The SigEx Foundry - an inside view

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The wall of shame
2008-05-13 20:40:00
Starting with this post I'll begin building up a list of people who worked, work or will work for the SigEx Ventures scam.Here's the one most recently active:Claudia Sonea. She's a 20 year old student from Timisoara, Romania. Her phone number is +40-743-266608. I found her information here. It seems that nowadays they're recruiting people through ads placed in regular newspapers.Here's another one: This is Ana Maria Ciobanu. Couldn't find more about her for now, but will definitely look her up. This is a very common name so it's quite easy to mistake someone else for her.One can notice the highly professional attitude of both women. The pictures were taken from the SigEx Ventures website, as they were hotlinked from Wordpress, as you can see here. There seems to be a myriad of *blogtechsource.wordpress.com blogs.
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Blogging, reloaded
2008-04-03 09:09:00
Our friends have now invaded wordpress.com with another bunch of meaningless blogs, in hope to attract traffic and hits to their own website. They seem to have hired another Romanian girl, together with somebody from Slovakia, to spread their bullshit around. Well, sirs, good luck :)
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Wrapping it up (or not)
2007-11-04 21:17:00
Seems our cunning friends who started the scam retreated to a safe harbor in Sarasota, Florida, where their ghost company is registered. I assume they have this webpage in their bookmarks, it gets a couple of hits a day. Here's a printout of the last 3 months of traffic. Hooray for Sarasota! Have a nice pension, you guys!UPDATE: A fellow reader comments: " Right now they are in Bratislava, Slovakia. I had the pleasure last week when I went to interview. It was ok, nothing suspicious just absence of specific information about the firm. So I went there for my first shift to know more and guess what. Chris gave me a notebook :)) What a coincidence. Here they hire students for writing videoblogs for hredgselect.tv. Access to read the articles is complicated and the site is being uploaded very slowly all the time.I found this blog after my first shift (but before signing the Offer letter) and my doubts about them are confirmed. Thanks for this blog. I know you are right because in the f...
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What goes around comes around ...
2007-07-04 09:57:00
If it hadn't been for Google Analytics, I wouldn't have had the share of joy and amusement this morning. To cut to the chase, I noticed some page hits coming from http://foundy_sigex.ablog.ro Turns out it's been made by the same dianasigex user that was ordered to issue a Web2.0 counterattack against my blog, who created tens and tens of nonsense othre blogs, hoping to bury this one into oblivion. I assume she ended her internship at The Foundry and left that place with a bitter taste. Congrats, Diana, for waking up :)
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Spread the love with Chris Cantell, Frederic Artru and the SigEx Foundry
2007-03-05 11:05:00
We already know that the SigEx Foundry is a diamond with many facets. They're a bit about everything: technology, PR and last but not the least... love. We see an interesting post on a Chris tian dating site. Quote:"Read about training, learning and practice development as well as developing project companies within the SigEx Foundry think-tank and validating them to become viable structures ready to enter the market. Also on other opportunities from SigEx Ventures at the SigEx FoundryStory on developing project companies within the SigEx Foundry think-tank and validating them to become viable structures ready to enter the market.If you haven't applied changes to your Microsoft software that requires DST updating now maybe the time.This new sex toy by Doc Johnson was created to work in tandem with the dating website HighJoy.com. The toy is Internet enabled, so that it can be remotely controlled by other users for a whole new experience in cybersex."So we have romance between Christ...
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Come on, join the blog ride!
2007-02-27 22:07:00
They did it! Yes, siree! Our valiant entrepreneurs discovered the Web 2.0 miracle - the BLOG! What an enlightenment! In my previous post I mentioned that they had started building a network of more or less suggestive crosslinked blogs in hope that they'd get higher ranking in Google's cache. Well, recently they definitely got their crown jewel by setting up a special blog here. After all, it's all about branding and rebranding, if you will. One can notice that they bought the domain quite recently. There's only one post right now, but full of wisdom. Let's all cheer and wish them all the best in their endeavor! May they become the most successfull bubble company in history!
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What's born from cat...
2007-02-22 17:51:00
...will, eventually, eat mice. These people are definitely not dropping their dubious habits. In a desperate attempt to regain a decent Google ranking, several people at the SigEx Foundry have come up with a series of inane blogs that link to one another, covering their vaporware products. Here's a few of them:http://sigexnanodata.blogspot.com/ht tp://frederic-artru.blogspot.com/http://d iana-sigex.livejournal.com/http://silvias igexfoundry.vox.com/ And the list goes on. It's very interesting to see how a company of this size (the size they pretend to be) has to use means like blogger.com and others to promote themselves. All the posts are excerpts from the company presentation flyers, which are also available on their website.Besides that, they've started posting messages to various newsgroups, trying to pass as good students, interns at the SigEx Foundry. Here's one of them. They all go around the "I'm a student at the SigEx Foundry which belongs to SigEx Ventures, which is gr...
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The vaporware nature of the SigEx Foundry
2007-02-15 23:09:00
I. Their flagship product, called SuperPBX is, in fact, named after a real one, which can be found here. It's being developed and owned by a totally different company, called Supertec. I believe a trademark infringement lawsuit is in order.II. Their logos imitate well known ones. For instance, the Foundry logo is very much alike Google's. The SigEx is very close to FedEx's. Could these be sane business practices?III. They create ghost companies and names around themselves to give the illusion of a great conglomerate of IT&C business, supposedly top notch in the branch, thus aiming to achieve better public looks and credibility. Quoting from Frédéric Artru's LinkedIn profile: "SigEx has developped and deployed a parrallel communications network for streaming applications, video, phone, cellphone and other servers globally. ... Our major client and business partner, TechSource International, provides the professional services for ou...
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Angels or devils?
2007-02-13 09:49:00
SigEx Ventures was already a star a few years back. Two fellows noticed that something is suspicious here and here. They were offering a slice of the business if it would prove successfully. In case of bailing out before the deadline, the interns were to pay back $4000. What a greay way for SigEx Ventures to make money! Thanks to one of my readers for pointing it out, my initial understanding of the French webpage was faulty.The funniest part is that one of the guys misunderstood the conception of evangelism as corporations define it and the miss he spoke to was unable to provide him an enlightening explanation.
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If it looks like a rotten fish and it smells like a rotten fish...
2007-02-13 00:48:00
... then it's most likely a rotten fish. It turns out I wasn't the only one thinking there was something weird going on in Pau. Here's an article written by a French fellow that also thought things weren't exactly what they seemed to be. Quoting him: "Quant à La FOUNDRY, je me souviens que quand la Mairie a annoncé sa venue avec « tambours et trompettes », j’avais lu, sur le site américain de la « société », de longs monologues pas très clairs et constaté surtout une absence totale de chiffre et bilan !" Yes sir, it's all horns'n whistles! And it doesn't stop here. The city of Pau seems to be sistematically drained by jackals such as the ones running the Foundry. Frederic Artru is a local star, judging by the comments. Read them. Yes, it's French.
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And again!
2007-02-12 10:17:00
A reader came up with this link: http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/E06.html. The owner of the page dissects the language used by our already famous Chris Cantell on his website:"European Young Leaders Council. ``[A] two week exercise based on the principals of Six Sigma and the Fifth Discipline.'' The management training-and-cheerleading field is notorious for language incompetence, and this tiny example is typical.The program is a business activity of SigEx Ventures, and there's a ``SigEx Fellowship Program'' which appears to be a product promotion in the form of a lottery. SigEx Ventures was founded by Frédéric Artru and Christopher M. Cantell. A fine example of self-reverence occurs at paragraph three of the grant application guidelines: The conception of the [SigEx] Foundry came about with the meltdown of the telecommunications industry. This meltdown can be explained by Cantell's Law that states, ``Time value approaches zero.'' This means that over time, products lose their ...
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The Foundry strikes again!
2007-01-20 23:59:00
I have to admit, they are very persuasive people. I recently got another mail from SigEx Ventures, they are even friendlier than ever before. Let's see what they write this time:"Your Intelligence Report for Friday January 19, 2007 by Silvia BaldinThe experience of a lifetime Ever wondered what it would be like to get away from your been-there-done-that type of summer? You know, where you get to go to trips to the seaside or go camping in the mountains with a bunch of pals, or just linger around, in a fuzzy laziness state of spirit which floats all aroud you, knowing its time NOT to have a purpose for 2-3 months? Yes, I 'm sure you know the feeling.For those of you holiday winners who have their minds set for thrilling adventures, who breath for a sip ( ok, a gulp) of adrenaline… and most of all, who want to prove to themselves and to everyone else that they can be independent… behold Work & Travel with a Twist, right at The Foundry, in the south of France.Think & Travel That ...
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How deep is the rabbit hole?
2007-01-10 17:28:00
Why this blog?The reason behind this is the desire to spare others from a disappointing experience at the Foundry. There's certainly more than meets the eye and some things must be said. Of course, the reader must take note of the author's subjectivity and is encouraged to compare the following information with some from other sources.The official storyQuoting from their website:"SigEx Ventures, Inc. is a private investment fund focused exclusively on the emerging Enhanced Communications industry. Using funds raised from individual (angel) investors, SigEx Ventures funds projects for the Foundry’s development programs. Thus, SigEx Ventures, in conjunction with the Foundry, enables fully-funded, viable structures for business R&D to address alpha-beta development projects for strategic customers that include global telecommunications carriers, network equipment manufacturers, information technology companies, and digital content providers. The projects developed by the Foundry ...
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