Bitcoin Forum

http://s23.postimg.org/bydw46p4b/Alex_Sovu.jpg

Granted, I'm not versed as to how or why disabling the uploading of avatars protects this forum from outside attacks, but will take your word for it that such is warranted.

But, unless I'm mistaken, allowing a Romanian, Alex Sovu, to interface with BCT's API to now have the ability to delete any posts automatically from his self-moderated thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294197) is a grave concern.

I implore you to lock all self-moderated threads until this potentially disastrous issue is resolved. Likewise, I duly ask that the practice of users creating self-moderated threads cease immediately, for I believe that the threat to this forum's 373,267 members is real, and the compromising of their identities is severely at stake.

Regards, from your pal living ~142 miles south of you,

~Bruno Kucinskas

It is disclosed to everyone prior to posting that a thread is self moderated and that posts can be deleted by the creator of the thread. You can make a new thread that is not self-moderated if you want to prevent being moderated like this.

Also self-moderated threads tend to get more attention as they can help people scam, so a deleted post will likely lead to a scam accusation being opened.

True, but in the case of what is happening here, this user has created a bot to delete posts of people that have spoken out against their company.

there are plenty of scam accusations against Black Arrow who has acted in numerous unethical ways, including this means of attempting to delete factual information from its thread.

so, sure, the current rules allow it.  and people have taken what steps they can to operate within those rules also in response to the actions of this company.

the premise I think is that this user is abusing the hell out of those rules in a wrongful attempt to prevent people that may be looking for information on this company from seeing the actual information being provided by current customers.

the question is why would this level of automated censorship be allowed.  it's obviously BS, at a minimum, and borders on fraud, if not outright crosses that line, by redacting the truth being posted by people that have been screwed by this company, lied to by this company and had their money taken and not returned as promised by this company.

How does the bot distinguish criticism of the company from praise? That would be very sophisticated code for a forum bot.

But surely "self-moderation" is useful to scammers, but scammers are tolerated by the forum administrators, they wouldn't remove abything just because it encourages them.

It's programmed to delete certain users posts blindly.

I support this movement and would even like to go a step further and have the blackarrow user and other known accounts banned from the forums.

I do understand that they have not violated any forum rules, but lets face it, they are on par with Butterfly Labs and are just some of the worst people to inhabit bitcoin.

Also, we can add trust spamming to their list of faults as you can see what they left under mine.  If they cannot back up the claim that I ordered an X-1 through them and that they refunded me (neither of which they can do), then it is an obvious abuse of the trust system.

Oh wait, is abuse of the trust system against forum rules?  I am unsure about this one, but they have done it with their trust post under my account.

OK, that sounds easy enough. Thanks.

if someone isn't going to go to the "trouble" to check scam accusations before doing business with a company then they probably won't read through a thread (that potentially has negative comments against the company).

I don't think it would be against the rules to create a second thread discussing the company that is unmoderated (un-self-moderated) if it is that important to have a thread discussing the company in the mining section.

and mine.  completely fallacious feedback/trust post which they outright claim in an online article they have no proof to support.  and of course they do not, because it is completely false, i.e., a bold-faced lie.

these people are liars and fraudsters that have been using this forum to deceive people into buying products through false promises and claims and continue to do so by trying to censor information to prevent a true picture of their activities being presented.  

if anyone deserves a boot in the ass to show them to the door it is these people.  they are bad for bitcoin and abuse the privileges of this forum to further their unscrupulous activities. 

maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't.  Black Arrow seems to think there is enough reason to censor their thread. 

people have created other threads.

I do not think the question is whether or not people should do their due diligence or if there is the ability to create another thread. 

the question is whether a clearly unscrupulous practice, which would seem to have no other purpose than intentionally misleading potential consumers, should be allowed to continue.

Bitcoin doesn't have an api, so he is scripting meaning that really nothing theymos can do to prevent this without changing how self-mod post work.

I do not like self-mod threads, but they are not a security issue. It is a censorship issue. Change the subject of your topic. Got me (and may be many others) worried.

The forum has a policy to not moderate potential scams. As a result it is not the safest way to conduct business (the same can be said with Bitcoin in general due to the inability to reverse a transaction).

I agree that a moderated thread almost will always mean scam and I invest/spend as so. There are some, very limited instances when a self moderated thread makes sense (for example when you have a high visibility thread that someone could use to advertise their services).

Can you explain what you mean by the compromising on their identities being at stake? It appears that he's just automated the process of deleting posts by certain users, unless there's a reason to believe the forum itself has been compromised.

Black Arrow has left me frivolous trust feedback as well. I recently got a PM telling me that two of my posts were deleted from their thread. One of the posts was an old one telling PG/Gleb to not accuse black arrow of being a scam since it wasn't proven back then yet. I find it ironic that they'd delete that super old post.

The criteria for being one of those blacklisted usernames seems to be anyone who mentions the actual name of any individual associated with Black Arrow.

Self-moderated threads are needed to cut out the noise from trolls where intelligent discussion is paramount.

Not only is it not a security issue, it's intended behavior. Black Arrow doesn't seem particularly legitimate from what I've heard, and their mass deletion of posts in their thread certainly isn't helping their image, but there's nothing wrong with the forum.

How is that an honest entity is able to maintain a thread with very little discontent sans being self-moderate, yet most self-moderated threads turn out to be scams?

Most self-moderated threads turn out to be scams because the scammer wants to be able to delete any posts from people who call them out on their scam. There are plenty of legit self moderated threads throughout the forum.

I do agree that some sections should really not allow self moderated threads, primarily the marketplace sections, as many people will only look in a seller's thread to get a good idea if someone is scamming (they will often not even look at their trust). If someone has a self moderated thread they could potentially scam multiple times, even after the scam is uncovered

I don't get why people think self moderation is this big cube that if you get deleted from you can't come back. Seriously. If you have such a problem with self moderation - no, your rights of speech haven't been taken - just post a NEW thread. Make a new cube. Trust me, making a new thread that isn't self-mod'd by a bot would be better, since, people hate self mod'd threads and would be quick to step onto your bandwagon about whatever.

Regardless of what theymos decides, users who resort to using self moderated threads should be flagged with negative trust. Period.

Judging by how little time it took them to delete my x-Children/CHILD and SYNC posts, BA isn't the only one using this bot.

That is not what people are saying here.  I didn't see anyone talking about their rights to free speech.  It is not the actions of the posters, or their limitations imposed by the OP and this bot,  but of the actions of the OP that are of concern in this case.

 I will summarize again.

1.  People have created other threads, several of them at this point in fact, including scam accusations.
2.  This main thread by this customer was initially used to post material facts about the situation these people said customers were buying into which turned out to be false.  Therefore, they have used BTCT to take from people what is likely millions of dollars.
4.  Their attempting to continue to control information allows them to continue to attempt to mislead future customers by attempting to silence their critics.

This is not about free speech.  This is about an activity on this forum that led to people being taken for what is likely millions of dollars and continues in plain sight on this forum under the seeming guise of 'self moderation'.

And yes people have contacted the police.  The police in Hong Kong and the UK have had reports filed, as have consumer groups the world over.  As we saw with BFL, something like that takes time to gain traction with the authorities.  In the meantime, these people are continuing with this behavior right here, right now.

I can see how the forum mods would want nothing to do with these situations.  If I was running a forum I wouldn't either.   I am not saying that self modded threads should be ended or curtailed en masse.  

There should be, however, some means of putting sensible limitations on a situation like this, which has played out over the course of nearly a year.  Instead of putting limits on them or just locking their thread and revoking their right to self moderation (Black Arrow could also simply start another thread couldn't they?) they have been allowed to expand their attempt to control information to the use of an automated bot.  That's absurd no matter how you look at it.

This is not a complicated situation, you mention the words "Alex Sovu", you get auto deleted, end of story. There are plenty of very negative borderline spammy posters but the only posters they actually care about flagging for deletion are people who have ever said "Alex Sovu".

I don't think that was it in my case.

I kept posting their promises on price matching and refunds.

What really seemed to set them off however was when I pointed out their discrepancy on their data center.  first they said it was there and then they claimed they couldn't be mining because it didn't exist.  And I was wondering if they were affiliated with Xbtec who they claim stole customer data, but don't seem too concerned about it.

could just be a correlation that wasn't a cause, but in my case that seemed to trigger it.

They seem shocked that people they've taken several thousand dollars from would be pissed off to have been lied to in the first place to get their money, lied to for months on the status and other issues and continue to be lied to and receive nothing for their money.  They are plain crazy or just sociopathic liars or something, but these are some seriously messed up people, IMO.

They continued to delete those posts on the "now you see it now you don't" data center, which they never did explain, as well as the Xbtec connection, which they of course deny, and shortly thereafter they set up that bot.

I have little doubt the bastards are mining and have been for months, lied one time too many and forgot their own words on the issue, so they are now doing everything they can to stop people from pointing that out.

although you're right also.  they've never liked people posting Sovu's identity as Director of Black Arrow.  As if who owns or runs a business should be a secret. 

All my posts in that forum got deleted It now deletes anything i post straight away

Of course the dictator would be pro-moderated threads.

Hey only 50% more of a downfall to go before you have to pee on your own head. Remember our little wager? I do, because it was left in an unmoderated thread.

I posted this 30 seconds ago, so far, its still there!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294197.msg9320779#msg9320779

edit: now its been a whole minute, still there!

They're not parsing actual text, but manually at their discretion they'll add your user account to the list of accounts that their bot auto-deletes.

Welcome to the club! Your posts were so nice, this is sad.  :'(

How about- start a new thread?

hey don't worry i remember this, haha.  ???

There are many, including one made from hundreds of pages of deleted posts. The point here is that Black Arrow needs a bot to delete comments from its fraud victims.

Bingo!

Now, everybody go out and do your part in bringing fuller awareness to Bitcoin so that those you introduced, in turn, can stumble upon the number one Bitcoin forum and get royally fucked in the ass when they enter into contract with a nefarious entity hosting a self-moderated thread, thus making all your gallant efforts totally useless.

Fuck, these scammy motherfuckers don't even mention Bitcoin on their other sites that's not Bitcoin related. Case in point is BFL's Josh Zerlan's site: http://communityhosting.net/. Nary a mention of Bitcoin on the public-facing site. I can easily cite hundreds more from various other Bitcoiner's sites, again not related to Bitcoin, yet provide services and products that accept payments the conventional ways, but nary a mention about Bitcoin. Well, FUCK THEM ALL!

Check this out! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Acommunityhosting.net+bitcoin

I'm becoming a bit jaded on "Bitcoin" but, decentralized cryptocurrency is a revolutionary technology and it's awesome. If I had received my miner I more than likely would have mined alt-coins. My local fiat exchange likes LTC so I could bypass BTC entirely if I wanted.

@OP since you are not talking about a technical security threat you might want to change the title of your post. It's misleading.

At the same I purchased the miner from Black Arrow I got a used Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 for $250. It mined two Novacoin blocks in two days the first week and paid for itself plus some.

The barring for the fan makes a crazy sound and scrypt ASICs have killed GPU mining so it's offline but it made a whole lot more than the -($5400) the Black Arrow Prospero X-3 2Th/s Bitcoin Miner has mined for me. Almost a year since I paid and nothing.

Fair enough, bud. Done!

As pentax says, I'm of the impression that it's a username based script running every 15 minutes. I've been told I've been added to and removed from it, at various points for asking awkward questions that he didn't want to answer. The behaviour coincides with this. It did not delete all my historic posts from day 1 within this thread I don't think though, but did go quite far back. A vast number of the deleted posts were not even contentious, it was a blanket delete of all my username based posts from the last x number of total posts by all appearance.  I think the whole thing is unethical, and the endorsement-by-allowance of this automated censorship behavior is ridiculous. If he wants to censor open discussion let him work for it. Or here's a shocking suggestion, he could man up and make things right his customers, you know, act with a little bit of competency and professional - but I understand if this is asking too much from anyone associated with blackarrow who like to play-pretend.

That's pretty much exactly how it went for me.

Became aware of Bitcoin.

Found this forum.

Looked for miners.

Found their thread.

Got fucked in the ass.



That's pretty much the whole point.  They have their own forum.  There is little, or no, reason for them to be here other than to sell their products.  It's a marketing platform that they are abusing.  I've seen other threads locked down because there is clear shill type stuff going on.

user 1:  I got my new ASIC today!
user 2:  really, how is it!
user 1:  It's awesome and the company service is great too.  fast response, fast ship and it's hashing like crazy!
user 2:  Gosh how do I get one?

and BAM, shut down.  what's going on with these people is easily as bad as that type of crap, IMO.

It must be user name - I wrote the word test and evenually it  got deleted