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+1

Very solid, well written argument. The idea behind Aurora is brilliant but I still have yet to see any proof this "airdrop" is being carried out honestly. No one seems to know how it is working or who is behind it. Is transparency really to much to ask for?

The thing is, many of the same arguments you use against AUR can be used against bitcoin, as well. Hidden dev, little transparency, unusually large number of coins held by a select few. And there was no infrastructure or merchant acceptance of the coin initially either.

Your argument that AUR looks like a scam is a valid one. Yep, it may all be an elaborate scam. At the same time, there is no proof whatsoever that it is. Do you normally decide innocence or guilt, of regular people you meet on the street, based on how they look or suspicions? And then decide to take action before any crime is committed?

There are a couple of reasons why this may not be a scam:

Dev simply didn't trust any 3rd party to hold the premine. It is a large sum of money, so am not entirely sure what trusted 3rd party would be used anyway. Can you imagine what would happen if the 3rd party walked away with the entire premine?

Dev is unrealistically idealistic, and the money doesn't mean much to him.

Dev is already rich, so cashing out the premine is a drop in a bucket to him.

Again, if you ask me if this coin, or other nation coins, have some devs planning to cash out some of the premine for themselves ... I'd say most likely. I still don't think it gives anyone the right to go ddos pools/fork the coin, just based on this suspicion. And there is a very real possibility that you will do more harm than even a scammy dev would, both to holders of the coin, and to crypto's reputation in general.

TLDR: YOU (BCX) didn't like the way they launched their coin and took it upon yourself to play crypto-marshall and let the wide-world of [Suspicious link removed] altcoin section know about it.

Reality: Bluster, pomp and circumstance, and the Cryptsy backroom/trollbox stroking eachother's egos and talking about how great it would be if any of their coins were still the center of attention.

What a philanthropist you are! A great service done here!

These large "premines" should be algorithmically distributed. In other words, the Auroracoin protocol and wallet should have allowed an option to enter one's Icelandic ID and perhaps some 2nd key as challenge provided by national registry, and the network would generate a transaction akeen to (PoS) mining and allocate the 31.8 AUR. Not sure here...

Cryptos are a decentralized, trustless system, and here we still have to trust someone's word.

On a side note, I hope this isn't a "lab's rat experiment" and the end result is indeed the benefit of Icelanders. If a bunch of random foreign guys in internet forums and tech sites have this kind of power over people's finantial safety, and when it happens nobody is careful and only thinks how attack or OTOH how to profit from speculating on AUR or getting page views, then I'm starting to doubt the point of the "free from governments and central authorities" rhetoric

Who are these tech sites that contacted? Do we have names of the correspondents who sent email? Did they receive response that can be verified?

This entire thing looked like a defensive action from a select few in the forums, when no such action was needed. People are getting scammed on a daily basis here in the alt coin section and no one seems to do anything about it, perhaps because for the first time some really good alternative came about and it needed to be quashed.

Being fully 100% transparent without any doubt and managing the drop would've been too much of a challenge. If they pre-announced the authentication method(s) in detail that would've created easier way for scammers to get ready and abuse the system. They would've had to get the software that is used to claim the coins audited by trusted 3rd party, and have that software running on a trusted 3rd party servers so it wouldn't be possible to tamper it, and have the premine cold wallets on the hands of the 3rd party who would periodically send them to the server's hot wallet etc.. just so much stuff that could go wrong and still possible to have a loophole which would make people say it's possible to scam the system anyway. And they just probably didn't think it would be such a big issue and worth the extra hassle.

+1

air dropped air drop process = no

its like a version of the instamine. its gone before you blink, then a few days later the public catch up and cover the tracks over.

If they want an even better story, I expect they have kept track of that shitcoin killing thread, the hypocrisy and extortion threats listed there.

I know you have stated you aren't going to accept money directly for killing any coins, just be the 'muscle', so to speak. Still, it's not right... and flat out illegal if any money does get extorted by anyone.

Auroracoin does not provide any transparency because the market will let them get away with it. As long as Fortune and others are hungry to write non-critical articles about new alt coins they have no reason to change any. I can't say that I blame them...

Auroracoin's transparency is a thing of past, when we got proof that people are getting their auras. And by the way this is facebook buy/sell group with aurora. It is getting huge 1600 members already

https://www.facebook.com/groups/544259455688424/

consider that this is about 0.5% of entire iceland population.

Can you imagine 15 000 000 americans trading for a bitcoin? You will start to understand the scale and succes of aurora when you compare it.

That is why I believe that PoW is the only fair way to distribute coins.

WTF, what extorsion "ring" in the first place?  ::)

It was just one newbie that came up with the extorsion post, and opportunists keep using it to falsely associate and throw mud at everyone.

security through obscurity is no security.

Obfuscating critical pieces of information allows scammers that compromise your "security" through obscurity to operate with less competition.

the auroracoin developers put too much faith in security through obscurity, just as they put too much faith into KGW, and deployed it despite clear information that an exploit existed in the wild.

similarly, investors put too much faith in auroracoin's concept, and didn't bother to look at how many resources it would have taken to secure the blockchain.  most coins are overvalued not because they're all shitcoins, but because their blockchains can never be protected. 

Yeah, I know, which is why I said you stated you won't accept extortion money. Although it does appear you are someone's muscle, based on past posts from you:

-----

The problem was the fact that almost nobody who organized that group or promoted it, dispelled the notion of extortion either. BCX did, which is why I said he stated he wouldn't accept any money. It doesn't mean we know who that newbie actually was, if he was a puppet, or whatever.

The way promoters of that thread should have acted was to dismiss the extortion claims outright.

If I'm not mistaken, you BCX, have the resources and knowledge to set up your own test platforms. Why  would you use a coin people care about and not your own?

Auroracoin and it's idea is one of those projects against political will, until the breaking point, where enough people gets educated and politicians need to obey as they should.
It is a wise thing to remain anonymous for the time being.

Sometimes you have to believe in someone. Give it a try. But risk accordingly.

I don't see why you should be the judge of what currency (lives or) dies along with some people dreams/scam.

Is there some?

Not everyone extorts people for a payment

My only issue with this coin is the blatent disregard for fixing KNOWN security flaws pre airdrop. If it wasnt BTX then it would of been anyone else. This is not a good launch.

Perhaps some should have dismissed the claims to clarify the situation yes, but the burden of proof is not on the accused! If I'm accused of something on any context, I expect evidence of it, not making the uphill effort to struggle against B.S. accusations.

So, back up your accusation with facts, and quote posts of WHO exactly agrees with extortion. The ones you can't, are not to be throw mud at. Perhaps you can claim "hidden agenda" or "you also made shitcoins in the past", etc... which you also would have to prove as fact or be relevant  to the discussion, but not extortion

Exactly.

If you note, I didn't say that members of that group will definitely extort anyone, just that the actions they should have taken to dismiss the claims that someone there made. Personally, I think anyone would have to be really dumb to post criminal intent on a public board, and then actually commit the crime. I also mentioned twice in this thread that BCX has stated he won't accept money from any extortion.

But you do bring up one interesting point -- a person should be considered innocent until proven guilty, correct? The burden of proof is not on the accused... your own words.

Yet BCX is not heeding those words in regard to the AUR dev. He is assuming the accused (AUR dev) is guilty. Before any scam is committed. Before any wrongdoing is proven. It just looks fishy, so must be a scam.

Two wrongs don't make a right, which again, is why I didn't say BCX is taking any money. It's just hypocritical to say in one instance the burden of proof is not on the accused, and in the other to say a person is guilty, because they can't prove their innocence.

Someone in another thread said a while back, if you want perfection, let us know when you find it (or something like that). At some point you just have to take the step and do it.

you're confusing perfection with transparency.

not asking for perfection.  bitcoin QT is at 0.9.0, and it will continue to iterate.  

security through obscurity, like you are justifying the obscurement of essential details of the coin, is no security at all.  

Damn I lost my previous reply! Just to say 2 things:

- People should be considered innocent until proven guilty, but cryptos are a trustless system, there shouldn't even be someone that can or cannot be accused in the first place. As I said before, this distribution should be algorithmic, not someone holding 50% premine.
- IPO's, scams, large premines, coin cloning for dumping at exchanges, instamines with loopsided block subsidy abound. It is in this context that we are talking about. Yes, the Aurora devs may be honest, but that is the exception. The fact that we still have to trust someone and cannot do anything against scammers is why is the scene is dying.

Edit: regarding extortion claims, you were unable to back up with facts. So if you brought up the hypocrisy argument, put you also a rest to the accusation

I think it would be better to have BCX test and potentially destroy a scam/shit coin since he does so with no malicious intent of profiting for said tests.

To me it just sounds like all these whining supporters would rather risk someone else coming along and pwning them all in the face for profit or God forbid risk the fact that the dev himself is pwning them in the face for financial gain.

I said this week's ago but it deserves to be said again. The Air Drop is a perfect laundering mechanism to scam with. You Air Drop a few coins to your targeted audience and Air Drop the rest into your own random wallet addresses. The fact that the Air Drop will take a year or longer just sweetens this much more because it gives the scammer enough time to launder and dump at a controlled rate and simply blame the targeted audience for the dump.

This isn't working entirely too well for the dev if he is in fact laundering the pre-mined coins and dumping though (which seems the most likely of all scenarios). The network has recently been taking a crap on itself and taking upward 9-10 hours per block (this coupled with the fact there there still isn't any real liquidity in AUR makes it near impossible to dump large amounts of AUR without completely killing the coin), there isn't any real infrastructure that provides services in exchange for AUR even in Iceland (it's targeted audience. And no, a guy trading a used car for AUR is not infrastructure) and this just lowers the value of AUR and people are finally starting to realize it now, hence the drop to $2.73.

Once block 5400 comes. I truly hope BCX does test the exploit out on AUR. If the exploit is successful then AUR deserves what it gets regardless of any good perceived intentions by any of it's supporters (the road to hell is paved in good intentions). If it somehow survives in some sort of crippled state then it should be left in the hands of the Icelandic people to pick up the pieces (they want to use it as their currency, then so be it; they can have it, they can mine and support it to secure the blockchain themselves). I still don't understand why anyone here would want to give the Icelandic people money from their pockets instead of letting the Icelandic people themselves put money into AUR and give it value.

Well, my point posting in this thread was simply the fact that the AUR dev may not be committing a scam, and it's wrong to take action just based on suspicion.

Personally, I think the scene is dying not because of junkcoins, IPO scams, or any of that. It's bad exchanges. But that is a different discussion.

I see you added this after my reply, so will respond:


I stated there was an extortion claim in that shitcoin thread. I said those who promoted that movement should have dispelled it. That is all I claimed. I didn't say BCX was taking money, here, or anywhere else.

there's also absolutely no reason to stop discussion about a possible scam.  in fact, we should be encouraging a debate and discussion, and a free exchange of information.  the only side that wanted to stop discussion was the pro-auroracoin side, not the skeptics. 

there is also nothing wrong to warn people the currency's fundamentals are flawed.

for investments sunlight is the best disinfectant.  

I see...

Regarding bad exchanges, yes, I missed that one. Perhaps also miners don't think much about mining a scam coin as long as is the most profitable, as I did before when I was clueless or when I didn't care about looking. Also some kinds of coin pumping in this forum. Nobody is innocent here. But things must change or we're all screwed.

On that I agree entirely. I suggested education and discussion as alternatives to destroying coins in that shitcoin killing thread.

Discussion is fine and should be encouraged.

But  ddossing pools/services and trying to wreck coins, based on a suspicion, isn't right to me. I'm not even quite sure of the legality of ddossing services/pools -- guess it depends on what nation it originates from.

i agree.  but who ddossed a service/pool?

the blockchain is designed to be mined.  and KGW implementation is designed to foil certain types of mining.  there is a flaw in KGW, that was being investigated in vivo.   By creating a blockchain-based currency, the developers are inviting everyone to mine it, however they want with whatever equipment they have.  

the currency's design should account for possible exploits, and potential investors should be given as much information.  if the development team is going forward with a flawed KGW implementation, then everyone should know this.

you claims "ddossing pools/services... trying to wreck coins":  my opinion is the auroracoin developers wrecked their own coin by using a blockchain design they could not secure, and using an anti-switching-pool technology they didn't completely understand.  they were worrying about a couple of coin-switching pools when they should have been getting their shit together.  remember at one point this house of cards was protecting close to $300,000,000 in "market cap".    

That's ridiculous semantics.  You've already said you don't care how they choose the coin you destroy.  Well, they choose through extortion.  Whoever doesn't pay.

They rely on you to carry out the plan.  You unleash on the chosen coin, and you've already said that whichever they choose is fine with you and you don't need a reason.

It's absurd to claim that you are not part of the extortion plot just because you are not the one receiving the money.  

That's a brilliant idea, and before long we might see a coin that does something like that.

You are saying 99% is the same as 0%. Again, come back when you find perfection.

I'm inclined to specifically agree with the bold portion of your post.  The developers have attempted to thwart an attack by reducing the median time-stamp from 11 blocks to 3 blocks and by reducing the time-stamp to current time difference from 2 hours to 20 minutes.  I still think this chain is vulnerable to an attack.  These preventative measures do make it more difficult to attack the chain by increasing the amount of time an attacker must spend building his own chain, but one must remember, an attacker will be working outside of time when he builds his chain.  In essence, he has all the time he needs.  If you combine a coordinated effort to make pools inaccessible with the assumption that most miners do not have multiple pools or solo-mining set as a back-up, this chain is still highly vulnerable.  Prove me wrong.

Seems like a lot of this would be cleared up instantly if the Dev or Devs come forward.......Thank you BCX for causing a little chaos to get attention to the real issue with this coin which is transparency and decentralization.  I say decentralization because one person being in control of the premine is madness.

That being said does anyone know why the block chain is moving so slow?  I thought BCX was still waiting for it to get to the fork......If he is doing it, then isn't he doing the devs a favor by giving them more time to implement a fix?  Are the devs causing the slowdown to buy more time?  Too much speculation is going around with what is going on.

Tend to agree with BCX here.. it's better to expose security flaws early and publically, and get them patched.. than to let them linger.

The question should be, not what has been done, but where to go from here.  How do we fix it..


And .. can someone post the fix for KGW TW.. is Hiro's change good enough .. or we need a better fix.  I need to get my own coins patched up.. :)

If you want something done, at some point you just have to go and do it.

Amazing how BitcoinEXpress gets away with rebranding vandalism as a constructive exercise.

Yet feels at liberty to make baseless accessions of "scamming" at people who have pioneered one of the most significant innovations yet in the history of crypto currencies when their only "crime" was their wish to remain anonymous.

If I think my Parents don't secure their home properly at night and they don't take my advice, I don't go ransacking their house to prove my point.

Whatever BitcoinEXpress's talents, he's toast and deservedly so. Pondlife without a clue of what Icelandic society is about.

I lived in Iceland for 8 years and when I first saw the Auroracoin website I knew exactly why this initiative had been taken and that it was genuine. Who cares if the developers had the "opportunity" or not to scam it - it doesn't matter because there was much more at stake and that was clear to anyone with half a brain cell who knew anything about the history of Icelandic financial life, or who had experienced the workings of the class system in a very small country.

The central bank devalues the currency by up to 20% at a time whenever they feel like it. They've done that for 40 years so it's a no brainer that if a "Crypto" is around it's going to give them second thoughts because by devaluing the Krona, they're implicitly favourably revaluing the Aurora. The existence of an explicitly Icelandic crypto is of huge benefit to the society.


Do you fuck. You're a charlatan with too big an ego to help anyone.

An intelligent vandal who's too lazy to look for constructive solutions to the problems you see. It wasn't your role to be judge and jury of this project and if what you said above is true you would have given them the benefit of the doubt. You're basically a busybody who finds creativity in antagonism and destruction.

You are useful, but no more so than any other criminal.

Interesting.

BCX evidently deleted my post, when I was attempting to reply to Kalus who asked me if anyone had ddossed any sites.

Anyway, all I basically posted was a quote BCX himself made from this thread -- Auroracoin - Block 5400 What Is Going To Happen  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=516326.0

Wow, you sound like you're an AUR bag holder that bought at the very peak $95+ and are now holding less than 2% of what they were worth; worried and scared that someone will come along and destroy your bag while you still hold hope deep down inside you that it'll one day reach the value of which you bought in at or at least close to it so you can sell than get out unscathed.

I'm not saying this is fact, but it sure does sound like it might be the case.

Just as well, because it isn't.

Keep digging.

Can you read ?

I believe that is also same justification to test KGW on auroracoin.  at some point, you just have to go and do it.  

that's what apparently happened.  

But you do so we can feel safe.

For someone who thinks this project is a big scam, you don't half pay a lot of attention to it.

Are you trying to do a Litecoin bluff and rescue it or something ? It doesn't need your rescuing.

I've wondered that too, especially right after I posted a link to the earlier BCX thread in regard to block 5400 ... which had several threats -- several seemingly illegal threats -- to be carried out.

A bluff would make sense. Which would show an altruistic side to BCX efforts; a seemingly weird, and unnecessarily complex way to go about getting an exploit fixed, however, at least to me.

If that's the case he's trying to be an "indiana Jones" of cryptos and failing miserably. An idiot who at worst is a criminal and at best an unguided missile.

BitcoinEXpress, if that's what you're really up to, don't you realise the hypocrisy ?

You're trying to engender integrity with corrupt methods. It's lesson A. It doesn't work. If you really want to help those guys, then let them know what you know.

If they don't take your advice then get the popcorn out and leave the rest to nature but don't turn yourself into a vandal.

oh, it's you again.  just yesterday you were claiming bcx singlehandedly crashed bitcoin in some paranoid delusion passed off as a thread.

you would benefit from your own advice more than anyone else.  

Namaste

That was before he knew what was really going on.

your post was deleted?

It's doubtful s1gs3gv knows what's really going on right now.

And that was their perogative. You should have left it at that.

this is fucking moronic.

if the exploit is not used publicly, someone will exploit it in secret if they can figure out a way to make money out of it.  it's better that we all know.

fix the fucking holes instead of burying your head in the sand pretending they don't exist.

test it until it fails.  failure is always a fucking option.

Agreed. Vandals and criminals fulfil an important role.

The mistake you're making is in thinking that BCX was 'just trying to help' when in fact this whole episode is more about his nose being out of joint that the devs didn't take his advice when he gave it. There will be plenty more clowns where BCX came from who don't need to make such a performance over it.

that's the problem.  the moment someone finds an weakness in a coin that's worth money, they may keep it quiet and use it to their advantage.

Auroracoin being worthless is actually the BEST time to probe for weakness; don't wait until it's worth money.  far better auroracoin's ass be kicked now than if it replaces the krona. 

in order to trust a cryptocurrency enough to hold value and for general use we have to prune weakness away.  

i don't give a flying fuck if bcx or anybody enjoys what they do so much, or what BCX motives are.  the point is there are many profound problems with auroracoin, and KGW is just one of them.  

I strongly recommend all coins that we hold for value be tested in such a way.  

Oh shit the chain is moving.....its coming.....block 5,399

Thats not the point.

The point is that the only way BCX knows how to do that is by throwing his toys out of the pram in a massive performance of public melodrama. He couldn't give a sh*t about the devs or the fortunes of the coin contrary to what people may believe. He's clueless about the nature of the project, the people behind it, their priorities, who it's trying to benefit or why and he isn't interested in finding out before taking great pleasure in detonating a landmine under their noses.

That's why I said

This is a secondary concern.  

the proof is in the blockchain:  its weaknesses, and its flaws.  if you don't address the issues now, "the project, the people behind it, their priorities, who it's trying to benefit..." is based on a sack of bullshit with holes in it.  

if the coin's fundamentally flawed, then i would recommend "the people behind it, their priorities, who it's trying to benefit..." switch to a cryptocurrency that is more competent.  

if you really want a nation's value to depend on an exploit, there's always USD.  

geezus on a cracker... 4 pages of blah blah blah.... Fuck BCX and those that side with him. If he's so fucking concerned about AUR and exploits, then let him start his mission on all the other country coins that have recently emerged..

the guy is just as bad as someone shouting fire in a theater and then upon the mass exiting of the audience, a dozen or so get trampled and some even die of their injuries..

BCX is a toxic piece of shit and should be ignored at all costs.. The crypto currencies markets are volatile enough as it is. They don't need jerkoffs like BCX to shit talk to the masses telling them why `HE' thinks a particular one doesn't look good based on his own opinions..

AUR wasn't a scam afterall.. The airdrop came and it's been successful... It would have been better if the fucking BTC value was higher.. Not that it had to be like on March 3rd, but god damn $50-$60 per AUR would have been better. Now those 31.8 AUR less than $95. Great job asswipe BCX.. Ya scared everyone away from investing..

you mean White Geezus, right?

beta investor spotted

Better get used to it because for some reason, no one attracts them like you do.

Who says it's flawed ?

A ranting lunatic on a public forum that has about as much technical authority as BTC-e trollbox ? Even if he's right do you really think this is the way to sort things like this out ?

If you're a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. There are better ways to address this than what BCX is doing.

Newsflash asshole.. it's a instrument for those that invested in it to make a profit.. Why the fuck do you care?!? I did have about 225 AUR. After the airdrop, I had to liquidate all but 25. Glad I did else I would have lost my ass seeing where the price is now...

For the past month all I've seen is you rant about how bad it is... It doesn't take long until that shit spreads like a fucking virus.. You and your fucking minions scared many investors away..

AUR isn't going anywhere and whatever fucking exploit you've been manufacturing fear about over it's existence hasn't destroyed it... Hopefully people wake up to your kind and kick you fuckers to the curb...

I'm still convinced that you're probably paid off my central bankers to plant shit about every coin out there so you can keep the mass acceptance of various crypto currencies to a minimum.. Scare enough of the sheep and most of the flock will go over the cliff...

cryptsy does:  

https://i.imgur.com/k78spxA.png

auororacoin is flawed because $30,000,000USD of 'market cap' is being protected by less than 2 gigahash of video cards.

if a coin can be forked with <1gh of mining power, the coin is flawed.

there are many other flaws in the coin.  it uses the flawed implementation of kimoto gravity well too, and i believe there may be an ongoing stress test of some kind.  

So what ?

That problem isn't due to a "flaw" in the coin. It's due to not enough miners. One which is normally solved by it rising to the top of the profitability table:

http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency

Hello BCX,

I just registered to tell you THANK YOU for destroying this shitcoin. Keep up the Good Fight.

i really don't like this kind of coin , it faces to a country , not to the world .

the solution to "not enough miners" is not "manipulate the currency" bwahahaha

"not enough miners" is a flaw because the currency doesn't exist without its hashrate.  without being able to secure the blockchain, "the people behind it, their priorities, who it's trying to benefit..." can't even guarantee the fucking transactions will go through.

it's a distributed currency.  "not enough miners" is a fatal, fucking flaw.

It's called diversity.

Blockchain says its at 5411 Block.. Where's the fork?