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New message from Mt. Gox

mtgox.com

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Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#151

Post by lutusp »

sneak wrote: post #66
Udo wrote: post #42

I'm one of those who lost a good amount on MtGox. It wasn't in there because I thought they are a bank, I put it there because I like to speculate from time to time. As such I was prepared to lose most if not all of it anyway. I didn't expect things to go wrong so thoroughly, but still that was the premise of my deposits there. So from that perspective, I'm not really mad about them losing the money. It's unfortunate…

> or at the very least they don't give a crap about anything at all They were the market leader, with substantial revenue and lots of cash flow. Why they didn't prioritize hiring some people and securing their platform is still beyond my understanding. It's up there with the $100+ billion in cash Apple is evidently not using to hire enough code reviewers or implement adequate security processes for their most importa…

>> or at the very least they don't give a crap about anything at all ...

> They were the market leader, with substantial revenue and lots of cash flow.

Yes, but there are any number of examples where being the market leader breeds indifference and irresponsibility -- example Microsoft.

> Why they didn't prioritize hiring some people and securing their platform is still beyond my understanding.

It's likely they grew from a tiny operation to a very large one without anyone fully grasping the meaning of the change and adjusting to the new reality and taking the precautions that their new status demanded.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#152

Post by sneak »

TillE wrote: post #107
sneak wrote: post #44

When has the passive voice ever actually worked to calm a lynch mob?

I'm getting a little tired of every (justifiably!) angry group of people being called a "lynch mob" by default on the internet. You might want to wait for something resembling actual violence before applying such an ugly characterization. A bunch of people saying mean things is not a "lynch mob".

There are literally dozens of people on reddit's /r/bitcoin right now casually discussing contract killings, with various shades of joking (from "kinda" to "not at all").

I'm not being hyperbolic.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#154

Post by alkimie2 »

alkimie2 wrote: post #98
reedlaw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds very passive. "Closely monitoring"? "React accordingly"? As if they were not the ones running the site.

The poor grammar in the first sentence suggests someone for whom English is a second language. That passive voice is maddening!

Interesting that they changed the language to "in light of" correct the grammar.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#156

Post by serge2k »

colinbartlett wrote: post #76
sneak wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or at the very least they don't give a crap about anything at all They were the market leader, with substantial revenue and lots of cash flow. Why they didn't prioritize hiring some people and securing their platform is still beyond my understanding. It's up there with the $100+ billion in cash Apple is evidently not using to hire enough code reviewers or implement adequate security processes for their most importa…

> Apple is evidently not using to hire enough code reviewers It's naive to think that the more people you throw at the problem, the less bugs there will be. See also: The Mythical Man-Month.

Proper code reviews help.

Oh, and unit tests.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#157

Post by icelancer »

davidw wrote: post #68
kyleblarson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given their physical office location I wonder if any Yakuza have(had) any BTC in MtGOX. That could get interesting.

Those kinds of guys don't seem like the type to trade cash, which they know well, for magical internet money that they know nothing about.

How do you know a highly organized unit of crime is technologically illiterate?

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#158

Post by H4U »

amvp wrote: post #79
bdcravens wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insolvent != no money in the bank

Yeah, but shouldn't they try to pay people back before they spend what's likely tens of thousands of dollars on what amounts to superficial marketing? I mean, it's not even much of a re-brand!

They SHOULD pay secured creditors which could include domain provider. I dont imagine its customers are SECURED .. so will be last .. in a proper insolvency..

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#159

Post by haakon »

o_nate wrote: post #62

Best case speculation: they really are being acquired by a more competent exchange, or consortium of competent exchanges, who decided to step in to prevent further harm to Bitcoin's reputation. Hence the hidden message in the html, the acquisition of the "gox.com" domain, and the suspending of all transactions until the official announcement.

If someone competent want to start an exchange, why would they pay to be associated with the MtGox brand? After all of this, that brand must be poisonous.

Re: New message from Mt. Gox

#160

Post by rsanders »

mtkd wrote: post #129
rsanders wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree with this more. It's human nature not to prepare for a theoretical risk. But once it's happened to you, and to many others in the same industry, it's just foolishness not to invest in prevention. I imagine there's also a bit of outsider-preference going on here. There's no lack of people who could have been hired to implement controls and audits that would have easily caught a slow leak of coins, but…

> It's human nature not to prepare for a theoretical risk That's a substantial generalisation. Some people, especially in software engineering, spend a great deal of their day thinking how best to prepare for theoretical risk.

Yes, it is a substantial generalization, or perhaps a sentence not carefully crafted to withstand nitpicking.

In my job I do the very thing you describe. That said, I'm spending a lot more of my day preparing for the more likely risks, rather than the ones I can just dream up. I doubt many people here are posting from their bomb shelters full of emergency food and water rations, antibiotics, radiation treatments, either.

My point is that I could forgive the first lapse. Fool me once, and so on. But Mt. Gox had their precarious position quite expensively demonstrated to them. A competent management team would have made security and fraud management their top priority nearly 3 years ago when they were last caught with their pants down. It's hard to see them as victims in this because they were so negligent in their responsibilities to their customers.

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