Greetings from Amsterdam, Idiots!
Ended up able to make the trip at the very very very last minute after all, so I’m psyched.
I’ve heard rumors that Amsterdam is a pretty fun and crazy place to visit (and that things can get a little weird at night), so it felt like a good time to include a guest post that is both crazy and fun and, well, weird. Today, I offer you a conspiracy theorist’s (or practical joker’s) wet dream document, courtesy of Charlie Shrem.
If you aren’t interested in this type of non-serious content, skip to the Bits and stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.
Charlie and many of his crypto friends are still trying to determine whether this mysterious letter he received recently is simply an elaborate hoax or if it contains an encoded message from a privacy-obsessed supporter. (Dare I say…Satoshi himself!)
There’s little chance this is anything but a prank, but it is so far out there, and it made me laugh. So considering this is a travel day for many and there will inevitably be numerous major announcements coming from Bitcoin ventures over the next two days, I wanted to take a break from my usual analysis because my brain needed a breather going into the weekend.
Consider this your light reading in advance of some big announcements at Bitcoin 2014. Help Charlie crack the code. Enjoy!
[TBI Note: An image of the original letter can be found here. I actually read the original while visiting Charlie around the Inside Bitcoins conference last month. I have inserted in brackets Charlie’s annotations for clarity. Charlie also sent me a full annotated version that itemizes all the formatting quirks. Go nuts.]
Marcel Mellish
1396 N. Ruptured Gonif Dr. [CS: Gonif in yiddish means a thief, dishonest person]
Beverly Hills CA 90211
Mr. Charlie Shrem
[Charlie’s Address]
Dear Charlie
I returned last week from a 4 week razzia in Venice honoring Italian World War 2 Kamikaze pilots and learned of Bitcoin tsopujris [CS: Incorrect Spelling: “tsouris”. A Yiddish frase. Heartburn, the outcome of a stressful situation.] during lunch with an old friend from our days as adecedarian defenestrators, Bishop Carl Bean.
I have read part of all of the news stories on the tismmes [CS: Incorrect Spelling: “To make a big tzimmes over something” is a Yinglish expression that means to make a big fuss, perhaps because of all the slicing, mixing, and stirring that go into the preparation of the dish.]—and even saw the story on the Crime Channel TV show last nigh. I am not the least bit gruntled at the way those rantallion patzers are ballyragging you and Bobby Faiella.. If I had any balls I would put my head in a moose. I am so depressed at this situation that I felt the need for a little bit of cheering and rented the movie ”Schindler’s List” to get some well needed yuks.
You must make it a point to cacchinate when you learn about their pasquinades posted in local bars, shuls, needlepoint supply stores and in licensed lava lamp repair centers. For sure, yo are under attack by priapic quidnucs [CS: Incorrect Spelling: an inquisitive and gossipy person.] who most likely suffer from frottage. I’ll wager that most of them have had peotomys. They would be better off devoting their time to giving each other clysters.
I have great faith in the American System of Jewishprudence and am sure that you will be vindicated and resume your career as a legend in professional buck buck games.
As for me, Charlie, for the past 3 years I have been general manager of the Home for Unwed Fathers in Oxnard CA. I am also teaching 3 classes in Freshman Theoretical Physics at UCLA: (1) Physics of Oscillatory Integrals (2) Vorticity in the Ginzburg-Landau Model of Superconductivity and (3) Geometric Analysis of Chow-Mumford.
Charlie„ in our younger days days we passed a lot of water and gas when we stampeded the town girls in Bensonhurst, made out with the grazing dairy cows in Prospect Park, goosed tray-bearing priapic waiters at Katz Deli and sniffed the seats of the coeds’ bicycles parked outside the dorms and classrooms at NYU, Columbia, Brooklyn College, Hofstra Ru8tgers [CS: Incorrect Spelling: He spells it Ru8tgers when its spelled Rutgers, a college in NJ] Fordham, 3 Catholic seminaries and the Bronx Yeshiva.
Hang in there,
Marcel Mellish 1/30/14 (310) 939-4827
"It’s too late for Chiropody—the vultures are already circling:——Caesar Kimmel
"A few who I have shared this with have suggested an underlying message, possibly a private key, or someone reaching out," said Charlie. "If this were a "brain wallet", it would have to be SUPER evident in order to prevent mistakes in long keys. But my money is on the fact that this solution is so simple it will make us feel stupid that we didn’t see it right away!"
As Charlie notes, there are quirks with the writing conventions (double spaces and commas after periods), formatting (last paragraph is justified while the others are not, the quote at the bottom is not encapsulated), and Yiddish words which often help the “story”, but are intentionally misspelled. What’s more, the author clearly wanted to make it clear that this entire document was proofread and typed exactly how it was meant to be typed; he even added a comma in pen on the last line.
Curiously, the original letter was printed on yellow paper, which meant that when Charlie went to do optical character recognition, his computer was unable to recognize even one letter or number. Of course he changed his settings to “grayscale” the image, but believes that the choice of paper color was made by the author so as to avoid the watchful eye of any automated USPS systems (or FBI systems) that scan letters.
In terms of content, the sender also uses anachronistic words like quidnucs (someone who knows the latest gossip) and Jewishprudence (case law), itemizes places like a “Licensed Lava Lamp” repair shop (LLL?), and references three physics courses with the acronyms POI, VGLMS, and GACM. It’s all enough to make you wonder, “what if?”
Charlie wonders whether “Marcel Mellish” is the person behind the @DorianSatoshi Twitter account as well. He notes that following Newsweek’s doxxing of Dorian S. Nakamoto, the person who writes the well-informed parody tweets used the uncommon word ‘pasquinade’ in a tweet (also in the letter), and tweeted to Charlie on the same day the letter was written (March 12).
Even Charlie will admit that this could be silly. ”It kind of makes me feel odd because I could be on a wild goose chase. Yet, if this is a key pair or a message from Satoshi, or both, it would be so epic as to make it all worthwhile. :)”
Now for Today’s Tid Bits:
Coinbase Giving Out $10 of Free Bitcoin to College Students
http://newsbtc.com/2014/05/14/coinbase-giving-10-free-bitcoin-college-students/
Coinbase announced on Wednesday that for a limited time, they will be giving away $10 worth of bitcoin to college students who create a new Coinbase account with a valid .edu email address. The offer applies to universities all over the world, not just the US. So far the project has received a pretty good response as Coinbase attempts to get “young scholars” involved in the bitcoin ecosystem.
Ebay’s CEO John Donahue Drops More Bitcoin Hints
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/14/bitbeat-ebays-donahoe-drops-more-bitcoin-hints/
At the Ebay’s annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday CEO of Ebay, John Donahue made some positive comments about bitcoin. He characterized it as a “a new, exciting and emerging technology.” He also believes that bitcoin will play a very important role in the company’s future, and added that it is something they’re considering. Strictly speaking, none of that is an endorsement of bitcoin, but it is definitely a move in the right direction.
Shutdown of China’s FXBTC Exchange Leads to Customer Outrage
http://www.coindesk.com/shutdown-of-chinas-fxbtc-exchange-leads-to-customer-outrage/
Some former customers of the now-defunct China-based digital currency exchange FXBTC are reporting that its operators are still holding customer funds, and that their attempts to retrieve their holdings have been unsuccessful. The exchange closed due to pressure from the central bank on May 2nd. It is rumored that the overall value of bitcoin and litecoin currently trapped in the fund is between $8,000 and $13,000.
Richest Man in Asia Supports Bitcoin
https://coinreport.net/richest-man-in-asia-supports-bitcoin/
Despite the People’s Bank of China crackdown on Bitcoin, Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Asia, has decided to increase his investment in bitcoin. Through Horizons Ventures, the billionaire has transferred an undisclosed amount of money into Bitpay. This is positive news for bitcoin businesses in China, who have found ways around the crackdown, mostly by carrying out their operations overseas.
ButterflyLabs Customers Appeal to FTC for $1 Million in Missing Orders
http://www.coindesk.com/butterflylabs-customers-appeal-to-ftc-1-million-missing-orders/
ButterflyLabs, a Kansas-based ASIC miner manufacturer is currently subject to 283 complaints against the company. The complaints are worth more than $1 million in refunds and late orders. The complaints were filed to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The company is also facing a class-action lawsuit filed last month to recover an alleged $25m in customer pre-payments. The FTC complaints are only the first steps in the process for the company who could soon be subject to federal investigation.
Hive Launches Android Bitcoin Wallet with Built-In App Store
http://www.coindesk.com/hive-launches-android-bitcoin-wallet-built-app-store/
Hive, a geographically distributed startup that builds bitcoin wallets, launched a beta version of its Android wallet app today. The company believes the apps ability to host third-party bitcoin applications within the wallet, a Hive app store, will make the app extensible. The Hive Andriod wallet also recently implemented a payment protocol that rapidly sends BTC to recipients, without waiting for block-chain confirmation. Hive is currently available in beta on the Google Play Store.
If you are at the conference, make sure to seek me out!
Cheers,
TBI
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