281–290 of 306 posts
Why bother with a faceless ponzi scheme? Send your bitcoin directly to me, and I will invest it by hand, making sure to maximize your return: 1HbNxRhrv5Jocr7Q9ZqbbqCwuNNy4UsR77 This is totally legit. Seriously.
I have sent you $50 though coinbase. I expect you to honor your word. Return address: 1JEGu8qiaKbLgheAWCjRkeZNyEqhhaFVY3
A bit OT but how do you build automatic Bitcoin services like this?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_calls... https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_(JSON-RPC)
I find the naming of the API a little peculiar, but it's simple enough.
The domain is registered under a fake name and DNS is from Namecheap. It's a funny whois entry, lacking all the usual boilerplate, so I'm not entirely sure it's Namecheap; some sort of reseller? Doesn't match what I see from Namecheap itself, but Namecheap does take bitcoin now, so it seems plausible.
Hosting is libertyvps.net, a bitcoin-paid host. Hosted "offshore"; company appears to be in US.
If a US authority leans on libertyvps, they can get an email and blockchain address, and maybe an IP. Tracing the person would be hard if Tor was used for setting up (and using) the email and all host access, and a decently anonymous acquisition of the bitcoin.
A US authority could also get to Namecheap. Using the registrar safely requires about the same precautions, notably access via Tor and acquiring the payment BTC (or pre-paid card) in a non-traceable manner. Done right, they could shut the domain down, but not find the person.
Anyway, looks like the top-level bases were covered. But there's a lot of links in the chain. Perhaps the operator got nervous that he didn't cover all of them--and it only takes one. (Against a determined LE agency with jurisdiction or no scruples.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since Social Security is clearly not an annuity, calculations based on treating it as if it was (or should be) don't really tell us anything. In particular, where does this idea come from that current revenues have to pay for future benefits? That's not the way Social Security works or ever has worked.
Right, so when our population follows in the footsteps of Japan and Korea, we can just stop paying the benefit/kill all the old people/enslave all the young people.
snip Ponzi Scheme Enforcement Actions Curtailing Ponzi schemes and holding those responsible for these scams accountable is a vital component of the SEC's enforcement program. Since fiscal year 2010, the SEC has brought more than 100 enforcement actions against nearly 200 individuals and 250 entities for carrying out Ponzi schemes.1 In these actions, more than 65 individuals have been barred from working in the secur…
Any lawyers here want to give an opinion on whether - from a legal perspective - this is a Ponzi scheme or a gambling site? And if it's a Ponzi scheme, are the people participating complicit in a crime? Just because it calls itself a Ponzi scheme doesn't make it one - is it fraud when the scheme is openly labelled as such? OTOH I can see some people arguing it's not that clear that the scheme is unsustainable without…
Based on the BTC gem, which has I think been shut down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Minutes? Really? Because that's how most people measure their investments. The only way you could see if 'he was living up to his promises' was if he just speculated on more bitcoins, which would be dumb.
The point was that you could see where the money was going. If there were a Bitcoin based stock exchange and it published its addresses for stock purchases, when money from pooled funds started going to addresses outside of those known addresses, people would immediately know that the money has gone somewhere it shouldn't have.
What? It's a stock exchange. By definition the money is immediately going to go to the counter-party in a trade. So it's going to be an unknown address. Stock exchanges aren't the ones selling stock...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Population growth is a fundamentally exponential process, even if that exponent is very close to 1 in some cases, or even less than 1.
> Population growth is a fundamentally exponential process No it isn't. If everyone has one or less children, the population does not grow exponentially.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since Social Security is clearly not an annuity, calculations based on treating it as if it was (or should be) don't really tell us anything. In particular, where does this idea come from that current revenues have to pay for future benefits? That's not the way Social Security works or ever has worked.
Right, so when our population follows in the footsteps of Japan and Korea, we can just stop paying the benefit/kill all the old people/enslave all the young people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Population growth is a fundamentally exponential process, even if that exponent is very close to 1 in some cases, or even less than 1.
> Population growth is a fundamentally exponential process No it isn't. If everyone has one or less children, the population does not grow exponentially.
False. An exponential function, and a growing exponential function, differ only in the value of the exponent.
Here's an equation that predicts future population based on the value of an exponential term:
The equation: pt - p0 e^rt
pt = population at time t
p0 = present population
r = rate of population growth, 1% = .01
t = time
A result at 40 years for a population rate of change of -1.7% per year:
e^(-.017 * 40) = .5066
This result says that, for a population growth rate of -1.7%, after 40 years the population will be about half its present size. It's an exponential result, it's even an exponential growth rate, but the growth rate is negative.
In this image:
http://i.imgur.com/LW6bk8t.png
The red trace is an exponential rate of change for r = +1.7%, the green trace for r = -1.7%. Both are exponential results, and both reflect what a population would look like for given r values.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Population growth is a fundamentally exponential process No it isn't. If everyone has one or less children, the population does not grow exponentially.
skj was trolling by changing the common definition of exponential by saying the exponent could be 1 or less than one.
That's not trolling. It's called "mathematics."
