversations:

Zhou: Hello? Is this the professional credit card fraud artist I requested?
Chen: Yes, of course! How can I help you?
Zhou: How do I know you are any good?
Chen: Well, I am a millionaire who collects relics and speculates precious collections.
Zhou: Perfect, I'm interested in getting some help building some security into my website and payment processing.
Chen: Oh yes! I do quite a bit of business with that sort of thing. Well, not really. My associate does!
Zhou: Okay, what kind of advice can you offer me?
Chen: First, go ahead and sign up for MY website to check out how it works. Don't worry about using a unique password either.
Zhou: Sounds good!
<MINUTES LATER>
Zhou: Okay, so we should use our Mt. Gox API key as the password on our Lastpass account?
Chen: Yes, that is very good, because it has a lot of random characters.
Zhou: And two factor authenification is totally unecessary?
Chen: Yes, certainly if you have such a long password like that.
Zhou: Awesome, thanks! You've been a great help!
Chen: Any time, buddy!

[goodlord666]

What about the relic collection?

Forgot about the relics!

Awesome!

Can we still have a final battle in the private museum?

[Portnoy]

It's almost like it's in a psychologist's business interest to promote the idea of an "elusive phantom" lurking around every corner, who people will be extremely fearful of because they sound so realistic.

Exactly this.  Why trust someone who is just trying to make money off your fears and a false promise of feeling better when there are better, more real solutions out there?

By now everybody figured out this is a sock puppet. Give it up and get a lawyer.

Your paranoia is disturbing, your accusations against me are even more baseless than your witch hunt against Zhou Tong.  This is why we need government involved in this, every witch hunt will always find new victims and I guess I'm up!

That's right, because governments never engage in witch hunts and always act in the best interest of the people they serve.   

Why is someone with your views even interested in Bitcoin?  It is largely about moving away from such oppressive and corrupt centralized systems.

[Rarity]

It's almost like it's in a psychologist's business interest to promote the idea of an "elusive phantom" lurking around every corner, who people will be extremely fearful of because they sound so realistic.

Exactly this.  Why trust someone who is just trying to make money off your fears and a false promise of feeling better when there are better, more real solutions out there?

By now everybody figured out this is a sock puppet. Give it up and get a lawyer.

Your paranoia is disturbing, your accusations against me are even more baseless than your witch hunt against Zhou Tong.  This is why we need government involved in this, every witch hunt will always find new victims and I guess I'm up!

That's right, because governments never engage in witch hunts and always act in the best interest of the people they serve.   

Why is someone with your views even interested in Bitcoin?  It is largely about moving away from such oppressive and corrupt centralized systems.

As a socialist/communist and a member of a spiritual group that has had to battle tons of spurious attacks from government I am very familiar with the concept of government witch hunts.  No government is perfect and we should always work to improve them, however the safeguards they provide are a huge step up from the unrestrained mob justice you get in a situation like this.  

I think you would be surprised how many other leftists are flocking to bitcoin.  The concept of being able to track every transaction, as opposed to the total anonymity of cash, is a huge benefit if you are trying to exercise control over the market.  Now, you don't actually manipulate the Bitcoin itself, you just regulate it's use within your market by setting up whitelists for approved wallets.  Any blacklisted or unlisted coins are sent to the government for redistribution before they can enter the market.  That all seems a bit off topic for this thread though, but as I've said before it's very like Satoshi is actually a leftist and not any sort of libertarian at all.

[Maria]

It's almost like it's in a psychologist's business interest to promote the idea of an "elusive phantom" lurking around every corner, who people will be extremely fearful of because they sound so realistic.

Exactly this.  Why trust someone who is just trying to make money off your fears and a false promise of feeling better when there are better, more real solutions out there?

By now everybody figured out this is a sock puppet. Give it up and get a lawyer.

Your paranoia is disturbing, your accusations against me are even more baseless than your witch hunt against Zhou Tong.  This is why we need government involved in this, every witch hunt will always find new victims and I guess I'm up!

That's right, because governments never engage in witch hunts and always act in the best interest of the people they serve.   

Why is someone with your views even interested in Bitcoin?  It is largely about moving away from such oppressive and corrupt centralized systems.

As a socialist/communist and a member of a spiritual group that has had to battle tons of spurious attacks from government I am very familiar with the concept of government witch hunts.  No government is perfect and we should always work to improve them, however the safeguards they provide are a huge step up from the unrestrained mob justice you get in a situation like this.  

I think you would be surprised how many other leftists are flocking to bitcoin.  The concept of being able to track every transaction, as opposed to the total anonymity of cash, is a huge benefit if you are trying to exercise control over the market.  Now, you don't actually manipulate the Bitcoin itself, you just regulate it's use within your market by setting up whitelists for approved wallets.  Any blacklisted or unlisted coins are sent to the government for redistribution before they can enter the market.  That all seems a bit off topic for this thread though, but as I've said before it's very like Satoshi is actually a leftist and not any sort of libertarian at all.

You have no clue who Satoshi is or what "he" believes in. I have never said this to anyone but, please, Shut The Fuck Up! Log off and relogin as Zhoutong and tell us more stories about your classes and your relic collector friend. In the meantime, trackdown is on FULL FORCE! Get ready!

Maria.

[Rarity]

Nobody knows who he is, as far as I'm aware.  Given the product he created though I'm comfortable with my assumption.  A true libertarian would stick with gold not an electronic currency maintained by socialized mining cooperatives.  

[Rarity]

^ But in practice most people are part of the pools where the gains are socialized and distributed equally because they recognize the benefits of such cooperation and equitable distribution!  Don't you see, our WHOLE economy could be like that!

Next point I would like to discuss is that a government, which can control something like the Bitcoin block chain with any degree of success, would have to be a world government with totalitarian control.

No, you aren't actually controlling the blockchain.  The idea is you whitelist some bitcoins you control and divide and distribute them equally among the population.  Any coin which enters a non-whitelisted wallet is out of the system and no longer valid currency.  This way if your bitcoins were stolen, for example, the hacker would have no use for them in your economy since any valid wallet would have a name attached to it.   For another example, any time a drug dealer was caught you could trace back to all his customers and have law enforcement contact them and send them to treatment.

I wonder how many loyal subjects will adhere to the regulated block chain as opposed to the free market block chain that will certainly continue to exist.

Businesses who engaged in such activity would be severely punished.

As far as Satoshi's political leanings, why are Bitcoin addresses pseudonymous?

Because he knew government would be handling the identifications in their natural capacity as regulators, there was no need to build it into the system.

[Rarity]

You mean where the pool operators get a to take a cut from every miner that joins them. How is that fair and equal?

They administrate the system and deserve compensation for it.

The non-whitelisted addresses may be out of your system, but they aren't out of my system. I will continue to secure and process those transactions.

It doesn't matter if they aren't out of your system as long as you don't try and spend them back into the white system, which you can't do.  Any citizen who ended up paying into a non-whitelisted address could be questioned about their reasons as well.  That is the beauty, it's a lot harder to have informal black markets when you don't have cash.  Transaction logs can keep any bad money from being laundered back into the system, which is not the case now and allows the black market to survive as a parasite on the true market.  

Oh, so he was just lazy, leaving it up to someone else to take care of that. His creation depends on the government.

It's not laziness any more than it's laziness that paper companies don't print cash, it's not their job.  They are just supplying the raw material for the government to work with.

Do you think he was supporting the chancellor (government) with this comment?

It reads to me as a lament that the government was forced again to rescue the market from its own irrational actions.  We would not need bailouts if we nationalized the banks.

[Rarity]

Bravo, we will have you as a free market advocate before we are done!

Who said I'm not?  I just believe that market needs to be very strictly regulated and people should not take unfair levels of compensation, as many top executives and business owners do today.  They should be more like the mining cooperatives were most of the profit is going back to the labor force.

So you will end up with a white system where the regulators come out on top, and a lucrative black market which they are unable to touch. Who needs "cash" when I can use any form of accounting I desire? Don't fiat notes have serial numbers? Where are the account logs that prevent bad money being laundered now? Congratulations, you've recreated the system we living in.

The laundering of cash makes you unable to track it, which is the point of the process. With my system,  no matter what you do with the money, the government can see where it goes, it has no way to make it back to a legitimate business free and clear.  

If somebody robs cash Bill A from a bank, when I find it again I can confirm it was Bill A with the serial numbers, but I have no idea where it has been and what seemingly legitimate business laundered it.  

The thrill of being a black market millionaire isn't quite as great when you can't use your money to buy a house or a car or a plane ticket.

Why do I know about this project then? It seems the government should be able to polish it to a fine shine before releasing it on the public.

We're on our way, the current rise of Bitcoin and the growing pains are just the first stage of the natural evolution towards centralization and regulation.

 

I thought the banks were already nationalized. Isn't fiat created and controlled by the government? If the banks are screwing up, and you control the money, wouldn't a fix be "easy as pie"?

The banks and insurance companies that collapsed were corporate entities in the financial industries, not government run central banks.

[RoloTonyBrownTown]

Hmm.  Seems I had a post deleted from here calling Rarity out as a sockpuppet.  That's interesting.

[rjk]

Rarity just strikes me as an immature soccer mom with the inability to use actual logic and reason. "The gubmint must protect us!!!1!"

Grow up.

[Rarity]

I'm a dude, and no kids yet, do like football.  

[Bitcoin Oz]

I wonder what the government will do when a chain gets created with the sole intention of rewarding hitmen who kill beuraucrats who step out of line ?

I call it Anarcoin.

[the joint]

Believing in an article about a phony, fraudulent science is just falling for one more scam.

As someone with multiple degrees in psychology and mental health and with experience in a multitude of mental health settings, I would love to hear you explain this one, particularly the words 'phony,' 'fraudulent,' and 'scam.'

[Bitcoin Oz]

Believing in an article about a phony, fraudulent science is just falling for one more scam.

As someone with multiple degrees in psychology and mental health and with experience in a multitude of mental health settings, I would love to hear you explain this one, particularly the words 'phony,' 'fraudulent,' and 'scam.'

Scientology