Bitcoin Forum

The Newbies subforum is probably the most dangerous subforum on this entire site. Mods and admin do not remove likely scams, so they only remove proven malware and scams (probably well after a good many infections and successful scamming). When you run into a good, service, or website posted in the Newbies subforum, you need to have answered satisfactorily:

Why does someone want to advertise their goods or services specifically to newbies instead of the general forum?

You should also be very careful when there's a page or two of newbie posts saying something like "I'll give this a try" or "this sounds great!" It could very well be people trying to build their post count up, but it could also very well be the OP trying to build confidence in his scam with sockpuppets. You should consider running any site given in the newbie section only in a secure sandbox application, or at least with NoScript enabled on your browser. NEVER run executables given on the newbie forum, and always make sure the actual URL in the hyperlink is directing you to the website being suggested in text BEFORE visiting (most browsers display the actual URL in a bottom bar if you hover your mouse over the hyperlink).

Just because someone gives source code for something does NOT make it safe unless you understand and analyze the code, then build directly from it. If it's posted only in the Newbies subforum, it's particularly likely the source code won't be properly reviewed until hundreds or thousands of people have used the program.

One final, obvious-but-forgettable piece of advice: It would be appropriately safe to never use a service posted in the newbies section which asks for anything demanding trust unless you have reason to trust the operator(s).


FWIW.

Addt'l education:
Cryptography & Bitcoin, presented by Khan Academy https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258223

ETA: I'm not around consistently enough for a full FAQ/guide on Bitcoin & this forum, but I think this is pretty much all the basics you should know before plopping a few hundred down on Bitcoins.

An additional caution:
Forum profiles can be bought and sold without notice given the the community. This is allowed by the forum admin, if only because disallowing it would be impossible to enforce effectively. Unless you trust me not to exploit this, for instance, you should not assume with full confidence that if you PM "Kluge," you will be talking to the person presently typing this message.

The same is, of course, true with BTC services. Just because Super-Trustworthy-Guy owns Trustable-Service, you should be aware that ownership could change without notice at any given time, and Super-Trustworthy-Guy may've even sold his forum and email account to Super-Dodgy-Guy. Beware of that scenario, which has happened, when using any service with a web wallet.

Some of these threads are scaring me a bit.. But then someone has to be trusted at one point. Are group buys safer?

If the person running it is trusted. But there are secondary problems with group buys: even if the person you are buying from is legitimate, their supplier could not be, in which case your seller has no money to return. You therefore have to trust that the person hosting the group buy is legitimate, as well as their supplier.

I'd simply suggest to use escrow from a very high-trust person like John K, who I think will even do m-of-n escrow transactions to almost eliminate third-party-risk.

Another great security is to ensure you do business with people relatively local in case you need to collect through the legal system or appeal to relatives of the person -- at the very least, people within the same jurisdiction as you (and confirming ID is great -- a rather ghetto way of doing this, without relying on scanned gov't IDs, as example, would be to send a postcard with a code on it to the person's alleged address and have them relay the code to you when they receive it).

There are plenty of places to gather an idea of someone's trustworthiness, from WoT (http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php) to the forum's rep system. Bitcoin (as an "ecosystem") has tons of functionality for determining trustworthiness and doing low-trust or no-trust transactions, but you need to be diligent. Even the largest-by-volume exchange, MtGox, has a terrible habit of fiat withdrawal blackouts of weeks, or in the current case, over a month - so certainly any company or individual can fail to meet advertisements, and that's why it's a great idea to get paranoid.

Thanks for that advice

There are A LOT of people who prey upon new people, before they know what's going on.
There are people you can trust in the community, but it will take some time before you put together your mechanism to weed out the idiots.

Always be vigilant, even with people who pass your test - or have been vouched for by someone you trust.
Look at everyone with a suspicious eye.

Don't cut in front of people at Chipotle - I hate that.

i'd add to that be VERY careful on the securities sub forum too.

SO many ponzi schemes and just bad investments.

I'm not saying never venture there, as there are some good securities too. Just do alot of research first.  8)

if its too good to be true its probably another Bitcoin investment :-)

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I still think service offers of any kind shouldn't be allowed in the newbie jail.

I still agree.  :)

I made a post asking for this (Long-term offers being moved out of Newbies section) among other reforms in the Donators subforum a couple months back @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199523.0

Looks like it may've helped influence the forum WoT system, but I'd be very pleased to see business offers in the Newbies subforum banned outright.

At least there is always escrow to help legitimize things :)

Speaking of escrow, there is a list of providers @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0 though I would never hesitate to recommend John K, who will soon have no time to do anything other than handling online escrow transactions.  :)

Heh, there has to be some level of security in this sub-forum. That'll be like throwing sheep into a lion's den. Besides, not al "newbies" to the forums are "newbies" to detecting blatant scams. I'm sure the mods clear mostly what needs to be cleared.

They generally only remove proven scams. Of course, it's very difficult to prove something a scam before people are scammed, report it, have the report checked by a mod, often have it sent back for needing more evidence, resubmitted, and eventually sent to admin for approval.

Theymos requires a mountain of evidence (his words) to label someone a scammer, and that doesn't prevent them from coming right back on a different account. Both auction shilling and using sock accounts for other nefarious purposes are considered non-bannable offenses (though depending on how the sock is used, a "SCAMMER" tag might be applied, which would be great if it weren't a sock...).

Were the thread not justified, there wouldn't be 5 new scam reports/accusations a day just on the forum (reporting a scam publicly is generally useless since they're dealing with socks, so who knows how many happen but aren't reported), almost all being because they either 1)didn't use 2FA 2)stored money on a website without holding the site owners/ops to the same standards as any other stranger because the website look professionally-designed 3)visited a malicious website on the same PC as a live Bitcoin client 4)didn't use escrow 5)thought online reputation was an equal substitute for verifiable ID


ETA: I think I might be confusing the requirements for scammer tag with req's to release personal information. I'm not sure whether or not they're exactly the same.
"You have compiled mountains of evidence that the person is guilty, and the person has been given several weeks to respond to the allegations (because you've posted a topic about it and you've PMed the person), and you have a global moderator or other very trusted person second your request. (Have the trusted person contact me to make the request)"

the most dangerous is marketplace. the scam is big in this - remember to trust no one and to always use escrow.

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I agree. Newbies should IMO be a Beginners & Help Board.

No advertising of any kind in there.

No Trades, no "invests" & no altcoin give-aways, etc...

I've used John K but I've not understood this forums huge drive towards escrowing everything with him.  It seems like the easy way out of doing any sort of due diligence.  Seems to be the exact opposite of what bitcoin is all about.  It's like John K became PayPal of this bitcoin forum.

I agree, as long as the newbies themselves aren't censored on the newbie board.

I personally been flagging afew post that are from scammer. you could look at my history.

Doing by best...

This should be a sticky post.

Nice advice by the way.

I think this goes without saying, only deal with escrow and never run any suspicious application from newcomers ^^

Unlike Paypal, John doesn't have a history of abuse, doesn't blanket ban transaction types, and you deal with the same level-headed guy every time. Until there's reason to doubt him, I'd never suggest someone not use someone who's had the opportunity to steal millions of $ in BTC and never takes it. There are plenty of alternatives, but when introducing third-party risk, you want them to have a long and spotless history -- nobody fills that as well as John (speaking as someone who offers free escrow).

With all that - John IS an easy choice, so there aren't going to be many alternatives. Competition's always good, but nobody can out-compete him AFAIK, largely because he has such an established history, and asking less in fees than him is practically impossible. So while it's not decentralized - if you're serious about securing contracts, you can't do better than having the PM page for John bookmarked.

It's for the same reason I wouldn't recommend someone use a new wallet from a team nobody's ever heard of over the established and reviewed wallet software which's been out for years. Trust and reputation's worth a fortune when conventional legal systems are too cumbersome.

Good to know, thanks!

The risk with John K is probably that he doesn't have an institution around him that can survive his passing. If he were to have a heart attack today and die (not wishing it on him!), is there a substantial chance that all the funds in his btc escrow account would remain there, possibly forever locked away? Does he have a contingency plan?

This is a great question. I'd be curious to know as well how one can plan for the possibility of the escrow being incapacitated.

Also, is there a thread where people discuss their experiences with John K? I'd like to read up a bit on the history of why he commands so much trust (the holding millions of $$ in BTC and such) and I'm curious as to how such an escrow works in practice. Thanks!

EDIT: changed term to "incapacitated."

EDIT2: Here's the forum post for John K's service: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141672.0

Thank you for your post. It does make me wonder why they allow anybody to offer any kind of service in the newbie forum, like you mentioned in another post. I can understand the idea of having a newbie waiting room (which I'm currently stuck in, even though I've been reading this forum for about 6 months), but it seems like it'd be much safer and more useful if it was simply limited to questions and answers for bitcoin amateurs. Then again, who would want to be stuck moderating this forum erasing posts 24/7?

As a Newbies subforum most expect it to get spammy and scammy, so that helps curb the potential safety level.

Should absolutely delete all kinds of threads that are not noob-safe in this Newbies section.

For example, (this actually happened and the user is in the Default Trust List of these forums), "giving 1 btc in ripple" & make super easy instructions.. and if you fell for it, all your bitcoins (in ripple network) will just disappear! Call it a social experiment and it's fine. IT'S NOT FINE. People trust that guy because of his status on these forums.

even if the person you are buying from is legitimate, their supplier could not be, in which case your seller has no money to return. You therefore have to trust that the person hosting the group buy is legitimate

Hey,

I do have a dead-man's switch in place as all the addresses I use are cold wallets printed and stored physically in my safe. I regularly back my escrow list of transactions up to two off-site locations, and in the case of me and my family's incapacitation my family lawyer is authorized to release the funds accordingly with the list.

However, I still make it a point to not keep too much of escrow funds at once - I try to move through escrows as fast as possible to not have too much risk that I cannot cover using my own BTC funds at once. That's why escrows that might take longer (say, 2-3 weeks +) is charged a higher fee here.  I don't hold more than 5k BTC in escrow at the moment, barring long term storage like the forum's funds (that I started to hold part of since I was a moderator).


Well, the main function escrow is all about is to gain the minimal trust required to start trading - most users I've escrowed for (at 624th escrow now ;) ) eventually 'grow out' from using escrows to trade and start doing transactions of their own. As a long time Bitcoin user, I absolutely welcome this as this is the initial idea I had when I started offering escrow services. I was tired of users complaining to me that Bitcoin's system makes scams easy with the pseudo-anonymity allowed, and there wasn't a reliable infrastructure in place for people to trade safely and build up trust to ease transactions. PayPal is an altogether different beast in itself as there is still loopholes and bumps where scammers can still thrive. In Bitcoin, you can eliminate 3rd party risk altogether if you choose to use a 3-of-2 FA escrow implementation, where no single party can access the coin by himself. You'll just need to trust that the 3rd party isn't collaborating with the other party to scam you here.

(thanks again to Kluge for pointing me here! :D)

Cool, thanks for the info!

Hopefully the newbie section will be a little safer now.  I'm working to get threads moved out of here that don't belong, so please report anything suspicious/sketchy/altcoin/gambling/etc.