Bitcoin Forum

Someone noticed that member hZti (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=156723) woke up recently after seven years of inactivity, and he jumped right back to signature campaigns.
His password and email address was changed recently, and looking at his post history I noticed he was natively speaking German language.
I suspected that this account changed hands and it was probably sold so I left neutral feedback on his profile, and than I received two PM's from him telling me that he already proved ownership to forum admin (i don't know how exactly).
He asked me to remove neutral feedback from his profile, and I am ready to do that if he can prove ownership of any address he used in bitcointalk forum before year 2022.

I usually don't share content of private messages, but I will make exception here, because one of them is written in German, and I would like to ask other members if this is correctly written or done by machine translation?


What do you think about this case?

PS
Help from German speaking members is appreaciated. ;)

What I think is that if an account is bought, the seller can give the buyer the private key and address to sign a message, but this would still remain the best way to know if hZti is the owner of the account. Be it bought or built.

What I just know is that he is not qualified to be in a campaign, I have noticed he applied in three signature campaigns like Chipmixer and Bestchange recently when there was no slot available. He does not have any merit in the last 120 days, even in the last few years he got no merit, the merit he has was the one given to all members when merit system was introduced.

What I can only say is that he should provide the evidence that he is the owner of the account by signing a message using bitcoin address. If proven, then you can change the neutral tag to another neutral tag indicating account just woke up. If he start having and maintaing integrity, then you can remove it.

This user did not even attempt to make any posts to verify the authenticity of his account and therefore it is difficult to say that he "suddenly returned to post in the forum."

In general, the fact that the account is from 2013 or from 2022 will not make a difference, and the most important is the writing style. Therefore, I suggest to give him a negative trust to ensure that the account belongs to the real owner.
Negative trust will not affect those who want to participate in the discussions and will force him to prove ownership of the account.

And it's only possible that a German speaking member also bought the account recently, so he can speak the language just like the original owner of the account.

But still being inactive for many years and then suddenly joining campaigns is already suspicious to me.

He always can prove account ownership by signing any of his previous used BTC addresses. there are a few of them here, by ninjastic.space (https://ninjastic.space/user/id/156723?addresses)


For example address 1MXv1mGhhzYy22rFM8NWeYWSyYDnRnYRYL is used Archive (https://archive.fo/su1rn#selection-4851.0-4857.87) (IDK why I can't quote this post). I don't know German, but it seems understandable to me that this was the address of this BTT account.



I would not say that all this is enough for a negative tag. These are all assumptions and estimates only. Even if he can't sign any of previously used addresses (maybe they're from the exchange), it's not enough for the red tag. Neutral is fine.

@dkbit98 did you send him a link to this thread, maybe he can come here and give a real explanation of what happened with him and this account?

While his behavior is suspicious I think that would be an overkill, to give this user negative feedback right off the bat. Imho, its much better to do it the way dkbit98 did, to give him neutral feedback for starters and then give it some time before proceeding with the negative when more evidence is available. If he was asking for a loan in this situation, then I wouldn't think twice before tagging him.


I was just in the middle of checking those when I saw your post and from what I can see, none of them were used in the last 7-8 years so somehow I doubt that he will be able to sign any of those even if that account never changed hands.

No I won't give him negative feedback and I don't think anyone else should do that until we hear what he has to say.
What makes me even more suspicious was that he send me two messages and one of them was written in German language to prove something.
It looks desperate if you ask me, but my popcorns are ready for his replies.

No, I didn't reply to any of his messages, and I expect him to reply in public about this.... it could be much more fan  :D
I am sure he is well aware of this thread, but I will add the link on feedback for his profile just in case.

Could also be they hit a rough patch and need the extra BTC AND if they have really not been back here for 5 1/2 years are more newbie them old user in terms of what is going on..
But, if you asked me to bet I would take changed hands.
NOT worthy of neg feedback YET.

-Dave

I also took a look at those addresses and none of them has any balance (except the last one which still has few sats in it) and the most recent transaction was made in late 2014 (7 years and a half ago), so there is a high chance he doesn't have access to any of them anymore.
We should take this in consideration and don't conclude the account changed hands just because he can't sign a message with one of them.

He said he proved ownership of the account to admins! So, all he has to do is to post here the evidence he sent to them or ask one of them to confirm this if the evidence contain personal information.

I also noticed the account after his applications to various signature campaigns. I'm not quite sure how a proof-of-ownership to the forum admins works here on Bitcointalk. But you are absolutely right. This case looks a little bit fishy.

The German text you received via PM looks okay though. However, it is strange that the user has not yet made a post on the German-language board. A single message via PM is easy to fake, but plenty of posts on the German-language board are not.

Under these circumstances, I think a neutral feedback is appropriate for now. It has no immediate impact on the account, but it allows the bounty managers to get their own picture.

This is probably true. At least, I can guess that he dealt with the recovery team. In the seclog (https://bitcointalk.org/seclog.php), we can see:

27 April 2022, 16:00:54 - hZti - manual recovery, ownership change queued (completed)
04 May 2022, 16:25:01 - hZti - manual recovery, previously-queued ownership change completed
04 May 2022, 16:50:55 - hZti - password reset via email
04 May 2022, 16:51:01 - hZti - woke up

Hi Guys,

I really appreciate the effort from people that try to keep the forum clean of scammers. But it is kind of frustrating if you are being accused of hacking or buying an account simply because you apply for a signature campaign after you have not used your account for a long time. In my opinion it would be very helpful to first contact someone via PM and not call them out as a scammer everywhere before knowing anything.
In my case it is actually quiete easy to proof the ownership of the account, since my email adress that the account was originally registered with contains my real name. Also I use the username hZti in various forums since way before 2013. Also it was proven over my IP adress logs. The reason for me to not use my account was a hacking attempt a few years ago and I was actually not willing to go through the complicated steps of getting the account back. For that reason the account was simply locked for the last years and nobody had access to it. Now that I had the time and will to get the account back.

Since I wanted to be more active here i figured i could also make some extra BTC for posting. thats why I applied for the campaigns.

Feel free to comment on my statement.

If you look at the logs, you can conclude that this account has already contacted the recovery team, and probably already proved its involvement in the ownership of this account.

https://i.ibb.co/HTyQP6F/Screenshot-1.png (https://ibb.co/1GNxX1v)

Also, I noticed a strange thing. There is no note on the site bpip.org that the user has changed their password. Although the rest, this note exists.

https://i.ibb.co/q18T7px/Screenshot-1.png (https://ibb.co/bdVcQX7)

Its quiete funny to me that you ask me to write to you in german since I was active in the german subforum and then tell that it is desperate of me to do so. Actually I was just trying to be nice and help you in your effort to find out if I am a scammer or not. It was not clear to me that in fact you don't even speak german.
I think it should also be part of a good communication in a forum to be able to accept that the accusation was wrong, but it seems that nobody is really willing to do that.

nothing bad has happened to you here, only discussion about unusual activities from your account. PM is not always the best solution as you think, it always has a dose of secrecy in relation to other members, plus many members will consider unsolicited sending of PM as spam.
you demanded the removal of neutral feedback (through PM :( ), although he is quite adequate and does not damage the reputation required to participate in campaigns.


what is perhaps the strangest to me is the first thing you applied in the two strongest campaigns, without considering whether there are any open positions. maybe you really didn't know what is mean CFNP, and that was hard for you to check, but you were able to check which campaigns have the highest pay rate. strange for someone who made it to sr. member membership.


if you think it's easy for you to prove that you are the original owner of the account, do it and put an end to this whole discussion. I'm sure the neutral tag will be deleted as well.
Even I am not sure that clear confirmation is access to the email address used upon registration nor IP address logs.

Well last time I used this forum it was totally normal to apply to some campaigns and then choose one of them that you were accepted at. But yes maybe my mistake since I didnt suspect that shady campaigns would be allowed here.

You have drawn attention to yourself with your behavior. First, you should have read the terms and conditions of the subscription companies you wanted to participate in. Almost all the places you applied for didn't have open slots, and what's more, they require a certain amount of merits received in the last six months.
The fact that you did not know this and did not bother to read the conditions caused the attention of users to you. However, you are lucky that you did not apply to participate in the 1xbit scam project. Otherwise, a negative review would be simply guaranteed to you.
A lot has changed since your absence, so be careful.


Isn't the announcement that his application completed enough proof? Or I do not understand something?

I proofed the ownership to the recovery team, it is not really understandable to me that nobody trusts the judgement of that team. Anyways as I said the email adress that was originally used to create the account is my name that is written in passport like: john.snow@gmail.com. I think it is understandable that I will not send you a .pdf of my passport.
If somebody wants I can send them a PM in Peercointalk (https://talk.peercoin.net/u/hZti/activity) or Computerbase (https://www.computerbase.de/forum/members/hzti.558938/)

This is it.

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In good faith. I think the person is the original owner of the account, given that the accounts recovery team (cryptios) verified everything (Including hZti's original email address that was used to register the account)

Those guys can not recover your account if you don't write to them using the original email address you used for registering the account. I know this because my account was once hacked, and I went through the same process to recover it.

This seems like a rather heavy handed approach to the situation. Technically, if you suspect an account is compromised, you can contact or report the account to an admin. They can then take a look, as they have far more information than us. Really, it's not a requirement for someone to prove to everyone on the forum, especially assuming they've gone through the process of proving it to the recovery team. Obviously, it's ideally what someone would do, but not a requirement.

While I do understand this approach is with the best intentions, effectively you're strong arming someone into doing something that they might not want to do for whatever reason, and while the majority of the time you might be right in your assumptions it doesn't mean that'll always be the case.

Personally, with situations like these I'd rather inform an admin, see if they want to do some investigation, and just let it be until that user demonstrates untrustworthy behaviour. Applying for a signature campaign (whether they've read the sig rules or applied for multiple) doesn't really strike me as untrustworthy. I get that the combination of the account credentials being changed etc, but as you can see the recovery log also suggests that the recovery team were involved, who have much more information to act upon than us.

It is believed you are the owner of the account but know as lovesmayfamilis has already mentioned, that each campaign has rules and requirements. For you not to have read the rules and requirements but applied indicates that you are novice to a lot of things on this forum. But with how this thread as been so far, we can assume you are the owner of the account and that you were just not on this forum when there were some changes.

You are welcome, do not see anyone hostile at all, it is all discussion and opinion to achieve best conclusion and to learn. Merit system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0) started four years ago which reduced spam and shit posts on this forum, especially on bitcoin boards, and helped many users to improve the way they are posting.

Signature campaign managers do have it in the campaign rules for anyone that want to apply to have certain number of merits in the last 120 days. Even if some campaign managers do not have such rules, they still look into an active and a quality posters' account which will definitely have as many as possible merits in the last 120 days before they are selected. Which means even if you are able to prove the ownership of your account, you are still not fit to be in a campaign. Be active, make quality posts and prove yourself worthy to the campaign managers for one of them to select to join a campaign.

Lastly and very important, read campaign rules and requirements, it is there in the OP (opening post). Although, this forum is mostly about learning from one another, my response is just based on the fact that you wish to join a campaign.

Thank you Halab for confirming this.

You have to understand that things changed a lot since you were last active in forum.
We now have a lot of hacked and sold account that try to participate in campaigns or they are sending private message to other members to try and hack them.
You did exactly the same things that triggered my red alert, you send me private messages and you directly signed up for campaigns after long hibernation.

Who exactly called you a scammer?
I didn't accused you of anything, all I did is I wrote NEUTRAL feedback stating my suspicions, and I created this topic to ask other members and staff what they think about this case.
After all, look it from the bright side, your account name should be clear now and campaign managers will notice this for sure.
Try to be active in forum and good luck.

Welcome back to bitcointalk forum.
I removed neutral feedback from your profile.

hZti seems to be speaking german indeed, I can confirm that his posts are written in fluent german.
A proof of a signed message would still be nice to have a public confirmation for everyone.

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What do you expect after being inactive for years but suddenly you are starting to apply for a campaign and shitpost out of nowhere?
Your posts are at best sub-par, don't make sense and you are needlessly bumping old threads. Some of it are necroposting and therefore a very clear shitpost according to relnarien (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1545652.msg15551504#msg15551504).
So, when you start shitposting out of nowhere, it's completely normal that you'll see the reaction that has happened here.


Because PMing scammers will achieve what?


More active is nice but if more active means dozens of shitposts per day, I'm out...


Why should we take a probably risky bet if signing from an old address should not be a problem?
Bitcointalk is a Bitcoin forum, so it shouldn't be a problem to sign from an old address. At least if you are the original owner of the account.

It would be a public proof for everyone.
Why are you refusing to do it?

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I'm very confident that he's a native german speaker.
Unfortunately, most of his posts are outright shitposts and I don't see any sign it will change, so I'm not sure if I want to give him the benefit of doubt.

I'm not adding a trust for now but considering the accused account is aged, was inactive for years, is now jumping directly into signature campaigns and the account is currently on a hard shitposting spree, I would like to see a proof signed from one of your old addresses.
His reaction to refuse signing from an old address is not beneficial to get my support.

As it was pointed out earlier in this thread the 3 addresses i used in the past were posted here more then 8 years ago and have no balance or transactions since then. I don't own the private keys to them and I think that is not very suspicious. If you are a german speaker you probably have an account at Computerbase so I can verify there. Also I already addressed the way the account was verified in posts earlier this thread.

Also if you think I do only shitposts, then please go ahead and ignore my account. It is and will also be sadly not possible in the future to do such quality post like you do.


For future reference I will leave this adress here: 1SECURED7jkosn6fv9uUaV8prHgNpC1A2

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Maybe my reaction was over the top, but indeed it is frustrating to come back to a forum and be greeted like that. Especially after I spent weeks verifying my ownership with the account recovery team over various methods. But I guess steps like this are indeed necessary but I can only say that I hope everyone is a little more respectful in the future with possible hacked accounts.

That's bad... (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5396797.0)


Ignoring shitposts is a very bad idea because it will make the forum a complete mess, will decrease posting quality and cause spam and scam. Even in the past, many incentives against shitposting were launched and it didn't get better until Merit arrived in 2018. Shitposting is still a problem today but it's not as bad as 4 or 5 years ago.


Then, why did you apply for a ChipMixer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1935179.msg60042864#msg60042864) and BestChange (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5217201.msg60042747#msg60042747) spot?
Improving posts should be easy and in everyone's best interest.
I'm sure you can improve your posts.
Otherwise, it will be hard to get into a decent camapign if that's what you are here for.


You can stake it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996318.0

Thanks for the tip with the staking.

For the rest I won't really comment but as a german you should know the saying "Eigenlob stinkt" in regards to your post quality compared to mine.

I've praised nothing about my posting quality or did we read a different post? I've encouraged to post quality content, to quit shitposting (because excessive shitposting is bad for the forum) and I've lined out that getting into a good campaign requires at least frequently some decent posts.
Almost everyone can write decent posts but some are far too lazy.  :)
Only a small fraction of people is too dumb to write good posts.

To all those that said the profile changed hands because first thing I did was sign up for a signature campaign, this sums up perfectly how bitcointalk has changed  :D

https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fd3FRSwn.jpg&t=637&c=4cYyRvzJO7sSww

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5232907.msg58391494#msg58391494