Hi all,

So, to get it out of the way, this account has newbie status. I don't think that should be relevant, but since this guy is probably about to tag me, let's just get the abuse out of the way. FWIW, I did have an older account (MUCH older), but I can't recover it, so them's the breaks.

So anyhow.

This guy "The Pharmacist" has been on a rampage on the Beginner's board. And that's fine, cos in fairness, there is a lot of crap posted on there.

But his trust ratings are all to do with "No english", "Filipino shitposter", and more "not as white as me" type comments. Yeah, OK, the last one was exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis, but it's not undeserved. Check his lovely trust history.

My question is simple: Is English required to participate in this community?

If the answer is yes, may I ask that all other language boards be closed down immediately. Also let me know, as I am not into that kind of closed-minded thinking. I'd prefer to get the fuck out of dodge before we have to validate with a picture of our KKK outfit.

If the answer, on the other hand, is NO, then why are this guy's trust ratings valid, and who is auditing them?

I get that he's in this "Default Trust" network....which in my opinion is a terrible idea to start with. "Default"? REALLY? I trust my great-uncle to tell me great stories about when he was a child in post-WW2 London. I also implicitly trust him to buy his round at the bar. I do NOT trust him not to grab my wife's ass when he's had a couple of glasses of red. So is he "default" or not? Well, I guess it kinda DEPENDS.

Trusted to perform escrow based on multiple previous dealings - great. No people skills required, just the ability to track a trade, potentially handle some postage, and a facility with wallets.

Trusted to moderate a board? People and interpretation skills most definitely required. Also a cool head, a calm approach, an intelligent approach to cultural issues, a diplomatic manner, and many other things.

Some people have both, and that's amazing. However, when we talk about TRUST ratings, this is not the same as moderation - that's required, and to be honest, the right people are in place mostly....nowadays.

So coming back to this default trust thing....

Someone is given this ability to place the Red Mark of Plague (awaiting proof they don't internally call it this) on anyone they like, for any reason, UNPOLICED? Are you fucking NUTS?

How did they earn it? Escrow? Fine, make them a trusted escrow. Moderation? Fine, make them a mod.

To let people run around like this posting racist red marks on anyone they choose is insanity. This is the biggest crypto-board in the world, and I can tell you that it's quickly building a reputation as the unfriendliest. Most especially among members of non-English speaking countries who don't have a dedicated child-forum.

Who says they are not valuable, or will not become valuable, members of the community?

You lot want Crypto to succeed? Yes? Then we need people from everywhere backing it and being curious. They don't deserve to encounter an arsehole like this guy. FYI: Google translate is pretty popular, but not perfect.

For this guy to run around tagging people because English is not their first language is plain wrong. You don't have to take my word for that. Check his trust page (all four billion pages of it, the arrogant bastard), and look at his remarks from late 2017 to date. More and more racist.

The Pharmacist - feel free to tag this account with negative trust. Don't you dare say that it's because of poor English though, because I'll debate you into a hole. Do the decent thing, and go back on your trust history, and remove the red marks you made on people honestly trying to learn and become involved. Collaborate with Mitchell and the mods on the Beginner forum to ban the genuine shitposters. Get your dirty racist comments off that page, and be a grown-up.

And for the love of God, would someone please get rid of this ridiculous, outlandish idea of "default trust", and the people who abuse it.

I agree with this. Not having English as a first language doesn't make someone less useful to the Crypto community. The Pharmacist's recent actions are blatant racism - check his profile for comments like "Filipino shitposter"....I mean....wtf?

And yet people will blindly follow this without reading the trust comments, or the comments he tagged.

This is why the "trust" system on this website is just broken.


This part I must disagree with though. The newbie section is exactly the place you want to police, because it's the front door. Posting trash because you want to artificially raise an activity level is not a good motivation, and it doesn't engender trust that you will be useful in a campaign. Merely that you can meet a bare minimum daily number of posts.

HOWEVER.

Being this trigger happy and adding untrusted ratings to so many new users will by default drive out potentially valuable members of the community, and weaken the belief and trust in cryptocurrency and associated technologies. This is the biggest crypto forum in the world, and it's getting a reputation of being the unfriendliest. This won't help anyone.

The problem is that as long as aggressive and arrogant idiots like The Pharmacist are given "default trust" status, we'll get abuse of power. His recent actions on the newbie board prove this.

The entire post seems to have been written by a random word generator.

Or maybe it's the "Lydians".

With any TOTP device, when you added it, you should have been given a recovery key.

If that's lost, or you didn't note it....sorry, you could be out of luck :/

This is the issue.

An Mr. Pharmacist has either been drinking or has gone mad with power.

Completely agree. This was not written by someone who regretted anything, or had any feeling for the people he stole from.

I posted it just to show how clever these guys can be, and to highlight basic security techniques (different passwords, strong passwords, 2FA) that we should all be using.

Jesus, 100% not me!

I found the article when searching for how to securely store bitcoin, and it was an eye-opener for me as to the tricks these guys have.

Absolutely not intended to give anyone here ideas on how to scam, but I thought it might be useful for people who want to make sure they're not vulnerable to the techniques used in the article.

I don't support malicious hacking in any way.

I knew there were some clever bunnies out there when it came to exploiting vulnerabilities, but I never realised how sophisticated.

Great story, and some great basic stuff to implement, security-wise.

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@hacker0/how-i-hacked-hundreds-of-bitcoins-ama

Hope it's OK to link this.....mods feel free to remove post if I've broken a rule.

H

A public key is the polar opposite of a private key. There should be no terminology issue here, no matter what language.

I have no idea what you are ultimately trying to say, but please don't confuse what is becoming a useful thread.

Having said that, your last advice was useful, in that people should most definitely read up on what they are posting.

Hi Odol,

Yes, I know that. My question is how certain blockchains (coins) can gain value by being turned to RL purposes.

Again, how could a bank (for example, and again referencing XRP) use an existing blockchain for the transactions they are already carrying out in a particular way.

If I could mentally bridge the gap between the idea of the tech, and how it's actually implemented by adopters, I could apply this knowledge to researching coins/applications that I would support.

Keeping the question out there!

H.

If the £500 you already put in won't hurt to lose, then hold it. Hodl

Investing a second £500 is harder to call - that's up to you. But could I suggest you google the January Dip? It's a thing.

Personally, if I had a few extra quid about now, I'd buy. But I wouldn't spend the rent.

Hi New_Delta,

First off, read back to learn who you're replying to. You didn't quote my post, you quoted N0One.

Secondly, you clearly didn't read his/her post either, as they gave good advice, which you apparently can't understand. Although you did thank them in one breath, then argued in the next.

So!

1) I know.

2) I know that too.

3) That's your problem. And also, I know.

So since "my" post didn't answer the questions you never fucking asked, let me comment on your reply.

You're an imbecile. Sorry.

Fuck me, you're a genius. Why didn't I think of that?

If you were part of my life in the last few years, I wouldn't be living in a drainage ditch, drinking water out of a sewer, filtered only by my sock, which was donated to me by friars, and has a hole in the toe, so you know, filtering-potential lowered.

Here am I, staring at the tree-roots over my head, wearing only the refuse-sack that some kind soul allowed me to steal from their dustbin, thinking "If it wasn't for savant-like insight like this, I'd be even worse off, probably eating wood".

But the wood's not bad, in fairness. Now that you have enlightened me, I might be able to upgrade to pulp. And a coal-sack - a warm, snuggly coal-sack. Maybe following this revelation, I can even aspire to eat bugs.

/s (for those who need it)

For fuck sake, stop posting shit like this to get activity.

Buy like hell, imo, but don't put your rent money on it.

Loving this thread Already posted but here's another story from my experience....

Worked in a games company, in customer service. Not one of the small ones. a BIG one. This is late 2012, and into 2013.

Our work machines were srs bznz....dual monitor, dual 7950 bunnies.

I had applied for a job in sys-admin (because fuck talking to customers), and made it my business to buy the IT room beers to support my application.

So ... let's call him "Bob"... one night in a frenzy of drunken honesty, shared that he had set up a network-wide (800 machines while they were idle) mining op to grab LTC and send them to his wallet. At the time (Xmas 2012), he had 48000 LTC in his wallet. One of his key requirements to hire me (who was buying his beer!) was that I keep it under wraps, with a share (I think he was offering 4% of all output to my LTC address).

Frankly, I just wanted the job, and couldn't have given less of a fuck about LTC, so I nodded and smiled. They were worth about 7c at the time, I think, so it wasn't mickey mouse money, but still....4% of that was still pfft.

I said "Sure ", and then life cirumstances changed. Before the hiring was closed, I had a RL thing happen which meant I needed to move home, and that was the last I saw of Bob. I was a cert to get the job, but hey what the hell.

Bob later got fired for a number of shady practices, not least of which was selling "faulty" GPUs to employees in the smoking area outside the building and pocketing the cash. But you know, fired and all, I reckon he's not giving much a fuck right now...

EDIT: Guess I asked hard questions

Very basic, I know, and I appreciate the answer is probably out there, but I might not be asking the right questions to the google-machine.

So my understanding is this...

In the beginning (TM), we had tally-sticks for transactions, which sucked because wood+termites=debt.

Then we had double-entry book-keeping, which is better, but prone to abuse and mistakes.

Now we have blockchain, whereby the ledger is visible, and miners validate it by in effect eliminating mistakes, and only putting the "correct" transaction into the chain.

What I can't quite grasp is how the altcoins work. I kinda get that Bitcoin itself was a proof of concept, but let's say that someone floats an ICO for "ArseCoin", where all arses, everywhere, will be validated through the blockchain that they establish.

Does this mean that all arse-owners need to buy in? And that if they don't, they are at risk of being classified as arse-less?

Or to be a bit less facetious about it...

Ripple. So this is apparently revolutionising the banking system. I picked this purely as an example, as it's the one I am closest to understanding (I think!), and it's known. Could be anything. Citation: ArseCoin.

Am I correct in understanding that the concept and the miners who bought in created a blockchain and support structure for the bank system to use, and that now the banks need to adopt this up-and-running "thing" to maintain the value of the unit?

What happens if they don't?
Who's selling it to the banks?
What's stopping the banks hiring some hotshot who gets this stuff and making their own?

And most importantly (in my head!)...

How does a bank, for example, take a "thing" that someone says is awesome ("Blockchain man, woo!"), and incorporate this into existing systems and procedures? Wouldn't this be a total rewrite of their internal accounting? Wouldn't this be a hard sell, in that some institutions are still using the same practices they used when they were swapping slaves for spice?

I have a mental gap, and it bothers me greatly. It's one of the crucial links I need to decide how to invest.

Discuss!

I am not too sure you need to buy technical books about cryptos based on blockchain - all that stuff is freely available with some intelligent googling.

However, technical analysis material for trading.....that's a different kettle of monkeys.

Yes! You forgot this:

1. Realise you have 17 bitcoins, cos you sold someone a reefer in 2011.
2. Attempt to cash out 2 on Craigslist. Almost get shot both times, before getting away with that knee injury which will plague you in your 40s.
3. Google some stuff, find this forum.
4. Sell some coins on localbitcoins, and decide that a 40 GPU 1080Ti farm is the way to go.
5. Pay a friend 0.1 BTC to help you order and build.
6. Plug it all in, and hit the power button
7 . Spend several days in the dark while your local power company attempts to locate what melted the local power box
8. Get pissed off because nicehash says $1 per day
9. Google some stuff
10. HODL

(this was not meant to be a serious post.....have a smile and a coke )

Cryptsy taught me that keeping anything more than a few quid to play with on an exchange is foolish.

Expensive lesson, but oh well.

Been waiting for the 25th to get paid so I can start my nub-folio, and today's drops have frustrated me a lot.....

Not because of the price drops themselves, or any doubts over recovery, but because this is the time to be getting max value for my cash.

The rally will start soon, and I'll miss all that lovely profit