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Title: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on January 17, 2020, 08:30:03 AM As of now, at the account info are available the following (obsolete) social media: ICQ, AIM, MSN and YIM.
- ICQ is not used anymore or is used only by a few people. Its servers were shut down in December 2018 (https://wink.messengergeek.com/t/last-remaining-classic-icq-servers-go-down-r-i-p-classic-icq/9105). - AIM was shut down in December 2017 (https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/15/16778228/aim-dead-aol-shutdown) but even before this date it wasn't used anymore. - MSN desn't exist anymore under this name since 2005 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Messenger) when it was rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, but even this new form of MSN was shut down in 2013. -YIM was shut down in July 2018 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Messenger[/url). Considering all of the above, is it the time to change these social media from the profile info (if it is technically possible)? Maybe they can be replaced with Telegram, Discord, Skype and Instagram, for example. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: TryNinja on January 17, 2020, 08:33:35 AM Let’s google first to see if things have been suggested before. :P
What similar things do people use now? Those fields are actually built a bit deeply into SMF for some reason, so it's not completely trivial to change, but it can be done. Low on my to-do list, though, as hugeblack mentioned. I’ve long thought there should be a spot for PGP fingerprint. PGP fingerprints are SHA-1, which is insecure. The OpenPGP standard really needs a complete new revision... Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on January 17, 2020, 09:30:11 AM Let’s google first to see if things have been suggested before. :P Oh well...it seems this has been discussed before, but I didn't see the topic prior writing this one. My bad. But, as far as I see, it past almost an year since then... Maybe theymos forgot about that suggestion. Maybe after seeing this thread he will decide to make the change :) Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: hilariousetc on January 17, 2020, 11:11:20 AM I doubt it's a priority and from the quote above it doesn't look like it's a quick/easy fix to remove them, but them being there isn't really an issue. I don't even notice them to be honest and I even had to check that they were publicly displayed if you hadn't filled the details in. You could even use them to put some other info there as there's not much space for additional info (contact or otherwise) and others have done this in the past. I'm sure on the new forum there will be ones for all the current big socials and if not I'm sure they'll be added at some point.
Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Jet Cash on January 17, 2020, 11:19:01 AM I think it would be useful to restrict the link in the Website entry to a site owned and run by the member including the link.
Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: hilariousetc on January 17, 2020, 11:30:01 AM I think it would be useful to restrict the link in the Website entry to a site owned and run by the member including the link. But how would you enforce that? And besides, I like using it for other stuff. People also often use them as part of their sig campaign or to put a ref link in there or something. I think the only links I would possibly restrict was in the feedback section and links to bitcointalk threads only should be accepted as I've seen a few users use them maliciously and spam advertise or link to things they shouldn't be there. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Jet Cash on January 17, 2020, 12:10:36 PM Using the website box to spam an affiliate link is similar to using an ICQ box in my opinion. I think it is misleading to call it "website", and then use it for other purposes. Maybe we should dump the unused social media entries, and introduce a couple of affiliation entries. This would make it clear that it isn't the members website.
Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: AdolfinWolf on January 17, 2020, 12:14:58 PM I think it would be useful to restrict the link in the Website entry to a site owned and run by the member including the link. But how would you enforce that? And besides, I like using it for other stuff. People also often use them as part of their sig campaign or to put a ref link in there or something. I think the only links I would possibly restrict was in the feedback section and links to bitcointalk threads only should be accepted as I've seen a few users use them maliciously and spam advertise or link to things they shouldn't be there. (( Implementing something like keybase instead of the forums standard PM system might also be a really big improvement... eg. link your Bitcointalk account with your keybase account and people can, instead of Pming you over the forum (insecure!), PM you over your keybase account. (Just a button that'd open keybase with your linked username i guess, and people can cryptographically verify on Keybase that that account is actually linked to your bitcointalk account.) )) As of right now though; I don't think it works with bitcointalk, which is really a shame. (I haven't looked into how hard it would be for bitcointalk to add such integration, but i think it'd be really cool to verify your bitcointalk account with your keybase account, and vice versa.) Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Thekool1s on January 17, 2020, 12:53:14 PM Quote from: GazetaBitcoin Oh well...it seems this has been discussed before, but I didn't see the topic prior writing this one. My bad. You don't have to apologize even if you had used the search feature you wouldn't have found that discussion ( something which needs work ). Hence why @TryNinja suggested to "google search". Quote from: hilariousetc I doubt it's a priority and from the quote above it doesn't look like it's a quick/easy fix to remove them, but them being there isn't really an issue. From what I believe how this information is stored is in MySQL database, there are respective columns for each "Social network" and the values are stored in a row. If the columns are renamed to the other "Networks" that should do the trick but I guess it's not a priority for now... Quote from: Jet Cash I think it would be useful to restrict the link in the Website entry to a site owned and run by the member including the link. The only "usefulness" I see is to prevent scams/phishing but then again its something which isn't moderated here, tbh I don't think we need it. What am interested in tho is what kind of click-rate do these website URLs get each month... Quote from: hilariousetc But how would you enforce that? And besides, I like using it for other stuff. One of the ways that could be achieved could be via placing a small code in the header of the website you "own". Just like Google Adsense. You place a small code in your header which is then verified by google crawlers. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: hugeblack on January 18, 2020, 05:15:00 PM Does any of you know which of these social media have been included in the new update of the forum? Are there plans to include specific one, or will they be ignored?
In general, I did not pay attention to them and I think there is no point in adding them, as it increases the confusion of a forum that focus on texting. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: dzungmobile on January 18, 2020, 05:27:59 PM In general, I did not pay attention to them and I think there is no point in adding them, as it increases the confusion of a forum that focus on texting. I agree with you. Profile page of users should be kept as simple and clean as possible. It is not good if the forum allows 10-20-50 lines to add external platforms' links. Now we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram,etc. But the list will become longer.Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: shield132 on January 18, 2020, 06:48:42 PM Does any of you know which of these social media have been included in the new update of the forum? Are there plans to include specific one, or will they be ignored? At the moment none of them, you can only fill the bars of 1. Your website and 2nd - Your BTC adress.In general, I did not pay attention to them and I think there is no point in adding them, as it increases the confusion of a forum that focus on texting. I think they will be ignored because there is none talk about that and if you are interested with planned features, here it is: http://epochtalk.org/map.html#planned New forum will have better communication possibilities like notification on hashtag and etc so... Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: LTU_btc on January 18, 2020, 10:54:29 PM Yeah, these social networks is outdated, or doesn't works at all anymore. Personally, I haven't ever used most of them in my life :D. I only remember having MSN account.
Probably it would be good thing to remove them, but I think it's not big issue. Probably in new forum software it will be removed, so I think it's worth all hassle to remove them now. But personally, I don't think that these things is really needed. If new social networks would be added, I wouldn't upload links to it for privacy reasons. Maybe it's enough to have email, Telegram and Discord fields. BTW, OP, one of your mentioned services - Skype is already available here for long time, maybe since launch of Bitcointalk. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: ChuckBuck on January 19, 2020, 03:39:56 AM Oh well...it seems this has been discussed before, but I didn't see the topic prior writing this one. My bad. I don't think they forgot that suggestion. Simply, they consider it a normal proposal, not of importance, so it is not a priority to make. This forum has thousands of things to do, an unnecessary offer that won't be considered. Morever, we can provide some other information through the website section in the profile and name it arbitrary, it's completely enough to assist in communication. This proposal was put with low priorityBut, as far as I see, it past almost an year since then... Maybe theymos forgot about that suggestion. Maybe after seeing this thread he will decide to make the change :) Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Upgrade00 on January 19, 2020, 06:21:39 AM I agree with you. Profile page of users should be kept as simple and clean as possible. It is not good if the forum allows 10-20-50 lines to add external platforms' links. Now we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram,etc. But the list will become longer. It's also unlikely that one would want to link their bitcointalk account to their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. These platforms are not geared towards privacy rather exposure and would compromise a lot of accounts. It's a choice however and some users may want then available, but I don't think it's sufficient incentive tmfir the admins to implement considering the hint at how difficult it is.Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: eddie13 on January 19, 2020, 07:31:50 AM Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: UserU on January 19, 2020, 03:40:26 PM The 90s kid will remember how MSN used to be the bomb. All those nudges and emojis :D
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/MSN_Messenger_4.6.png Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on January 19, 2020, 04:44:25 PM Hehe that's a long time history here... I am glad I was around that time. I used to be a fan of YIM that time :)
Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Timelord2067 on January 19, 2020, 05:41:13 PM My ICQ number is seven digits long and I know someone who's number was six digits long. I had been using it via a third party application enabling me to use other ICQ style chat channels on my laptop (the names were in one list and in the background they were processed via the various applications (ICQ mIRC etc)).
I downloaded the ICQ program about 18 months ago, but didn't get around to installing it. I did read at the time that their focus was changing, or something or other. I'll definately miss ICQ. Removing those links list a simple matter of a couple of mouse clicks - I suspect NO ONE has enough clearance to do that hence it and a number of other features that can be modified haven't been. <OT>There's another thread concerning splitting a thread into two new topics, this is also a feature of SMF that is rarely used here.</ot> Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on January 19, 2020, 05:45:58 PM My ICQ number is seven digits long and I know someone who's number was six digits long. I had been using it via a third party application enabling me to use other ICQ style chat channels on my laptop (the names were in one list and in the background they were processed via the various applications (ICQ mIRC etc)). Was that program's name Trillian perhaps? :) I remember that one used to work at that time for more chat softwares at one (mIRC, YIM, MSN). I remember I used it for a little while as well :) Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: UserU on January 20, 2020, 07:17:21 AM Hehe that's a long time history here... I am glad I was around that time. I used to be a fan of YIM that time :) Haven't used YIM since my circle of friends were more aligned to MSN, but it's quite spectacular to see a gradual shift of trend to current IMs. Imagine what are the next-gen apps in like 5 years time :D Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Timelord2067 on January 20, 2020, 08:26:36 AM Was that program's name Trillian perhaps? :) BINGO! Yes, that's the one! Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: dragonvslinux on January 24, 2020, 08:44:51 AM - ICQ is not used anymore or is used only by a few people. Its servers were shut down in December 2018 (https://wink.messengergeek.com/t/last-remaining-classic-icq-servers-go-down-r-i-p-classic-icq/9105). - AIM was shut down in December 2017 (https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/15/16778228/aim-dead-aol-shutdown) but even before this date it wasn't used anymore. - MSN desn't exist anymore under this name since 2005 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Messenger) when it was rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, but even this new form of MSN was shut down in 2013. -YIM was shut down in July 2018 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Messenger[/url). Nice research, I think you proved these social media platforms are dead without any doubt. Liking the references too :D Maybe they can be replaced with Telegram, Discord, Skype and Instagram, for example. I think you're right with your suggestion, although this also goes to show the top social media platforms in one decade can be completely different by the next. Maybe this has stabilized a lot more since the days of facebook, but I imagine it will continue to change over the years, not something theymos would want to keep up-to-date with imo. I also think it's safe to assume there hasn't been any changes to these social media account details since 2005 (when MSN was shutdown), so I also doubt there will be any changes in the near future. I'd also agree with simpy removing all these, and having 4 "blank" social media account options (that recognizes the relevant platforms with data input), so users can chose their own. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on January 24, 2020, 09:09:13 AM Well, let's just hope that at some point theymos will look into it :) Most likely, it is not something very important but we can say it is a "nice to have" feature.
Title: PGP fingerprint security and the authentication of forum identity Post by: nullius on February 14, 2020, 08:40:45 PM OP, good idea except for the “Telegram, Discord, Skype and Instagram” part. The research into actual ongoing usage (or the impossibility of such usage) of the various old popular IM networks is most useful. Unfortunately, I doubt that the forum will add, remove, or change the existing profile fields anytime soon. Too bad.
This thread caught my attention because I was involved in a similar thread in December of 2017—when I was a Newbie actively posting for two weeks, as noted below (#post_newbie_suggestion). At the time, I suggested a PGP fingerprint field. Now, I must address something that theymos apparently said whilst nullius slept. An important security message from Mr 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C, a.k.a. “nullius” #976210 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=976210): I’ve long thought there should be a spot for PGP fingerprint. PGP fingerprints are SHA-1, which is insecure. The OpenPGP standard really needs a complete new revision... theymos is wrong here, and he should not be FUDding the security of PGP fingerprints whilst a revised standard is slowly grinding its way through the IETF process. SHA-1 is badly broken against collision attacks. (https://shattered.io/) SHA-1 MUST NOT be trusted for any purpose requiring security against a collision attack, period. (Now, where is SHA-1’s trust page?) An attacker who did a SHA-1 collision attack against PGP key fingerprints could generate two different keys that have the same fingerprint. That’s it. He could not determine in advance what the fingerprint will be; and he could not by thus means generate a key matching somebody else’s already-existing fingerprint. There are many uses of hashes where collision attack resistance is important—especially, any scenario where an attacker can generate benign and malicious versions of a message (a contract, a CA certificate request, etc.), induce an innocent party to sign the benign version using a digital signature based on SHA-1, and then apply the same digital signature to the malicious version. Git is also vulnerable to an attacker generating benign and malicious versions of a commit, although as a practical matter, the attack seems difficult to carry off with a plaintext source code commit. Regardless, as a precaution, Bitcoin Core uses custom commit-hook script generate a SHA-512 tree hash, and also makes use of signed commits. Generally, I would be much more wary of images, PDFs, and other blobs committed to a git repository, in any scenario where a malicious committer could benefit by sneaking in a bad version. Whereas a PGP fingerprint is not such a scenario. A PGP fingerprint needs resistance to preimage attacks, not collision attacks. SHA-1 still provides a 160-bit security level* against a preimage attack. (* Simplified for the sake of explanation. Please don’t counterargue with some research paper shaving two or three bits off the security margin, or whatever; I would not consider SHA-1 to be “broken” against preimage attacks, unless someone shaved it down significantly below the approximately 2128 amount of work needed to break other some cryptographic primitives used by PGP, e.g., the best known attacks against Curve 25519.) As specified in the current version of the OpenPGP standard, at RFC 4880 § 12.2 (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-12.2), a v4 key’s fingerprint uses SHA-1. The way that it uses SHA-1, an attacker would need to carry off a full* preimage attack to make himself a key matching someone else’s PGP fingerprint. That is infeasible. (* “Full”, in contradistinction to the partial preimage attack that Bitcoin mining uses for proof of work. Similarly, it is trivial to make a key matching a 32-bit PGP “short” keyid (https://evil32.com/), and not-infeasible to do the same attack against a 64-bit “long” keyid. That is why I have always listed my full PGP fingerprint in my forum signature.) The “RFC4880bis” draft revision of the OpenPGP standard (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-openpgp-rfc4880bis/) prospectively adds v5 keys, with fingerprints using SHA-256. Those will provide a 256-bit security level against preimage attacks on the fingerprint. My root-of-trust PGP identity key fingerprint is based on an Ed25519 key. A Pollard’s rho attack could solve the DLP for my key with about 2126 work (← note: 126)—to say nothing of a hypothetical future attacker with a large, efficient quantum computer. (I don’t think that’s a significant practical concern to Bitcoin now; but an identity key should be able to last a lifetime, at least.) I am certainly interested in better options for my identity key (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8569683)*. But whilst those are yet unavailable, it seems pointless for me to quibble over the security level of a v4 fingerprint with its 160 bits of preimage attack resistance. (* Linked post is by nullc, who is not me. Oops. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3009430.msg31099026#msg31099026)) Now, observe that most of my focus here is on authentication of an identity, and not simply on providing a means of contact. A comparison of the communications security of PGP to that of ICQ, AIM, and MSN Messenger would be laughable. Placing a PGP fingerprint in one’s profile is a statement of cryptographically strong identifying information, not merely a bit of contact info. That, indeed, is why I have kludged my PGP key fingerprint into my profile and displayed it in my forum signature, ever since I started actively posting. I am 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C; 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C is me; and if you want to authenticate my identity, I explicitly request that you verify digital signatures rooted in 0xC2E91CD74A4C57A105F6C21B5A00591B2F307E0C. Merited by nullius (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=976210) (10) Kek, only one interesting thing: i can't find any pgp signature or bitcoin signature from nullius after his return (since 2nd January). His pgp keys is well known - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3107429.0 Are you sure this is real nullius? Code: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Control of a forum account is not cryptographic evidence of identity. Control of an e-mail address is also not cryptographic evidence of identity. With my large boldface supplied: Topic: satoshin@gmx.com is compromised Today I received an email from satoshin@gmx.com (Satoshi's old email address), the contents of which make me almost certain that the email account is compromised. The email was not spoofed in any way. It seems very likely that either Satoshi's email account in particular or gmx.com in general was compromised, and the email account is now under the control of someone else. Perhaps satoshin@gmx.com expired and then someone else registered it. Don't trust any email sent from satoshin@gmx.com unless it is signed by Satoshi (https://bitcointalk.org/Satoshi_Nakamoto.asc). (Everyone should have done this even without my warning, of course.) I wonder when the email was compromised, and whether it could have been used to make the post on p2pfoundation.ning.com. (Edit: I was referring here to the Dorian Nakamoto post. After I posted this, there was another p2pfoundation.ning.com post.) /me asks, “But what is Satoshi’s PGP key fingerprint? If I download that key from your link, how do I know it is the same key that Satoshi used before?” The email said: Quote from: satoshin@gmx.com Michael, send me some coins before I hitman you. Not exactly Satoshi's normal style. ;) /me asks, “The key that I just downloaded from your link lacks any Web of Trust signatures. Anyway, suppose that I don’t already have verified keys from anyone who knew Satoshi. What then? Does this look right to you?” Code: $ gpg Satoshi_Nakamoto.asc https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/html?q=DE4EFCA3E1AB9E41CE96CECB18C09E865EC948A1 Whereas in the context of what is really a discussion of forum identity, theymos’ deprecation of PGP fingerprints is not seeing the forest for the trees. As its primary means of authenticating identity, the forum relies on plain-old password authentication! (And it has been hacked in the past.) Even a totally obsolete v3 PGP fingerprint using MD5 would be incomparably more secure than the forum’s login system for the purpose of securing user identities! https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2001/0315.html#6 Quote from: Bruce Schneier (2001) Remember, strong encryption is not our problem; we have secure algorithms. In fact, it's the one security problem we have solved; solving it better just doesn't matter. I often liken this to putting a huge stake in the ground and hoping the enemy runs right into it. You can argue about whether the stake should be a mile tall or two miles tall, but a smart attack is just going to dodge the stake.
(I seem to also remember a Schneier quote about attackers climbing in through the window, after you secure your door with an unbreakable lock. I can’t find it now. It may have been in AC2; I lost my copy of AC2 My Newbie suggestion Let’s google first to see if things have been suggested before. :P Yes, but you missed an earlier suggestion on a thread whereby I myself replied, when I was a Newbie. Well, from your above quote, it looks like Mr Nasty was a fan of my Newbie posts. ;-) Or what's most secure that we would want to advocate people use? I might say Keybase, as long as people use their own PGP keys & not the ones Keybase generates. For chat: Jabber (for OTR), Ricochet, Tox. Simply for use of the fields: Straight-up PGP key fingerprints! Please. If possible, with means to time-lock them instead of pasting ad hoc messages into the “stake your address” thread. That could solve so many problems. Keybase users could also post their PGP key fingerprints, of course. But that way, the fields would not be Keybase-specific. [...] Besides having suggested profile PGP fingerprints when I had been posting for but a fortnight, I believe that I was the first person to ever suggest time-locking a commitment of a PGP fingerprint in a forum profile. It is actually not the best solution. A much better idea would be to give pseudonymous cypherpunk users the option to irrevocably commit an account to be bound to PGP fingerprints, TOFU as for the first committed key, with a strict key-rollover rule requiring bidirectional cross-certification between the old key and the new key. That idea has some subtleties, obvious failure modes, and nonobvious edge cases that I don’t think I should discuss at length here, when the chance of it being implemented Any Time Soon on the forum is effectually nil. P.S., please never tie anything into Keybase! The stupidly misdesigned verification procedure in their web app makes it impractical to keep a profile updated without installing their software, and entrusting one’s keys to their software on a network-connected computer—or else blindly copypasting their shell scripts into a network-connected machine that has both gpg and curl (!). This is unacceptable to me. I have a warning posted on my long-disused Keybase account; and I may perhaps delete the account entirely, due to the impracticality of keeping my key updated there. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: TECSHARE on February 14, 2020, 09:51:27 PM IMO we need to go the other direction. Turn Bitcointalk into a classic dial up BBS.
Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Vod on February 15, 2020, 04:24:27 AM My ICQ number is seven digits long Lower or higher than 808xxxx? Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: GazetaBitcoin on February 16, 2020, 12:35:23 PM OP, good idea except for the “Telegram, Discord, Skype and Instagram” part. The research into actual ongoing usage (or the impossibility of such usage) of the various old popular IM networks is most useful. Unfortunately, I doubt that the forum will add, remove, or change the existing profile fields anytime soon. Too bad. ~snip~ Now, observe that most of my focus here is on authentication of an identity, and not simply on providing a means of contact. A comparison of the communications security of PGP to that of ICQ, AIM, and MSN Messenger would be laughable. Placing a PGP fingerprint in one’s profile is a statement of cryptographically strong identifying information, not merely a bit of contact info. That, indeed, is why I have kludged my PGP key fingerprint into my profile and displayed it in my forum signature, ever since I started actively posting. Thank you for sharing your wisdom here, nullius! Your ideas are great and I just hope theymos will read your post here. Maybe he will make a change based on your suggestion, though. Besides that, I didn't know that in English exist also the saying "to not see the forrest for the trees". I was sure it is a Romanian saying. Apparently, it is not. We have this saying as well, translated ad literam. Also, what AC2 copy did you lose? What do you mean by AC2? Assassins' Creed 2? :) Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: nullius on February 16, 2020, 06:18:33 PM Thank you for sharing your wisdom here, nullius! Cu plăcere, GazetaBitcoin! Your ideas are great and I just hope theymos will read your post here. Maybe he will make a change based on your suggestion, though. I also always hope for forum improvements. Unfortunately, given the problem of what seems to be a bit of software misdesign: Those fields are actually built a bit deeply into SMF for some reason, so it's not completely trivial to change, but it can be done. Low on my to-do list, though, as hugeblack mentioned. I think that at least in the short term, a more practical hope here is to encourage people to put their PGP fingerprints in the “other contact info” field, as I do! Perhaps a thread should be someday started to encourage that. However, I think we first need more PGP advocacy on the forum; otherwise, we would be putting the cart before the horse. (Perhaps another idiom with a literal Romanian equivalent?) I posted a PSA in Beginners & Help on why people should care about PGP fingerprints (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5225902.0). For the how, I have a simple, forum-oriented, extremely basic PGP tutorial in the pipeline. In the future, I also hope to contribute to such fine efforts as this (n.b. my name in the credits) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3221263.0). Together, we can build community efforts to help people secure their forum identities using the power of strong cryptography! Also, what AC2 copy did you lose? What do you mean by AC2? Assassins' Creed 2? :) Bruce Schneier’s Applied Cryptography, Second Edition (1996) (https://www.schneier.com/books/applied_cryptography/) gave me my first solid introduction to cryptography. Quote The book details how programmers and electronic communications professionals can use cryptography — the technique of enciphering and deciphering messages — to maintain the privacy of computer data. It describes dozens of cryptography algorithms, gives practical advice on how to implement them in cryptographic software, and shows how they can be used to solve security problems. Thus, it was a book for programmers who wished to implement cryptographic software without shooting themselves in the foot. Not so much a book for cryptographers—who must study how to (0) break ciphers,* then (1) design new ciphers, and/or write the low-level crypto primitive implementation code (https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1) that is a type of black magic. (* As a commonplace heuristic, a cipher should distrusted unless its designer has long past study and experience in breaking ciphers. That is the “don’t waste your time” threshold for other cryptographers to take the cipher seriously, and try to break it themselves. If it passes that peer review, then the cipher may be trustworthy.) It was also (and may still be) a useful book for those who wanted deeply to understand how to use cryptographic software. I myself did not yet have significant coding skills (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2984326.msg30870414#msg30870414) when I discovered AC2. Still, it helped me to develop the correct mindset. That made me a “power user” of cryptographic software written by others, and helped to lay the foundation for my future coding. Of course, AC2 is now technologically obsolete and thus, mostly of mere historical interest. Published at the height of the 1990s Crypto Wars, it taught a whole generation of cypherpunks and cypherpunk sympathizers the practical implementation of applied cryptography, per the title. It was a sort of a textbook for those who wanted to learn how to follow the adage, “cypherpunks write code.” Besides that, I didn't know that in English exist also the saying "to not see the forest for the trees". I was sure it is a Romanian saying. Apparently, it is not. We have this saying as well, translated ad literam. As a guess from one who should know well enough to look up the history of the phrase, my immediate hypothesis is that it may be the type of idea spread through the European upper classes, who had Latin as a common language, and then filtered down into the vernacular. By comparison, European folk-dances show much variation; but ballet and ballroom dances were spread through Europe by the upper classes. Many high-culture dance styles (especially, ballroom dance styles) were much influenced by local folk dances, and in turn influenced folk dances in other parts of Europe. Consider that to be more of a demonstration of how to form such hypotheses than anything else. The next step would be some philological research, which may show the hypothesis to be wrong. Unfortunately, many reasonable-seeming hypotheses become wildly incorrect urban legends or “folk etymologies” that are flatly wrong, e.g., the incorrect notion that the phrase “give a damn” originated from “give a dam” with reference to a low-value coin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2890454.msg29732165#msg29732165). I give a damn about correctness. Title: Re: Suggestion to change the obsolete social media from account info Post by: Harlot on February 16, 2020, 06:29:09 PM We do have the option to add a "Other Contact Info" under the Forum Profile Information tab. Personally even if the admins decide to replace it from what you suggested I still wouldn't put my personal accounts in their like what I did to my email where I opt it out to remain hidden from the rest of the users. However I see this feature change very useful to members who are heavily involved in the marketplace doing business since people who are interested in talking to them would find their contacts easily.
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