A public plea for help regarding Bitcoinica and my 24,841 BTC

stomachgrowls

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Quote from: JollyGood on September 19, 2019, 11:06:17 AM

Quote from: MemoryDealers on July 13, 2012, 10:14:54 AM

~~

And in the end, what happened? Bitcoin was worth around $15 in May 2012 at the time of the incident.

Did any investors get any crypto back at all?

Why not try to message out OP? He's online as of this day and might not able to get up some answers on this thread yet the last post were in 2012.
He definitely forgot up this thread for sure. Im quite curious as well on what happened to the funds.Imagine that number of BTC on the current price of the market.

JollyGood

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Quote from: MemoryDealers on July 13, 2012, 10:14:54 AM

Please help me.
I have 24,841 bitcoins on deposit with Bitcoinica.
I have provided them with my full and complete account history including every transaction since day one.
There is no question as to exactly how much I am owed. (I'm happy to provide proof to other trusted entities)
I have patiently been asking for them for my money back for months, but they have refused to return even a single Bitcoin to me.

I'm a core Bitcoin proselytizer.
I'm responsible partly or in full for:

www.Bitinstant.com
www.coinlab.com
www.lovebitcoins.org
www.ogrr.com
www.bitcoinchipin.com
www.memorydealers.com
National Bitcoin radio adds @ $2,800 a month for over the last year.
The Bitcoin Bet.
Bitcoin Billboard
Numerous national radio interviews.
Several more projects that are in the works including a Bitcoin competitor to newegg.com.

For the last 1.5 years I have spent every waking moment promoting Bitcoin, and my 24,841 Bitcoins were to be used exactly for that.

Hacker, Tihan, Zhou, Patrick, Donald, Amir, or anyone else with access to my money, please return it to
16HMoS4TryH7wWsAv2PtvxiHX8QGXMGczi

so that I can continue to effectively promote Bitcoin.
Returning my funds will likely make everyone's worth even more in the long run.
I promise I will continue using them to help advance Bitcoin.

Roger Ver
[email protected]
Cell +1-408-313-1853

And in the end, what happened? Bitcoin was worth around $15 in May 2012 at the time of the incident.

Did any investors get any crypto back at all?

paraipan

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Quote from: waspoza on July 13, 2012, 01:25:19 PM

Im really sorry for you, and i hope you will get your coins back.

+1

offtopic

@cryptoanarchist we all have our tinfoil hats handy when posting on bitcointalk, and your theory doesn't even need one to believe.

As an advice, always look into posts history of people who bash your statements or attack you personally, we sometimes have 51% of establishments trolls working full time in the community, divide et impera is their goal

/offtopic

Scott J

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Quote from: cryptoanarchist on July 15, 2012, 09:04:35 AM

I think there are reasons to believe that robbing people like Roger was the intent of the Intersango guys when they bought Bitcoinica.

Say I got a tin foil hat if you want, but the bankers running the current monetary system would surely be trying to siphon away people's bitcoins...and Patrick, Donald, and Amir have ALWAYS come off as tools of the establishment.

Since you give me the option, yes you are wearing a massive pizza-cheese encrusted tin foil hat.

Your leap in logic in astonishing. Is that generally all the evidence you need to form your assumptions?

cryptoanarchist

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I think there are reasons to believe that robbing people like Roger was the intent of the Intersango guys when they bought Bitcoinica.

Say I got a tin foil hat if you want, but the bankers running the current monetary system would surely be trying to siphon away people's bitcoins...and Patrick, Donald, and Amir have ALWAYS come off as tools of the establishment.

deepceleron

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Quote from: Phinnaeus Gage on July 13, 2012, 09:34:41 PM

Quote from: World on July 13, 2012, 01:32:29 PM

I'm truly sorry for Roger
bitcoiners and accounts like these should priority one.

what's going on behind the scenes Tihan, Zhou, Patrick, Donald, Amir, or anyone else with access to Bitcoinica money Huh

??

I have an idea who the mysterious Wendon is, but need more time to connect the dots. This was a tough one! I'll leave you with a one word clue: Slice.

~Bruno~

It makes me wonder if the answer to:
1. Secretly buy Bitcoinica (paying enough to pay off Zhou's education and parent's mortgage)
2. ? ? ? ? ? ?
3. Profit

is:

2. Steal user's bitcoins

MemoryDealers

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Quote from: smoothie on July 13, 2012, 06:58:19 PM

Roger, I have one honest question:

After all of the hacks and stolen bitcoin stories, why would you deposit so much bitcoins with anyone?

I deposited this many Bitcoins because I have spoken with Zhou many times on skype / email about various things.
I also have spoken with Tihan on the phone for close to an hour.
Between the two of them, I felt safe keeping my money on deposit with them.

While I do feel bad for everyone at Bitcoinica, the fact that they were hacked is not their user's problem.
I still hope that whoever is currently behind Bitcoinca will step up and do the right thing.

Bjork

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I hope this turns out as well as it possibly can for you, Roger, and everyone else affected. Don't give up on BTC though!!

Phinnaeus Gage

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Quote from: World on July 13, 2012, 01:32:29 PM

I'm truly sorry for Roger
bitcoiners and accounts like these should priority one.

what's going on behind the scenes Tihan, Zhou, Patrick, Donald, Amir, or anyone else with access to Bitcoinica money Huh

??

I have an idea who the mysterious Wendon is, but need more time to connect the dots. This was a tough one! I'll leave you with a one word clue: Slice.

~Bruno~

Phinnaeus Gage

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Quote from: jimbobway on July 13, 2012, 12:17:42 PM

This is just a hunch but maybe try posting this plea in he Russian forums.

Reading between the line, I like how you think. I'm not advocating anything here, just stating that I like how you think. Did I mention I wasn't advocating...

Don't say this lightheartedly, Roger, but I feel your pain. I have an idea. Let's switch position. I'll pay what's owed you and you pay to have now two toxic sites cleaned up due to the storage of antique painted barn wood plus the forthcoming daily fines. My troubles stem, albeit indirectly, from the same debacle (I must be in good in spirits to have opted for that word).

I'm not sure what I would do if I discover that Satoshi Nakamoto is still in his teens.

~Bruno~

Edit: I continued reading from the point where I left off, and want to be very clear on something. I'm not seeking any sympathy for what I'm currently going through. Just stating facts and showing an example of the butterfly effect.

Bitcoin Oz

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Wat

Sorry to hear about this Roger.

2112

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Quote from: makomk on July 13, 2012, 07:07:17 PM

Rackspace also supposedly allowed automated password reset via e-mail and didn't have any way to lock an attacker out of their management console once they'd authenticated, if we believe what Bitcoinica. Using this kind of protection against VM or backup compromise would be the equivalent of having an elaborately-boobytrapped steel front door which randomly maimed people who opened it wrong and then, around the back, having another access route though a rotted garden gate and a doorway secured with a single-lever lock. It'd be completely nuts as an approach to security.

From your post I gather that you have never worked, consulted or even repeatedly visited any large publicly-traded company. Neither you've served in armed forces of any country.

They are all completely nuts, exactly like that. Top-level security and armed guards at the front door, but an elephant door to the warehouse in the back secured with a piece of plastic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Soldiers_(film)

makomk

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Quote from: 2112 on July 13, 2012, 06:11:24 PM

I don't know Rackspace's procedures nor your procedures; but I can offer you a clean explanation of not being able to restore the individual backups. I'm kinda familiar how other kinda-cloud provider does backups.

All the backups are encrypted with a transactional key. There are separate keys for each VM and for each incremental backup. The keys are stored only as long as the accounting record for the VM is open. Once the VM is deleted and summarized for the purpose of charging all transactional keys are ~~deleted~~ zeroized (I forgot to use the proper lingo).

The encryption key ~~deletion~~ zeroization is a security precaution against many inside attacks as well as against compromised backup media.

The above procedure is actually an important selling point. If you don't do that internaly for the 3rd party data then you should start doing this as soon as practical to lower your own liability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware-based_full_disk_encryption
http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/self-encrypting-drives/

Rackspace also supposedly allowed automated password reset via e-mail and didn't have any way to lock an attacker out of their management console once they'd authenticated, if we believe what Bitcoinica. Using this kind of protection against VM or backup compromise would be the equivalent of having an elaborately-boobytrapped steel front door which randomly maimed people who opened it wrong and then, around the back, having another access route though a rotted garden gate and a doorway secured with a single-lever lock. It'd be completely nuts as an approach to security.

smoothie

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Quote from: MemoryDealers on July 13, 2012, 01:38:53 PM

Quote from: kiba on July 13, 2012, 01:35:28 PM

Can I ask you why you have such large amount of money in a third party site?

I was attracted by the high interest rates and the money I thought I could earn by depositing bitcoins with them.
I never made a single trade on Bitcoinica.
I simply held a balance and collected interest.

This right here sounds like what is going on with pirate's deal...

Roger, I have one honest question:

After all of the hacks and stolen bitcoin stories, why would you deposit so much bitcoins with anyone?

I truly feel sorry for you and I give you credit for your tremendous contribution to the bitcoin community, but bitcoin is supposed to give the people 100% control of their money as you have said yourself many times over (even in the recent porc fest video).

Vladimir is right when he said that the ONLY way to keep your bitcoins safe is to heavily enrcypt your wallet, put it in a locked room/safe/, or have a brain wallet or paper wallet kept in a very secure place.

Let this once again be a lesson to everyone (not as a troll) but sincerely a lesson to keep your bitcoins in your possession and do everything it takes to keep it from being stolen.

justusranvier

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Quote from: MysteryMiner on July 13, 2012, 06:23:02 PM

40k of BTC, if I was a techie in such datacenter I will steal the coins on first opportunity and quit working as a monkey for rest of my life. 40K of BTC is worth about 25 years of salary in my country. I could kill anybody for quarter of that.

Quote from: MysteryMiner

I offer computer security services...

For their sake I hope your customers know not to hire you if the value of what they want you to protect is more than BTC10K.

REF

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Quote from: MysteryMiner on July 13, 2012, 06:23:02 PM

I read this saga and again I see proof of my theory that hosting servers in some Crackspace is insecure. I host my servers from my home. They are under my sole control, both the software and hardware. No need to trust someone else to be both competent in securing the server and not to snoop at my data or steal coins residing on server.

40k of BTC, if I was a techie in such datacenter I will steal the coins on first opportunity and quit working as a monkey for rest of my life. 40K of BTC is worth about 25 years of salary in my country. I could kill anybody for quarter of that.

Good to see you would destroy another individuals life for your own gain. do you have no morals or soul?

Well until the recent hack and all the new information coming out I was on Bitcoinicas side and thought payouts were coming. I dont see that happening anymore. A lawsuit would be the best way to go now especially if you dont want to take a 30% cut in what you are owed.

Does anyone have a VERY detailed timeline of events of what happened with Bitcoinica? One that goes as far back to the launch on Bitcoinica would be best.

MysteryMiner

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Death to enemies!

I read this saga and again I see proof of my theory that hosting servers in some Crackspace is insecure. I host my servers from my home. They are under my sole control, both the software and hardware. No need to trust someone else to be both competent in securing the server and not to snoop at my data or steal coins residing on server.

40k of BTC, if I was a techie in such datacenter I will steal the coins on first opportunity and quit working as a monkey for rest of my life. 40K of BTC is worth about 25 years of salary in my country. I could kill anybody for quarter of that.

teek

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Quote from: 2112 on July 13, 2012, 06:11:24 PM

Quote from: casascius on July 13, 2012, 05:38:22 PM

Even the whole idea that their backups are only useful for restoring the "entire cloud", I just don't buy that. The news recently reported they hit 100k customers - let's say each customer has an average of 30 gigs of data. Do they back up their entire cloud to a single 3-petabyte file and that's why it can only be restored on an all-or-nothing basis? What kind of media do they use to store a file this big?

I don't know Rackspace's procedures nor your procedures; but I can offer you a clean explanation of not being able to restore the individual backups. I'm kinda familiar how other kinda-cloud provider does backups.

All the backups are encrypted with a transactional key. There are separate keys for each VM and for each incremental backup. The keys are stored only as long as the accounting record for the VM is open. Once the VM is deleted and summarized for the purpose of charging all transactional keys are deleted.

The encryption key deletion is a security precaution against many inside attacks as well as against compromised backup media.

The above procedure is actually an important selling point. If you don't do that internaly for the 3rd party data then you should start doing this as soon as practical to lower your own liability.

Hmm yeah I have come across something similar now that I think about it.. the service provider only has the keys as long as the customer has the service. If the customer was subscribing to their own backup, only they would have the keys, and not the provider..

There may still be a way around it, but by design, money wouldn't necessarily fix this problem. Guess i'm wrong.

Bitcoin Oz

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Wat

Quote from: davout on July 13, 2012, 05:10:10 PM

Probably mtgox codes used at other exchanges.

How does that get past AMl ans KYC laws then ? You cant just withdraw 40 000 of anything without them having your government ID.

Serge

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Quote from: repentance on June 02, 2012, 06:36:10 PM

Quote from: sturle on June 02, 2012, 05:57:48 PM

Quote from: isis on June 02, 2012, 03:38:51 PM

I almost forgot to mention, I know people who work at rackspace and I've talked to them. Your logs & database being deleted is effectively a non-issue, it's a pain to recover but you can bet that they have the capability of recovering every last byte of missing information.

This has bugged me as well. Until this episode I had the impression that Rackspace was a serious hosting provider. Not some garage with a couple of racks on UPS and a fat ADSL line. A serious hosting provider keep multiple backups of customer data off-site, because losing a lot of customer data due to some catastrophic event means losing their business. Unlinking it from a web page just makes the data a bit more inconvenient to get to. Impossible for the customer, but in no way impossible for Rackspace. The data may be older than current, but I find it hard to believe that off-site backups were instantly deleted along with the servers. Backup systems just aren't built for easy deletion.

Perhaps someone from Bitoinica can comment on how they have worked with Rackspace to rescue data?

Rackspace offers lots of different hosting options with varying levels of security and varying cost. At least on some plans, scheduled and on-demand backups are an optional service for which Rackspace charges.

Quote

Rackspace Cloud Servers include both Scheduled and On-Demand snapshots. This is an optional service that will incur storage and bandwidth charges on Cloud Files, but the convenience of easily restoring from saved images is extremely valuable.

Quote

Does Rackspace back up my Cloud Server?
No, your Cloud Server does not get backed up until you configure and schedule backups. To learn how, please visit the knowledge center article here.

Quote

The entire Cloud Sites FTP structure is backed up every four hours, which totals six daily backups. Those backups are rolled into a nightly backup, which are retained for two days. However, these backups are for disaster recovery on the server side. If for any reason a storage node on our side were to crash, our backups will be there to replace any lost data.

That said, we recommend that you make periodic backups of your site and data to your local computer since we are unable to extract an individual site's data from the nightly backups.

And yes, Rackspace does offer fully managed backup and recovery services - at a price.

http://www.rackspace.com/managed_hosting/services/proservices/disasterrecovery/

http://www.rackspace.com/managed_hosting/services/storage/managedbackup/

Topic: A public plea for help regarding Bitcoinica and my 24,841 BTC (Read 9048 times)