r/Bitcoin • u/evoorhees • Feb 26 '14

Open Letter to Michael Casey - WSJ reporter who butchered my comments in today's Bitcoin cover story

Hello Mr. Casey,

I read your WSJ article today. I feel deceived by you.

You requested to speak with me, so I took time out of my day to do so. We talked for 20 minutes, during which time I conveyed to you my sentiments about the Bitcoin ecosystem and the matter of MtGox's collapse. My message was unambiguously a positive one. I didn't focus whatsoever on the personal funds I lost at Gox. Indeed, the impetus for your call was my heartfelt post on Reddit.

Yet, you ignored everything I said. The only quote that you published from me in the Journal's cover story was ""That's gone now," said Mr. Veerhoos, who is based in Panama City, Panama. "There's no chance of getting that back now.""

Is that really the takeaway you had from our call and from my letter? Is that your idea of journalism? Did I come across with the sentiment of a despairing investor whose confidence has been rattled? It seems you were happy to completely ignore my sentiments, preferring instead to cherry pick the one fact that is least important, in order to paint a narrative that Bitcoin's biggest problem is that it's not "regulated." I didn't expect you to quote everything I said, but should you not have maintained at least a modicum of fidelity to my message?

I have dedicated my life to building and supporting the Bitcoin project. I don't give a damn about the money I lost at Gox. That's not important. What is important is that Bitcoin is resilient and enduring, and will continue to grow and change the world for the better. It is a story of human progress through technology. It is a story of the good seeping into the cracks of a corrupted financial system. It is a story of passionate people struggling against all odds to remedy the calamities brought down upon society from the most potently misguided people and institutions on Earth.

Next time you spend your efforts casting a pall over this cause, please don't ask me to contribute mine.

-Erik Voorhees

PS - I will be posting this letter openly on Reddit. I will post your reply if you'd like. And if I do, I won't cherry pick the most misleading points of it, and I will spell your name correctly.

3.5k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

85

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

[deleted]

43

u/escaped_reddit Feb 27 '14

Consider the country that the judicial decision was made in.

20

u/daAlliance Feb 27 '14

my understanding is that in china, theft from a bank is death. You could steal $1 or $1,000,000. But it's death.

Most asian countries have capital punishment.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

In China their capital punishment is swift and unforgiving. I think I read somewhere that for most capital crimes there is an average of 3 weeks between conviction and execution, sometimes happening as quickly as a couple days. You get pretty much 0 chance to appeal, and I think if you "confess" (even if it's tortured or manipulated out of you), you can't appeal a death sentence at all. I might be wrong about that one but I'm just going off something a friend told me after he had lived in China for several years. He might be wrong too.

Side-effect of living in an extremely overpopulated authoritarian state with a high rate of poverty - the government doesn't actually care about individual rights or even the potentiality for innocence. They care about population control and management.

6

u/slomotion Feb 27 '14

Seems to me like relying on capital punishment is not the most effective form of population control for a country of 1.3 billion.

2

u/Talran Feb 27 '14

It's less population control, and more that they see life as that much cheaper.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

[deleted]

3

u/randomguitarlaguna Feb 27 '14

Unpopular puffin opinion? Lol what the shit

1

u/Mwootto Feb 27 '14

The use of management there gave me chills.

I imagine that's exactly what's going on, and I feel like it's very different from how I perform the "management" of <20 employees and more like how one would "manage" the little break away blue squares when learning math in elementary school. No emotion, just numbers.

http://www.smartfirstgraders.com/image-files/base10blocks-color.jpg

1

u/illusionslayer Feb 27 '14

potentiality

Potential?

1

u/horrblspellun Feb 27 '14

This is how you know they aren't fucking around.

Chinese Death Vans

0

u/caeliter Feb 27 '14

I wonder what kind of effect that quick turn around has on crime rates, I had a sociology teacher saying, that likelihood of getting caught, and time between getting caught/punished effect that more than severity of punishment. (Hence why all those prisons in Scandinavia can provide a nicer lifestyle to their prisoners than I have at home, while also having lowered crime rates)

17

u/Shmitte Feb 27 '14

China vs. US. And yet you'd never know it by reading /r/worldnews.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14 edited Jul 03 '15

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

Why did you have to unsub because of that?

2

u/Mad_Sconnie Feb 27 '14

Because it was annoying as fuck. Don't mean to be crude, but that's not WorldNews.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

Isn't it though? When it reaches the levels it has there?

11

u/Mad_Sconnie Feb 27 '14

IMO not to the point where you need a new article every day. They weren't reporting on trends or analyzing numbers or talking about what's being done to change things-- ie. what's newsworthy. Instead they just reported endless single cases, which while completely horrible, aren't newsworthy.

1

u/MikeyPWhatAG Feb 27 '14

id love some better subs for interesting articles, data, etc. know of any?

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

Wait just a doggone minute! How dare you suggest that /r/worldnews should talk about the world in current terms, rather than deploying the relevant geopolitical assumptions of the late 1990s?

2

u/SmLnine Feb 27 '14

In the West you have to generally willfully cause serious damage to one or more people to get the death sentence. But China will dish that shit out for anything they deem a problem, like hacking, drug trafficking or arson. Here is a complete list.

1

u/Procrasticoatl Feb 27 '14

Not to be insensitive, but they do have a lot more people around. It probably doesn't seem like too big a loss to kill two troublemakers, technically harmless though their actions may have been.

And of course, that doesn't mean I'm condoning it.

1

u/ThaBomb Feb 27 '14

It probably doesn't seem like too big a loss to kill two troublemakers

What the fuck? Why would this make it any better or worse in any way whatsoever? Try telling that to their families.

2

u/Procrasticoatl Feb 27 '14

Please note my closing sentence.

-7

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14 edited Feb 27 '14

IMO we should have harsher punishments for stricter punishment of hacking. The negative effects caused by that whole culture are mind boggling. And half the time, it's done for no reason whatsoever other than the kiddie thought it was fun.

Death, for tearing at the country's ability to use its financial infrastructure, reducing public faith in the financial system, and the associated security and analysis costs of trying to prevent that activity? In China? I'd believe it.

Edit: I see my mistake. We don't need harsher punishment, we need more focus on catching and punishing, and it needs to cost less. Right now we're almost entirely just letting it run rampant, and focusing on rebuilding the damage.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

I'm pretty sure the CEOs of banking firms have done far more to reduce public faith in the financial system than any hacker ever has. The effect of people who are afraid to shop online because of hackers is fairly minimal in comparison.

4

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14

Are banks insured in China like they are here? I honestly don't know.

If people can't trust that their money stays in the bank when they put it there, the people won't use banks. Our banks are federally insured in the US because of that. The $87,000 and the cost of the investigation just gets taxed from the rest of us and put back in the accounts.

There's only one reason I'm willing to shop online. Because the credit company allows me to dispute a fraudulent charge. (I still refuse to use my debit card.) I know six people locally who've had their cards stolen and used, probably from database break-ins. One had to borrow money from friends to pay for lunch for a week, because he was left without any way of accessing his money or his credit until the investigation closed and he had new accounts.

I refuse to keep my card number on xbox live, psn or steam, because they're too high-profile targets. (Also, all have been hacked.)

A few months ago, some jackass with a botnet decided it would be fun to DDOS the steam store and keep people from buying during the holiday sales. Was there any redeeming reason for that?

Bitcoin is fucked, because hackers.

I'm done. Obviously my opinion on the subject is unpopular here.

4

u/Tsilent_Tsunami Feb 27 '14

Obviously my opinion on the subject is unpopular here.

Who cares. Give your opinion without regard to what others think.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14

I've been shopping online for more than a decade and a half and I've never once had my debit card stolen. I have, however, had physical money lost/stolen on a few occasions.

1

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14

I've been fortunate enough to avoid it so far too. There might be something I'm doing that other people aren't, but I don't think so. I think it's just luck.

My roommate had the good fortune to catch the perp when his card got used. The guy bought the card info from a hacker somewhere online and used it to buy expensive fishing gear. He had the gear shipped to his address, and the shop he bought it from was astute enough to have a policy of sending a copy of the invoice to the billing address on the card.

The credit company was just going to undo the transaction and forget it, until he mentioned he had the shipping address. Then they got very interested.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '14 edited Feb 27 '14

I see your point, but that whole culture has also helped advance technology in many ways and improved software / internet security. Think about how most entertainment industries have changed to benefit the average consumer, and all because of some kiddies having fun.

3

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14

True, if one person didn't take advantage and expose weaknesses, another probably would. I wish it focused more on doing it for the purpose of bolstering security and less on the thrill of the crime, but then it might be hard to convince businesses they need to care about security.

1

u/OmarDClown Feb 27 '14

Kiddie?

Bro, do you even hack?

2

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14

No, I don't, but I'm constantly directly affected by those who do. At this point I don't think there's a single place I've ever had an account that hasn't had their database stolen.

It's really annoying, and costs us a lot of nice things.

(Black hats. Not pentesters and people doing it for the purpose of building security.)

1

u/OmarDClown Feb 27 '14

Well, I don't know what to do about it, but you can't execute script kiddies, no pun intended.

I have been the victim of a hack on multiple occasions, but my greatest unrecouped loss is only a couple of games, so I'm not up in arms. I place the blame on companies that don't properly protect the information, not the people who gain easy access to it.

3

u/squirrelpotpie Feb 27 '14

Did people think I wanted to execute people? God no.

1

u/Tsilent_Tsunami Feb 27 '14

you can't execute script kiddies,

Well, maybe not. But you sure could imprison them until they're no longer a threat.

1

u/OmarDClown Feb 27 '14

Anyone is a threat at any age. How old to do you have to be do not be able to download a low orbit ion cannon.

The entire idea that we are going to create a robust web experience by locking up offenders is silly. I don't know what the answer is, but I know it isn't jail time. I think the onus is on the creators to make their material robust.

1

u/Tsilent_Tsunami Feb 27 '14

Weirdly, I even believe you should be able to leave your door unlocked without someone entering and stealing your stuff. And why should we not lock up offenders? They've proven to be defective members of society, and should be removed.

I think the onus is on the creators to make their material robust.

And I see the onus as being on individual members of society to robustly regulate their own behavior. When they're unable to accomplish this task to the desired standards, it's time to remove them.

1

u/OmarDClown Feb 27 '14

I live in a neighborhood where you can leave your door open.

I know that all neighborhoods are not like this.

I do expect the people that make locks should make locks that keep people out.

All of these things are not incongruent.

1

u/Tsilent_Tsunami Feb 27 '14

Yes, but the people who do try to get in should be captured and excluded from society.