genjix



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LegendaryActivity: 1232Merit: 1000 Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 07:04:10 PM

Last edit: May 05, 2013, 07:24:48 PM by genjix #1 I've gotten a lot of hate from people who've blamed me for Bitcoinica, convinced I'm to blame. Maybe now you'll all understand. Here's some basic facts.



Coinlab were the investors behind Bitcoinica. Tihan Seale and Peter Vessenes founded Coinlab together. Tihan bought Bitcoinica and Coinlab was involved from the beginning. Patrick Murck filed the legal papers on behalf of Bitcoinica investors.



We were given fake shares in a fake company. The deal was to contract us to work on Bitcoinica. The site had been losing money for months and had huge security problems. A new company was formed to handle that agreement.



After the first compromise, despite huge problems in the setup and design of the website, they wanted to put it back up as fast as possible. I was against this strongly which is why I released the code. After an employee used this as an excuse to steal more funds (the evidence is definitive), they were upset more over the loss of the 'Intellectual Property'.



They scapegoated me. They wanted no liability and refused to help us complete the job for them. All the emails are public on this forum (I released them) as proof. Donald kept asking to speak to their superior but they refused.



I never had access to money or any servers. I was a programmer working on the hedging algorithm.



They are sneaky, and play dirty tactics. Tihan is a manipulative sociopath.



We had run Intersango, the biggest UK exchange for 2 years without any problems doing 2 million GBP turnover annually. The site has been closed down (due to UK bank problems) paying everyone back and we experienced no security flaws during its history. I had no reason to deliberately cause Bitcoinica users any harm, and if you actually go and study the evidence on the forums, you'll see I acted in all of your best interests.



When everyone ran off, a programmer was told he was now acting CEO of a defunct company that never was formed and had to make executive decisions despite having no technical control or access to anything. Do you know how fucking absurd this is? Then to be told by many different parties conflicting things to sign for their personal interest and get blamed for that.



These are facts, and every point can be proven.



calian



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Sr. MemberActivity: 354Merit: 250 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 07:23:55 PM #2 I've watched Fun with Dick and Jane so I can envision the scenario you present. However I have to ask why you failed to communicate with the community for the past how many months (years?). I haven't followed things that closely since I fortunately didn't have anything in Bitcoinica when it crashed and burned. I'm not even sure who all the parties involved are (Bitcoinica consultancy - is this you/Intersango?), Zhou Tong, the purported hacker in China, Tihan, MTGOX, a liquidator, etc. However it seemed like the Intersango side of the equation was the only ones who were not communicating whatsoever throughout and the fact is that it doesn't seem like anyone has their money back yet.

genjix



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LegendaryActivity: 1232Merit: 1000 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 07:27:31 PM #3 Quote from: calian on May 05, 2013, 07:23:55 PM I've watched Fun with Dick and Jane so I can envision the scenario you present. However I have to ask why you failed to communicate with the community for the past how many months (years?). I haven't followed things that closely since I fortunately didn't have anything in Bitcoinica when it crashed and burned. I'm not even sure who all the parties involved are (Bitcoinica consultancy - is this you/Intersango?), Zhou Tong, the purported hacker in China, Tihan, MTGOX, a liquidator, etc. However it seemed like the Intersango side of the equation was the only ones who were not communicating whatsoever throughout and the fact is that it doesn't seem like anyone has their money back yet.



I was on these forums all day long everyday during the entire time while nobody else said anything except the odd post from Zhou and a couple from Tihan. The only thing I did have is ability to vet claims and ask people what's happening.



Check my posting history:



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1931;sa=showPosts;start=100 I was on these forums all day long everyday during the entire time while nobody else said anything except the odd post from Zhou and a couple from Tihan. The only thing I did have is ability to vet claims and ask people what's happening.Check my posting history:

tvbcof



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LegendaryActivity: 3318Merit: 1140 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 07:44:47 PM #6

Thx for your input on this. It will go, in filtered form, into my neurological data-bank.



FWIW...Although I feel that you (~genjix) should stay away from the media for the health of my pocketbook, I kinda sense that you are an OK guy and an OK programmer. More importantly, that what you say about this and that is somewhat in earnest and may have some basis in reality. ~phantom on the other hand strikes me as an A1 dickhead. Just my opinion. I have harassed you guys for the fun of it over the years. Your epic fails deserve some attention after all



Thx for your input on this. It will go, in filtered form, into my neurological data-bank.FWIW...Although I feel that you (~genjix) should stay away from the media for the health of my pocketbook, I kinda sense that you are an OK guy and an OK programmer. More importantly, that what you say about this and that is somewhat in earnest and may have some basis in reality. ~phantom on the other hand strikes me as an A1 dickhead. Just my opinion. I have harassed you guys for the fun of it over the years. Your epic fails deserve some attention after all sig spam anywhere and self-moderated threads on the pol&soc board are for losers.

MPOE-PR



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Hero MemberActivity: 756Merit: 501 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 08:42:02 PM #11 Quote from: genjix on May 05, 2013, 07:04:10 PM I've gotten a lot of hate from people who've blamed me for Bitcoinica, convinced I'm to blame. Maybe now you'll all understand. Here's some basic facts.



Coinlab were the investors behind Bitcoinica. Tihan Seale and Peter Vessenes founded Coinlab together. Tihan bought Bitcoinica and Coinlab was involved from the beginning. Patrick Murck filed the legal papers on behalf of Bitcoinica investors.



We were given fake shares in a fake company. The deal was to contract us to work on Bitcoinica. The site had been losing money for months and had huge security problems. A new company was formed to handle that agreement.



After the first compromise, despite huge problems in the setup and design of the website, they wanted to put it back up as fast as possible. I was against this strongly which is why I released the code. After an employee used this as an excuse to steal more funds (the evidence is definitive), they were upset more over the loss of the 'Intellectual Property'.



They scapegoated me. They wanted no liability and refused to help us complete the job for them. All the emails are public on this forum (I released them) as proof. Donald kept asking to speak to their superior but they refused.



I never had access to money or any servers. I was a programmer working on the hedging algorithm.



They are sneaky, and play dirty tactics. Tihan is a manipulative sociopath.



We had run Intersango, the biggest UK exchange for 2 years without any problems doing 2 million GBP turnover annually. The site has been closed down (due to UK bank problems) paying everyone back and we experienced no security flaws during its history. I had no reason to deliberately cause Bitcoinica users any harm, and if you actually go and study the evidence on the forums, you'll see I acted in all of your best interests.



When everyone ran off, a programmer was told he was now acting CEO of a defunct company that never was formed and had to make executive decisions despite having no technical control or access to anything. Do you know how fucking absurd this is? Then to be told by many different parties conflicting things to sign for their personal interest and get blamed for that.



These are facts, and every point can be proven.





This has to be saved for later. This has to be saved for later. My Credentials | THE BTC Stock Exchange | I have my very own anthology ! | Use bitcointa.lk , it's like this one but better.

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Hero MemberActivity: 868Merit: 1000 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 09:37:48 PM #12 Quote from: paraipan on May 05, 2013, 07:34:39 PM So why didn't you defend your reputation back then?



This is quite odd. You come back almost at the same time as Zhou and with lame excuses on top.



To some extent, they tried. There was an NDA in place. They publicly asked for the NDA to be revoked after the Rackspace intrusion so they could disclose more information.



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=58011;sa=showPosts



Amir posted the email they received from Tihan after they said they were going to make a public statement which would have contradicted some of the information posted by Zhou.



Regardless of whether you believe what Amir is saying or not, it's consistent with what he's been saying since whole Bitcoinica LP clusterfuck began.



It's not hard to see why the Intersango team would feel like they were thrown to the wolves when Zhou seems to have been protected at every turn.



To some extent, they tried. There was an NDA in place. They publicly asked for the NDA to be revoked after the Rackspace intrusion so they could disclose more information.Amir posted the email they received from Tihan after they said they were going to make a public statement which would have contradicted some of the information posted by Zhou.Regardless of whether you believe what Amir is saying or not, it's consistent with what he's been saying since whole Bitcoinica LP clusterfuck began.It's not hard to see why the Intersango team would feel like they were thrown to the wolves when Zhou seems to have been protected at every turn. All I can say is that this is Bitcoin. I don't believe it until I see six confirmations.

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Full MemberActivity: 209Merit: 101FUTURE OF CRYPTO IS HERE! Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 10:51:56 PM #15 Quote from: genjix on May 05, 2013, 07:04:10 PM an employee used this as an excuse to steal more funds (the evidence is definitive)



So the theory that the hacks were really an inside job gets a confirmation. The word 'more' on this sentence is interesting as it most probably means that the same person performed also the earlier hack and now got more money on this second instance.



I would like to ask what has happened to this person you indicate you know who he is and you know the evidence against him?



Has he been convicted in a court of law? Or is he on his way to court appearance? Or has the police report been conveniently forgotten to be filed and this person you know who stole the funds is he enjoying his retirement in Bahamas?

So the theory that the hacks were really an inside job gets a confirmation. The word 'more' on this sentence is interesting as it most probably means that the same person performed also the earlier hack and now got more money on this second instance.I would like to ask what has happened to this person you indicate you know who he is and you know the evidence against him?Has he been convicted in a court of law? Or is he on his way to court appearance? Or has the police report been conveniently forgotten to be filed and this person you know who stole the funds is he enjoying his retirement in Bahamas?

repentance



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Hero MemberActivity: 868Merit: 1000 Re: Coinlab are sneaky bastards, investors behind Bitcoinica May 05, 2013, 10:54:43 PM #16 Quote from: Justin00 on May 05, 2013, 10:18:05 PM would the second 'hack' of occurred if the source code had not of been released ?



If you mean the MtGox intrusion, it was the third "hack" that we know of - Linode, Rackspace, MtGox.



The release of the source code provided for the creation of a narrative explaining the MtGox intrusion. Did the hacker already have the MtGox credentials prior to the release of the source code? If you believe that Zhou either perpetrated the intrusion himself or was complicit in the intrusion, then the answer is yes.



Whether something else would have occurred to sink Bitcoinica had the MtGox intrusion not occurred is a matter for conjecture. If you mean the MtGox intrusion, it was the third "hack" that we know of - Linode, Rackspace, MtGox.The release of the source code provided for the creation of a narrative explaining the MtGox intrusion. Did the hacker already have the MtGox credentials prior to the release of the source code? If you believe that Zhou either perpetrated the intrusion himself or was complicit in the intrusion, then the answer is yes.Whether something else would have occurred to sink Bitcoinica had the MtGox intrusion not occurred is a matter for conjecture. All I can say is that this is Bitcoin. I don't believe it until I see six confirmations.