Topic: [Update] CryptoCoinMedia's False Accusations (Read 4085 times)

RaggedMonk, the coins only become stolen if MZ refuses to return them, I'm getting involved because I thought witcoin was a cool project. After talking to CCM, the projects not going to be revived, so we need to get the users back their coins.

I think a lot of the background and details have been worked out already so there isn't any need to go over them again.

The next step forward is for MZ to respond as to whether he's going to return the goods or not, and that's what I'm working for.

I've not heard any response from him, I'm a little too busy today but if I've not heard anything by tomorrow I'm going to chase him.

Nefario.

Im only 30% financially responsible for it and yet here I am offering to cover the whole cost even though it would take me a long time to get the coins back to people. At least the witcoin users know where they stand with me.  I would hate to be your business partner with such an attitude. I dont see anyone else stepping up except nefario to provide arbitration and myself to cover the loss.

This ^

To the users of witcoin I am eternally grateful for their patience and understanding. Nefario is the good guy here for providing arbitration.

To us, witcoin users you mean. We should feel lucky? Thank you. I know witcoin users aren't the ones aggressively demanding payment, but it would be nice if a service turned out to feel responsible to its users for a change. Nefario is doing a great service here, most of this money will probably have to be donated, but at least will be utilized.

(I get that from the perspective of CryptoCoinMedia, he should probably be grateful. But still, nothing was happening before he started this. Would be nice if you moved that issue to a non-public area, it's rather disappointing for people who liked the witcoin idea.)

Multisig has nothing to do with this.  The coins are the property of witcoin.  The information to access those coins should have been protected and secured.  Witcoin (you) failed to do this, and now are liable.

If he used this access information to drain the account, it would clearly be theft.  However, having simple knowledge of how to access the coins was part of his duties, and is not incriminating in any way.

You should consider yourself lucky, and be grateful that misery can restore this information to you.  I don't understand why you are threatening him.

Multisig bitcoin ownership didnt exist at the time this happened. Its more akin to the teller cleaning out the cash from the bank because the manager asked him to do something he didnt like then burning the money when told to give it back. Its a question of ethics.

Of course  If I have too I will pay the coins back myself however there is no way for me to know who owns them without access to the db. As nefario said this is closed untill the parties sort it out.

I don't think it would be unethical, but I was sort of "calling his bluff".  Misery seems like too nice a person to actually do this.  The main point I was trying to make clear to CCM was that he has more liability in this matter than misery does.  Reporting misery to the police would be like committing murder and snitching on your getaway driver.

Possession of a bitcoin address is like knowing the numbers to access a swiss bank account.  I think a good analogy for this situation is CCM got misery's help to open a bank.  A number of people made deposits, which were kept in swiss bank accounts.  The bank's physical location got closed from mismanagement and lack of company funds.  CCM was grossly negligent in not keeping backups of the information to access these accounts, and as the owner of the company, he is responsible for them.  Misery is a teller, who, being a thorough person kept his own personal records about how to access these accounts, even though he was not paid for the last ~month of his work (his making a record is going above-and-beyond). Now this disenfranchised teller is the only person who is able to recover these funds, because of management's mistakes.  CCM is ridiculous to be threatening police action against him for this information: Misery has no legal obligation to store or provide it to CCM.  Any return of the information to access these funds is completely an act of good faith.  CCM is now liable for the full amount of deposits, and is frantically trying to push the blame off on his teller to save his own ass from the mess he got himself into.

legality aside, it would be highly unethical for misery to delete his access to the coins no matter how inappropriate cryptocoinmedia behaves. Even if the coins were cryptocoinmedia's and not the users of the site, I would still believe this to be true. Please do not suggest he delete his access.

cryptocoinmedia said, WHY WOULD I CONTACT A THIRD PARTY ABOUT MY OWN SITE HuhHuhHuh


Why would you SLANDER a 3rd PARTY???

You would contact a 3rd party if you didn't believe them to be a 3rd party before slandering them.

You said we were responsible and slandered us. I said we were not and were a 3rd party and that you made no attempt to contact us before posting your slander. The proof came out and you offered no apology and you are saying "Why would I contact a 3rd party?"

If you believed us to be a 3rd party, why would you slander us?

If you didn't believe us to be a 3rd party, why would you not ever attempt to contact us?

Please cease the slander.


PS: nefario, I agree that you should try to separate yourself from this issue. You can see how our name is slandered for doing free work. I would seriously consider RaggedMonk's opinion

Nefario: You shouldn't knowlingly take possession of stolen bitcoins.  Particularly when the owner of the service is so litigious and vindictive.

Misery: What was the nature of your agreement with CCM?  Do you have a written contract? It seems like you dont.

It sounds like CCM claims somewhere between 70% and 100% ownership of witcoin.  

It sounds like you have the only copy of the wallet in a full system backup.  You have been acting as sys admin, and may have a claim on up to 30% ownership.  You should renounce any claims of ownership, and argue you were working as a contractor for CCM.

This means he is solely liable for returning witcoin deposits.  

You can legally delete all backups. A backup of a key is not possession of bitcoins, it is access to them.  You are not destroying the value, you are destroying your access to the value. The bitcoins are legally property of the witcoin entitiy which you are no longer employed by.  You are not legally obligated to retain copies, seeing as how you are no longer employed by him, and he has not been paying you.  Witcoin (owned entirely by CCM) is entirely liable for returning these "stolen" bitcoins.  The fact that CCM does not has backups of his customers' deposits is just negligent business practices, and liability falls to him to pay them back.

Wash your hands of this and let him deal with it.  Don't let him threaten you.  He is trying to blame you for his own mistakes.

Thank you RaggedMonk,

I'm taking personal responsibility for this, BitcoinConsultancy/Intersango are not involved.

Nefario.

I would say you should certainly NOT take control of these coins.  Doing so puts you at significant legal liability, as it could be argued you are accepting stolen coins.  You are walking into a trap.  Wash your hands of this.

I'll change the title.

mizerydearia, RaggedMonk, enough. This has been drawn out too much to no ones benefit.

CryptoCoinMedia won't be posting anymore on this issue, I'm in personal talks with him regarding it.

mizerydearia, I've pm'd you about moving forward with this, I've not heard back from you yet you've had time for lengthy posts on this and the other thread.
I want a dump of the user records from your DB backup and the wallet backup, from that point on I'll ensure that all the users get their coins back. Email me ([email protected]) with how I can get those.

I'll take it forward to resolve this working with both mizerydearia and CryptoCoinMedia.

RaggedMonk, change the title of this thread to something else.

Nefario.

Do you have documentation to prove this? I think you a just huffing and puffing with nothing to support it.

What does your contract/sale agreement with miserydearia say?  Do you even have one?  

What makes you think you own the name Witcoin?  Did you trademark it?  Registering a domain name does not give you legal control of that word.

I dont recall ever caring about getting the code back. Thats not the issue at hand.

I am not sure if this is directed to me.  If it is, there is not a single line of code that Bitcoin Consultancy has contributed to witcoin.  Again, as I have said elsewhere, the very latest commit to the private repository was June 3rd, 2011, which was before I even participated with Bitcoin Consultancy.  And I am uncertain what there is to apologize for relative to Bitcoin Consultancy.

Also see this.

The power of slander and misinformation. =/

Othewise if you meant the message directed to noagendamarket, the codebase is not his.  It is practically entirely mine.  I say practically because glancing at the repository I see commits also by tcatm as late as February 2011.  The rest since then have been entirely my own.  Though, I do recall tcatm having helped me with some css later, which I had included in my own commits.  But otherwise noagendamarket hasn't contributed any code whatsoever and is not a developer/programmer.

Given the fact you still haven't apologized to Intersango and are acting like a spoiled child, I think they should charge you a license for back programming contracting of 5000BTC .  If you don't want to pay it, you should pull every line of code that they helped with out of your codebase.  It is not up to them to tell you which lines this is, so unless you have specific version-history knowledge of their contributions, they have the legal power to force you to throw out all of your code.  You should be gracious for their past help, and apologize for your outrageous acccusations you have made in the past 48 hours.

Intersango seems like they are way nicer than me though, so feel lucky.

Can you elaborate on this?


From #bitcoin-dev December of 2010:


Then unrelatedly in a private channel on Dec 26th, 2010:

And so that idea affiliated with 'witcoin' name relative to noagendamarket's creativity/thoughtfulness is his intellectual property.  

That base idea, which is similar to one I have had in affiliation with a previous project, a competitor to justanswer.com and the plethora of other for profit question sites was then evolved amongst my own ideas as well as several others of noagendamarket's.  However, the very first moment which led to the matching of the idea with a name was noagendamarket's.

I have as much of a relationship with cryptoxchange as misery does with intersango. But then cryptoxchange doesnt list me on their company home page nor cryptocoinmedia as a project they support. I also dont control a wallet with everyones coins in it and through my utter laziness refuse to let them access their money. Are you a wizard ?

RaggedMonk, I'm speaking on behalf of Intersango regarding this.

I think that a lot of the details of the issue at hand have been worked out, mostly in the other thread.

I don't believe that CryptoCoinMedia was attempting to slander us, but didn't have a full knowledge of how Intersango and BitcoinConsultancy were related to witcoin.

The details of this have been made clear and Intersango's name has been cleared regarding this.

I'm sure that if he knew this he wouldn't have made those statements, so it all stems from a misunderstanding.

Therefor as a result, this thread is no longer relevant, and I would ask that you please remove it.

Nefario, CEO of GLBSE and community manager for Intersango.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/q5wdb/coolest_bitcoin_businesses/c3uzwni   there are people waiting for their accounts back. Get over your laziness and do something about it.

When they remove my IP from their site I will.

Your irl name is attached to them as a a contact and witcoin is listed as their project and they take credit for it. I still own the IP 100% and there was no agreement ever that they or yourself could use it to market their own sites or other projects. While you may have 30% of the financial share of witcoin you have zero of the IP and I dont give bitcoinconsultancy permission to use the name "witcoin" anywhere on their site.

It was a hosting agreement. No "purchase" has ever taken place.

I only want to know what youre going to do to make good peoples accounts and Im sure other people do too. Everything else is beside the point.

My father would disagree with you.  Other than the three and a half months that I was in Warszawa, my father has been supporting me entirely for the last year and a half.  us$400/mo he is paying now to my ex-stepfather just so that I do not end up homeless, which even this very month and last few months, I am struggling with, and I have been struggling with for a couple years.  Anyhow, it isn't important to elaborate other than to clarify that Bitcoin Consultancy is not funding my existence.  My father is.

Particularly I appreciate those that preserve an open an honest effort to explain things truthfully and considerately, rather than an effort to exaggerate or otherwise communicate misinformation.  However, I can understand such types of efforts and the relative personalities supporting such abilities as I have experienced them myself as I was younger, and still sometimes even today I may feel an urge to say something untrue, lie, or otherwise not speak, but for the most part, I try to preserve an open honesty about myself and understanding and comprehension of things.  It seems similar to that of open source culture vs proprietary or security through obscurity.  This is the very reason why I have documented and posted some logs/transcripts of the history relative to this issue with witcoin because I considered the possibility of experiencing that of a lack of openness or honesty, and especially even from myself, in the case that I lied, or otherwise altered my posts or story.  Actually, it's similar to Ron Paul, perhaps, in which I strive to be consistent.

Search for "crypto" in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2516.0;all
especially see https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.604783

October 26th, 2011 via private message:

Bold added for emphasis

CryptoCoinMedia, will you remove your threats toward Bitcoin Consultancy and Intersango from your original thread?

We need to know what steps you will take to ensure people have access within a set time frame and hold you accountable.

OP updated.

miserydearia's post in the other thread is highly relevant:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.773158

This is inaccurate.   noagendamarket, CryptoCoinMedia, David Hollis, registered the domain in December of 2010.


This is true.  CryptoCoinMedia did register witcoin.com at hover.com and noagendamarket did initially mention 'witcoin' in a channel late December after another person had mentioned 'witcoin' in #bitcoin at the beginning of December.  I shall gather more info from my logs in which anyone else with logs can also confirm.

Also, I encourage to not censor or delete this thread.  It is useful to preserve an open an honest account of all events.

They also paid for mizery to fly to Poland and all of his expenses. Nice work if you can get it. Meanwhile witcoin daemon was down and I was pleading with him to fix it and so were other users and  the entire time hes living it up under the pay of bitcoinconsultancy. While that may have been GREAT for bitcoin it was total shit for witcoin.

Witcoin is listed as a site they have provided open source software to or consulted for.
https://bitcoinconsultancy.com/

In law they are co-conspirators because mizery is listed as part of their company and witcoin is listed as being administrated by them.

So you handed the reigns over to the Intersango/BitcoinConsultancy guys?  That's interesting.

The point is you are trying to make CXC's competitor look guilty for not dealing with a situation they aren't related to.

Someone dox this prick.

I suggest you quit right now with this thread and delete it.

Again what is the point ?

I was the founder of bitcoinmedia but handed it over to the community. As nogendamarket originally I donated most of the coins for the weusecoins video.  What have you ever done for bitcoin ?

What business is that of yours or of the issue at hand ?

Another interesting fact:

CryptoCoinMedia used to be called BitcoinMedia, as you can see from Phinneas' quote (it now links to CCM's post)

CryptoCoinMedia's first post was:

This is the same name used by Bitcoin Consultancy's popular newsletter.

Noagendamarket's indentica account also uses the name.
http://identi.ca/noagendamarket


David Hollis has two accounts: CryptoCoinMedia (formerly BitcoinMedia), and noagendamarket

RaggedMonk you seem insane and should shut up now.  Otherwise I suggest you will lose the remaining threads of respect that you may still command in this community.

CryptoCoinMedia, do you also have control of the account, noagendamarket?

Why did miserydearia believe CryptoXChange was affiliated with the purchase?

Have you ever been employed by, or owned a part of CryptoXChange?

EDIT: CCM used to be known as noagendamarket, because someone who works for CXC helped him (in an unofficial capacity) move the server, and no.

I think it's fine and valid to bring it to the community. But, THIS specific thread by RaggedMonk is not fine and valid, and should be removed.

I agree and Id like to deal in private. However Misery is missing and I spoke to Genjix weeks ago with no response. Taking it to the community is the obvious next step.

I also own witcoin.net .org  etc

But then youd know this from your reasearch right ?

CryptoCoinMedia is not a Crypto X Change associate. Crypto X Change has absolutely nothing to do with CryptoCoinMedia's concern regarding Intersango, and Ken has repeatedly made it clear that the whole Misery issue is unrelated to him and Crypto X Change.  

RaggedMonk, you are the one slandering someone unjustly. I suggest you delete your thread, for its entire premise is flawed.

I suggest Intersango and CryptoCoinMedia deal with this amongst themselves.

http://www.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?state_number=BN98597140&juris=2&hdtext=NSW&srchsrc=1  a simple search of the australian securities and exchange site with their company name will bring up info about them.

If you do a  simple whois on witcoin you will see my name and address.

By "we" I am clearly talking about "Australians" not cryptoxchange.

/thread.

Fair point.  It seemed implied that he was arguing he should be the custodian. Updating OP.

Raggedmonk - you're clearly not the right person to be summarizing this issue.

Where did CryptocoinMedia ever demand the full balance be transferred to him/herself?

I have no particular understanding of the dispute - but I sure as hell don't trust your hour of mis-analysis.

Delete this ridiculous thread.

I shall consider you a  troll

QFT: he is threatening me now.

Did you find out in your research that I in fact registered the domain witcoin.com at hover and I also told misery about the idea for witcoin on irc.

If you value your standing in this community I urge you to remove this thread.

EDIT: CryptoCoinMedia is not officially affiliated with CXC
Evidence CryptoCoinMedia is connected with CryptoXChange:

1. [EDIT, added to top] Extensive chat logs of noagendamarket a.k.a. CryptoCoinMedia assisting CryptoXChange in take-over of witcoin
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.604783

2. Had "long conversations" with CxC before their launch
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.524912

3. Has inside knowledge on the legal structure of CxC
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.549675

4. SolidCoin (still not sure why) referenced Ken Armitt and CryptoCoinMedia's name together
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.576357

5. CryptoCoinMedia does not "run" CXC
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.575656

6. Talking about CXC's tax rates, uses term "we":


7. Again using "we" referring to CXC and Ken Armitt:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.574041

Are you serious ? I hope you can back your claims up instead of just going off on tangents

UPDATE: MiseryDeAria posted at length, clearing Bitcoin Consultancy of any responsibility. He will be working on returning the funds soon. Intersango and Bitcoin Consultancy are unrelated to witcoin and do not have the funds, and claims they should be reported to the police are completely unfounded.  Read it for yourself here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.773158

UPDATE 2: I PM'ed CryptoXChange, and they cleared some things up.  CryptoCoinMedia is not an employee, owner, or client of CryptoXChange.  They know each other as fellow Australian Bitcoin users.  One of the CryptoX guys has done some technical work for him in the past, but this was in no way officially connected to their exchange or its brand.  They do not condone or have any control of CCM's actions.

I still think CCM was trying to smear FUD on Bitcoin Consultancy's Intersango to improve the standing of CryptoX, but he was acting independently.  CCM and miserydearia will be working together to get the refunds out to past witcoin users.

----
This is my understanding from the past hour of research through old forum posts, if anyone has factual corrections, please let me know and I will edit this post to update it for accuracy.

The Facts:

CryptoCoinMedia is an associate of CryptoXChange (his level of involvement is unclear). a fellow Austrialian Bit

CryptoCoinMedia registered the domain in December of 2010.

Miserydearia was the lead develeoper and creator of witcoin.com, a reddit-like service where you upvote with bitcoin.

Witcoin.com was shut down, leaving some users without a way to withdraw their remaining balance.

As of October 2011, miserydearia sold the VPS to CryptoCoinMedia.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.599183

Some time between Nov 2011 and now, miserydearia both:  had some serious health problems (I hope you are doing well if you are reading this), and became a collaborator with Intersango.

CryptoCoinMedia started this thread today, in which he threatens to file a police report against Intersango if they don't coordinate refunds:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/miserydearia-needs-to-return-peoples-accounts-and-bitcoins-replied-in-progress-66550


My Take on the Situation

-CryptoCoinMedia is at least friends with CryptoXChange, if not actually involved with some business aspect.

-Witcoin users who are owed money have a legitimate claim to recover those funds from miserydearia.  They should contact miserydearia directly to facilitate this transfer of funds.  Misery should make himself available, and make a post about how to contact him to recover these funds.  The matter of these refunds is between miserydearia and witcoin users.

-CryptoCoinMedia has ZERO claim on the account balances.  His purchase was for the domain and VPS only:

-Intersango/BitcoinConsultancy is completely innocent and unrelated in this matter.  Accepting miserydearia's future collaboration does not make them responsible for any past debts miserydearia may have.  

-Intersango/BitcoinConsultancy should notify miserydearia of these threads, and encourage him to create a transparent claim process.  This is an act of good faith which they have no obligation to do.

-CryptoCoinMedia's claim that Intersango has commited theft is a slanderous attack attempting to hurt their reputation.  CryptoCoinMedia's association with CryptoXChange gives motive: He wants to stir up FUD around Intersango to improve the relative position of CryptoXChange.  I think he is attacking his competitor primarily as a means to gain market share. This is immoral and bad for the Bitcoin community, which is why I am speaking out.


-CryptoCoinMedia has no right or claim to be the custodian of the coins until they are claimed.  He should not take possession of any former witcoin deposits.

Note: I have no affiliations with any of the above parties (aside from trying both their respective exchanges with trivial amounts of BTC).  I am just a Bitcoin enthusiast who sees someone trying to take advantage of someone else, and I hate seeing that in our community.