Bitcoin Forum

TradeFortress owes me 10.15 BTC.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.msg2209470 onwards.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210634

Didn't he say, he'll send you 10.15 BTC to your Bitcoin address? And after you declined that, he sent you IOUs?

I'm not taking a side here, but that's what I remember from the other thread.

Yes, he took it from me once, sent it back, then took it again.

Followed up on the public ripple ledger.

Shortly after he initially sent the BTC back to me, he sent one of his IOUs for 15BTC to bitcointalk user aadje93 ripple address rMyHUbgreHFvvxoD5pGmg1fKRdSBHisy39 who then immediately withdrew 9.15 BTC to bitstamp.

See https://ripple.com/graph/#rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv


Mods: please check the IPs of this user aadje93 to see if it's the same as TradeFortress.

The other 1 BTC was done as a test by a member who said they'd be happy to it back to me, even though they don't owe it, tradefortress does.

I was going to write a response to this, but my time is better spent on other things, unlike you which seems to be concerned with losing money to people I gave IOUs to because you want me to honor IOUs on Ripple which I have not said I will honor.

I didn't loose any money to any IOUs. You asked for my trust and I gave it to you, you then broke that trust by taking my BTC, giving it to other people, then refusing to pay it back.

You personally have broken trust, you personally have taken BTC from me and given it to other people, or to yourself through a secondary account, or after knowing what would happen, immediately issued an IOU to an all but unknown user who then immediately withdrew the BTC to blockchain.

Any way you play it, you owe me 10.15 BTC, 9.15 BTC I'll call you out for, and you proved yourself VERY untrustworthy.

Unless you can explain to me how I am wrong, that is not what happened.  Tradefortress did not take your BTC, Ripple did.   And Ripple gave the BTC to someone else other then Tradefortress, or am I wrong?

You are taking that vendetta of yours too a little too far.

You... Probably should have offered that bitcoin address and taken payment to an actual bitcoin client rather than accepted more crap Ripple IOUs.

Whether TradeFortress is honest or not his shennanigans reveal Ripple is a tremendous security vulnerability for anyone who uses it, unless you use an utterly paranoid set of precautions that have yet to be worked out.

The key issue here is that if you have TradeFortress IOUs and BitStamp IOUs, other people with TradeFortress IOUs might be able to redeem their TradeFortress IOUs for your BitStamp IOUs with no action from TradeFortress required other than spreading IOUs around and building a web of people who trust him.

Until you divorce from the TradeFortress Ripple BTC trust network, any actual value BTC vouchers you might have are vulnerable. If he offers to send back again, take actual BTC and then lockdown your Ripple trust before you try to put anything of value back into the Ripple system.

TradeFortress understood the system.

He asked me to extend trust for 100 BTC to him, I did. He then (after!) created an IOU to another user (possibly himself) for 15 BTC, knowing full well it that user could withdraw the BTC to blockchain, which in turn created 9.15 BTC debt with me.

If you take out an overdraft with a bank, then write a cheque to another person using that account, and that person cashes the cheque, who is responsible for the debt? You are. It is exactly the same, TradeFortress took a 100 BTC overdraft out with me and 20+ other users. Then wrote a cheque (and IOU) to another user, who cashed it in.

He took 10.15 BTC from me, gave 1 BTC of it to a user who offered it back to me as they did it for a test, then 9.15 BTC after that to a user who is most likely a secondary account of his own, or a complete newb who he issued the IOU to knowing full well it'd be cashed immediately, for 15 BTC not his standard 1 BTC.

Bullshit, it's only when the participants do not understand the concept of trust. By that logic pirateat40 revealed a tremendous security vulnerability too.

Of course, this is exactly what would happen, and was the goal of TradeFortress all along. I allowed it to happen, it's how the system works, I allowed him to incur debt for bitstamp-backed btc, as he asked. He then gave that BTC to a random unknown user that popped up immediately after (suspicious!)

It is no security vulnerability in Ripple though, it's just an abuse of trust by TradeFortress, plain and simple.

I use ripple daily, have done for ages, never had any problem, and I only trust gateways that have my BTC and other currencies anyway, or people I know very well.

Yes, but pirate didnt say, I am taking your money and not giving it back. 

Tradefortress said that here is an IOU I WILL NOT HONOR. 

TradeFortress took direct actions to ensure that IOUs were honored, that is why he asked for the trust from the users, so that they would be honored, in a way that meant he personally incurred the debt with users who sent trust to him.

Only one user took 1 BTC, as a test, and offered it back to me.

*AFTER* that TradeFortress sent one of his IOUs for 15BTC to bitcointalk user aadje93 ripple address rMyHUbgreHFvvxoD5pGmg1fKRdSBHisy39 who then immediately withdrew 9.15 BTC to bitstamp.

See https://ripple.com/graph/#rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv

TradeFortress personally took these actions AFTER the entire thing was proved and tested, he issued a IOU to the above user so they could take the BTC he sent to them, the BTC he took from me.

It doesn't matter if he said he would not honor them, he took all the actions needed to honor them, they did get honored, and he incurred that debt with me.

In a sense IOU is a contract too.

Ripple was perfectly capable of giving it away on its own, once you extended trust to TradeFortress and allowed your BitStamp IOUs to  enter the pool backing his IOUs.


Ripple hasn't actually given been around that long, and it doesn't seem like you have actually acted in this manner rather than just saying you do.


Of course pirateat40 did. Trust and greed are the opening for many security vulnerabilities.

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

He did not say that he would not honor it.

That isn't my only ripple account, that's just one I used for this, and indeed I do use ripple every day, certainly for the past couple of months, with trust lines extended to my friends, and to 2 gateways covering 3 currencies.

I'd say it's rather greed that's a security vulnerability to trust.

Yes, it is.  And if someone handed you a contract that they said they were not going to honor, would you accept it then try to push to get it fulfilled? 

Yes. And I would sue them too.

Maybe you are right but he did say:
"To expose and bring awareness to the flaws in the Ripple payment system, I am giving away at least 1 BTC per address on Ripple."

While I agree anyone following what trade fortress was doing over the past few weeks would have got that they are not going to get any coin outside of a ripple IOU, I do see that someone jumping in the middle might have been misled. 

Maybe you should read TradeFortress' posts on his OP on the Newbie forum.   He did not say "here is an IOU I WILL NOT HONOR."  He said

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.msg2166536#msg2166536

I PM'd him to ask him how he would deal with redeeming IOUs so that anyone could convert his IOUs into BTC.  He wrote...

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


So in summary he misled people, while counting on their ignorance of how Ripple works, into letting him put them in harm's way so he and his confederates could steal their legitimate IOU's from reputable gateways.

You keep saying this. Where?? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.0

He did not say that he would not honor it. He took direct steps to ensure they were honoured.

He took out an overdraft with me, and gave 10.15 btc away to other users, 9.15 to a single user, after he new it was an IOU which was automatically honourable.

It doesn't matter what Tradefortress said or how he formulated it.

Rule of Acquisition #17 states that "A contract is a contract is a contract,"
The irony is real governments around the world see that exactly the same way.

Tradefortress you dun goofed.

Right, but I have not signed a contract. A Ripple IOU is not a contract (we went through this already), and theymos has the same position.

That doesn't matter if even one of those deceived has the balls to sue you. And the greatest irony is if you loose the case you would have given ripple the biggest stamp of legitimacy currently thinkable.

You took 10.15 btc from me, and gave it away. You owe me it, pay your debt.

There's something here I don't understand...

Didn't you tell Ripple that you trust TradeFortress to pay you back up to 100 BTC?  Have you now decided to reverse that claim that you trust him?  I don't think Ripple supports that, and it should (which would make it useless, I think).  Since it doesn't, you're stuck trusting TF to pay you back... some day.  Did you happen to tell Ripple how long your trust that he'd pay you back would last?  I guess that's another feature Ripple doesn't have.

I don't think there's any difference between telling Ripple that you trust person X (TF or whoever) to pay you back up to 100 BTC, and actually giving that person 100 BTC.  I think what TF is doing is great.  He could make a lot of enemies (which a very large number of people do, inadvertently, as they bumble through life depending on taxation for various things - see - fiat currency is the ultimate scam - check out Larken Rose's "How to Be a Crook" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oHbwdNcHbc)), or a lot of friends, depending on who's smart enough to see that he's proving that... there's no "difference between telling Ripple that you trust person X (TF or whoever) to pay you back up to 100 BTC, and actually giving that person 100 BTC."

Well done, TF.  I hope the few people who think the lesson is worth less than they lost won't hurt you too much for allowing them to foolishly tell Ripple that they trusted you.

As usual, my understanding of things is always suspect, so if anyone would like to point out any boneheaded things I've said in expressing my understanding of this situation, please go ahead.

So you are basically cheering for separating suckers from their money. I have done that as well some times, but never serious.

My cheer-leading in that area has only grown more serious over the years.  The problem it solves is that if people I respect don't end up with a fool's money, then worse people will end up with it.  Look at all the people paying taxes to the US government.  That is the worst way to lose your money (and check out losthorizons.com if it's happening to you because chances are it doesn't need to).  The fastest way to turn a sucker from a sucker into someone respectable, trustworthy, smart, and a positive influence in society is to let them get suckered enough for them to realize what's happening.  I raised three kids, and I watched them all learn to walk.  When you stop them from falling down, it only slows down their progress.  Did I ever trip them on purpose?  No, but I didn't move things out of their way either.  Self-reliance is an important tool, and only growing more important as the tyrants most people call "authorities" continue making people into sheeple-slaves.

You Trust, You learn.  It goes both ways.  The trick is to trust others with as much as you're willing to pay to learn that they aren't trustworthy.  When you get that right, you always win when dealing with others, whether they're trustworthy or not.

Exactly, I trusted TradeFortress, he proved himself very untrustworthy. He owes me 10.15 BTC.

That is the title of this thread, and the point here.

I am really sorry you lost your money. But didn't TF offer to send you the money to a btc address? And did he not warn you that if he just sent the btc stamps back, someone else might use his IOUs to trade them for your stamps?  I dont mean to be harsh or cold. I'm very sad it happened, but TF showed you how it could happen but you refused the btc deposit to a secure wallet. Instead you wanted your stamps on ripple with all the risk that entailed.

I *exactly* said this and he wants me to send the BTCs back:


Hey, look, what happened?  ::)

He honored what he said he would do. Send ripple IOU's. And it turns out ripple is the scam. because if ripple allows it why use them?

He's not going to fulfill anything in ripple, and there is no contract. You aren't getting 10.15 BTC, he didn't even withdraw that BTC personally.

Ripple is a scam, and this is just an example of the massive vulnerability.

Why would someone purposefully spend over $1k to defame TradeFortress? This is absolutely stupid, and webr3 should be ashamed.

Ripple should maybe make it more clear that trust means that you are basically giving someone that much money, though.

That is true, and it's one reason Ripple is a good system. But it doesn't get TF off the hook. He still needs to pay up.

Not only is that just your opinion, but also I have "paid up" by sending 10.15 BTC back to webr3 the first time. You know what happened next, he tried it again despite me saying I won't honor it and someone random user he accuses of being me redeemed it.

I believe the fault here lies not with TradeFortress or with Ripple; but with the OP for accepting the IOUs over BTC while completely aware that he may lose them.

He was suggested by TF to close the trustlines to avoid losing the BTC IOUs, but he refused to. It is evident that OP's ignorance resulted in this loss.

I would say this it's ripples fault and not tradfortress's. @webr3, why not create a scam accusations/untrustworthy thread against ripple/xpr? That's the real culprit here.

So if nobody had ever heard of trojans would it be fine for me to infect people's computers and take their btc as long as my link said "click here to see why you're unsafe!"
I could see a person doing this to show the problems inherent in trusting random internet downloads.. but then to not give that back doesn't seem like an ideal situation for a person's reputation. 

Seems like OP is a casualty of an aggressive campaign against Ripple.  Maybe something does need to be done, but should this be the way?

"Bitcoin user scams Ripple users in an attempt to show Bitcoin's superiority," I don't want to see this headline.

Why not pretend that TF is dead?  Then I think everyone will see the light.

You do realize I already gave him back, and then he kept it in Ripple and someone took it again?

I guess that part is a bit confusing to me as I haven't used Ripple.  The reason I said that is that earlier he said after the initial loan there was a second one.  I guess you didn't really agree to that one..?  Anyway I suppose I posted because I wondered how much of his decision to loan was based on your reputation in this forum.  I don't discount the possibility that you may have been targeted.
Anyway I find ripple repellent to rational thought so I'll try to stay out of the conversation from now on.  

Anyone dealing with Ripple deserved to be ripped. 

It's already implied in their choice of word.

OP deserved to lose their BTC. It is just how it is.

You dont educate yourself then you suffer the consequences.

+1, OP deserved it

You could also say anyone dealing with Bitcoin deserves to get scammed because payments are not reversible etc.

The Ripple system does what it claims. OP's failure to educate himself resulted in this loss.

Let me just make this point a little clearer, OP:

He doesn't owe you shit. He did not get anything, other people did. This is the flaw with trusting people in Ripple. If I trust someone who trusts someone who trusts someone who wants 10 BTC and to make a quick buck by being blackhat, then this person can go all the way down the chain and take my BTC away.

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

Your trust rating kinda kicks that post to the dirt.

You must still be using the default trust list which unfortunately has that scammer in it. Unfortunately, the creator of the default trust list hasn't recognized TradeFortress as a scammer, but rather validated his scams by included TF in the default trust list, which allows TF's counter-trust to show.

Obviously analyzing the trust ratings for legitimacy is better than simply trusting the default trust system which may show scammers as trustworthy and non-scammers as low on trust due to things such as "forum spam" as some people apparently distrust people who post too much. . .

He got purposely mislead by senior member. This misleading resulted in the loss of OPs funds. Is that really OPs fault, completely?

Someone (senior member) tells a noob "send 10 bitcoins to address 1xxxasdasd and I will send you 11 btc back" and the noob sends those coins and never sees them again. Noobs fault to trust that senior member, what?

IT'S CALLED SCAMMING.

"Trust me 100 bitcoins and i will send you 1 bitcoin"

The noob (actually ripple shill) sends these coins, I take the coins and give it back to the noob, and the noob sends it again and someone else takes it.

"someone else takes it" is a result of you trusting someone to take them from you when the noob trusted you only?

Btw. this whole thing to mislead noobs, for whatever reasons, is bad. It only causes harm by mainly waste of time and loss of money. And it's likely not going to teach them anything since they're newbies for a reason (possibly don't know much about crypto). And you were abusing ripple system by a way it's not even meant to be used (people trusting each others like in your experience). (And you need noobs to succeed in this kind of abuse). 

How long does it take till Ripple shills recognize that it's a flaw in Ripple (valuing debt as binary)?

/me stretches his arms

Right, back from hospital, time to jump back in the game. This shit is still going on?

That was not abusing Ripple. It is a flaw that will always be present in Ripple due to how it is made, and that could occur at any time in the future.

FYI you can trust very trusted parties ONLY (bitstamp for example) and you don't need to trust other individuals. You just need a link (usually via these super trusted parties that are actual well-handled companies in the real world.). Yes, it's debt only (except XRP that is not debt) and anyone can issue any currency debt in the network.
When you use MtGox or Bitstamp or any 3rd party system with your bitcoins, you're trusting them with your coins. This exactly same thing happens in Ripple. When you trust someone with your coins, you can't be 100% sure do you get them back when you want.

Did you actually trust someone in ripple that took the bitcoins that were trusted to you?

That "flaw" is same kind of "flaw" if I just started sending bitcoins to random addresses because it's play money because i am a noob and i dont understand what bitcoin is. That is a flaw in bitcoin?

It's not a flaw if it's only abusable when people don't know how to use the system.

Ripple isn't supposed to work like that. OpenCoin WANTS you to trust all of your friends, et alii.

No. You should only trust TRUSTED PARTIES. When you trust someone, it's basically giving them that amount of funds.

Okay, so you trust all these "TRUSTED PARTIES". Then what happens if, say, Bitstamp ups and runs? (not that they will)

When you and all your friends trust TRUSTED PARTY (like Bitstamp now again), it doesn't matter if one of your friends or ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS end up to be scammers. You won't lose anything unless this TRUSTED PARTY fails you. All the transactions in the ripple network are routed through the link between you and your friends. You dont need to make the link straight to your friends and it's highly dangerous.

What is your point? Are you friends with all your friends on Facebook and do you follow all your Twitter followers around in real life? Have you thrown your friends into circles when you added them to a circle on Google+?

You lose your money, which is not a question of if but rather when because Bitstamp is not complying with US fiat AML/KYC regulations, and eventually will be seized even if they're offshore.

How is that relevant?

Just answer my question, please.

Exactly. Same happens to everyone that has money at MtGox if Gox runs. Isn't that very obvious? If you have money on your paypal account and paypal runs, you lose your money.

I trust anyone that asks for trust on Ripple. Are you going to say this is an "abuse"? Whatever.

The simple fact is that I did actions that enabled other unrelated people to take BTC using a flaw in Ripple. It is ripple's fault for having that debt model.

So these people trusted you and you chose to trust someone too. The thing is, they trust you and you only, not the people you've chosen to trust.

This means you're the scammer if you don't pay your debts. If you loan money to someone and they don't pay you.. It doesn't give you the right to deny payback of debt to people who borrowed from you. You can't "transfer" loan. Do we agree?

No. If you friend someone on Facebook you don't go to jail if you are not buddies with them.

Trusting someone is not a binding contract, it does not mean anything. It is not scamming if you trust someone that you don't trust.

Trust in ripple means that you're willing to loan them that amount of funds. Trust in ripple doesn't equal to being friends.

But that's pointless as it is a contractless loan, or more accurately a gift. I'm loaning them a perpetual loan with no repayment date.

This is why trust and debt in Ripple are meaningless - there are no terms whatsoever. In fact Ripple makes no distinction of BTC, USD, EUR other than the 3 letters, and people will claim that they mean ByTeCoin instead of Bitcoin, etc.

Person A gives a loan to person B.
Person B gives a loan to person C.
Person C scams person B and doesn't pay the loan back.
Person B tells person A he won't pay back to person A because person C didn't pay person B back.

Is that how you do things in real life?
Nope, person B still has to pay back to person A even when person C scammed person B. If he doesn't, person B is a scammer too.

No. I already paid "person A" with BTC on Ripple. I've clearly advertised my threads as Ripple Bitcoins, Bitcoins on Ripple, etc.

They are debt, but they have no terms and cannot be redeemed. They're also sent for free.

This is equivalent to selling something like.. Pirate BTC and the buyer complaining when they can't redeem.

Just a few quotes by you from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206948.0

Too bad I can't see the original first post because it's been edited and the topic is self moderated.

You mislead them purposely to think they would get something else than a DEBT issued by you.

1 free Ripple BTC giveaway - just post address!

This is in the title. It is impossible to not read it before go to the topic.

In ripple, they were given 1 BTC. 1 Ripple BTC, which was clearly stated in the title. 1 Ripple BTC is a token worth nothing unless it is backed, I could write a piece of paper with "1 BTC" on it and it would have the same value.

That'd have significantly more value for the paper it was wrote on.

True, that.

Well, even if you did make it clear it's a BTC debt issued by you, you still mislead people to think they would get something. They thought you would honor your debts which you don't do.

Long time members of this community are not supposed to mislead newbies, it's just wrong. You would get banned if you went to newbies section and make a thread "send your bitcoins here [address], I will pay back double!". Then with your logic you could say, umm, "never said when I will pay back". Or something else that's clearly scamming or atleast very shady and untrustworthy stuff. Do we agree?

You very well knew there were bitstamp/snapswap backed ripple-BTCs around and they would lose them by trusting you. They didn't/don't understand the Ripple system enough to know what trusting someone actually means. You lured them to this trap that can be read as untrustworthy behaviour at least.

It's not "pointing a flaw in Ripple system", it's taking advantage of people who don't understand trust system of ripple. Even though you didn't probably mean to do actual harm or get benefit (in form of real bitcoins), you 100% knew it would harm people who fell in this.

If I buy an apple and say I'll pay 0.05 BTC for it, and give them a piece of paper saying 0.05 BTC for it, I am a scammer. If I do a bet, I'm a scammer.

If I go "Free BTC!" and post a picture of a Bitcoin, I am not a scammer. If I give them a worthless Ripple BTC, I'm not a scammer.

Which part of this do you have problems comprehending?

Please read my previous post again and think about it. It's not about what you gave to them, it's about what it caused and what you told them and how.

You make not have actually lied at any point, but is clear that you intentionally mislead people in order to prove a point.
And as a result of that, people who trusted you have lost money.
Feeling good about that?

This is a red herring. I never did anything remotely similar to that.

The closet would be "Add trust for [address], I will send you 1 Ripple BTC". I do not profit in any way.

Also take a look at this thread, this is where the OP actually profits:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.0


That is correct, just as how when someone announces a new security vulnerability in SSL for example (http://breachattack.com/) they very well knew that it will lead to innocent people being MITM attacked. Eventually site owners will fix and new SSL versions will fix the vulnerability, same thing here - it's better for people to learn about why Ripple's debt model is flawed now rather than later.

You made harm to people and you did it on purpose. Just so you haven't forgot: You lured people to trust you without telling them they will lose all their real valuable backed ripple bitcoins (if they had any) when they add the trust towards you. It's scamming.

I didn't directly do harm to people, and no it is not scamming.

Wiggle all you want, you knowingly caused harm.
It may not be scammy, but it is pretty scummy.

And it is nothing like annoucing a security leak in SSL. The equivalent would be that you didn't just announce the leak, you created a page to trash end-users' computers, and tricked them into visiting your site.

Here it is:

It's really exciting to see theory tested. I've stayed well clear of Ripple for this exact reason. As TradeFortress puts it; trust isn't binary.

This concept in Ripple is central to it's usefulness and it just doesn't hold water. These objections have been brought up since it's inception and it's only been met with constant hand-waving by the Ripple developers.

Even debt at Banks like Chase or Bank of America aren't interchangeable. The whole idea of Ripple is that if Chase promises to redeem 100$, then Bank of America will redeem 100$ and hold the IOU from Chase. That's completely outrageous.

Imagine that we somehow got to a point where Ripple was the dominant exchange platform in the world, and regularly handles transactions on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. You mean to tell me that we're just suppose to trust notoriously untrustworthy banks to never have less than 100% reserves? That a gigantic bank is never going to default and renege on it's IOU's? If we trusted banks this much, then why did we ever bother with Bitcoin?

The constant inclination in the system would be to move debt of untrustworthy institutions, to trustworthy institutions. Putting the bad debt on the balance sheets of the good banks.

The developers of course continue creating their mountain of rules and caveats to inexorably chip away at the problem, but what they don't realize is that they're chipping away at their central premise; That of interchangeable debt. Once they totally abandon that idea, they'll have something that works, but when they get there, what will be the point?

A peer to peer trust-free medium of exchange?                                                            _(BTC)

Edit:
ROFLMAOPIMP
Webr3
This is where this started??:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210634.20

Where you were WARNED REPEATEDLY in a thread totally about TradeFortress "scamming" people and then you lost 10btc anyway? He gets your bitcoins back to you, you are warned again, and you lose them in exactly the same way! Holy cow! LMAO!!!

TradeFortress should have kept your bitcoins, and you shouldn't parading around in your dumbassity*  trying to attack TradeFortress' reputation.

Wow. I have to step back and cool off from this. This too hilarious/dumb/incredible.

*That's a word now.

Edit2:
"Okay, why should I remove the trust line? Have you extend trust to people who are untrustworthy?" -Webr3
Ahahahahahaha. Wow.

Edit3:
Ahem... Now that I've had a few deep breathes. Sorry for your loss, but it's a problem with Ripple, not TradeFortress.

Edit4: Realized they never really made any serious effort to address the problems.

He trusted TradeFortress, nobody else. Read the messages, DumbFruit. You apparently don't know much about what happened here and therefore I am asking you to actually read this thread and search info about this.


Well can't you just do that with Ripple network? You choose who you trust. Please read more about how Ripple works and how the trust in Ripple works (how it's safely used).

Oh I read it, believe me. As soon as they remove "liquidity provider" from the system entirely they will fix it.

People seem to forget that Ripple was around long before OpenCoin got their hands on it. Ripple doesn't require cryptocurrencies to do it's thing, but it didn't work. Why? Because The core concept of Ripple is entirely unworkable.

They pretend like Ripple just automates the way people treat each-other in the real world, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

Look at the assumptions Ripple makes;

1.) If I trust my brother, it must mean I trust my brother's debtors.

2.) Debt is time invariant. It assumes that money today is just as valuable as money at any given future date.

(As a combination of one and two, it assumes that all debt with the same principal are interchangeable.)

3.) The principal of the maximum loan I would give accurately reflects trust. Without interest, terms, or collateral.

4.) There is no moral hazard involved when a "liquidity provider" can always renege on it's debts and allow another "liquidity provider" fulfill it's obligations.

5.) Having more debt than currency is a good idea.


Then consider all the things they try to do to fix this problem;
-Beginning of list-
-They recommend that no one trust anyone but the gateways.
-End of list-

If that isn't a laughable admission of defeat, I don't know what is. There is no way to make Ripple work without automating the subjective valuation of debt between people, which just can't be done with today's technology (And maybe never.).

Webr3 was pompous and refused to believe that TradeFortress was showing everyone a real problem in Ripple. He lost bitcoins, and then TradeFortress returned what he lost, at which point he promptly did exactly the same thing and lost his bitcoins again. He gets a few laughs, but very little sympathy from me.

No they said don't trust people in the system you don't trust in reality.

TFs scheme only worked because noobs were stupid enough to think they can "sell" trust.

This very board tells 'noobs' that TradeFortress is someone who can be trusted not to rip them off, because the default trust settings assigned to every new user give him something like a +17 trust rating.
So the lesson to 'noobs' is not to trust the trust system.

This was before the trust rating on the forum though.

I'd say the lesson is don't trust the default trust list. Dumbfruit is a TF sockpuppet btw, I recognize his style.

I agree, and I don't, but what else are brand new users meant to do?
They have to assume that the default they have been given are sensible.

The OP who got "ripped off":

Lets see who has the last laughs shall we?

Well, I kept TradeFortress, dumped Theymos, and added MPOE-PR and Kakobrekla to my trust list.

I guess we're kinda similar... We both don't double space after a period.

Other than that, he's way more professional, and tends to write less.

When I first got here I called out BitEnsure as a ponzi scheme, and I looked at BitLenders thinking I was going to find the same thing, but there wasn't anything I could fault him with.

There have been quite a few scam accusations but his accusers tend to be vindictive melodramatic adolescents that never prove their point, or never have a point to begin with. So I bought a CD at CoinLenders.

Hopefully I judged correctly, but at any rate it has nothing to do with my thoughts about Ripple. You said that you're suppose to only trust people you trust IRL, but not even that can be trusted.

Get in the WoT already will you.


Welcome to the problem of infinite hitpoints (http://trilema.com/2013/the-story-of-pointless-and-witless/).

If MP keeps this up, I can see "There's a relevant Trilema for everything" forming, much like xkcd.

It'd have to be a translation, it's a 5yo Romanian insider joke.

The address TradeFortress used to issue this bad debt was funded by... rMyHUbgreHFvvxoD5pGmg1fKRdSBHisy39 - the TradeFortress address is by the way the ONLY address that this "aadje93 address" was funding (Funding means the first initial transaction of XRP in Ripple that are partially held as account reserve).

aadje93 seems to be a guy named Adrian from the Nederlands or Belgium (if you take the 93 as birth year, he's likely 19-20 years old). I'm not too sure that he is actually TradeFortress (different writing style amongst other things) but I really wonder then why he sent some XRP to this address that was used to scam people AND managed to scam them for real as well afterwards. There must be some connection between TF and aadje93, after all their addresses are far to closely linked in the Ripple graph for this to be accidential or by chance.

Bingo, looks like that timing is the smoking gun of the scammer who definitely should NOT be in the default trust list for perpetrating this scam alone.

Forensic analysis to back up the timing evidence. I'm convinced and so should most reasonable people.
Link in my sig with more TF scam activities plus you get to see how many puppets TF used to vote he doesn't scam.