Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Reputation => Topic started by: sandy-is-fine on August 26, 2021, 03:02:12 PM



Title: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: sandy-is-fine on August 26, 2021, 03:02:12 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356653.0

Doesn't seem "logical."

Edit:  Evidently he realized it because the "sale text" was deleted.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: RapTarX on August 26, 2021, 03:30:04 PM
Does bpip.org provide log for password change or email change? If it does, I can't see any such changes for this account. Therefore, it’s unlikely that the account has been hacked or changes hand. I guess he is the real owner but not aware of the community standards on account trading. Hence, he offered his account for sale. If it’s real owner, I would simply make him aware which I did and avoid tagging him. However, it’s also possible that someone negotiating the deal without changing password or email and attempt a big amount scam.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: The Sceptical Chymist on August 26, 2021, 03:39:25 PM
The last post made by PsychoticBoy was in 2017 (though I have a lot of sections ignored), so it's possible that he's not aware that selling accounts became very much frowned upon back in 2016, and he might not be aware that putting his account up for sale like he did would earn him negative trust--but that's on him.

It might not sound logical that someone would do this, but from an economic standpoint it makes a lot of sense if someone doesn't plan on being an active member of the forum anymore and has an account with that much history.  Too bad it'll probably go for much less now that it's tagged.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: isaac_clarke22 on August 26, 2021, 03:46:18 PM
~
It does. You can see it above the "Favorite profiles to send sMerit to". It only appears when a certain user changes his/her email/password at least once.

I refreshed the profile of the mentioned user in the OP, and there doesn't seem to be any sec/mod logs for any password or email changes, and from that, I highly doubt that the account changed hands nor hacked.

It is possible that the user was unaware of account selling being frowned upon as what The Pharmacist mentioned above me.



Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: yahoo62278 on August 26, 2021, 08:15:05 PM
Can't imagine he will get much of an offer for the account now since he's -3 trust lol. What an idiot.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: JeromeTash on August 26, 2021, 08:45:38 PM
It does. You can see it above the "Favorite profiles to send sMerit to". It only appears when a certain user changes his/her email/password at least once.

I refreshed the profile of the mentioned user in the OP, and there doesn't seem to be any sec/mod logs for any password or email changes, and from that, I highly doubt that the account changed hands nor hacked.
It only shows the password changes from the time the site started operating. Any changes before that won't show up in the security/mod log. It's also very likely that the account changed hand earlier on, maybe some time in 2016 or 2017. We can't rule out the hack possibility just yet.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: sandy-is-fine on August 27, 2021, 03:24:31 AM
Strictly a hypothetical question :D :

If this was all legit (selling accounts was fully acceptable here) could that account be worth the 1BTC "minimum bid" he was asking?

(The sale text has since been removed by the OP but curious on the original asked value.)


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: nutildah on August 27, 2021, 03:43:10 AM
Strictly a hypothetical question :D :

If this was all legit (selling accounts was fully acceptable here) could that account be worth the 1BTC "minimum bid" he was asking?

(The sale text has since been removed by the OP but curious on the original asked value.)

That's a good question. I don't think so. The degree of "trust" today's forum members would have with that account would be very low and I can't imagine anybody would entrust them with enough money to make it worth their while at that price.

A couple years ago a VIP account sprang to life and changed their name to JusticeForYou (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=18021) (one of the perks of being a VIP)... Those cost 50 BTC to get.

After applying for the Bitvest campaign and getting rejected (LOL), they went on a weird crusade to "fix DT." Then an older member who knew the original owner quizzed them and concluded the account was no longer owned by the same person. The account was quickly given 4 negative tags, and that was that.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: DarkStar_ on August 27, 2021, 06:05:26 AM
Strictly a hypothetical question :D :

If this was all legit (selling accounts was fully acceptable here) could that account be worth the 1BTC "minimum bid" he was asking?

(The sale text has since been removed by the OP but curious on the original asked value.)

Hypothetically, I can't really see any regular forum members buying it (though people do buy NFTs for stupidly high amounts so maybe it could end up similar). From a business perspective, $50k USD for a Donator rank doesn't make a whole lot of sense either and it won't come with the same prestige as if you bought it for full price in the early days.

I'm surprised they wanted to try charging at least 1 BTC for it - I wonder who their target audience was.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: NeuroticFish on August 27, 2021, 06:15:37 AM
Edit:  Evidently he realized it because the "sale text" was deleted.

No problem, my negative feedback contains the link to the backup of the topic at ninjastic.space website.

He just ruined that account. Oh well...

(The sale text has since been removed by the OP but curious on the original asked value.)

Maybe this helps: https://ninjastic.space/post/57787909



Maybe somebody should notify @mprep about this situation to remove from his trust list? Because now @PsychoticBoy is DT2 too...
https://loyce.club/trust/2021-08-21_Sat_06.09h/54752.html


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: crwth on August 27, 2021, 06:28:25 AM
I think his reaction to having that account to sell is probably a "wow" factor. Obviously, he didn't know anything about how the forum works with anything about accounts, he was too happy or probably made a mistake using that actual account lol.

How many more is there? To have those kinds of accounts.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: Kittygalore on August 27, 2021, 02:05:13 PM
Does bpip.org provide log for password change or email change? If it does, I can't see any such changes for this account. Therefore, it’s unlikely that the account has been hacked or changes hand. I guess he is the real owner but not aware of the community standards on account trading. Hence, he offered his account for sale. If it’s real owner, I would simply make him aware which I did and avoid tagging him. However, it’s also possible that someone negotiating the deal without changing password or email and attempt a big amount scam.
Or probably the seller knows and trust who the buyer is so they don't have to necessarily change the password to be able to use the account and I am pretty sure that it's part of the tactic of the seller because that's where most of us look for when we suspect that the account was sold.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: The Sceptical Chymist on August 27, 2021, 07:15:00 PM
I'm surprised they wanted to try charging at least 1 BTC for it - I wonder who their target audience was.
Probably old-school members of the forum who still have a lot of bitcoin from the early days and might consider a donator account from 2012 with positive trust a highly-prized "collectible". 

But 1BTC?  That seems to be an outrageous asking price even if someone had a lot of bitcoin.  I mean, come on....nearly $50k for a bitcointalk account?  I don't care if it's a donor or how much trust it has, that's still a lot of money to shell out for something that has little real-world value--and yes, I get that people are shelling out ridiculous sums of money for NFTs, but I still think a whole bitcoin is way too much for that account even if it still had no negative trust.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: NeuroticFish on August 27, 2021, 07:18:52 PM
highly-prized "collectible".  

But 1BTC?  That seems to be an outrageous

I was thinking...
Can it be some sort of payback? Maybe somebody who got negative feedback or arguments in the past may have hacked the password and instead of risking to change it decided to ruin the account? I mean, 1BTC is indeed an unrealistically high price. And somebody that old should know to not trade it like this.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: JeromeTash on August 27, 2021, 07:45:26 PM
I was thinking...
Can it be some sort of payback? Maybe somebody who got negative feedback or arguments in the past may have hacked the password and instead of risking to change it decided to ruin the account? I mean, 1BTC is indeed an unrealistically high price. And somebody that old should know to not trade it like this.
It's possible, but then why would they feel so guilty and try to delete the text as soon as they realized it was a wrong move?
The account was also last online a few hours ago, and the owner seems to have no interest in trying to go defensive and reason out what could have probably gone wrong.

Anyway, regardless if it was hacked or not, the account can now not be trusted


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: Quickseller on August 27, 2021, 10:15:01 PM
Strictly a hypothetical question :D :

If this was all legit (selling accounts was fully acceptable here) could that account be worth the 1BTC "minimum bid" he was asking?
In order for something to be worth a given price, a reasonable buyer needs to expect to be able to generate at least the purchase price in a reasonable amount of time.

Circa 2014, high level accounts sold at prices at which the buyer could ROI in 2-3 months participating in a high paying signature campaign.

Today most signature campaigns pay about $60/week and account trading is more frowned upon today than it was in 2014. I have no idea what accounts are fetching today, but based on 2014 numbers, I can’t see it fetching more than 0.015BTC.

TBH, I have serious doubts that he was not hacked. He has been inactive for over a year. Except for occasionally trading physical coins, he has not participated in the forum since mid 2017.

Even if the intended buyer is a scammer, I cannot see a potential buyer ever being able to recover a 1BTC purchase price. I don't closely follow the marketplace, but I have serious doubts that even the most trustworthy people are entrusted with anywhere near $50k at a time. The exception might be in the collectables sub, but even there, potential buyers will need evidence that physical coins actually exist, which makes scamming more difficult.

Based on his long-term inactivity, I doubt we will ever hear from the "real" PsychoticBoy complaining that his account was hacked.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: kaggie on August 28, 2021, 07:44:14 AM
Unfortunately accounts prior to 2015 are not easily verifiable.

A perfect example is the user NandNor. This account is the third oldest non-deleted account viewable, and the last person to use it admits that it was hacked and bought after the hash table of bitcointalk passwords was released on the dark web around 2014 (which was around the time emails came from Satoshi accounts).

Where would I get a signed message from?

There are only 2 posts on this account and I don't see what value it would serve as I'm not going to pretend like I am the original owner. I am not.  I bought it. I didn't hack it.

There was a sale thread.  I bought the account.  It is being used as a collectible/novelty account.  Users should not trade or trust this account.

It could be that the original owner decided to come back and sell the account.  It could be that the seller hacked it, but that doesn't mean that I hacked it as your feedback seems to point towards.

Why not just leave feedback that accurately portrays what has happened?

Leaving "probably hacked" gives the wrong impression and the only damage that you are doing is to me. 

Do you know it wasn't hacked?

It seems like you are concerned with resale value.  Clearly there is some sort of value to it, since you paid for it.

Not going to re-sell it ever.

I really just don't want people thinking that I hacked it.  Quickseller's comment kind of insinuates that.  Timelord's feedback is much more appropriate because it comes with an explanation, not just a vague accusation that can easily be misinterpreted.

It takes 20 seconds to re-adjust the feedback and make it more accurate.  I don't think it's too much to ask.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: LoyceV on August 28, 2021, 04:54:21 PM
But 1BTC?  That seems to be an outrageous asking price even if someone had a lot of bitcoin.  I mean, come on....nearly $50k for a bitcointalk account?
Look at it this way: it's a 90% discount ;)

TBH, I have serious doubts that he was not hacked. He has been inactive for over a year. Except for occasionally trading physical coins, he has not participated in the forum since mid 2017.
He made 2 posts in March this year.
I'd argue the opposite: being inactive seems like the perfect moment to try to cash in on an old unused account.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: dkbit98 on August 28, 2021, 07:47:51 PM
Hypothetically, I can't really see any regular forum members buying it (though people do buy NFTs for stupidly high amounts so maybe it could end up similar).
I learned that anything is possible if people are willing to pay $600k and over $1M for image of rock that has NFT stamp on it  :P
Much more time was spent on creating one unique bitcointalk account with all post history so I think that should worth much more, but I don't support selling accounts.
However, I doubt old staff member would ever made such an offer, that is now revoked and no new post is made after that.

I'd argue the opposite: being inactive seems like the perfect moment to try to cash in on an old unused account.
Old staff member not knowing how things are working in bitcointalk forum... I don't think so.
He would sure know to navigate and find marketplace > digital goods > invites & accounts.

Some interesting trust feedback he made today as reply to members who gave him negative feedback:

https://i.imgur.com/cbXu7v2.jpg
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=54752

And let's check his trust list:
https://loyce.club/trust/2021-08-28_Sat_06.10h/54752.html





Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: philipma1957 on August 28, 2021, 07:58:15 PM
I'm surprised they wanted to try charging at least 1 BTC for it - I wonder who their target audience was.
Probably old-school members of the forum who still have a lot of bitcoin from the early days and might consider a donator account from 2012 with positive trust a highly-prized "collectible".  

But 1BTC?  That seems to be an outrageous asking price even if someone had a lot of bitcoin.  I mean, come on....nearly $50k for a bitcointalk account?  I don't care if it's a donor or how much trust it has, that's still a lot of money to shell out for something that has little real-world value--and yes, I get that people are shelling out ridiculous sums of money for NFTs, but I still think a whole bitcoin is way too much for that account even if it still had no negative trust.

Not that I would sell it but I have been offered 5000 usd a few times.
Back in fall of 2017
My account is one of the more valuable ones .

It is pretty obvious the buyers making the offers to me were looking to scam.

As they went to my email and bypassed pms.

In a way if you do a lot of sales and escrows you are aware of a few hunderd peoples real names and addresses. Along with the high degree of trust you could do a lot of damage with a premium account.

But I do not think I could get 50k for my account.

As I said I am not selling it or considering selling it.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: NeuroticFish on August 28, 2021, 08:09:35 PM
Some interesting trust feedback he made today as reply to members who gave him negative feedback:

I'm surprised to be "forgotten". At least for now.

And let's check his trust list:
https://loyce.club/trust/2021-08-28_Sat_06.10h/54752.html

The best part there is imho that he's no longer DT. So his retaliatory feedback is also worthless.
I'd hope that sooner or later the list of users trusting him will get smaller though.

But I do not think I could get 50k for my account.

Somebody evil enough could get probably scam - sooner or later - more than 1BTC with such an account. But it's difficult. He would have to have your knowledge (at least partly) and imitate your writing style [imho at least in the case of your account is nearly impossible to have both of these]. And start involving into businesses, maybe escrow too, even if not scamming from start. When, at some point, enough money is on this guy's hand, he can run with them. But yeah, it's more a hypothetical case than something realistically possible to happen.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: philipma1957 on August 28, 2021, 08:42:23 PM
Some interesting trust feedback he made today as reply to members who gave him negative feedback:

I'm surprised to be "forgotten". At least for now.

And let's check his trust list:
https://loyce.club/trust/2021-08-28_Sat_06.10h/54752.html

The best part there is imho that he's no longer DT. So his retaliatory feedback is also worthless.
I'd hope that sooner or later the list of users trusting him will get smaller though.

But I do not think I could get 50k for my account.

Somebody evil enough could get probably scam - sooner or later - more than 1BTC with such an account. But it's difficult. He would have to have your knowledge (at least partly) and imitate your writing style [imho at least in the case of your account is nearly impossible to have both of these]. And start involving into businesses, maybe escrow too, even if not scamming from start. When, at some point, enough money is on this guy's hand, he can run with them. But yeah, it's more a hypothetical case than something realistically possible to happen.

James Joyce and stream of thought style  of writing was my intention. Very hard to copy it.

typos lower case bad punctuation  etc. but good content. ;D

 All make for a difficult  style  to copy.


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: eddie13 on August 29, 2021, 01:04:00 PM
It would be a cool collectible to own even with it having been outed and tagged.. Maybe worth up to $500, idk..

I don’t own any collectible accounts but when Bruno’s account seemed up for grabs I was like “damn”..
I can see the allure in it.. Kinda like being the curator of a historical fragile piece..

Donator account? Pretty cool..
I’d give him $10 for it..

Actually.. Wouldn’t owning it give you access to some hidden boards for donators/VIPs only???
It would be sweet to be able to get in there and read..
That is something that could add to its value no matter how tagged up it is..
Not for a full BTC though.. Probably..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/cvjs1k/what_do_people_who_donated_50_btc_to_theymos/

Yeah it’d prolly be fun to poke around in there a bit..


Title: Re: Hacked account? "Donator" selling account under his/her own name?
Post by: LoyceV on August 29, 2021, 02:49:46 PM
Actually.. Wouldn’t owning it give you access to some hidden boards for donators/VIPs only???
I read it isn't very active:
We have our own board and staff members are also allowed to participate there. However, it is quite lonely.
Unless, of course, it's the best kept secret and they're trying to keep us from donating 10 Bitcoin to join O0