Mailvault is a supposedly secure email system- Mailvault.com-
built by the Laissez Faire City programmers, see the previous posts. There was an IRS revenue agent on the staff of Laissez Faire City during the time this was built. This agent helped troubleshoot systems that the LFC security "experts" just could not figure out. And a bang up job he did too!

Surely no federal tax agent would stoop to a backdoor in a system used to move funds by a large group of tax evaders? By Saint Ayn of the holy Rand, that just would not be possible!, right?

Inaba stated that that preorders were not used to fund development and that outside investments (VC, etc) were taken.

Wouldn't it be funny if they were able to scam everyone out of their upgrade money, then on top of that get many of the people to send functional FPGAs back to them so they can run off with the $$$ and a couple TH/s of mining gear to keep the $$$ flowing in afterwards?      

Have you seen the insides of a FPGA minirig? I did. They're slapped together with velcro, hot glue and 10 cent Chinese unpowered USB hubs. I'm not even joking.

Panama?!? This stinks ... and the trace continues:

Registrant:
 Laissez Faire City
 Lomas de Ayarco Sur
 Curridabat, San Jose 00000
 CR

 Domain name: MAILVAULT.COM

 Administrative Contact:
    Hostmaster, LFC  domains at lfcfa.org
    Lomas de Ayarco Sur
    Curridabat, San Jose 00000
    CR
    506-272-0000
 Technical Contact:
    Hostmaster, LFC  domains at lfcfa.org
    Lomas de Ayarco Sur
    Curridabat, San Jose 00000
    CR
    506-272-0000


 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 22-Apr-2003.
 Record expires on 10-Dec-2004.
 Record Created on 11-Dec-1997.

 Domain servers in listed order:
    DNS1.VGUILD.COM   64.69.65.222
    NS1.THIRDHOST.COM   65.113.114.194


Registration info for VGUILD.COM is stinking, too.
On of their DNS servers are in the PHANTOMSERVER.COM domain.

THIRDHOST.COM stinks, too, and is registrered through
dotster.com, all the others were through Tucows/OpenSRS.
Contact email address is at MAILVAULT.COM. IPs are 65.113.114.194+195 at
ProHosting.

PHANTOMSERVER.COM smells not much better and is registered
through directnic.com. Email is again at MAILVAULT.COM.

Back to LFCFA.ORG, mail contact for MAILVAULT.COM:

Registrant:
 Johann Gevers
 1017 Second St Apt 101
 Santa Monica, CA 90403-3620
 US

 Domain name: LFCFA.ORG

 Administrative Contact:
    Gevers, Johann  johann at gevers.net
    1017 Second St Apt 101
    Santa Monica, CA 90403-3620
    US
    (209) 254-9856
 Technical Contact:
    Gevers, Johann  johann at gevers.net
    1017 Second St Apt 101
    Santa Monica, CA 90403-3620
    US
    (209) 254-9856


 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 18-Jun-2003.
 Record expires on 31-Jul-2004.
 Record Created on 31-Jul-2002.

 Domain servers in listed order:
    NS19.ZONEEDIT.COM
    NS18.ZONEEDIT.COM

GEVERS.NET seems to have the same data and is registered
through godaddy.com (and jomax.net is godaddy). Can someone
verify the data for this domain? Or does it ring a bell?
IIRC I've already seen it somewhere here around :-/.

www.LFCFA.ORG redirects to www.LFCFA.COM (same WHOIS,
except for DNS by METROPIPE.NET), which gives an
interesting reading, introducing LFCGATE.COM and HUSH.COM.

METROPIPE.NET is bogus, *.METROPIPE.NET resolves to 213.84.134.134,
which is hosted at XS4ALL.

LFCGATE.COM bogus in CR, registered through dotster.com,
DNS by THIRDHOST.COM, contact email at MAILVAULT.COM.

audit at hush.com: HUSH.COM itself looks halfway acceptable,
except for being offshore and a similar, but bogus DNS
of HUSHMAIL.COM and IPs 65.39.178.0 - 65.39.178.255.

This reminds me of that Woody Allen movie where they open a cookie shop next to a bank to set up cover while they tried to tunnel into the vault. Meanwhile the cookie shop takes off as a successful business and they are stuck in a quandary as to whether they should rob the bank or not...

Besides, by your logic if we actually run away with the idea that this is a really elaborate con- why wouldn't they just use ASIC's as a setup for a even BIGGER scam, like ASICS v.2, or use ASIC v.2 for the even bigger scam ASIC v.3? Certainly after multiple iterations of putting out confirmed, verified, working, high-quality equipment the amount of trust the community would have in them would be through the roof. Just imaging the pre-order volume for ASIC v.5!