Float like a butterfly, sting like the FTC
Crime
Satoshi Hacked!
News from Thermos, king turd of Bitcoin’s various shit mountains:
[email protected] is compromised
Today at 09:06:34 PMToday I received an email from [email protected] (Satoshi’s old email address), the contents of which make me almost certain that the email account is compromised. The email was not spoofed in any way. It seems very likely that either Satoshi’s email account in particular or gmx.com in general was compromised, and the email account is now under the control of someone else. Perhaps [email protected] expired and then someone else registered it.
Don’t trust any email sent from [email protected] unless it is signed by Satoshi. (Everyone should have done this even without my warning, of course.)
I wonder when the email was compromised, and whether it could have been used to make the post on p2pfoundation.ning.com.
The email said:
“Michael, send me some coins before I hitman you.”Not exactly Satoshi’s normal style.
Satoshi Nakamoto replied to Satoshi Nakamoto’s discussion Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency
“Dear Satoshi. Your dox, passwords and IP addresses are being sold on the darknet. Apparently you didn’t configure Tor properly and your IP leaked when you used your email account sometime in 2010. You are not safe. You need to get out of where…”
Mt. Gox’s MagicalTux is back, oblivious as ever
After months of silence following the totally unexpected and catastrophic collapse of the Magic: the Gathering Online eXchange, its CEO Mark Karpeles (AKA MagicalTux) has returned to the internet, posting on Twitter about PHP, yakisoba, and the Tokyo subways. It’s some pretty mundane stuff, and it’s obvious that he’s just trying to return to a somewhat normal life in glorious Nippon.
Everybody whose shit was pushed in by the invisible hand, however, doesn’t want him to forget his follies and are intent on reminding him that they threw thousands of dollars away “investing” in an unstable proof of concept created by an anonymous libertarian. Read on for a lengthy gallery of people who have made terrible decisions:
Bitcoiner or cult leader?
While it’s fun (and accurate) to compare the Bitcoin community to a cult, how well can you, our loyal readers, tell the two apart? Inspired by this absurd post on Twitter, we started wondering.
Following are a selection of quotes, either from the leader of a dangerous (or harmless, in some cases) cult, or from a random bitcoiner who has been selected from a massive pool of dangerous sociopaths. See if you can figure out which is which without cheating via search engine:
1: You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy.
2: My whole life I have suffered from poverty and have faced many disappointments and pain, like a man is used to. That is why I want to make other people happy.
3: This is a warning that if any of you attempt to kill me, all you will do is prove my reality right. In which that moment I would gain supernatural abilities.
4: We have to relearn, reprogram our brains… the method to do so is to observe if the thought comes and analyze it and replace it then with a better one.
5: If many people listen to me, that’s not my choice, it is theirs and they make it because of how I speak, not despite of it.
6: Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story
7: MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY.
8: There is something to the Jewish lobby. They definitely wield large influence. They, like many others wield great power in the world.
9: The democratic world has come to a dead end; likewise, the communist world has come to a dead end.
10: Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Because in this case the cure is worse than the supposed disease.
11: We need a political organization to protect us and help us resist illegal governments.
12: Yes, we are in a transitional period and some of it might not be too pleasing to some, but to those who understand, it will be pleasing.
13: There is no direct profit for the church itself. But we have many prophets.
14: Okay, here’s an individual who says, “I will break away from the world.” Now breaking away from the world is not easy. It’s difficult. It’s tough.
15: Reason is man’s main means of survival. Force is bad because it is anti reason and therefore anti man.
16: Up to this point everything I had learned seemed ideological and somewhat abstract, but I felt the need to point out these truths to others.
After the break we’ll provide the answers.
Easy Come, Easy Go
Let’s start the new year off right: with bitcoins! When last we heard from our long-suffering friends, they were waiting for CaVirtEx to complete a transfer to a bank account.
So more stuff on trying to cash out of bitcoins and how “simple” it is.
Virtex responded to my friends ticket, and said yesterday said that the transfer that was fucking requested on the 18th, was cleared. However today my friend’s bank has not received a anything. So he calls them and apparently they can’t deal with this over the phone and will only help him if he puts in a ticket. Even though he pointed out that it takes them a week to respond to tickets.
Also my friend decided to try and just sell 2 of his bitcoins on localbitcoins through their online escrow because apparently people keep telling him e-transfers are safe, because interac e-transfers cannot be reversed! So perfectly safe! Yesterday he accepted an e-transfer and was able to add the money to his account and release the escrow.
Then this morning apparently he was notified by his bank that his account and all associated cards are frozen, and he must come into his local branch and speak to someone. They apparently wouldn’t explain why over the phone. Apparently the person he spoke to had some idea of what bitcoins were (
– Selling stuff online and using e-transfer for payment apparently violates some part of interac’s terms of service.
– The e-transfer he accepted was fraudulent so it was reversed (i thought it wasn’t reversible!)
– His account is to be unfrozen but he is permanently banned from ever using e-transfers againIt is funny because all the “low” risk methods of selling on localbitcoins, are terrible that nobody really uses. I love how many people messaged me about how safe localbitcoins are.
Nobody here is shocked in the least. More about the local bitcoin sales and the trustworthy individuals involved with them:
Pretty much all the methods of payment on localbitcoins are ether unsafe, or terrible from what i can tell. The two exceptions are cash (we know how well that worked out), or a cash deposit (pretty massive pain in the ass), which both are pretty inconvient.
However localbitcoins lists some other payment methods, and ranks them on “low”, “medium”, or “high” risk. The low risk includes well known and “trustworthy” payment services like EGOPay, OkPay, and Perfect Money. Ironically there is also Western Union, a service which bitcoiners declared bitcoin will kill off. The funny part is, nobody uses the low risk payment methods really, because they are all a massive pain in the ass.
Pretty much all the people on Localbitcoins (and there really is not very many in Canada, less than 200 including people who have not logged on in a month), want you to use something like e-transfers, wire transfers, paypal, etc. Which are all not safe at all. Since one party can cry fraud and boom, you loose your money and they walk off with the bitcoins. Well obviously the best solution is to let your feedback/reputation dictate if your a scammer or not. I see this everywhere:
quote:
If your LocalBitcoins profile has less than 10 confirmed trades or at least 1 negative feedback then you must send/release Bitcoins first.quote:
Unless you have a feedback rating of 10 or higher, coins will be sent to me first direct to my receiving address. If you have a feedback of 10 or higher then we may use the escrow system (although I will pay 0.5% more if you send it direct).quote:
Because of our established credibility, if you have a feedback score below 10 we’ll require the BTC to be sent first, either directly to our receiving address or released via trade request.
Fuck you pleb, escrow is only for us captains of the industry
OKPay: Does Localbitcoins even know that OKPay does not allow people to use their service for selling crypto-currencies?
quote:
Please note that due to the card issuer bank restrictions OKPAY Card order and funding becomes impossible if you perform operations related with crypto-currencies or crypto-currencies exchange.Our financial provider for GBP bank transfers restricts further usage of funds for purchasing or exchanging crypto-currencies.
If you look around there is some nice whining from people that OKPay has cancelled and closed their accounts for selling bitcoins. But you know, its “low risk”.
Perfect Money: A virtual wallet service, that nobody seems to use. You need to make an account, get verified, get the money into your account, then wait 3-5 days for the transaction to be approved they also apparently do not allow you to withdraw all your money in one shot and you must keep a minimum balance of 300$ at all times. Also from what i can gather the only way to send money is by sending someone an e-voucher. There is no way to verify the value of an e-voucher, nor is there a way to reverse it. So of course this means that all the buyers want you to send them the bitcoins first then they will send you the voucher and not disappear. Apparently only 3 people on localbitcoins is willing to use this method.
Ego Pay: Some sort of virtual online wallet service. Requires you to become verified to withdraw money from there. Also there is some really sketchy stuff in their terms and conditions:
quote:
EgoPay reserves the right to terminate accounts that act as unauthorized e-currency exchangers and all of the related accounts.Would selling bitcoin count as an e-currency exchanger? I don’t know i can’t find a single post about someone using EGOPay. However the single most stupid thing about Ego Pay is:
quote:
EgoPay account holders can withdraw funds from EgoPay by using Payza or e-currency exchangers. Times to complete a withdrawal may vary due to security reasons, please visit our FAQ for current information.So let me get this straight, Ego Pay doesn’t even let you withdraw money to your bank account. You need to withdraw it to another FUCKING SITE? Don’t forget no fees*(only 2.5% for deposit/withdrawal).
So? Bitcoin -> Localbitcoins -> Ego Pay -> Payza -> Bank -> Fiat
Western Union: Aside from the fact that all of the buyers expect you to be responsible for 7% fee even though they are already paying you much less than the “actual” price (aka whatever exchange has the highest price, bitcoiners claim thats the value of bitcoins). There are only 38 users willing to buy, and only 18 of them have logged into localbitcoins in the last 7 days. Furthermore, some of the buyers will not deal with you for western union UNLESS you send them the coins FIRST. Aka no escrow.
quote:
Unless you have a feedback rating of 10 or higher, coins will be sent to me first direct to my receiving address. If you have a feedback of 10 or higher then we may use the escrow system (although I will pay 0.5% more if you send it direct).I am sorry i simply cannot trust people on localbitcoins when the entirety of their forum consists of users crying about getting scammed, by people who are supposed to be reputable. I love how bitcoiners dance between “DONT TRUST ANYONE”, to “trust me with your 20,000$ exchange, i swear i won’t scam you cause i have a whole 20 feedback”.
Don’t you guys see how great and simple these “low” risk methods are? Honestly buying and selling bitcoin has never been easier.
Clearly LocalBitcoins could benefit from BitcoinTalk’s big red “SCAMMER” tags. That way you’d know not to send your bitcoins directly to someone’s receiving address before they consider paying you real money for them.
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