Thanks for your reply, very useful information indeed! So I should be safe logging in to any website using Tor (of course, any legit website using HTTPS)

Correct me if I got it wrong: so as soon as I download an image from.. say imgur or a video off Reddit, I should be fine as soon as there is no little warning triangle with a line, right?

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Haha, it was an interesting and very ELI5 way to explain it though

BCH, BSV and BTC will probably undergo a fight out of which only 1 will remain the king. I only personally support the latter one so I'm thinking it's going to be the one to win. I'm expecting BSV to fall to shit and BCH will just maybe be able to survive and possibly have a little increase post this halving. But until when?

If you looked back when the original BTC forked into BTC & BCH, you would know right now why precisely were people investing the latter: hoping for a move similar to BTC to follow up. Same thing happened when BSV popped up, but there is one big difference: BSV's creator is the scummiest person alive. Bitcoin Cash would have won if it had the majority of people moving from BTC to it, but that wasn't the case. I have personally wanted to be an investor of both (actually all 3, because the stupid and idiotic me was almost convinced a few months ago that CSW would truly prove he's Satoshi) but I gave up on al but BTC..

So I'd expect only a little, non-significant (compred to BTC's) price change of BCH & BSV but BTC will still be the one to win when it comes to price increases post-halving. I don't know, consider me biased but this is my personal perspective. We can't have 3 different coins having their price affected the same way every time. One day, at least one of them will fall. And one day, people who've invested in BCH or BSV hoping to become rich overnight after a while will get sick of the bullshit of the team behind them.

Excuse the number of times I've written the abbreviation of these 3 coins in my reply.

I'm trying to research a bit more about the safer operating systems and I came across Tails and Qubes OS. I'm now interested in placing Tails on some USB sticks for my own safety and using it every now and then for different tasks. One of these tasks is using Tails + my Ledger to create transactions in order to increase my anonymity.

I am just a little bit afraid to use Tails + Ledger and I know there are some members out there who are using Tails pretty often as a Live OS. Therefore, I have a few questions:

• Is there any risk of fund loss if I use Ledger Live together with Tails or is it, in fact, safer to use my hardware wallet on this OS? I'd use Electrum but I have some alts I need Ledger Live for!
• I've never logged in on any website by using Tor (browser) because I was afraid someone would be able to hack my accounts and gather my passwords. Is it safe to log in to my e-mail (no, not my personal one!)? What about BitcoinTalk or a decentralized exchange like Bisq? Does logging in through Tails make it more possible to have my passwords stolen if I log in to them?
• How do I SAFELY download things that I can also open (say an image or a video) through Tails while also online? I heard it's not a good idea at all to open files downloaded through Tor and knowing the fact that Tails enforces any connection to run through it, I guess it's not the best idea to download stuff and open them later..

The only thing that keeps me back from using Tails for such tasks is the fear of losing my cryptos or accounts through hacks. I'm willing to open myself up to the world of freedom and I am hopefully making the right steps towards it!

I agree with their decision. They banned it at the right time. I guess some people are way more vulnerable now than usually, the pandemic affects us in all ways possible and does influence some choices.. most of the time, it's a negative influence.

On the other hand, this once again shows the power of decentralization - try banning us from using cryptocurrencies to gamble. Oh wait, you can't. And even if they did, we'd most likely develop some decentralized gambling platform if there isn't any already out there.

I don't know if this is related to the birth of Bitcoin, but have you seen the globalization charts? Deglobalization started somewhere around 2008 and the more years pass, the more we decentralize as a society. Meanwhile, massive corporations are trying to still take in power and, implicitly, control.



I would say there is a massive rise of interest in decentralization, especially the last few years.. so many softwares are going open-source and more people are starting to doubt the real interest and purpose of the services and apps they use. It's definitely a good thing and hopefully many more will wake up to the reality we're living in.

It's terrible, however, what we're all now experiencing. For example, so many people are now using Zoom which has been exploited countless times, is known to send anonymous data to Facebook and has (or has had) an exploit that lets hackers open your camera without your knowledge and consent. That's scary and .. why is everyone promoting it? How come, out of ALL conference apps, Zoom is the one to thrive? And then we have Google's scary mobility reports clearly showing us how easily trackable we are, how easy it is for them to get required information about you.. if you go off the grid, you're going to be considered a suspect.. what is this? Control.. control all over

So yeah, this might be the beginning of the temporary end to either centralization or decentralization. It looks to me like a little "war" already between the two: some want complete control, we want the exact opposite. Bitcoin did not revolutionize the world yet! It's still working on it and hopefully it will succeed to wake up as many as possible..

According to CoinDesk's article, the exploiters were able to set the return address in case a transaction fails as their own. That let them steal the funds, because once the transaction failed (only the buyer initiated the tx and the exploiter waited for it to expire), everything returned back right into the hacker's wallet.

What's scary is that this is a DEX. It means it can happen to any of us and, unlike some centralized exchange hacks, you can't really do much about it.. The hacker could continue exploiting it without having a single fear.

Will give you a Merit because I just wanted to use Bisq and I had no idea this thing even happened. So you might've just saved my funds.

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Decentralized exchanges are a better target for hackers and exploiters although their liquidity and volume is way smaller. There's no server and you can leave absolutely no trace behind you. It lowers the risks significantly for the hackers.

Re-applying. Will accept any of the free spots. Updated information:

Bitcointalk Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=806196
Current amount of Posts (Including this one): 2450
SegWit BTC address for payouts: 39k74QRU6yd2HSe46DNQjJk7yaquzbk6cC
EARNED merit in the last 120 days: 368

Enlisting for the automated merit update!

By the way, should I remove the older posts I've made here to avoid overcrowding this thread?

Okay, this is apparently more complicated than I thought it would be. I hope nobody has a problem with me - I just found a link between the two alts and posted the connection on Bitvest's thread. I just don't know now whether I should buy the "my brother" excuse or not because it's so complicated and such an often excuse used by cheaters/scammers to defend themselves..

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So going back on track, I'm following now your story and have some things I wonder.. like why did your brother use a wallet address that was used in 2018 by your account? If he would have wanted to use your wallet for signing up and earning on here, he wouldn't have gone for an old address, right? Or am I wrong? I may be, I don't know, this seems quite shady. Why use a two-year-old address when you can use a newer one? Because it looks like your brother has had many addresses you've never used..:


There are two more posts I can't quote cause the topics were locked, but I also found this:

This is an unused wallet address and does not have the same structure as the exchange's addresses. So your brother definitely does know how to set up a separate wallet.

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Now let's go back to your claim:



Alright, I see differences (e.g. one of you uses colors while the other doesn't) but why do you both reply to the same threads on similar timestamps and sometimes have the same points to say? Here are some examples (From now on until the end of my reply, I intentionally put the colors on them to highlight similarities):



I can't find something very similar in the following two but you've posted on the same thread and the timestamp..:


Then I went back to the 31st of July 2019 and found these two (check the timestamps):

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It's either me going insane or something really doesn't add up here.. Your brother posts very rarely and even when he does, he posts in the same threads you've posted.. and sometimes even writes down the same ideas under a different structure.

1. NO. Never give it up no matter how hard it gets. This is exactly what we should stop doing. The more people who stop giving their information away for free, the better it gets. It's intentionally all created so it gets harder for you. It gets harder if you want not to accept cookies anymore, it gets harder if you don't want to give up your information anymore etc. It's been shaped up this way for us to effectively give up completely and it's been working tremendously for them.

2. Exactly what I said: get ready to have a harder internet life. Have patience and find new ways to solve your problems without having to sell yourself to other entities. Try Bisq or Komodo's Atomic DEX. Peer-to-peer is the way to do things.

3. No! Even if you do not use Tor or other kind of IP & traffic obfuscation, not giving up your personal information is critical and much better than nothing. There are plenty of ways you can go off the grid right now and change the way you browse, transact etc. Check out Wasabi Wallet which has coinjoin and Tor integrated; you can even use hardware wallets: https://www.wasabiwallet.io/

4. Directly, most likely no. But in time, it will. Your personal information gets all submitted to different entities and one day you may find out your personal information has been stolen and sold by hackers or you've been part of who-knows-what investigation and are suspected for X crimes. Why let them get into your personal, private space? Fuck them! Stay away and protect your name, protect your ID, protect everything related to you!

Your information is worth a lot of money on the black markets. You got very used to services that offer very fast support, transactions etc but did you ever think that maybe the websites you're using aren't really free and you're fuelling them everything they need for free? Do you really think Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Reddit etc are all 100% free and they're not feeding off your personal info at all? Stay off the grid as much as you can, NEVER give up!

I'm glad my work hasn't been in vain! That's quite a lot of participants from both campaigns!

Keep up the great work

Wow. The answers to this topic vs what I see on the front page of Reddit, Twitter, Google, MSM and in the top comments of all these is mindblowing. Maybe I'm looking at 2 different mindsets, put the list above next to BTCTalk and you have 2 completely opposed things.

Anyways, I don't really get the "cents" and all those things some members have talked about (including graphs) to be honest but I'm very interested in the US Presidential Elections. I was wondering, is there any gambling website offering the possibility to bet on the delay/cancellation of the elections?

Most MSM articles I've read say he just cannot cancel them, "But that doesn’t mean disasters can’t wreak havoc on democracy as usual". I'm not thinking about what Trump wants but I'm rather looking at it from a rougher perspective: if a second, tougher wave of the pandemic comes in after summer and countries will need to take even stricter measures than the ones we took in the past months, is there really no way the elections could be delayed/cancelled? I'd bet on a second strain/wave of the virus coming through this autumn, so I'm wondering whether this is a possibility or not.

It will not reduce posts about the pandemic. The subject about BSV and CSW has been brought upon numerous times and yet his name is still everywhere on the forum. New users will always create these threads when their alts run out of topics to reply to. In fact, this may worsen the amount of topics and people would start creating ones asking "why do we have a new announcement about covid??"..

Politics have nothing to do with what is heard about China or whoever else the pandemic prevention information. The ads and notifications you see & hear about the virus are not even related to any politics - they're just pieces of information for prevention measures. As tranthidung said two replies above, anyone who has a TV, an internet connection or - in my case of receiving the EAS notification - just a mobile phone without even a SIM card or internet connection in it has heard of the virus and about the prevention measures for it.

Moreover, I'm not even sure what the hell is right or not anymore. Too much contradictory information. Have you thought for just a minute that maybe washing your hands too often may make things worse because constantly rubbing the protective layers of your skin may do damage to them? Have you thought that it may be safer not to wear a mask than wear it improperly? I'm not a doctor - I'm just thinking logically. Let's do a very quick rewind of what we've been told:

• The virus is just a flu. Later: it's not.
• Test as much as possible! Later: tests have been found to be contamined with the virus.
• Herd immunity is better! Later: Let's lock the country down..
• I said that China was OBVIOUSLY covering up numbers and I was told to "fuck off" by most and to shut my mouth up. Today, on the news: China has been hiding numbers big time..
• You'll call me a conspiracist with this point. I personally do not want to think & believe that 5G is in any way related to the pandemic, but take the 5G worldwide map (archive, archive backup) and put it right next to the COVID-19 Outbreak map (archive, archive backup). It'd be no surprise to me if in a matter of time 5G will be officially linked to the pandemic.

I'd sincerely not advise anyone anything. Let the governments do their job. We may do it wrong, and we don't want to take responsibility for it.

I took some free time to bust some cheaters out here and I unfortunately found a connection between 2 users from Bitvest that are active right now at the same time in the campaign. Quoting CryptopreneurBrainboss in case he has a mention bot activated:


Here is the unfortunate connection:

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fiulpro - Pixyoxx (in your spreadsheet, he's active as "Pixyoxxv", that's not the manager's fault though - it's the way Pixyoxx wrote their name in the participation post)
Connected address: 3CkE3Az6s3Q42qgds2cD5g7STQpbxQ1eB9
Campaign they've joined: Bitvest

PROOF:
fiulpro: currently part of the Bitvest campaign, their address according to the spreadsheet is 3NBxLpV1QQzyFm2itjJSPbVgd3YZbTyEyJ;
Pixyoxx: currently part of the Bitvest campaign, their address according to the spreadsheet is 3CkE3Az6s3Q42qgds2cD5g7STQpbxQ1eB9.


PROOF ARCHIVES:
Quote from fiulpro (archive backup);  their profile (archive backup)
Quote from Pixyoxx (archive backup);  their profile (archive backup)

I hear this message on radio & during almost any TV news, I see it on gov press conferences, TV commercials, received it on my phone Emergency Alert System, received anonymous SMS with it, seen it on my city's walls and street ads, seen it on someone's t-shirt in a supermarket, my friends have started changing their profile photos with pics of them wearing masks, I received a message from Viber about it, even campaign managers sometimes post messages about it, I see it on almost any article I read ETC.

Isn't it just a little bit too much? I just feel like I'm starting to lose sanity, it's literally everywhere I look, anything I try to listen to or read contains this "wear mask, wash hands, don't go out" message.. I don't want BTCTalk to be another one on the list above. It's my only relief from this situation. Someone who reads a Bitcoin forum most likely did hear these tips enough times already..

I just feel like this trend we're heading to is very sad, stupid and terrible. We're following a path where in the end we'll have no more personality, no more warm family relationships (no hugs, no kisses, not even handshakes) etc. This will affect us permanently, especially the 5-10yo kids.

Let's be completely honest now - how does this trend really help us at all? First of all, someone who has a mask wears it uselessly if they don't respect the basics of wearing a mask. I swear, 6-8 out of 10 touch the mask while wearing it. Many are taking it off when talking, some don't even put it on their face properly. I'll underline once again the lack of education which leads to all of these. In Romania we have ads created by the government for tips on how to protect against the virus but we have never seen an official advertisement about how to properly wash your hands and wear a mask. I have just found out about 2 months ago that the way I wash my hands and I thought a mask should be wore were completely wrong.

The "wear a mask and snap a selfie with it on!" trend is terrible imo. Countries are starting to make mask wearing mandatory, what is this leading to? What does this trend help me or anyone else with?
I'm very aware of the fact that many people are not respecting the basic rules of this pandemic, but I think we're starting to kinda exaggerate.. maybe a bit too much..

Just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me. I'd be 101% for these measures if I knew they'd only affect us now and not in the future too. But think realistically & logically for a bit - they'll affect & change us forever. Politics are going to be different. The way we buy things. The way we socialize. The meaning of entertainment. The way we see nature. The way we love. Everything.

I'd rather not use an antivirus at all than download some software that's been posted on Reddit or wherever else. Just because a post on Reddit about some cracked software has been upvoted, it doesn't mean that it's legit. A small percentage of users are using cryptocurrencies so it's obviously less often to have funds stolen.

Linux + Ledger/Trezor + Open-Source softwares only all the way (unfortunately, Ledger Live isn't open-source but AFAIK Trezor's software is). Completely free ones. We learn from mistakes. I hope you did not lose much; better learn the lesson earlier than later.

Since when is personally knowing 4 businessmen who've been scammed the same way something impossible? "Not one. Not two. Not three. But four!" Dude, only four. I did not say four hundred.

I think I found articles from the future related to you on the news, can you connect the dots too, mr FAIR TRADER?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8055549/Woman-receives-box-spending-185-000-buying-coronavirus-face-masks.html
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-fraud/coronavirus-fraud-uk-victims-lose-800000-pounds-in-scams-idUKKBN20T1J4
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biggest-maker-of-face-masks-in-us-is-warning-of-an-outbreak-of-fraud-2020-03-18

And last but not least, I found an article about avoiding Chinese scams which include the supposedly impossible scenario of receiving a container filled with rocks! Check this science-fiction article out! It's almost as if what I said really does happen - oh, wait..
https://www.ecomcrew.com/how-to-avoid-being-scammed-in-china-the-five-types-of-scams/

Now before you start typing bullshit again, no, nobody has been fucking educated to avoid Chinese scams so there's no point in even trying to tell me how "these scams can be avoided". You know very well how to avoid and how to succeed with a scam.

By the way, thanks for quoting me - you just made me pay attention to something very interesting in the last link from ecomcrew!


Now let's go back to the OP..

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Yeah, you just exposed my real age: 14, dammit.. I thought I could hide it forever but apparently not! Now say "thank you" because I just spent 15 precious minutes of my life just writing this reply for you.

You can just give up now. You're a disgrace not only to all legit sellers but to all of us. This time I'm not saying "escrow or get out". Just GTFO.

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions. I've kept all your messages in mind and will take my time to think very well which path I'm going to take.

I'll merit all who've usefully replied on-topic so far and have under 1000 Merits on their account; my apologies to the rest but you will be merited once I get my sMerits bag filled up a bit I sincerely appreciate all your answers!

He knows his intentions and procedure very well. I don't think it makes sense for us to continue explaining to him what's good and what isn't. He obviously isn't stupid to pay upfront a non-refundable ~€20,000 for something he isn't 100% sure will arrive.

If everything was alright and he had good intentions, he would've accepted escrow without a doubt. The only thing an escrow does is make a scam impossible, I see NO reason I wouldn't accept going through an escrow if I had to sell something. Customer receives his products? I receive my money! It cannot be simpler than that.

What happens if the products arrive, damaged? What happens if the products arrive but they are different from what the customer has actually ordered? What happens if the products appear to be legit at first sight but upon a proper inspection they're found to be fake? What if the products get stuck at Customs due to their nature? What if, right after the customer sends Sean the full payment upfront, FairTradeSean asks for another payment of a few hundred bucks due to a shipping/product price calculus error? What if the products aren't being sent at all? What if the products don't even exist?


GTFO this forum then if you don't agree with us. Like it or not, we're trying to stop these fuckers from scamming people. Too many are losing money through scams in the crypto sphere and we don't want anyone to fall victim to yet another scam. You either proceed the  right & safe way for your customers or you just fuck off. I have nothing to gain from writing all these posts.