Talk:E-gold

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the E-gold article.
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[edit] Formatting problem

This page has an odd formatting problem; check the link labelled "examiner" near the bottom, which is a reference to an external hyperlink. There is too much whitespace following the word. Moving the comma in and out, as well as using a line break instead of the space, didn't help. Any ideas?

This problem appears to have been fixed. --JeremyStein 20:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cryptome.org suffers e-gold fraud

I've raised this section cause it seems important/current event. The Cryptome page that details some kind of problem with e-gold is at http://cryptome.org/e-gold-scam.htm 58.147.24.83 20:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Seem to me that "scam" was just Tampa Exchange being victim of a regular bank f*ck up. See the topmost note on the linked webpage. Zarutian 02:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertisement?

Isn't this article an unpaid advertisement? With lot of links to the e-gold site? --Pjacobi 13:21, 2005 Jan 21 (UTC)

[edit] Definitely needs NPOV

There is only one downside given, rather weakly, and it is immediately strongly refuted.

Where's the talking about how e-gold is the favorite currency of criminals (credit card fraudsters, spammers, fraudulent investment schemes)?

How do you NPOV an article?

[edit] Made changes

I've made changes, the article had such POV problems it was ridiculous. HTH

[edit] More questions

The article also makes no reference to a recent attack in which virus-writers used an automated program to clean out E-gold accounts. See this 9/18/05 article in the Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-keyloggers18sep18,1,5607754.story -LS

Can't access the article any more - tutaref

[edit] Lots of changes

Thought the old version was ugly and boring, and tried to make the page look a bit more like a Wikipedia article. Leaving the POV tag in on for a while in case somebody wants to comment on that. --Romæus 19:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Nice job Rom; I think it looks a lot better. We can probably remove the POV tag, now....thoughts? --Atlastawake 15:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. POV tag removal fine by me. --Romæus 18:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

e-gold website spells e-gold with a lowercase e. Fixed the text accordingly and added the lowercase tag. --Romæus 18:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

One problem is wherever you have a hyphenated word (such as "e-gold"), on a web page, you really need to wrap the word in a pair of no-break (nobr) tags, to stop it splitting over lines. Really the Wikpaedia folks should have thought of this and built the concept in to the presentation of text, no?

[edit] Security and fraud

As to the edit by 59.167.73.29, I've never been asked for any identification, apart from name, country, email and phone number. Hardly anywhere near the requirements of banks in my opinion. Even with PayPal you practically have to give them your credit card # especially if you are not from the US. --Romæus 09:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


E-Gold have just been charged with money laundering. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11462 Godot 21:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vulnerability to government seizures?

How vulnerable is currency held in an e-gold account to being seized by governments, the way they do to peoples' bank accounts?

I suppose if the government bugged your computer (I recall a case where some guy had PGP-encrypted files on his computer, they got a search warrant, copied the files, then when he was released by police, he went back to use his computer but it had been bugged so the government got his PGP passphrases to those files then tried to use them in court against him), they could end up getting your e-gold username and password and then they can empty it out and e-gold won't do anything about it.

(However, all of that applies exactly to your bank account - or anything else whatsoever in life!)

Can the government subpoena e-gold to make them give up your account though?

Answer - yes, of course. The government can sometimes get a subpoena to make anyone do anything.

[edit] Tedious and boring article, so I rewrote it.

That was an incredibly tedious, almost legalese, article that seemed to be mainly cut-and-paste from web sites and other sources.

I rewrote most of it in a jaunty and streetwise style. Hope it helps.

Here's the diff --JeremyStein 21:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Please do not delete comments added by other users. - Tεxτurε 15:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Texture, since you ask me not to, I won't !

But -- why ? the comments in question were totally out of date and a complete waste of screen pixels you know?

Anything that is totally out of date and tedious should be ruthlessly deleted.

You selectively removed comments and not complete sections.
Not that it matters, but no I just deleted all of it. Anyway, as I already said "since you ask me not to, I won't !" Does that sentence make sense to you? What you can say now is something like "OK, thanks for understanding." the "archiving" system sounds like a good one - why don't you use it? Can you get that done now? It is just soo out of date you should get rid of it.
This gave a misleading history of discussions about this article. If you wish to archive old discussions on this talk page please follow Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. In this way past discussions are preserved as they occurred. - Tεxτurε 15:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
JD - I'd advise you (then again, shouldn't it be "I advise?") to register an account here, so that not only are you just an IP address, but registered users tend to carry more weight
Oh my God - weight on a Wiki!!!!
- until then, you're just seen as some dope who doesn't know what he's doing in the eyes of most of the Wikipedia community. :-) Lancer Sykera 20:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HA ... that was a joke right? BTW who is "JD"? And yes it is "I advise."
as if anyone could possibly care how your "wikipedia community" sees them. i am free to just be an ip if i want. who are you to.... nm offtopic 20:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nirvana2013

Please note that I removed your forum link. Nothing personal.

  • The number of posts - doesn't look too busy to me, certainly not busy enough to get a link here
  • Your involvement - seems you posted the link because you are active in that forum. There are many, many fora that are multiple times more active than the one you linked to. Regardless, I think we're better off with no forum link at all.

Lancer Sykera 18:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation: company vs. currency

It's a bit confusing in the article that "e-gold" refers both to the company and to the currency. Any thoughts on how to clarify it? --JeremyStein 21:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Try these: Digital gold currency,Digital gold currency exchange,Electronic money. Or something better would be Electronic currency, Electronic bullion, Electronic funds. Joe I 22:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam removed

cash(dot)hostiz(dot)com was a referal link farm and wholly inappropriate to list on wikipedia

[edit] How is new e-gold issued?

They claim to have no contact with fiat currency, but when they issue more e-gold, and thus buy more gold bars, they must buy and sell other currencys. Or do they allow big companies to deposit gold bars in exchange of e-gold? --Apoc2400 05:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

You can buy e-gold using fiat currency from third parties that already own e-gold and are willing to sell it for fiat currency. I presume that new e-gold is created by transfering title of gold bars to e-gold. However I can't find any explaination of the procedure via which that act is realised. You can view the details about their claimed collection of gold bars held in trust at the following URL: http://www.e-gold.com/examiner.html Terjepetersen 11:03, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering how did the first exchanger get its e-gold, if e-gold doesn't deal with fiat money? Did it have to give a gold bar to Jackson? Did Jackson actually buy gold to start it off or just enter a number in a database? 218.103.137.181 11:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I would assume the founders provided a float of bullion when e-gold launched in 1996. Once the system is up and running, new bullion is purchased through either Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. or OmniPay and placed into storage, with corresponding e-gold units issued to third-party exchangers in return for fiat currency (again I assume, I am not an exchanger but someone on this discussion page might be). nirvana2013 14:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Logically this need for exchange providers to transfer additional physical gold into the system is ongoing. Presumably an email to e-gold might answer these questions. Terjepetersen 13:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
(Same anon guy as above) OK, so do you think the total e-gold stored in the computers is constant until GSR/omni buys a new gold bar? Because when I use an exchanger I just send money to their e-gold account (which has the same status as mine), and I presume it stays there until someone exchanges the other way. 203.218.87.69 06:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes that`s how I imagine the system working, which is not too different from gold exchange-traded funds, with GETFs issuing shares to stock markets once a new gold bar is purchased, rather than DGC providers issuing DGC units to digital gold currency exchangers. If the number of buyers exactly equals the number of sellers in either of these systems, then the total gold holdings would remain constant (less monthly storage costs). nirvana2013 23:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms: Security

Note: the beginning of this discussion has been moved here from user talk pages, to allow subject matter experts to contribute -- Epimetreus 22:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Gonvaled, I reverted your edits on security; they're inappropriate to an encyclopedia entry. (See WP:NOT). I'm sure there are other places, though, that you can post about your trouble - forums, a blog, etc. Good luck in your endeavour! -- Epimetreus 21:26, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Epimetreus. I understand your criticism to my edit of the e-gold article. I have changed it again and added a detailed description of how a vulnerabiliy can be exploited, as well as the associated risks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gonvaled (talk • contribs) 02:56, 7 September 2006.
Gonvaled - much less personal, but it could still be considered 'original research' - see WP:NOR. It remains a report of something that could happen, based on what did happen to one person. Because it's not verifiable as defined by Wikipedia (see WP:V), it's not yet appropriate for inclusion. I suggest looking for a source to cite, and I do wish you luck! Also, make sure to sign and date your posts, as per WP:SIG. The quickest and easiest method is to use four tildes in a row, like this: ~~~~.
Note to all: I've added citation requests for both the claim that a security flaw has been eliminated, and for Gonvaled's information on how that solution doesn't stop other security problems -- Epimetreus 22:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Epimetreus, as you see in my edits, the only source I have is a copy of en e-mail received from e-gold. It is exatly this obscurity about this issue that makes e-gold so dangerous for investors. I think that wikipedia is a very good place to make users aware of drawbacks and advantages of using a given system. There are a lot of advantages in e-gold, as they are already stated in the article. But this is a very clear and serious risk that the users must be aware of. I have stated it in a very plain manner, easy to understand and from the experience of somebody affected directly by it. But do not let the fact that it has been a personal experience diminish the quality of the information provided. It is an objective risk, and I have detailed a very specific way in which it can happen - a way which I think is very representative of the method used by criminals to abuse the vulnerabilities of a given system. And I have explained an added vulnerability of e-gold (namely, the fact that they do not block suspicious account), which is very, very serious, and not publicited.
Regarding style: sorry, I was not aware of the signature feature. Gonvaled 09:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lies

Can someone verify the credibility of the "Lies" sub-section? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Lies) Highway of Life (talk) 22:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] which oz?

The intro mentions how many ounces of gold E-Gold has in storage, but there are 2 definitions of oz and usually precious metals use Troy Ounces. Perhaps this should be clarified. 71.65.254.179 (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification needed

The article does not clarify why the US Grand Jury indictment is affecting e-gold's operations at all, considering they are not based in the US. This is rather confusing to me, as it would seem that American courts would have no jurisdiction over this company. Could someone with expertise please make this connection more clear in the article?

98.16.179.128 (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

They're incorporated in Nevis, but otherwise have nothing to do with the place. Since the start they've operated from an office in Melbourne, Florida. --Steve Foerster (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)