Maybe this is one of aTriz's new accounts

I think there is fairly decent evidence that it was aTriz's job to post the bounty threads of the campaigns that ALU was managing. aTriz did post all of these types of threads (with ~2 exceptions that lauda posted, likely due to some extraordinary circumstances). The bitblisscoin bounty thread also mentioned ALU's involvement, which is about as explicit as it gets when saying who was running the campaign.


I would also point out that lauda was advertising some kind of mixer/ponzi scheme that was almost certain to be a scam well before ALU was created. The scam was called out and apparently shut down shop before a lot of money was stolen. Here is the "ANN" thread (one of them) of the project that lauda was advertising, they did end up deleting (and/or editing out all information from) all of their posts in that thread, sufficient information to reasonably conclude they were a ponzi was quoted by others, such as "1% weekly" returns.

This is certainly a conflict of interest if he is managing bounty campaigns for the project he is giving merit to.

I don't think this is a huge issue if he is only providing translation services to the project as the amounts in question are much smaller, as are the number of people qualified to perform said services.

From what I can tell, this is only an issue for one of the posts he gave merit to (unless I am missing something on the other you linked).

I think this can be remediated by allowing him to use his sMerit that is not part of his "source" sMerit to "pay for" the post in question.

It might be a good idea to allow for merit sources to specify if they are sending merit from their "source sMerit" or that is the result of the merit they received via their posts from others. As it stands now, merit sources must first spend all of their "source sMerit" and once that is gone, they will spend sMerit they have as a result of the merit they received from others. This would allow merit sources to avoid the appearance of having a conflict of interest when they give merit to these types of posts (or if they wanted to sell merit that is not "source sMerit").   

Although I would find it fairly unlikely, but have you ruled out the guy mentioned in the OP being Josiah Wilmoth? (the author of https://strategiccoin.com/3-ways-to-identify-an-ico-scam/ )

Most of the copy past spammers are going to plagiarize a fairly large percentage of their posts made within a certain time, and will be  fairly likely to get their content from a variety of sources. In other words, this kind of person is trying to pad their post count in order to increase their activity/rank and/or the number of posts they are paid for by their signature campaign.

I am not sure if that guy plagiarized that article, or if he is the author, however he did correct a paragraph numbering error in that article (can steemit articles be edited after they are published?), so he did not outright blindly copy and paste that article into a post without looking at it. On the other hand, that guy's posts are mostly fairly short.


Perhaps if the OP is banned because of this post, he can privately message theymos or another admin with some kind of evidence he is the author and he can decide if said evidence is sufficient.


In this case, assuming there is not IP evidence this guy has alts engaging in similar behavior (including spammy behavior), considering there is only one post in question from a since source, I would accept his word if he were to claim he is the original author.

I googled the domain “test-app.link” and it looks like this might be something that directs users to open a link directly in an app on their phone instead of in their browser.

When I directed my browser to that link, it went to a page with a button that said “get the app” which sends me to the apple App Store, specifically a link to download the wirex bitcoin wallet. On the page on my browser, there is also a message that says I will see the content after downloading the app.

Edit: I download the wirex app, signed up and was able to obtain the following referral link,
https://links.wirexapp.com/MpmB/4bTIQcutbK?action=affiliate-register&code=NVyN0jdZy0W6YFsE1dCviQ

Based on the above, I would conclude the link he posted to be a referral link. I would recommend not permanently banning the OP if this is the only instance of referral spam. A warning would probably be most appropriate, but at worst a 3 day ban would be in order (both assuming this is the only instance).

Edit2: I don’t particularly like wirex and have removed the app from my phone, however it is not explicitly malicious to the extent you can trust apple and their ability to perform their due diligence

The part I highlighted in red is where my questions focuses. I apologize if it sonds n00b… I'm not very well versed with the core wallet and such.
Suppose I have an airgap PC that I want to use to sign a transaction with but the wallet is passphrase protected. I assume that the wallet can't sign the transaction if it's kept locked correct? Therefore keeping it safe. The issue is once the wallet is opened the info is then sent to RAM and then it's game over.
I'm also wondering what malware they created to be able to pull this off!? Super scary stuff!!
[/quote]I would not call it “game over” especially if you are using an air gapped computer.

You are correct in that your wallet cannot sign a transaction as long as your wallet is “locked” however your private keys may still be vulnerable if you have a weak pass phrase- if someone can gain access to your wallet and you have a weak pass phrase, they could guess the pass phrase and access your private keys.

As a general rule, if your computer is infected with malware, there is a fairly high chance any private keys on your computer will leak unless you catch this quickly and know what to do.

Out of curiosity, was this you?:

Using a VPN will not get you banned. In fact, IP evidence alone is not sufficient to earn you a ban based on the actions of another user.

Considering the amount of business they have done and how close they are/were, it would not be unreasonable to make that statement. It might not be “confirmed” but it is reasonable to say they know the new account, assuming of course they are different people, which is not a given for lauda.

There is no tx fee paid in coinbase transactions....

*Less than or equal to the block reward.

Business...

I am not sure if you are being serious or are trolling. I think you should review the number of people who have excluded lauda from their trust list and reevaluate your conclusion that community consensus is that lauda is doing a "good job"

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect either Lauda to be held accountable for his trust ratings, nor for you to be held accountable for those you have on your trust list. Nor should it be unreasonable for people to discuss with you the ratings your trust list directly results in showing up by default.

From a technical perspective, yes it is possible aTriz opened those threads not as a member/partner of ALU, but as an individual campaign manager, however realistically this was not the case.

Further evidence that aTriz was not removed from ALU is the fact that he was not removed from any of the ALU related materials, such as the website (now taken down), and the thread (now locked), as well as that fact that none of the other ALU "partners" have made statements that they are taking over the campaign management of any of the campaigns aTriz was previously running (unless you are going to argue that aTriz was/is running all of the bounty campaigns in the threads he opened, which would be a ridiculous argument). 


I would also point out that Lauda said upthread that the person who opened campaign threads (which in almost every case was aTriz) was not necessarily the person who was running the campaign. This was clearly done to 'muddy the waters' to distort who was ultimately responsible for each campaign.

Another interesting fact is that aTriz opened several bounty campaign threads for what was arguably obvious ICO scams while he also opened a scam accusation against an ICO who attempted to use ALU's services whose shadiness was uncovered during some kind of due diligence that aTriz claimed to have been performing. This might imply that someone other than aTriz was the one who made the decision to allow the what I would consider obvious scam campaigns to continue unabated. This is far from proof that lauda was the one who made this decision, however the intentional muddied waters should give (additional) doubt to lauda's integrity (assuming of court you are turning a blind eye to his prior extortion attempt).   

The fact that aTriz started bounty threads after lauda made this statement disagrees with this claim.

I am not so sure about his new account being in the default trust network currently but I am fairly confident he has moved on.

I am fairly sure that Vod is rejected by women when it is 365 days from the last Christmas (eg he doesn’t get rejected on Christmas Eve, on leap years, when some women are feeling extra *charitable*).

Surely this is the fault of Jesus.

Welcome to the club flying hellfish

It looks like the aTriz account was most likely abondonded and he has moved onto his new account