Bitcoin Forum

As i see, this isn't his first accusation.

There's the thread: pretending to be a "social experiment" to expose some Ripple flaws, that is a good way to steal money from people who don't understand how Ripple works.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.0


And there is some explanations:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207535.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207718.0


I didn't know about this section, so yesterday i only reported the problem to the moderators, who were offline, and opened a thread to warn people. Some damages could have been avoided....

If it's usefull i can argomentate better and also post here the countless messages deleted from his self-moderated topic.

Self-moderated topics in the newbye section shouldn't be allowed, byt the way.

Please identify any transaction IDs on the blockchain that indicate transactions involving stolen (as opposed to completely imaginary) Bitcoin.

Hint:  there aren't any.

See https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2552 which points out the bitcointalk.org users that are extracting BTC to Bitstamp.

They only list one transaction (https://ripple.com/client/#/tx?id=A0630AF5CEBCE2FD303207C00B0187C7980E104BAAEB3E983A39E917DA482D6A), for BTC.0001.  So far, I'm not impressed.  I'm less impressed with the business model that allows this foolishness than I am the trolling that led to me having 5 imaginary BTC in this account I never intend on using.

That's not a bug, but exactly how the ripple system is supposed to work.  It's not Fake or real bitcoin, it's merely an IOU for a bitcoin.

I'm pointing out the flaws in Ripple. I've got numerous PMs from people who have only became aware that you cannot send BTCs in Ripple - it is impossible to send bitcoins, USD, AUD, anything in Ripple. You can only send IOU tokens.

Personally, I have not scammed anyone, because it is not that I am selling 1 BTC IOU on Ripple for 1 bitcoin. You may have your (bitstamp/etc) IOUs automatically exchanged for the IOUs I issued, but that is a flaw in the ripple system someone else is exploiting, not me.

Or, you know, don't use a broken system.

Ripple should actually deserve a scammer tag for claiming they are open source and decentralized to try and get bitcoiners to sign up for something that is currently as centralized as PayPal, as well as claiming you can "send money" - when you can't.

If that's how it's supposed to work, then it's crap.

@darkmule: It's too late for my insomnia. Tomorrow i'll continue here.

By the way dchapes has answered yet, partially.

@others: it's an interesting matter, without doubts, but let's try to be on topic. This isn't a discussion about how ripple works. And if i want to demonstrate that there is a bug in a software, i don't do that by putting people who trust me in the condition of losing lots of money. REAL bitcoins...

I agree, we shouldn't change this thread to discussion about the Ripple system (there's already a lot of threads about that).

"And if i want to demonstrate that there is a bug in a software, i don't do that by putting people who trust me in the condition of losing lots of money. REAL bitcoins..."

THERE ARE NO REAL BITCOINS ON RIPPLE. What part of this don't you understand? People never lost real bitcoins in Ripple, they never had any in the first place. They may have had different kinds of IOUs exchanged, but they did not lose any real bitcoins. It's another flaw with Ripple - all IOUs are not the same.

Either way, on behalf of RippleScam.org, thank you for bringing more awareness to the flaws of ripple. It's exactly what we need to prevent a centralized currency from invading decentralized money. You'll thank the movement later unless you want to sit on what remains of bitcointalk in year 2020, complaining about gateways freezing accounts, charging $30 [2013 dollar] transfer fees, and wondering when the source code for Ripple will ever be released.

You have encouraged people to withdraw those fake bitcoins, aware that someone else would have lost his trustworthy IOUS from bitstamp, id est his real bitcoin, beacuse of you.

You cannot prove that you were not in agreement with people who actually stolen the money, or that you didn't steal.

I'm not in love with Ripple, i would have appreciated a discussion or a rescueless experiment; scamming is just scamming.

For a scammer tag, the accused person needs to have promised to do something and then failed to deliver on the promise. TradeFortress never promised to pay anyone any bitcoins here. If you trust him to do something that he didn't promise, that's your problem.

So, 2 ways: you are stupid or you think people who read is stupid.

Real bitcoins were transferred between account in a gateway.

But, if you hate IOUS at all, i must think that you NEVER TRADED ON AN EXCHANGE, right?
Because when you deposit you bitcoins on MtGox, for example, that magic number that appears near to the label "bitcoin"... would you mean what it is? It's an IOU, sweety.

You haven't even a bank account i suppose... i suppose you live on the moon.

No he hasn't.
It's not fake BTC.

He conned a bunch of newbies into trusting him for 100 BTC with the promise of "1 free Ripple BTC". He gave a pretty picture so that the newbies without a clue could follow his misguided instructions.

Those users have placed a trust in TradeFortress that he is good for 100 BTC when of course he has absolutly no intention of doing so. His goal is to let others use Ripples liquidity features to take the gateway BTC of any newb that has any. One person had 1 BTC/Bitstamp taken out of his account in exchange for 1 BTC/TradeFortress (because that's what TradeFortress knowingly conned the nebie into telling Ripple it was okay to do).

Read further. One person that put his misplaced trust in  TradeFortress is out 1 BTC from Bitstamp.

*ahem*

What did we learn today, class?

> You cannot prove that you were not in agreement with people who actually stolen the money, or that you didn't steal.

You are a scammer, because you cannot prove you were not the guy that hacked Bitcoinica.

K, we are getting into discussions about Ripple now. I'll just say.. real bank accounts in real life do not automatically exchange your Commonwealth bank (or something) for your casual friend's IOU.

You give trust every time you want to receive payments in Ripple, no I didn't get 1 BTC, someone else did. Mt Gox isn't responsible if someone sends coins to Satoshi Dice, even if you argue "but they should have added warnings!".

OK, if 3 topics and lots of people probably scammed aren't enough, i have to follow your argument:

from the first post in TradeFortress topic, everybody can read he encouraged people to withdraw HIS ious at a gateway. But this isn't possible, not every Bitcoin issued by TradeFortress is withdrawable at a gateway.

Show me the agreement that TradeFortress violated.


How many LTC per TradeFortressRippleCoin? ;)

That's not an argument, you organized a fraudolent network based on lie.
Read further and answer the next question if you can.

@Other People: you can like or dislike Ripple, and i can agree or disagree, but that's not the point.

Just facts: TradeFortress issued IOUs and sent them to users who trusted him. IOU means "I owe you". Thus he admitted that he owes to that people.

Question: If one owes to people who trust him, but is not going to pay them, then who is that person?

No we don't. We have a small network of newbs (plus a scammer or three) that have a mostly closed trust network with very little liquidity to someone trustworthy..

I don't recognize Ripple IOUs as binding agreements.

Where did I say I will redeem my IOUs? Ripple is also used for shares, you can't redeem them, so I guess dividendrippler is a scam.

I made it clear in the title that you get a *ripple* Bitcoin which you have got.

Sorry, we aren't talking of Ripple IOUs as binding agreements, but that he promised to sell something withrawable in a gateway, for bitcoins.

By the Way, if you don't lock that topic, other people will fall there and lose theyr money.

Show me where I promised it, read that line again, did I promise they can be redeemed.

Also, you think social experiments last forever?

I should also clarify a few things:

I very much supported Ripple during the closed beta.

I stopped stopping Ripple when no source code was released, while they advertise as open source.

I have not profited, or obtained any bit coins using liquidity providers, from the social experiment. Others may have on their initiative.

Nobody has contacted me regarding a loss. If they did, I would cover them out of my pocket after agreeing that ripple is a bad idea, however now I said this people can try to defraud me.

Plus, the topic was self-moderated so the countless lies you said to people who had doubts are lost.

Cool, now where did I promise you were able to withdraw them? I listed the steps.

Guys, a scam is a scam because there is people who believe in it. That's why you posted in the newbye section and the topic was self-moderated.

I agree with you that opencoin should make much more hard to give trust to people, but that's not the point.

If you dislike guns, will you shoot at people to demonstrate that it hurts? You would go to jail.

I don't accuse anybody, I just raise a question. How would you qualify a person who deliberately asked for trust and issued debt without intention to pay for it?

Is that person doing it for personal gain, or to bring awareness to it?

His intentions are honorable, but does it matter? (e. g. Robin Hood was a thief with honorable intentions... and in fact he was the criminal)

I don't agree TF is a scammer.  A troll, maybe, but with a purpose.

However, I would agree with the warning not to do this with an account that is associated with anything like real money or real BTC, or if you ever intend to use this ridiculous service.  

If it is this trivially easy to game this system, it has serious issues.

Compare to the BTC network.  If the transaction hits the blockchain and gets confirms, I can be absolutely certain there is real money there.  With Ripple, I have 5 BTC of utter bullshit sitting there.  There it is, in my imaginary balance.  I'd never attempt to spend it.  I think it would be fraud if I did.  

However, what is it that this system allows me to be looking at a balance screen telling me I have 5 BTC when in fact they are basically imaginary?  That's honesty?

As i said in the other topic, your accusations about Ripples aren't rootless at all, i've read your site and some posts.

People can read and think and you can't force them into doing that by rescuing theyr bitcoins, or stealing; or letting others to steal. You have crossed the line.

That's exactly the same system you use everytime you log into MtGox to trade your bitcoins  8)

Let me remind you that Matthew N. Wright received a scammer tag on this forum for his trolling that appeared to be a binding contract, lol... And had to settle it somehow with his so called victims, i. e. to pay for it.

Though I totally understand both tolls and sincerely don't wish any of them to have a scammer tag (I can't be sure I won't receive a scammer tag for similar trolling of myself in future, but I'll try to be careful, lol).


Most money we use everyday are imaginary. If you trust IOU issuers, then you trust this balance. If you don't trust that person anymore, you can remove the trust and the balance will probably change? I don't know, I am just learning that system. But the concept is interesting. And in fact we use it everyday when we deal with any kind of bank accounts, online balances, etc.

Yep, except there's recourse if Gox fails to repay, because you did not turn over ownership of anything to Gox, only control (and very limited control, at that). If Gox holds $10 of yours, it's still yours.

- So the analogy doesn't fly. Gox isn't giving you IOUs (except with GoxUSD and GoxBTC codes which are no longer available) - they aren't giving you anything -- they're just showing you what of yours they are in partial control of.

That isn't really similar, see

Matthew promised to pay out. I never promised to honor Ripple IOUs, and you would have to have misread it to think I was even implying.

I'd also suggest you read Satoshi's quotes on the banking system and the idea of trust. We *don't* need trust anymore with Bitcoin. It's one of the ads for this week too.

I will now be sending the full trust line amount, so they do not become liquidity providers. I think the damage has already being done for that point :)

I never realized how flawed ripple is, thanks for that.

Guys, do you understand that for this joke an account lost 1 BTC reedemable on Bitstamp?

TradeFortress should edit the topic to be no more self-moderated, allowing people to report financial loss and take the obligation to repay whoever demonstrate to have lost bitcoins.


About Ripple, (i'm a bit frustrated because a bunch of senior member are sistematically going Off Topic here, because we're not talking about Ripple here), ok yes, so you're right.

If someone decides to ignore the fact that giving trust on Ripple can bring a money loss, which is written in capital letters everywhere, this guy can be scammed. So through Ripple you can trick a person.
I was naively thinking that you can scam a person with fiat too. And with Bitcoin you can easy do money laundering, and buy weapons and drugs. So we just don't use any kind of money, crypto or not.

EDIT: still people giving him trust

MNW explicitly agreed to a scammer tag in the event that he reneged.  His situation is kind of unique to him.

Lost another IOU?  Where's the transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain where real BTC went from one actual person to another? 

It'd look kind of like this:  http://blockchain.info/tx/678a1eda47d92337246b1dbfe429baf9c6c89fbb0f50d274b0ae7c0078781e94 (http://blockchain.info/tx/678a1eda47d92337246b1dbfe429baf9c6c89fbb0f50d274b0ae7c0078781e94)

This is definitely an example of why someone shouldn't do this, at least not with an account with any real anything in it.  Did TF get this?  Is he actually cashing in things from people and turning them into real BTC in his wallet?

That's as stupid as asking someone what the serial numbers on the dollar bills they lost were when someone loses money with a credit card or a bank card or a cheque or something. Do you think the police ask that and then say "well geez no `money` was stolen then sorry".

Exactly.

Thanks for making this clear, theymos.  

The irony is this, you all get scammed due to your own greedy desires.

Scammers are opurtunists. Don't hate player hate the game

Why?!

They are signed statements that there will be a settlement of debt in the future, they are even more explicit than any "loan agreement" on this forum.

Issuing debt with the clear intention of not settling it should at least be mentioned in the topic... I can pull off similar stuff in Bitcoin but then I'd be labeled scammer for sure.

No, they are not explicit. When will they be settled? In what methods will they be settled (this is important for fiat like USD)? What about something like XAU - shipping availability, costs, insurance?

They're just arbitrary tokens. In fact, one person may think "FAV" is a favor, one person might think it's a favicon. Kinda absurd example, but that's another flaw for another day.

First of all leave trade fortress alone you bullies. If you are not one of the victims or lawyering for them, Then keep the accusations for yourselves. Everybody knows ripple is a scam and if someone really really wants some darn ripple IOUs, Why not giving them what they want? They got what they wanted and not being redeemable via a gateway is a whole different issue (Ripple is a SCAM)


Is this discussion about ripple IOUs or the US Dollar? As I recall even before the Dollar went off the silver backing you couldn't just go and redeem the silver.

Actually there is ample room here for a cherry truck argument (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=121915.msg1326706#msg1326706). "They are both equally something or the other because they both were involved and that's all it takes" or some such Joel Katz level idiocy.


Not in Bitcoin. Which is precisely why people like Bitcoin. You can't have both ends.


Ditto.

Well, if you are OK with getting paid in Ripple IOUs issued that can't be redeemed.

I have not said that I will let you redeem the BTC, I've even implied that you wouldn't be able to. It would be a clear and shut case if I told people that I would send them a bitcoin via ripple that they can redeem from me, versus sending them a Ripple BTC - which are not BTC.

It's like those 5 BTC coins with no value / private key on them that were selling recently, you know? They say 5 BTC, they are not 5 BTC, they don't have the private key of 5 BTC. When someone sells that for 0.04 each (or even free, in this case), crying in scammer accusations isn't going to help you - even if the seller didn't explicitly state that "they cannot be redeemed by BTCs". Example:

Casascius.com:

Now this would be an agreement. Or something similar, especially if it's signed.

An arbitrary token of an IOU with no terms attached is not. I would have broken an agreement if I used Ripple to send BTCs where I had redemption / repayment terms, and broke that.

Ripple is the same thing. It's OpenCoin Inc's fault for saying "send money" on their website, when Ripple is incapable of sending money other than XRP.

Ripple IOUs are binding agreements if and only if people believe they are.

Just as US police could or could not decide bitcoins have value, and thus persecute or not persecute someone who stole them. Same thing: the infrastructure is there, we give it meaning.

Anyway, never trust people not trustworthy, and the problem will go away by itself.

I'm stunned.

you guys are telling:

"I don't like Ripple, just let people to lost money to demonstrate it is flawed"

Cmon, let the game go on! Just use this forum and the bitcoin itself to organize a gigantic scam which could end in someone losing a big amount of bitcoin and some smart scammer exploit that stupid "experiment"!

Rly, rly.

If people are so stupid to use RIpple and give trust to TF, they DESERVE to be scammed! And he's not a scammer!!!


I love this pure and disinterested logic!!!

Let's stole all BTC of ingenuous people! WOW.

It's not about "binding agreements" or "signed statements". I don't see anything wrong here. That's just how Ripple works.

Anyway, there is no difference between his IOU Bitcoins and any other "coins" on Ripple. If you want to send BTC, Ripple has no way to do that, because Ripple cannot handle actual Bitcoin, it can only handle promises out of thin air (and XRP). By trusting an user, you accept his promise, which is never backed up by real value, till you find someone who is willing to exchange some real goods for that promise.

There will always be someone left, who ended up with no real value, but IOUs. It's not a zero game.

An IOU is a promise to pay. TradeFortress has issued IOUs which are essentially promises. He did this using the Ripple system. All of his transactions are part of the ledger. But he hasn't let anyone redeem his promises into actual Bitcoins.

This is no different than someone coming to the forum and saying "I owe you XXX BTC and I promise to pay you in the future." Except that he did it using a cryptographically secure accounting system (called Ripple).

To make matters worse, he took advantage of people by using the forum to promise bitcoins to people in order to get them to extend trust to him in the Ripple system. Then he used that trust to loot their Bitstamp BTC IOUs, replacing them with his worthless "TradeFortress BTC IOUs" (promises to pay Bitcoins).

All of this information is right there in the Ripple ledger. His Ripple address is rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv and you can see his transaction history here:

https://ripple.com/graph/#r3kmLJN5D28dHuH8vZNUZpMC43pEHpaocV

This shows that he has promised users 1,454.65 worth of Bitcoins. But when you try to redeem these promises, he does not pay the Bitcoins he promised.

If the SCAMMER tag applies to someone who makes a promise and then does not deliver, then TradeFortress is the poster child.

His reasoning is probably along the lines of "1 'BTC' on Ripple does not even mean 'bitcoin', it can mean anything!".

At least he gave these away for free, still there can be considerable harm done to anyone keeping the 100 BTC trust line to him. I'd advise anyone to remove the trust (= trusting him for 0 BTC) asap, especially if there is any intention of having other BTC IOUs in the same account.

There are very few TradeFortressRippleBitcoinIOUcoins out there - they may actually be worth more than 1btc - they may become collectors items in the future.

Yep, they are scarce so far, but you can buy few (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207054.msg2167599#msg2167599). Or probably TradeFortress would send them for free if you ask him.


Regarding the flaw of Ripple... This is quite discussible. IMHO it is not the system flawed, it is trust to this particular issuer flawed.

The issuer of IOUs knows what IOU means and what BTC means and what BTC IOU means... Only the ones that trusted that issuer could loose anything. So is it a Ripple scam, or the issuer, who abused the trust?

What a salesman! - I've put in a bid.

I've opened up an issue in Github so that the client can be more explicit:

Second trust line for the same currency should produce a warning dialog (https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple-client/issues/682) (github.com)

And now you all experienced first hand(again) how bad a debt based currency is.

I can only LOL.

No, it shows how stupid it is to trust strangers in general and TF in particular.

But the IOU system itself is great, because it allows for P2P cash payments, i.e. electronic long distance transactions that are netted and then settled in cash with your trusted associates. This is exactly the sort of thing that will allow BTC <-> fiat exchanges to continue even if governments are unwise enough to try to suppress it.

premise: if you give 1 btc to a person, he or she can default on this loan
conclusion: ripple is scam
perfect logic  :P

Pretty unethical what TF has done.

There was obviously ulterior motives at hand when that thread was made (The one you got scammed by).

Doubt you're going to achieve anything through this thread however. This isn't the first time he's dodged bullets as far as scam accusations go. Just google it lol

I wasn't scammed, i've just wanted to warn others.

I've saw the thread in the morning, posted there to warn people but the post was deleted, and yesterday evening when i came back to home i saw the thread full of potentially scammed people.

I don't understand what's going on here.

So far people are claiming this sequence of events:

1. TradeFortress posts thread in newbie section asking people to do something on ripple and that he will give them one ripple BTC.

1a. TradeFortress does not mention that people who follow his instructions could lose BTC.

2. People follow TradeFortresses instructions

3. At least one person ends up losing *actual* BTC because of TradeFortress.

4. This is completely acceptable.

Is this correct?

Well.. They don't loose actual BTC.. they loose BTC IOUs from another issuer (Bitstamp) whom they trust too. And they don't really loose it.. They just get TradeFortress BTC IOUs instead.

The problem is that unlike Bitstamp (who is trustworthy) TradeFortress doesn't want to acknowledge that he has to pay his debts. So you shouldn't have trusted him. If you trusted him - you loose.

Not exactly. It's more like this:

1. TradeFortress issues a cryptographically signed, digital promise to provide actual Bitcoins in the future when the promise is redeemed

2. TradeFortrees breaks his promise.

Maybe the problem is how few of us actually understand Ripple.

When I look at the linked page, it seems Ripple is telling me TF owes ~$900 and ~.04BTC. How do we see how much money TF took from others (not trust, but the redeemable BSTP BTC notes)?

No, he just gave people Ripple TradeFortress bitcoins - they have a market value independent of bitcoins based on demand. People can trade these coins and establish a value based on market forces.
Since the word 'bitcoin' is made up it can mean anything - the word 'bitcoin' has no legal status.
If I say I'll give you $20 which $ am I referring to? Australian? Canadian? or my own made up $ currency?

TradeFortress knows what BTC is. He knows that his IOU recipients understand BTC the same way.

I believe it's called selling someone a bill of goods.

So you were one of the one's who blindly posted there address, then found out with was an experiment WHICH WAS CLEARLY OUTLINED IN HIS POST.

So now your butt is hurting so much you needed to make a post flinging blind(read as ignorant) accusations?

Pls leave.

Srs.

TradeFortress has said that he is sending BTC to your Ripple account.  Not that he is sending Ripple BTC. This is a PROMISE to pay real BTC.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.msg2175378#msg2175378
In this post he writes: "Over 177 BTC has being sent."

He didn't say "177 non-redeemable ripple-fake-btc sent"  He said he sent 177 BTC.

He said he's giving away 1 BTC on Ripple.   In order to do that, he is giving people an IOU for a BTC (a PROMISE to pay you 1 BTC)  that can be redeemed by you giving him back the IOU.  He knows this, knows he will not redeem any of his IOUs (won't fulfill his PROMISE to pay you the BTC) and is using the trust he is asking people to give him to steal BTC IOU's issued by legitimate providers that will redeem their receipts for real BTC.   It's a scam, he's running the scam and he's a scumbag for doing it.

There is no error in the Ripple system.  The system is based on IOUs- trust and receipts and promises to pay.  When you issue a BTC-ripple you are issuing a PROMISE TO PAY THE REAL THING.   He knows this and is tricking people, but that's not all he's doing.   He's tricking them and then stealing BTC-ripple IOUs from vendors that will fulfill their PROMISE to redeem the IOU's with REAL BITCOINS (unlike this douchebag).

That's not a "social experiment" - that's called fraud.   It doesn't matter that he's using a system that people don't understand in order to perpetrate the fraud.  He is using misrepresentation and most Bitcoiner's ignorance of how Ripple works in order to do defraud people (or enable them to be defrauded by others).

Ripple as a system isn't meant to send actual BTC, it's meant to send IOUs.  Douchebag TradeFortress knows this.  

The only currency in Ripple that is similar to BTC is XRP.

I see nothing that says that TradeFortress plans to redeem the IOUs he has issued and to make matters worse he sent the following private IM to me when I asked him about it:


So he is essentially saying he won't be redeeming the IOUs he's issued but will profit by exchanging his own for one's issued by providers that do redeem their IOU's.

This is a flat out scam.

He can pretend that he's finding a "flaw" in Ripple, but the entire Ripple payment system is based on Trust and by tricking new members into thinking that he is giving them a Bitcoin by having them trust him for 100 BTC in the Ripple interface he is not exposing a flaw in the system, but rather exposing himself as a scumbag scammer.

Thank you for the opportunity you gave me to explain to everybody that, of course, i wasn't in that list.
I just wanted to help newbyes whose had fallen in that scammy thread.




Because they have lost theyr BTC.

Ripple as a system isn't meant to send actual BTC, it's meant to send IOUs for actual BTC.  Douchebag TradeFortress knows this but doesn't plan to honor his IOU's but rather plans to exchange them for IOU's issued by others that will be honored as he clearly stated in his PM to me...


The only currency in Ripple that is similar to BTC is XRP.  So pretending or implying to Newbies (where he posted) that sending BTC in Ripple is in any way similar to sending BTC through Bitcoin is not only disingenuous but it's sleazy.

TradeFortress is running a scam and it's sad that no moderator has the balls to do anything about it. EDIT: Or maybe the necessary brain power is not available amongst the moderators to understand that Ripple is not the same as Bitcoin and should not be used by a board member to steal ignorant newbie's BTC (which is why TradeFortress - aka - douchebag scammer - is posting on the Newbie board).

Yes, this is the best explanation of this thing.
Actually he didn't promise to pay real bitcoins for the fake ones he gave inside Ripples, but he encouraged people to withdraw them to a gateway, knowingly that this implies someone else losing his reedemable BTCs. A sort of incitement to scam, made possible by his network.



No it doesn't work in this way, 3 letter codes are different for real currencies, like USD for United States Dollar and AUD for Australian ones, if i remember well?
BTC means bitcoin inside Ripples, no matter from what gateway.

Btw, i appreciate very much this

If this is true, he is properly a stealer.

At what point has be broken his promise?

If you borrow 1 BTC from me without agreeing any terms of repayment are you a scammer IMMEDIATELY (as you haven't repaid it?) How about in a week's time?  Or a month?  A year?

An IOU can NOT be defaulted on (other than by the issuer stating that they default) unless a means/time-scale for settlement was agreed.

If you disgaree then answer this simple question:  if you receive 1 TF BTC on ripple at what date/time has be defaulted if he hasn't yet redeemed it?

If your claim is that ALL ripple BTC debts should be IMMEDIATELY redeemable for actual BTC then that has some very nasty logistical issues - not least of which being that if you borrow on ripple (i.e. issue an IOU in return for real BTC) you can't actually spend those BTC without being immediately a scammer as you can no longer redeem them on request.  If, on the other hand, your claim is NOT that all IOUs should be immediately redeemable on request then we're back to asking how/when is the agreed redemption of these TF IOUs?

That's ONE of the flaws this little experiment has addressed - that IOUs with no terms are inherently worthless as they can only ever be redeemed if the issuer of the IOUs voluntarily chooses to do so (there's no clearly defined point at which a 'default' can be declared).  Another flaw shown here (which I pointed out and asked about ages back - but it got ignored despite Ripple team answering easy questions in same thread) is that all IOUs are treated equally - just because I issue trust to A and B does NOT mean I value IOUs from them equally or am fine with IOUs from one being swapped to IOUs from the other without any input from myself.

Bullshit.  Every BTC transaction has a permanent record, which you'd know if you knew jack-shit about BTC.

http://i44.tinypic.com/96hvf7.jpg

Let me translate this:

"Two words: STEAL BTC - through people I misrepresent Ripple to so they'll act as liquidity providers.  I've been able to exchange the BOGUS IOU's I've convinced the ignorant newbie's to take (because they believe I'm giving them real BTC) and been able to get IOU's from legitimate companies that I can turn in for real BTC."

TradeFortress is using a feature of the Ripple system to dupe newbies out of their real Bitcoin.   That's the bottom line.

Good point. IMHO if a person creates a debt that he is not going to pay for, then he is a scammer. There is a difference between "I owe you, let's settle my debt" and "I never promised to redeem it, so in fact I don't owe you anything".


Actually Ripple allows to specify the quality of debts on the protocol level, it is just not in the UI yet. Source: https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple-client/issues/682#issuecomment-18076497

Oops, that's pretty damning.

I don't quite buy the "he promised me 1BTC and I'm obviously not getting it so he's a scammer" line, but if someone is having their valuable bitstamp IOUs swapped for junk TF IOUs, that's bad.

You're not thinking it through far enough.  For one thing, before we can distinguish between the two sample responses you give we need a defined point in time at which the IOU issuer is obliged to give a response at all (a settlement date).

IOUs (taken as meaning any acknowledgement of debt) don't necessarily EVER have to be redeemed.  For example perpetual bonds are never intended to be redeemed - yet are debt.  And on ripple, IOUs can be created for, as an example, shares.  Are those scams because the issuer has no intention of ever redeeming them?

Now IF there were some definition of what minimum liquidity (or maximum time before redemption) had to be provided to be allowed to issue a BTC IOU then we'd be having a very different discussion.  But no such definition exists.  So issuing IOUs with no intention ever to settle is allowed (as opposed to just not prevented) - which is, of course, why noone should grant trust to anyone without making an agreement outside of ripple on the terms for settlement (do even ripple gateways actually provide a guaranteed time-scale for redemption of their IOUs on request?).

Maybe ripple should add a popup when someone tries to extend trust - refusing to do so unless the user ticks a box saying "I have agreed to this issuer's policy on redeeming their IOUs in general and, if applicable, this one in particular".

Definition of fraud - Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

Deceiving newbies into thinking you're going to give them a Bitcoin in a ledger system they don't understand so you can cash in on their real BTC being held at Bitstamp qualifies under this definition I would think.

Thanks for your valuable arguments. You might be right and I think I understand now why theymos said IOU is not a binding contract. But now I feel totally confused. What is debt then, if it is doesn't ever have to be repaid?


Yes, that might be useful. I don't yet know how IOUs are being issued in Ripple, but maybe they should have that policy included.

I don't think you understand how to watch a graph, because I haven't used the liquidity provider trick, other people (like iron cross mentioned) did.

Like I said before I have not cashed in anything for this. I am able to, however I haven't (other than testing that it works obviously, just like the 1 tril BTC in my screenshot).

I also have zero plans to honor Ripple IOUs unless I explicitly state a policy.

Then why in the hell would you PM and say "I've being able to exchange my own IOUs for bit stamp ones..."?

Here's the deal:  You deceived newbies by playing on their ignorance of the Ripple system.   Whether you steal their Bitcoin or people you know steal their Bitcoin, in either case, you've been a party to fraud.  That's not cool dude.

Didn't I just say except testing? I think I should go to jail now, for hacking my own webserver  ::)

Reading comprehension, thnx.

Yeah if I got a newbie to give me their secret key for their Bitcoin wallet and said it was for "testing" would that make it OK?

You're really something.  You must have some good friends on this board to get away with this kind of shit.

I think you're being confused here, if I got my own private key for my address would it be OK?

Hint: yes.

Debt is something that you owe - a claim someone else has against you.  Not all debts are created with the intention of being repaid (e.g. loans that are made for tax reasons without either party to the loan having an intention of there ever being a repayment).  Perpetual bonds are another example of debt that will never be repaid (talking RL ones not the pretend mining ones on here).  The bond issuer borrows money that will never be repaid - paying interest (a dividend) on it regularly.  The only way to get your cash back is to sell it to someone else.

That's why debt/IOUs with no agreed terms is worthless.

Maybe an example will help - for the examples below the assumption to be made is that I WILL honour any commitments I made (in practice all debt should be discounted in value based on your confidence that I'd repay):

If I said I'd owe you 20 BTCs to be settled in a week in return for 10 BTCs from you now then (IF you had total trust in me) you could reasonably value those 20 ripple BTCs at similar value to 20 actual BTCs.

If I said I'd owe you 20 BTCs to be settled in 5 years in return for 10 BTCs from you now then (IF you had total trust in me) you would STILL have to value them at a lot less than 20 actual BTCs (as they'd generate no revenue in the meantime and were illiquid).

In ripple BTCs of each of the above scenarios are treated as being interchangeable (whether its 2 sets from same issuer or from 2 different issuers) - despite the fact they have very different actual value.

Now consider a third scenario (equivalent to perpetual bonds):

I say that if you give me 10 BTC now I'll owe you 10 BTC on ripple.  I will never repay those BTC but on the first of each month I'll send 0.01 BTC for each BTC owed to whoever currently holds them.  Again - to ripple those are just BTC - and swappable with anyone else's BTC (provided someone trusts both me and the other issuer).  These BTC may have more or less value than the other ones - depending on how people value 1% interest/month against liquidity.  But I'll never repay them - and am NOT a scammer for issuing them.

Now the final case.  I say if you give me 10 BTC now I'll owe you 20 BTC on ripple but will only ever repay them if I win the lottery.  What are those BTC worth?  Nearly nothing (even ignoring the fact that I don't play the lottery).

Do you see how the value of a debt/IOU is defined by the TERMS that apply to it - not by its face value?  But ripple treats them all based on face value.

TF's ones were pretty much explicitly worthless.  In the absence of terms the only way to reasonably assess value of something is to look at what consideration was given in return for them - and assume a similar value.  Nothing was given - so their value is gong to be around zero.

I'm not confused at all.

You posted on a newbie forum the following: " I am giving away at least 1 BTC per address on Ripple."

You flat out said you are giving away BTC on Ripple.  The only way to do that on Ripple is to issue an IOU since the only trust-free currency on Ripple is XRP.   You are playing on the fact that people don't understand how Ripple works.  That is not a flaw.   Just like if someone didn't understand how public/private key encryption works it would be sleazy to ask them for the PRIVATE key of their wallet to deposit money and then use that private key to steal the rest of the BTC from their wallet.

I'm done arguing with you.   If the Mods here think it's OK to put up a little red warning when one of their Hero members is pulling a full out scam on ignorant newbies then so be it.

That's true. However, I haven't used it to steal BTC IOUs from other people's wallet, people who have zero affiliation with me (other than also being sent my IOUs) did.

TESTING MEANS TEST IT ON MYSELF / OWN ACCOUNTS. I am not responsible for anything other people do. Oh, and see Deprived response for why Ripple is actually flawed in how liquidity providers work.

You're involved in a scam.  If you did the same thing with secret keys (knowing that people didn't understand what they were) and then gave those secret keys away to other people - would that make you any less culpable in the scam?   I think not.

Having people trust you for 100 BTC in Ripple is the same thing as asking someone who doesn't know the difference between a private key and public key to give you a private key.   In both cases you are playing on someone's ignorance of the system and promoting theft - whether you do the stealing or not.

Uhh, no. If I send someone a bitcoin in exchange for a private key, that's not theft, I'm buying vanity addresses. ::) ::)

It's actually NOT the same thing.

If I ask someone to give me their private key and they do, noone else can do anything to harm them unless I give away the key.
If I ask someone to trust me for 100 BTC on ripple and they do then other people can cause them financial loss WITHOUT me doing anything.

The difference is down to a flaw in how ripple is implemented - that it values all IOUs based purely on face-value.  So 1 BTC issued by a gateway that will redeem immediately is treated as having the same value as a BTC issued by a penniless bum with a track-record of scamming, failing to meet promises and zero assets (a large chunk of the forum membership falls in this group).  Or, as in this case, the same value as a BTC issued by someone trying to prove just how bad that system is - with no promise or intent of ever redeeming it.

Issuing the BTC did no harm - where harm occurred was from the requirement to extend 100 BTC of trust in return for receiving 1 BTC of worthless IOU.  But seriously - anyone dumb enough to do that DESERVES to suffer loss as an example to the rest of the community.

If I said I'd give you an IOU for $1 in return for being allowed to use your $100 overdraft facility at your bank would you accept?  If not, why would you accept the same offer made on ripple?  Because that's basically what the deal was - just most people accepting it didn't have a usable overdraft facility so were immune to harm.

I do really see a problem now. Probably it is not a good idea to exchange IOUs automatically. It is not only the problem of trust, but the problem of different issuer's policies too. It can't be solved with a simple numeric field, there should be some way to attach a contract to the IOU, so that when one grants trust, s/he could accept the terms. But wait... Looks like there are contracts in Ripple: https://ripple.com/wiki/Contracts .

TradeFortress, what did you do to issue IOUs? I just don't know how it is done in Ripple.. Did you have to create and sign a contract?

I clicked on "Send Money", entered an ripple address, typed [1 to 100] BTC, and clicked on send.

So if someone trusts me for some currency, I can just use default client and send him or her that currency without having it on my account?

You just issue them - no contracts, no need to have any BTC, no need to be owed anythig yourself.  Only two requirements to issue ANY amount of debt:

1.  You have some XRPs
2.  The person you're issuing to has unused trust towards you at least equal to the amount of debt you're creating.

Make an alt account, trust your main account for a billion BTC and you can send a billion BTC to it.  That simple.  And if someone else trusts you AND a gateway then those 1 billion BTC can be exchanged for ones issued by the gateway (up to the lower of their trust to you and their trust to the gateway).  As far as ripple is concerned they're all just BTC with equal value (to anyone who trusts both issuers).

Correct. You should thank me for the social experiment, because now you know how Ripple is broken.

Yes.

You CAN'T have it on your account - all you can have in your account are XRPs and IOUs.

I will tip you when I receive my 0.06 btc from the auction (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207054.0), lol

Edit: if you give me your bitcoin address

That's the point. Tricking the dumbs and make them losing money.

I only take Ripple IOUs :D

If you'd like to tip, my address is in my sig (1GLadosEkeAsLReqS3yQ51E1R3wVtbJCDF)

Thanks for clarification. I knew I can have only XRP and IOUs in Ripple. But for some reason I assumed I have to issue IOUs (i. e. to have my own IOUs in my account) before sending them to anybody.

Some simple questions for TradeFortress which i wish he will answer.
Let's stay on basic topics.

You offered 1 BTC Iou on Ripple through that thread.

1) Did you warn people who trusted you that you weren't able to repay that "I owe you" with real bitcoins?
    
2) You encouraged people to withdraw those IOUs in a gateway?

3) Did you know that such a withdraw could have (and probably did) resulted in financial loss (even huge one) to another user who naively trusted you?

4) That Bitcoin you withdrawed to Bitstamp, was previously owned by you?

5) Why did you choose to post that thread in the newbye section?

6) Why the thread was self-moderated?

Most of the questions you can answer yourself, and the others are pointless, but 4) to bitstamp transactions > 0.01 were not mine.

I'm glad to read from you in person that at least you stole 0.01 BTC.

Just confirm if i'm right:


Sounds like an admission. Just to clarify: point (3) states that you've allowed the guys who understand the mechanism to steal money to the gullible.
I'd like to hear from you the answer of the last 2 questions:



MAy i add:

7) Do you are conscious that it could have ended with people losing much much more bitcoins?

8 ) Given that only 1.01 bitcoins were stolen, you consider what you call an "experiment", and i define a scam, succesfully?

Since many here talked like they have never signed a contract in their life, I decide to chime in with some common sense.

The fact is that even if the mods want to do something to TF(like, giving him a scammer tag), they could not, for exactly the same reason why an IOU is not enforceable legally: an IOU does not specify repayment terms such as the time of repayment. Without the super important set time, TF can always claim something like:"Yeah, I do want to pay back, but I never said when I will pay back, and I actually meant a thousand years later." It may sound ridiculous but if you use your brain, to say a thousand years here is not different from saying one month or one year, the mods can not give him a scammer tag because there is no condition upon which they can judge if he indeed defaults. Unlike MNW's case, where the condition is "if pirateat40 defaults", which he did, or any other unpaid loan for which a payback date was specified in the terms.

A minor point is that TF wrote in the post title that he will give away a "Ripple BTC", rather than a "real BTC", although he was actually a bit ambiguous with that.

Wtf? No, I have not stole anyone's 0.01 or 1 or whatever (excluding my testing ones which are my own fucking coins)

I said that transactions > 0.01 were not mine, that doesn't mean *my* transactions were not involving my accounts / coins. Some of my testing txes were done in the account you know, some on my other accounts, but I have not stole anyone's coins.

It's pointless to reply further because you don't know how to read.

@oakpacific:
i'm in complete agreement with you. The scam doesn't consist in his denial to repay the IOUs, althought, as you said, he was ambiguos on purpose.

The scam is done by tricking people who don't understand how ripple works to give him trust; this is exploitable from others (and maybe himself) to change reliable ious (as bitstamp's ones) with his worthless ious. Say, to steal bitcoins to the gullible.

We should emphasize that the gullible ones are not the only victims. Also people who know TF, or see his status as a member of this forum, can't imagine that he would have put them in the condition of lose real bitcoins, instead of receiving a gift. Betrayed trust, scam... as you want.
Watch the denunciation posts and how many people are thanking me and other guys for the explanation.


I've not lost faith: TF, would you answer the last 4 questions?

Try to be consistent.

If you now states that those 0.01 bitcoin was "your fucking bitcoins" you can please give us the ripple address from wich they came and prove that it is yours?

But please, most important are the last questions.

The problem is not what you think scamming is, it's what the mods think. As long as they are consistent(their standard obviously includes "breach of enforceable terms"), they do not apply a double standard and are faultless. In fact, if they apply a scammer tag to TF now, they could be in doubt for using double standard.

I'm interested also in what YOU think


I think that is very bad  for bitcoin itself if someone can exploit his reputation as user of this forum to organize a scam letting people to steal other's bitcoins, whatever are his intentions.

Your very first question is where you're going wrong.

"Repay" what?  What did they pay him that needs to be repaid?

The whole point of what he did is to show that ripple BTC ious are worth nothing - and so he can give them away for free.  If someone wants him to "repay" the NOTHING they paid for the IOUs in the first place then I'm sure he will.

If you mean he wasn't able to redeem the IOUs then the you're also wrong - for at least two reasons:

1.  He COULD pay off all the IOUs with 1 real BTC if he wanted to - he HAS enough funds.  So your wording is wrong anyway.
2   What was the agreed means of repayment and the time at which it was to be made?  There isn't any - so debating whether he can (or will) do something that isn't defined or agreed is meaningless.

You're confusing a worthless IOU with a contractual obligation to repay a debt.  Ripple allows issuing both of those types of paper - and treats them the same (and allows them to be swapped for one another) - which is the issue being highlighted.

I'm tempted to offer to pay off his debt to close this matter - obviously I'd pay it off with ripple IOUs :)

Remember TradeFortress set this mess up to show how the ripple system works. If this much confusion comes from 1 person imagine how it will work with billions of people...

Also TradeFortress has not profited from this mess, others have taken advantage.

And TradeFortress did say he would cover some losses because his intention was not to scam but to show how flawed ripple is. (And TradeFortress didn't lie and has not profited either)

Personally I am skeptical about ripple working after its been open sourced and decentralized, especially when the only currency you can trust is the XRP which OpenCoin own almost all of them.

@Deprived:
  probably you don't read my previous posts. I'm totally conscious that he didn't explicity promise to repay those IOUS.

The trick consist of another mechanism, which i explained so many times, and is based on trust (ripple's one), not on his IOUs.

Please, find the time to read the denunciation thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207535.0)or my previous posts here. At least 1 bitcoin was taken away from a noob, but this trick could have caused much higher losses.

Benefit of the doubt: he wasn't scamming, but he was utterly reckless.  Bottom line: people who partake in the "social experiment" can lose bona fide BTC IOUs.  Worse, they were drawn in to the "social experiment" with the promise of 1BTC that they could cash out.  That is BAD for the forum, particularly given this was posted in the n00bs section.

Lesson learned?  There should at least be a PSA about removing the trusts or dumping the Ripple account.  Not sure how you handle the lost IOUs of value... the TF IOUs clearly aren't going to pay out.

Hes making a point of the flaws of ripple
Would say its not a scam but a way of pointing out an obvious exploit in the system
Better to force awareness than have this become a real scam

@Runam0k: i totally agree with you in all your points ; )

@drawingthesun:
      TF later denied to cover the losses, this would have been very nice (considering that we are talking about only 1 BTC).
       But... did he show anything? Besides in that thread there were a lots of noob, only 1 BTC was stolen, and he has contributed to explain Ripple's trust lines... great fail in my opinion ; )


But to understand how rash he was, you have to think how many bitcoins could have been stolen with that mess... hundreds...

I am consistent, I have not withdrawn a Bitcoin to bit stamp (I don't even trust them enough for more than a couple of dollars). So, like I said, transactions > 0.01 are not mine, my test transactions which were .01 and smaller amounts on other accounts are my coins.

Also, I feel the need to say this because I know you will get it wrong - not all of the 0.01 may be/are mine, anyone who I gave BTC to could have done it, and I don't know other peoples transactions or care enough to check.

I'm happy to sign a message for you to prove it.

Re covering losses: nobody has claimed any with me. I cannot have a policy of covering all losses, as I do not know if they are the same person pretending they lost, but I'm happy to work on a case by case basis. In addition, I did not directly cause anyone any loss, the flaws in the ripple system had allowed other people to.

Is it possible to make lots of fake Bitcoins and withdraw them through Bitstamp?

I send 100 BTC to Bob. Bob had 100 BTC in Bitstamp IOUs.

Bob makes another account, and makes it look like someone else exchanged his bitstamp IOUs when he did it himselves. He comes to me and asks me for 100 BTC "he lost" (to himself).

It's not an exploit. It's a feature, not a bug. The mistake is to trust someone you don't know and to choose an excessive amount for that trust line. When you trust someone in Ripple, it's not like friending them on Facebook. It's not a game, it means real trust, not pretend trust. It means you are willing to make payments on their behalf and trusting you will be repaid in an unspecified but reasonable amount of time. You are extending the person unsecured credit. I think 1BTC is high already, and 100BTC is insane.

The recipient has to grant you a specified amount of trust, which in essence means he is extending you credit in the specified amount. The balance between the two of you starts out at zero. When one person makes a fiat payment in Ripple and the balance of the trust line is sufficient to allow it, Ripple will make the payment by adjusting the balance. If it is insufficient, it will try to adjust balances they have with third parties they both trust, such as gateways. If that is insufficient, it will try to involve even more people according to the trust graph. If the sender's wallet balance plus any unused trust lines is insufficient to cover the payment, it won't be made. If it is sufficient, it might still not be made if there are too few paths between sender and recipient and all relevant trust lines are maxed out.

Your total wallet balance is the sum of everything people owe you minus the sum of what you owe other people. Ripple does do the netting for you, but you do still have to periodically settle with people you have a trust relation with. Clearly, these trust lines in Ripple should correspond to real trust between real people in the real world. You should never grant more trust than you are comfortable losing.

Yes, remove the trust line before you make any further Ripple payments. And be aware that Ripple may make you automatically make payments on behalf of anyone you trust, so remove it regardless. The next time TF or anyone else you trust makes a payment, it could be taken out of your account. If someone else trusts you, you could end up owing that person bitcoins. The sum of the amount you owed others and others owed you might cancel out, but that is cold comfort if TF won't pay up. It certainly doesn't excuse you from paying up yourself, even though you are the person who was scammed.

Just a small question. If IOUs are not a binding contracts because they don't have payout terms, then was Matthew N. Wright's contract binding? I re-read his offer, there is no dead line for paying there: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.0

The only deadline there is for Pirate's payment, not for Matthew's. Thus his trolling contract wasn't binding either?

PS: 0.06 btc sent to TradeFortress (http://blockchain.info/tx/5f91bc8ce459d44dab1099b99912e7e54021db611513fd0844fa97b5924cc630), he might need it to repay his debts, lol. Thank for pointing out to potential issues with Ripple!

No, you are everything but consistent. Of course i got it wrong, I made the question for this specific motivation: you couldn't be in control of what ious the system would have swapped.

But you can know it after, if you have lost at least 0.01 bitstamp ious in that trick, which i don't think.



fake argument. It's all public and documented in the ledger, noone can lie about it. Just ask for the ripple account of the person who is claiming the loss and ask them to prove its property.


PS: would you please ask the other questions?

You can alwais create fake credit of any currency by issuing trust to another account you own, as TF did with that 10000000 btcs in his account.

But to withdraw them to a gateway, someone with ious of that gateway must TRUST you, i.e. accepting your fake ious for reliable's one.

Fake argument? Lol, I've already addressed it, try to read. Someone who I sent 100 BTC to could pretend that they "lost" their 100 bitstamp IOUs, when they have not lost it, and just traded it to their alt account.

This is about the fourth or fifth time you disregarded what I have read, so you've being put on my ignore list. I have noticed that Ripplers (including open coin inc employees) tend to read the first couple of posts, jump right back to the last posts, and disregard everything in between more than the average user.

FALSE. If you trust someone who have trusted me, or if you have trusted someone who have trusted someone who have trusted me, [ infinite web of trust ], then you will accept my IOUs and give the sender your bitstamp / etc IOUs.

Even if you have never trusted me, your Bitstamp IOUs could be being substituted for my IOUs.

Hence why Ripple is broken. You know, try reading RippleScam.org, I wrote about it. Before I waste any more of my time responding to your continued garbage, I've added you to my ignore list. Go back to ripple forums (or primary school and learn how to read) :)

I didn't disregard anything. YOu don't understand ripple i guess. You can CONTROL anything there.



FALSE what?
It is exactly how it run. Trusting someone who trusts you is the same thing of trusting you. You're only adding a corollary to my explanation.

PS: would you please ask the last questions?

After reading and thinking a little bit about this I think what TradeFortress did was more akin to vandalism than outright scamming.

You could maybe make an argument for fraud. But really what he did and what his intentions seem to be fits almost perfectly as digital vandalism against Ripple.

Except that the actual vandalism/damage to the Ripple system was non-existant (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207535.msg2184105#msg2184105). If someone cons a bunch of newbs into publishing their bitcoin secret keys that doesn't damage bitcoin or cryptography or prove any big flaw in either; it just shows newbs (and others) are gullible and can be conned. The only real damage (beyond those conned) is the misinformation. He (and others) are just using this as an excuse to spread more misinformation like this statement:

Which is completely and utterly false. Ripple only gives you balances from people you directly trust. He's either purposely lying/exaggerating or he completely doesn't understand Ripple.

I think you should learn how ripple works.

Didn't you came from the ripple forums? Didn't you see the post about "even worse, this account has never trusted TF but will take TF IOUs"?

If you trust someone who trusts me, you're affected, up to an infinite amount of hops.

You either love spreading misinformation or you just don't get basic concepts.  I'm not replying for you, because you've convinced me that you have a huge cognitive bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias) against Ripple. Someone can't be reasoned out of a view they did not reach with reason. I'm replying for others reading that may be reasonable.

What thread is that? I read every post on there and the only ones about this don't say anything like that. Because it can't happen.

That's not what you said. You said (emphasis yours):
Affected is not the same as getting TradeFortress IOUs. Only people that are foolish enough to directly extend trust to TradeFortress can ever get any of his IOUs. Others can only be affected if all the parties in between turn out to be untrustworthy or bad credit risks. The effects of TradeFortress' "experiment" to those that didn't trust him has been zero (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207535.msg2184105#msg2184105) (other than being exposed to his misinformation).

Although a payment path could go through TradeFortress along a long path (not currently; the TF trusting network of newbs is almost completely self contained) only those that directly trust TradeFortress get his IOUs. Other people may get IOUs of their own directly trusted connections. Either these people made a reasonable choice in extending trust to a trustworthy person/gateway that will honour it; or they made a bad choice and extended trust to someone that will betray that trust.

This is a point that TradeFortress (and others) keep bringing up in various ways even after it's been explained and refuted again and again. It's clear that TradeFortress just doesn't care about reality and facts (or lives in his own imaginary world with his own imaginary facts). He (and others) have repeated claimed that trust chains fail through the entire chain. E.g. if Alice violates the trust Bob placed in her that Bob can and should therefore violate the trust that Charlie placed in him. That's the only way such effects can chain through trust relations. The world doesn't work like that. Trust doesn't work like that.

When this is pointed out, I've seen people fall back from saying that Charlie is effected by Bob being untrustworthy to then claiming that Charlie is effected because Bob now doesn't have the money to pay Charlie (due to be scammed by Alice). How is this different than the real world? It's not. If Charlie has trusted Bob for more than Bob can get (without relying on Alice) then Charlie has made a bad choice or needs to wait to be repaid. E.g. if Alice is a con-woman that cons Bob out of his money while he's on his way to pay back Charlie then Charlie doesn't automatically forgive the debt. Either Charlie gives Bob more time to repay or Charlie realizes he made a bad choice trusting Bob to not get conned or to be reliably pay his debts.

Unlike with banks or with bitcoin exchanges where you implicitly trust them by using with them; in Ripple you explicitly state who you trust and exactly for how much. If a person doesn't like the idea of debt or inter-personal IOUs then no one is forcing them to use them with Ripple. A person can fully use Ripple only ever trusting a single gateway the same way they trust a bitcoin exchange. Including, if they want, (as some have suggested) only leaving their funds in Ripple as long as they need to use the service (for conversion or for making/receiving payments). If someone thinks that's still bad then I hope they speak out just as loudly against all the bitcoin exchanges that are giving people internal IOUs for their USD and BTC deposits (and in many cases those IOUs are not transferable).

In relation to people being hypocritical regarding Ripple, I also find it strange/amusing/sad that I see TradeFortress being defending as not meeting the Bitcointalk's strict definitions of a "scammer" by carefully looking at his exact words to note that he never explicitly claimed to be making a promise/guarantee that he then violated and yet many of these same people loudly scream "scam" on these forums at anything related to Ripple without ever pointing to something exact and specific that OpenCoin promised/guaranteed and then violated. There is a reason the OpenCoin (and JoelKatz, etc) account doesn't have a scammer tag. It's also amusing/sad that some claim that anyone that tries to explain the reality and facts of Ripple or promote it must be a paid shill (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shill_gambit).

This whole anti-Ripple "movement" is one giant example of logical fallacies, faulty reasoning, cognitive biases, and who knows what else. A physiologist would have a field day examining this.

Okay, I see where I was wrong. You would not be getting my IOUs if you have not trusted me, you would have got the IOUs of someone who you trusted who trusted me's IOUs which are really being backed by my IOUs. This distinction does not change the fact that:

i) you're still affected
ii) your bitstamp IOUs could have being substituted for someone's IOUs, still based on my IOUs
iii) a large enough default will leave people who you trusted being unable to repay

There's no way for your friend who you trust very much to repay IF he lost every single asset because it was replaced with worthless IOUs.

There is a difference between IOUs on an exchange, and actually trading around IOUs in an infinite web with Ripple substituting your IOUs even through they have a different value. Take this example:

You trust Bitstamp for 20 BTC.
You trust your friend Bob for 20 BTC.

You have 15 Bitstamp BTC. Your friend Bob just went on a holiday for a couple of weeks. Out of the blue, the Ripple system has decided to substitute your 15 BTC-Bitstamp for 15 BTC-Bob - because the Ripple system will not work efficiently without this substitute. You want to redeem your BTC, Bob's on a holiday, you'll have to try and trade your BTC back to Bitstamp but there may not be paths.

15 BTC in 3 weeks is different from 15 BTC now, and that's not even considering the fact that you can never trust someone 100%. Ripple thinks they are the same, and they'll substitute it each other - because OpenCoin Inc's system is more important than you.

You're like a troll that just spews the same crap over and over again to hear their own voice. :)
You remind me of the moon hoaxers, the anti-evolutionists, the anti-vaccinist, etc.

You were arguing over technicalities and trying to justify losing money, fyi :)

Let's take this quote:



So what? The end result is the same, it doesn't matter if "more time to repay", "bad choice", blah blah blah, the bottom line is red, you just money. Justifying it doesn't matter, you lost money.

Make a bad decision? So what? You lost money.

The system encourages and forces you to do exactly that.

I think we've come to the end of this discussion, which, well turned into another Ripple debt discussion rather than "TradeFortress is a scammer".

Only trusting a gateway is what Ripple developers have been encouraging.

Irrelevant, explain to me how you would send $25 / 0.25 BTC to a friend without being forced to use IOUs in Ripple.

Meanwhile, with bitcoin, sign a transaction.

What about people losing their bitstamp  BTC? That's the damage I was thinking of when I wrote that.

He claims he was not the one who ended up redeeming peoples bitstamp BTC, but that he just set in motion events that enabled people to effectively lose their bitstamp BTC. By lose, I mean have them replaced by TradeFortress BTC.

Watch out, he's going to argue they were not really TF IOU and instead just other people they trust with that other person getting TF IOU.

Same effect.

If people trust TradeFortress AND Bitstamp USD, they are saying that they will accept both equally (just like you'd accept a balance at Bank of America and Citibank for US dollars equally).

Douchebag TradeFortress understands that Ripple is a ledger system that keeps track of IOUs but wants to play stupid while he allows people to be scammed because of his actions.

Ripple is a distributed ledger system that allows you to keep track of IOUs.   That's its function.   It allows you to take control of who you do and don't trust when accepting IOUs.   It allows this trust to "ripple" if you want it to (optional).   That's a feature of the system.  It's not like Bitcoin.  TradeFortress is playing on most people's ignorance of this and making it seem like it's a flaw because it doesn't work the way Bitcoin does.   He's a douchebag.

Unfortunately he obviously has friends on this board that will continue to allow him to scam Newbies either because they are ignorant of what he is doing or they just don't care.

Please stop repeating stuff, here:

I would not accept a BoA balance equal to a Citibank's balance if the nearest BoA atm is a hour's drive away compared to 5 minutes, for example.

This is why you're a douchebag.  

YOU don't have to accept BOA and Citibank equally.   But if you trust BOA - THEY trust Citibank - and thus you can end up with money from someone trusting Citibank.

Get it dumbass?  (probably not)

What Ripple does is let you TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for these trust relationships in a finer and more detailed way.   However, that's harder to do when a jerk-off like you is misleading people into thinking you're "going to send them BTC on Ripple" when they don't even understand what Ripple is.

You're a fucking scammer - you misled people to perpetrate a fraud. That's a fact.  Whether the moderators want to do the right thing or not is irrelevant.

The only person that lost bitstamp BTC was someone that trusted TradeFortress to hold their BTC for them.

If you're talking about someone that has a bitcoin wallet and just wants 0.25 BTC then the comparison you should make is with transferring some amount of XRP which is ... sign a transaction.

But you mention $25. And since you like to ask for rhetorical explanations: Explain to me how you would send $25 to a friend using bitcoin. Not $25 "worth" of bitcoin but $25. If at any point an exchange is involved then you're using IOUs at the exchange.

There are numerous differences with XRP/BTC, most importantly the fact that you still need trust to send XRP transactions (the whole ledger system is based on trust), and there's also the distribution.

So what if an IOU is involved in an exchange? I'm not going to have that IOU randomly substituted for something else because OpenCoin Inc places having a flawed system that somewhat works over not making me lose money.

That's a bad analogy. If receiving bitcoin payments required people to post their private keys...

Also, I could have sent everyone 100 BTC, which would have removed the liquidity providing part, but the point that you cannot send money in Ripple still stands.

It's not a bad analogy.  It shows that if someone doesn't understand something they can be scammed by someone who does.

If you don't understand public vs private keys then you could easily be convinced by a scammer to have them give you a private key.

In the same vein, if someone doesn't understand how trust works in Ripple, a douchebag scammer like yourself can convince them to trust people they shouldn't and have bad consequences.

The fact that you don't steal the money directly in the second scenario doesn't make you less of a scammer.   A more elaborate or complicated scam or the use of a more complicated system in order to perpetrate a scam is still - A SCAM.

You have misrepresented through half-truths and obfuscation what you were having people do.   You used their ignorance to put them in harm's way.  

You must be as dense as a rock.  Ripple isn't meant to send actual BTC.   Just like a check isn't meant to send actual USD.  You're a fucking idiot.  Really. I still can't figure out why you don't have a scammer tag for pulling this kind of shit.

I didn't claim an IOU wasn't involved at some point for non-XRP transfers. I claimed inter-personal IOUs or trusting more than a single gateway wasn't forced.

So: I trust one gateway for $25 or for 0.25 BTC that I've deposited and the friend trusts the same or different gateway for $25 or 0.25 and then I sign a transaction. Now my friend can pay people with the $25 or withdraw it.

Whoa whoa whoa, stop there. Sending XRP from any ripple address to any other ripple address requires no trust. Unless you're going to claim it's the users trusting Ripple itself but that's no different from trusting bitcoin itself.

And again you change topics and are back claiming IOUs are substituted randomly. A balance shifting between entities you've told the system are interchangeable is not randomly.. If you don't want your balances to shift, trust only one gateway. Which is the recommended use case.

Then you don't understand the analogy. It's about misleading people to do something that you know is unwise.

But (and this is a separate point, you keep introducing separate points ala the Gish Gallop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop#Debates)) it's true you can't make a non-XRP payment to someone unless they have indicated someone they trust to hold the funds. Just like I can't wire transfer someone money without knowing what bank they trust to receive the funds.

IOUs are substituted randomly without your explicit approval. It's not like there's a popup saying, "Would you like to substitute 2 BTC from Bitstamp for 1 BTC from Alice?". Someone may trust two people both for 10 BTC, but they may prefer one person's IOUs over the other. Aka the ATM example I gave you a while ago. One type of IOUs may have a 0.01 BTC fee for redeeming.

In addition, trust is not binary. You can trust someone more than someone else. Ripple doesn't care.

Misleading what? I gave them a ripple BTC. It may be unwise, but that's not scammy. If someone says, "hey, can you change [something] on my website, I'll pay you $500", I'd happily take upon it if it only took me a hour.

Anyways, I think I wasted enough of my time arguing with you and other drive by posters from the ripple forum. Have fun using a system that won't exist in 5 years!

Who are you referring to?

I've been on Bitcointalk.org a year and three months longer than you have. 

You approved it when you used the advanced trust feature. There is a bug/issue open to make the warning message even clearer.

Then you don't know Ripple as much as you claim to. The server supports trust quality levels to charge a fee for someone degrading your balance. Set the fee to near infinite if you like. Ripple is still in beta and the beta client doesn't expose these settings.

You purposely targeted the newbie section to mislead people that didn't know anything about Ripple to make an advanced setting in Ripple that you full well knew was unwise to make. It's like misleading people open up their firewall or misleading people to reveal their private keys.

LOL, that's what people said about bitcoin too. I've been using ripple for years and I'm sure I'll still be using it in five years.

> sending payments
> advanced setting

> closed source server features
> don't know ripple well because I can know what's in closed source software

I'm done.

Date Registered:    March 26, 2013, 01:04:07 PM

First post: coming here to promote Ripple

No! Not "backed by [your] IOUs" there is no such concept in Ripple. The IOU I get is backed by the trust I placed in the person/entity to which I extended trust. Unless they violate that trust I'm not effected. This is exactly what I explained previously and in detail.

Hopefully.  

The worst part about this whole ordeal is that you have a long posting history on Bitcointalk and the Newbie's you posted to most likely took that as a cue that you were reputable and that your "experiment" was leading them down a path where they wouldn't get hurt.  

Who are the "other drive by posters?"  As I said, I've been on Bitcointalk a year and three months before you were.

Out of nowhere...

You should see: http://unrforliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Our-Discussion.jpg
(I'd inline it but it's a bit big).

Seems that he rly doesn't understand ...
Other fake arguments, instead, are only purely rhetorical and didn't surprise me, they only demonstrate a sort of obsession against ripple which we shouldn't be interested in.

Although is very interesting to elaborate about Ripple and the false flaws he claims to find, i think that is more important here to understand the fraudulent nature of his original thread and how he exploited his reputation as a member of this forum putting in danger a lot of users.

I think that an analysis purified from the instrument (i.e. Ripple) could help to better understand the dynamics which are, precisely, independent from that instrument.

That's why i posted my question to him but, who knows why, he doesn't want to answer:

You're the people who don't actually understand how the ledger system requires you to trust the nodes that you get your information from, which are all OpenCoin Inc or OpenCoin Inc sponsored ones.

With bitcoin, you can verify everything yourself. It's like there being Blockchain.info and only blockchain.info - no full nodes like bitcoin-qt, and all the mining has being done by Satoshi.

Presumably you're referring to me. I lurked here years ago but never got an account because of the density of loons here. I only got an account because I was referred to a Ripple question here and wanted to answer it.

But that's all irrelevant. It's an ad hominem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) attack and/or poising the well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well). Criticizing the speaker rather than the message/argument.

Correct, I think you should also look at the thread title and see who started the derailing of a subject that has already ended by post 11.

What does this have to do with you misrepresenting and misleading newbie's?

Glad to know that you (group) changed the criteria from "steal money" to "misrepresenting and misleading newbies".

I'm responding to someone saying sending XRPs does not require trust, which is factually incorrect.

Playing with the word trust ; ) another example of empty rhetoric :D

Extending your point: this is an important feature, not a bug. Without this feature, anyone could be saddled with TF's worthless IOUs rather than say Bitstamp IOUs or IOUs "issued" by friends and relatives.

geeeeez, if a forum troll can wreak such havoc then ripple doesn't seem to be that much of a system, does it?

Trust really means trust. As long as you don't grant trust to someone you don't really trust with that amount of money, you'll be fine. The trust system is what allows you to be independent of the banking system if necessary, though it doesn't insulate you against inflation caused by central banks.

Trust, just like love, is eternal only while it lasts ;)

I guess that Mark Karpeles and Peter Vessenes trusted each other for a few months while their contract was drawn up and signed.

Who needs trust when you have a contract that specifies 50 million in damages if broken...

Using the credibility Tradefortress gained on Bitcointalk to dupe newbies in a system they don't understand, isn't creating havoc for Ripple.  It is however a good illustration of how the Bitcoin folks here have become so cult-like that they can't even acknowledge when one of their own is defrauding people.  

If you've shown a child that they can put their hand near the bottom of a vacuum cleaner and the suction makes them laugh, do you use that trust to have the child put their hand near the bottom of a lawn mower because it too can be pushed around and so you can mislead the child into thinking the two items are similar?   When the child's hand and fingers get cut off, does that mean that if lawn mowers can wreak such havok then they must not be useful tools like vacuum cleaners?  Or does it mean the person that put the child's hand under the lawn mower is a piece of shit?

I'll go with the latter.

TradeFortress reminds me of when Thomas Edison electrocuted cats, dogs and elephants with alternating current (AC) to show how dangerous it was compared to direct current (DC). 

It's pretty clear TradeFortress isn't going to feel guilty for defrauding newbies and the moderators are going to protect "their own." (Ha!)  But maybe a brief look at history will open some member's eyes to the way this type of BS propaganda sorts itself out.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104 (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104)

Relevant quote: "In the end, though, all Edison had to show for his efforts was a string of dead animals, including the unfortunate Topsy, and a current that quickly fell out of favor as AC demonstrated its superiority in less lethal ways to become the standard."

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=151880.0

Every electronic device on Earth uses DC, he didn't lose too badly. :)

Wow glad I did not invest any BTC into XRP lol.

Well yes he did, considering the application he was implementing it for.  It certainly wasn't electronic devices.

Man it must suck spending all you time refuting scammer allegations maybe if you weren't such a fucking asshole thief you could give your fingers a rest from spewing more of your bullshit trying to cover for your previous bullshit.  

Fuck tradefortress...   YOU SUCK... I am adding tradefortress to my confirmed scammer list on facebook. If you cant tell I really dont like this guy he is a thief.

All the haters probably

1. Supporters of Ripple
2. Enraged that it isnt real BTC
3. Doesnt understand that Ripple IS a lie, with its many flaws im surprised there are still people using it.

1. NO
2. NO
3. NO

I like Ripple but i'm not affiliated nor a "supporter" (maybe... still) nor i'm in love with it.

Infact diskiling Ripple shouldn't be a handicap in understanding how dishonest TF was.

I see here a lot of people wich basically are saying that letting people to lose theyr money to demonstrate (without any logic in this demonstration) that Ripple is flawed it's right. That's simply absurd.

People trusted TF, in a system they don't understand well, but they never thought to be in danger of losing 100 BTC each. That's because he intentionally misrepresented Ripple and his IOUs.

i don't think you understand what happened in the thread. webr3 tried to get his btc "stolen" but it didn't work the first time around, so he told tradefort to send it on ripple /again/ after letting the whole community know where to steal it.

"FREE BAG OF MONEY UNDER THE PARK BENCH ALL NIGHT. BUT IF YOU STEAL IT, THE PERSON I TOLD TO PUT IT THERE (INSTEAD OF GIVING TO ME THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN) IS A SCAMMER."




agreed

Wow what a cluster-fuck Ripple is.

Scammer's haven. Thanks for the thought experiment TF.

Interesting example as a thought exercise. The BTCs of Bitstamp are different from the BTCs of Bob or the BTCs of party X.

I was not talking about webr3, but the whole thing. Another user (who still didn't claim it) has lost 1 BTC, and it could have been ended much worse.

Why you're screaming? Did you follow this affair from the beginning?

I see here a lot of people wich basically are saying that letting people to lose theyr money to demonstrate (without any logic in this demonstration) that Ripple is flawed it's right. That's simply absurd.

Is that right in your opinion?

I was one of the few people who got into that thread when there were still lesser then 5 views, you know what I did after reading till just before the picture? I closed my window of the thread thinking of the noobs who dont get hints

TF who publicly advertises Ripple is a scam opens a thread to give ripple btcs <<< what is the first thing that comes to your mind? If you are retarded enough not to get the hint that something is bound to happen and simply post your ripple address thinking of "FREEEEEEEE MONEYYYYYYYYYYY" and "FREEEEE MONEYYYY , ILL JUST REPORT OP AS A SCAMMER IF I DONT GET FREEEEE MONEEYYYYYYYY". Thats probably most of the people thoughts when they posted thier addressess. I would really like to help the guy who lost his real btc if he really lost it, I just cannot belief it and the evidence that is provided.

All this points to Ripple being a scam instead of TF, the developers of OpenCoin couldnt possibly never though of such an easy loophole when they designed the system. Knowing a potential loophole of your system but still advertising it and not fixing it but rather treating it as a plus for your system is essentially the same as a scam to me.

Alright, Im outta here before I get labelled as a scammer for nothing as well /sarcasm

SCAMMER

Again this nice argument: noobs must be scammed !!! ; )

But you probably miss the point: people who do understand the trick could have used it to steal, as actually did that weird guy ironcross ; )

What you call a loophole... it isn't in my opinion... is a good thing that you're forced to think at trusted relationships when you talk about money, because it is the way money flow, bitcoins included. By the way, of course it is an opinion, which i won't try to impose scamming someone.

Alright, Im outta here before I get labelled as a butt-hurted scammed or a Ripple Addicted or a paid troll.

Why?

Now he edited away the mod notice in his thread there: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.0

Because they are unenforceable.  As it has been pointed out to you, several times, there are no terms to these IOU's.  Even if these were binding, they have no stated repayment terms so he could very well still owe X amount of BTC's to someone but pay them back the day after the sun burns out.  That would not be a breach of contract.

Furthermore, have you heard of the term consideration in contract law?  In order for a contract to be binding, it is required as a prerequisite that both parties offer consideration (something of value promised to the other).  In other words, a contract must be something in which both parties benefit in some way.  TF benefits in no way by giving away free BTC, there is no consideration.

I don't agree with his methodologies but I think he proved his point and I do not believe he meant any malice by doing it.  There was to my knowledge one person who was monetarily damaged in the whole stunt and TF offered to return the BTC to him but he stubbornly refused.

Guys, how would you call this:

http://crypto-giveaways.blogspot.it/

Proving a point? Exposing a Flaw?
Well done in being a scammer prophet, TF  ;D

What will continue to happen if OpenCoin Inc don't fix the problems.

Imagine a professional website, with an automated system. It gets the user to trust them for 0.01 first, and upon detecting the trust lines it immediately sends 0.01 BTC. The user sees this Ripple transaction, the site tells the user to increase the trust limit for more coins, fun times. Advertise that on Adf.ly/CoinURL, and it might crash down the Ripple network if a large enough userbase is affected.

Let's see if this one works without your reputation in this forum.
There are warnings everywhere to don't grant trust to unknown people. If greed is stronger than prudence that's a problem of the human kind, not Ripple. I am not here since the very beginning of bitcoin (only 2 years that i read this forum), but i bet that some "BTC givaway if you give me your private key" MUST have existed


Of course, everybody here is thinking that YOU (major Ripple hater) have nothing to do with that site except that having been a prophet.

Probably not very well because that site is on blogspot.

FYI, take a look at how many people have fallen for mining united, the most obvious ponzi ever.

So, r u saying that i'm right?

Not sure why you brought up "consideration."  Consideration, and a unilateral contract*, exists as soon as TF extends the offer.  Consideration (in legalese) also doesn't mean "both parties benefit in some way" -- that's silly.  I can ask you to break the windshield of your car by throwing your laptop at it, and promise you $2000.00 in return.  If we seal this with a contract, saying "show me how i benefit from this deal" wouldn't get me out of it.

*"A contract in which only one party makes an express promise, or undertakes a performance without first securing a reciprocal agreement from the other party." (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Unilateral+contract)

please check out how TF scammed me and vote on him being a scammer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=151880.0;all

I tried to tell people not to trust this guy.

I have not received any portion of my BTC yet and have sent several emails so far.

Been a while since this topic came up

This is how I knew what is what. 

MPT = trustworthy

TF not so much.

I've never interacted with TradeFortress, but I have had successful trades with MPT.

+1000

Ok, explain me one thing: did people that trusted TradeFortress with this ripple experiment, end up losing REAL BTC? Yes or no?

It's too old to remember without reading through the thread again. He gave away "TF BTCXRP," allegedly to show that BTC on XRP isn't actual BTC, just a debt note, usually without any terms - and without terms, it's worthless. Adding insult to injury, he ended up being very highly trusted on the Ripple network, even though his notes were worthless. Someone (and there's a good chance I'm not remembering right, here) sold their debt note, and the person who bought it ended up screwed out of what they paid.

Really? lol

Why don't you go ask some prominent ripple users their feelings about TF.  You'll get an entirely different story.

Well, I have alt currency subforum ignored -- so what happened?

TradeFortress asked users to trust him for BTC in the hope that they already trusted BitStamp or DividendRippler for BTC.  Then TradeFortress' non-redeemable BTC could be sent to BitStamp or DividendRippler for redemption through the unlucky individual that trusted both TF and Bitstamp or DividendRippler leaving them with worthless non-redeemable TradeFortress BTC.

Also, Ripple isn't an alternate currency.  It's a social credit system.

How the Ripple thing worked was that TF gave people a Ripple BTC debt instrument "worth" some BTC, but without any intention to pay. For the recipients to actually see this payment in their Ripple balances, they had to add TF as a trusted entity in Ripple. If they did this, their balance would seem larger, but part of it would actually be worthless. Additionally, Ripple would in some causes automatically trade other high-value assets in a Ripple "wallet" for additional worthless TF assets. In this way, some people lost real money, but this was rather rare, and TF compensated at least some of the affected people.

exhibit b

Hey, perhaps people traded their Bitcoins with pirateat40 for worthless BTCST Bitcoins. It seems they got what was coming. :)

So really, the only people who lost anything related to the Ripple caper were actually ripped off by someone who wasn't even TF.

Not just ripped off by someone else but also intentionally wanted to be ripped off so he can make a scammer accusation against me. See webr3 - I asked to refund to a BTC address, he insisted ripple and this time it happened again and it was someone less kind who did it.

And you come here to write about it? How self indulged are you?

He exploited his reputation in THIS forum trying to scam newbyes (that's why he opened a self-moderated topic in the newbye's section).

No matter what his intentions were, his conduct was evidently dishonest and he deserved AT LEAST an "untrustworthy" flag which could have saved someone from being cheated today, also.

Your decision was completely wrong.

On a more positive note, My CoinLenders balance has been restored 100%  It wasn't a lot and would have been easy to brush it off but it was credited back.

Wow, a radio interview! Thanks for the link.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3886606.htm


Now, that's an interesting piece of information.

Credited back where.

Now, wouldn't someone taking care of BTC for others have some kind of obligation to take action when it was "stolen?"  Seems they'd want it investigated.

I couldn't agree more.

And Australian police does take matters seriously.

So someone who has lost lots of BTC on CL/IO should file an independent report to the Australian police (if this has not already been done).

Isn't that basically the definition of a scam?
He wrote a bad cheque, with no intention of honouring it.

I guess it's OK if you tell people you don't plan on honoring it.

I wouldn't be surprised if this does gets investigated and we find TF was responsible. He's trying to stop people from withdrawing THEIR coins. Also, before in the first few days he was offering partial refunds where he was giving people coins which belonged to others. He's also gone very quiet and will not answer any of my emails for a long time.

You are a scammer , dont lie.

Well, transactions on Ripple are public by the way, so it is quite visible who stole the BTC - the account that was used in the giveaway thread here was also used to fund the address that TradeFortress used to issue his worthless BTC on Ripple.

I personally believe TF paid this guy to post his (TF's) Ripple address in the giveaway thread. He is FAR to closely linked to that account (that stole the coins) for it to be a random occurrence.

TradeFortress's busy spending that stolen 4100 coins to hire a good lawyer, in order not to be raped in jail.

He has produced undeniable evidence that he lied about both inputs, coinlenders and the fundamentals of how they operated.

I think there should be a poll on whether his place is filled in the Default Trust list by a Ponzi scammer or some other kind of scammer.  Ponzi scammers are overrepresented in that list and I think it's, well, kind of racist.

It seems like you have no idea what "ponzi scheme" and what "racism" means... ::)

In United States political dialogue, a racist is "someone who disagrees with me".

No

so it sounds like you are good friends with Tradefortress! >> gotcha!  ;)

THIS
Everyone seems to be denying this or ignoring this. WTF is wrong with people.
He is a liar and a scammer. Always has been.

It's called telling it like it is. Only thing you "gotcha" is a large case of stupid and pretty red letters under your name.
*obligatory ;)

haightst
Member
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=)Warning: Trade with extreme caution!*LOL!


View Profile Personal Message (Online)
Trust: -11: -2 / +0(0)
Warning: Trade with extreme caution!

<< check you OWN self buddy!!!    ;)  [><] tag you are it! LOL

Back at ya! Is this another MoneypakTrader.com sock puppet?

no not at all but am not that far from their headquarters ~ what should I do? I have not DD'd moneypak but from what i have read they sound hella sketchy ~*jmho*   ::) //(*)\\watch with the baseless accusations there cowboy! ~fyi~> i'm from the dark underworld of pinkyland !

Nice try, but nobody except you has you in their trust lists.

TF still owe me 1.05BTC fron coinlenders , sent 2 e-mails and no reply yet. ???

yeah the trust list worked out just great for Tradefortress!!! LMAO!!! ;D

He's gone. He's not replying to anyone or giving any updates on the current situation even though he has been active on the forum recently. He's more than likely on holidays with all his money he has.