Wait a sec, I think I need an explanation geared toward a 5-year old child.  I know what the autoplay thing is on Windows, because on my previous PC that had a DVD drive I kept it on so I wouldn't have to be hassled with having to choose to play a DVD each time I put one in.  Is enabling it dangerous in and of itself, or is it just a vector for malware as NotATether described? 

Not sure what you mean by my hardware limiting me from using W10, but the suggestion of using Linux is an excellent one.  The problem is that I'm an absolute retard when it comes to learning new things in the realm of coding, which Linux does require you to do a little bit of if you want to use it like a boss (just like knowing command line *stuff* in Powershell, which I also haven't grasped fully).  I have fooled around with Raspberry Pi's and also tried making a PC with a Linux distro, but I freakin' got stuck at the installation stage, threw up my hands in frustration, and subsequently sobbed silently and alone in a corner until my house cats became concerned.

What appeals to me about Linux primarily is that you're not being exploited by Microsoft and, as highlighted very nicely by Ledger, you just never know what's in those goddamn updates.

Wait a sec.  OP, you're making all of these arguments referencing the government doing this and that, but just from that tweet it looks like this new exchange is in private hands, albeit very big ones.  Some exchange owned by Schwab, Fidelity, and Citadel seems to me to just be a much bigger form of Robinhood (or Coinbase for that matter). 

I've no idea if the SEC gave the three firms mentioned above more guidance than the exchanges they're currently giving a very hard time, but that's certainly possible since they're already working with the SEC due to the fact that at least two of them are brokerages (not sure about Citadel).  But I don't see this as anything akin to a step toward doomsday or anything of the sort. 

Sure, if you want your bitcoin to be tracked go ahead and buy from them--and a lot of people probably will.  That doesn't affect the rest of the people who believe in bitcoin because of what it stands for, right?  There are and will *hopefully* continue to be other options to buy and sell crypto without banks or governments having their eyeballs all over your coins.

And I mean, come on.  How long did any of you think it'd take before big banks got into crypto?  Jesus, it took 'em long enough!

I also agree with Little Mouse's statement about giving a negative vs. excluding someone from your trust list in a case like Timelord2067.  If my memory serves me correctly (and it may not), before I wiped my trust list clean and left it with just ~DT, I had Timelord2067 excluded. 

My opinion is that he has good intentions as far as helping the forum goes, but he tends to see connections between members/accounts that sometimes are preposterous--and he's left enough questionable or flat-out wrong feedback for people that he probably ought to be excluded from DT on any level, indefinitely.  And it's not that I don't like him, either.  We've exchanged friendly PMs in the past, but being on the DT list gives a member a significant amount of power over others, and that power should be used judiciously. 

So if Timelord2067 isn't on DT at the moment, what exactly is the problem here?  It sounds to me like the other DT members have done their part in suppressing his potentially damaging feedbacks, and that says to me that the system (however broken or imperfect it might be) is functioning as it should.

Christ, this thread makes me want to break down in tears until I'm a snotty-nosed quivering mess.  You just made me more paranoid, because it takes some technical knowledge to follow your suggestions and, as I've said a million times before, using bitcoin for me is like driving a car with little understanding of what's under the hood and I lack the skills to get said car roadworthy again in case of a breakdown. 

What's this about the autoplay function being a big risk?  I run Windows but I'm not sure if I have that activated or not.  I'll check after I post this, but it isn't clear to me what the danger is.

In any case, I very much appreciate the suggestions, NotATether.  The only other software wallet I like is Sparrow, but I much prefer Electrum.

Mmm.  That argument of personal vs. business accounts befuddles me completely, as I've never seen any such interpretation of the rule regarding ban evasion being presented before--and likely for good reason, too.  Unless I'm reading things wrong, it is always the person behind the banned account who is banned, and thus any accounts under that person's control are also banned regardless of what the accounts are used for. 

If I'm not mistaken, I've seen campaign/bounty managers receive temp bans and other such individuals who have urgent forum business to attend to on a regular basis, and there was never any question that an alt account could NOT be created in order to deal with that business.  I recall pleas to the mods to lift such bans, as whoever those members were couldn't communicate with the people they needed to (it was a long time ago).

I know Royse777 had a good relationship with naim027 and probably still does, but the rest of us can't view the latter through the former's eyes.  Homeboy naim027's actions and words made in public are all we can go by, and it does seem like he's probably got a stable of alt accounts that have yet to be sniffed out.  Luckily the forum detectives can be as persistent and focused as an Adderall-sniffing, crack smoking fiend who can only pay extremely close attention to one thing, i.e., one or more of them is gonna be laser-focused on finding those alt accounts.  And they will, I've no doubt.

OP, could you elaborate on the second part of the above statement (about the complaining thing)?  And I have to admit I'm guilty as hell of not following up on posts I've made and who might have replied to them--but I've had that habit since I registered, I guess.  Unless it's a very hot drama thread, I usually just share my opinion or whatever and don't expect anyone to really engage me in a conversation.  Sometimes I stumble across a reply to a post I'd made months prior, when it's too late to respond for fear of necrobumping, and it makes me slap my head.

I'm not looking to increase my post count as you mentioned a notification bot could help in doing, but I think I might just look into it for shits & giggles.  I've been seeing mentions of said bots for a long time now, and for whatever reason I can't break the habit of being closed-minded about tech stuff I've never used.  Sounds like a bot would be useful to me, even after all these years on the forum doing things the hard way.

Yeah, I was scratching my head there for a minute, trying to think of whether naim027 had been accused of not just being dishonest but actually scamming someone (or attempting to).  As I said a day or so ago, I don't recall ever having a problem with him personally which I would have had there been evidence of him scamming. 

Either way, the issue here is ban evasion with alt accounts.  Perhaps the moderators don't think there's enough evidence to link naim023 to John Abraham and any other account(s) believed to be connected to him?  The blockchain transactions were proof enough for me, but mods might choose to be extremely prudent when making a judgement like that.  I don't know, but I'd really like to hear one or more of them chime in.

He's not being accused of plagiarism or ban evasion AFAIK, just being very loud with his opinions, and there's been talk of him spreading misinformation--and correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't been following that drama.  I seriously doubt franky1 is going to get banned if it comes down to an issue of free speech.  Trolling and spamming are actionable offenses, but I don't think he's doing either of those.

That dude is not thinking, that's the point.  I have no clue if the claim of 8% profit for gold investment is true or not (probably not), but the absolute tripe that's written above was done in order to meet some kind of posting goal.  Pujangga isn't currently in a sig campaign or bounty, so I'm going to guess that he's trying to remain active so he can apply to one.  I think most campaigns require some sort of baseline posting activity, i.e., they don't accept members who haven't made X number of posts in the last Y months/weeks. 

And even if I'm wrong about him trying to stay active, I'm positive he didn't make that post because he was trying to add something to the thread.

Lol.  I do a lot of post reviews in the gambling section, and gambling addiction is definitely a hot topic.  I don't know if those threads were created just so people could make posts or not, but there should probably be either a dedicated thread or a child board for the subject.  The number of problem gamblers using bitcointalk is probably massive, and from what I've seen a lot of them are pretty candid about their problem (assuming they're telling the truth).  But the chances of Theymos creating a subsection....<0.01%.

I'd like to go on record and state that I don't give two shits what OP's or anyone else's views on women are.  I don't know any of you in real life, and this forum doesn't need any of this Twitter/FB/whatever drama regarding identity politics, cancel culture, thought policing, and all of that shit.  If you live long enough you'll realize that you can get along just fine with people who hold extreme views that don't align with your own.

And that nobody is perfect.  Not in their thoughts or actions, so as far as bitcointalk is concerned the only thing I'm going to judge is the quality of people's posts.  If somebody hates [insert whatever here], anyone is free to openly argue against that viewpoint.  This is a discussion forum after all, and a global one at that.  No doubt there are going to be a lot of members with myriad prejudices.  Grow a thick skin if y'all can't handle it.

Oh, man....this dude PMed me for a post history review, and I'm so glad I thought to check his trust page first.  I don't know why I did, because usually I don't even bother, but I want to thank you and the other members who tagged him.

I've got ~DT in my trust list, so I wouldn't even have gotten a clear warning if someone on DT had given him a negative.  *Whew*  I think I just saved myself (with all y'all's help, of course) from a poopload of regret, something I was just conversing with JollyGood about.  From now on I think I'm going to make it a habit to check members' trust pages if they're requesting a review from me for the first time. 

As I've said before, the capability of an AI-thingamajig generating posts that can pass as genuinely good ones is effing scary.  We all know that if there's a way to earn more money on bitcointalk by cheating in a particular way, somebody is going to do it--and if it's successful, more and more people are going to follow suit.  It blows my mind that technology has come to this.

Online fist bump, bro!

I often wonder if there's going to be another long-running campaign that is exclusive as Chipmixer was--and that's nothing against Royse777 or Sinbad.io, of course.  I just have a feeling that this isn't going to run anywhere near as long as CM did, though I very much appreciate the selectivity, the merit requirement, and the overall quality of the participants thus far.

And there'd be no way in howdy-doody that you'd see a post like the above in the CM campaign (at least I don't remember anyone quitting.  Fired, yes, but once someone got into Chipmixer they usually held onto their slot for dear life).

Yep, but I think the much larger issue is what the AML requirements are and what any crypto exchange (not just Binance) has to do to fulfill them.  I have no idea what kind of regulations the Netherlands has in place, but I'm guessing the problem Binance has is all of the de-fi and staking offerings and maybe something with KYC compliance. 

In the beginning, we had bitcoin and the unregulated Wild West--most of which I missed--and now it seems like all of those concerns about governments being able to shut down bitcoin that had so many threads devoted to them are resurfacing.  And man....it's true that no government can shut down the bitcoin network, if using it is made illegal (and that could happen) then that can be done in an indirect way.

But I'm hopeful attitudes can change.  We've made it this far without severe regulation, which is no small achievement--13 years or thereabouts.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Binance can exert some influence and stay in business.

I agree with half of what you said above; I don't think the ICO mania had anything to do with the SEC's current scrutiny of crypto.  I think disasters like FTX and all the other collapses that caused a lot of people to lose a lot of money caught the attention of regulators (though the SEC does seem to have its eyes on staking coins and the like). 

But you're absolutely correct about many of the newer coins having teams behind them and being so much less decentralized than bitcoin.  That's ultimately what turned me off of PoS coins, as I could see that if there's a team in charge anything could happen.  I saw NEO's staking system completely change for the worse, and TRX recently changed things up with holders basically having no say in the matter.  All of that goes against what bitcoin and crypto in general stand for.

These actions against exchanges on the part of the SEC are ridiculous, though.  They're not giving any guidelines on what's what, and they're just bringing charges against businesses trying to do the right thing (but not knowing exactly what the right thing is).  Leave it to an alphabet agency to fuck things up big time.

I think never should rarely, if ever, be mentioned in any statement involving investments or finance.  In fact, the whole "real estate never goes down" kind of thinking got a whole lot of people in trouble back in 2006-08 when the housing market crashed.  Loans were being given to people who clearly had no way to pay them back, and everyone thought the market was going to soar forever....but then reality came crashing down.

What are real estate prices like in Nigeria, anyway?  It might make sense to own land that can be kept through generations there, but where I live (the US), unless you're extremely rich or have an atypical mindset, land is rarely passed down from one generation to another.  If heirs wind up with a relative's house, they usually sell it rather than keep it and all the associated expenses (which can be quite substantial).

So I'm of mixed mind about owning property, because I can see the advantages and disadvantages equally well.  What's always turned me off from owning a house is the upkeep and taxes, and that's on top of being kept prisoner by the home you live in.  Once you buy one and move in, it's not likely you're going to sell it and move anytime soon even if you want to.  If you're a renter, that's really not an issue, and I kind of like that freedom of not being stuck in a house that would be hard to move out of.

Yeah, but in this case it wasn't me who caught him.  I think I may have discovered an alt or two when doing post history reviews, but as I said my memory is shot (or I'm just not retaining that kind of info like I used to).  It's been quite some time since I actively researched bought/hacked accounts or tried to connect various accounts as alts.  2018 was probably the year I got burned out on doing so, and I'm glad others are still active in sniffing out the cheaters.

LOL.  Thanks for pointing that out; my mistake was from a misreading of his name or going by a flawed memory.  I will duly note his true username and try not to forget. 

Yep.  This is de-fi if I'm not mistaken (and please pardon my ignorance, but I never got past all of those extremely attractive advertised yields), and I've always figured that the market for crypto lending is based on pure speculation, i.e., people aren't borrowing it to finance houses or cars or whatever but to trade with.  And if that's the case, it doesn't seem like a sustainable business model to me--or a sustainable investment vehicle for the lenders.

But take a look at how many members we have on this forum who are desperate for money; desperate enough that they'll either scam for pennies or join some of the scammiest bounties in the hopes that they'll be rewarded with worthless tokens.  If you take that into account, it really isn't surprising that when a newly-formed company offers returns so much higher than the stock market (or any other market for that matter), they pounce on it.  It's understandable but unfortunate.

And while everybody is chasing these outrageous returns and the companies eventually go bust, what happens?  The regulators start taking notice and crypto comes under high scrutiny.  It's ultimately not good for any of us in the long term.

Yeah, I was probably thinking of that exact case when I wrote what I wrote, because I think it was the last time it came to my attention that I gave merits to someone I shouldn't have--but I know it isn't the only instance. 

As to why he would ask me for more merits....reputation-building, perhaps?  And though he's in the highest-paying sig campaign he is 'only' a Sr. Member and I assume Whirlwind pays more for Hero/Legendary members, and even if they don't other campaigns do, so wanting to rank up and increase his available sig space makes sense.  Usually the motives around here come down to money, just as they do in the real world.

When Royse777 had naim023 on his team when he was building the Casino Critique site, I never had an issue with the latter.  It was only after he started all the drama with him at the center that he became a problem in my mind, i.e., when he got banned.  You've got a much better memory about these things than I do, but I don't recall ever having a personal problem with naim023 (back then, anyway).  I'll be following this situation and will be more vigilant with my merit-giving in the future, at least to the extent that I can identify alts.

Ugh.

So you're using this account to do what, exactly?  And I don't suppose you'll reveal your main account, but if I'm wrong I'm very curious.  But yes, I realize I might be helping some alts to rank up and I've said as much to some members--no one who offers to review posts would know who's an alt of who unless it had already been made public, but I have been in the situation of having given a lot of merits to members who turned out to be malicious alts or plagiarists or what have you, and it sucks.

Got back from my errands, read the rest of this thread, and there's enough evidence for me to conclude that John Abraham is an alt of naim023, and I'm going to tag him after I write this for evading a ban and wasting my time and sMerits.  I'm usually suspicious of accounts that consist of a western-sounding first and last name, and I should have heeded that suspicion last time I did a review for him.  Ugh.

That's how I got linked with my girlfriend's account (uberLOL)--blockchain evidence only, by the forum snoops.  I didn't deny it, even though I wanted to keep the account a secret just to keep the extremely off-color humor going. 

A'ight, back to the issue at hand:  I tripped and stumbled across this thread because John Abraham requested a post history review, and one of his most recent posts was in it.  I haven't read through everything yet but will do so after I go run some errands; I just want to know what the general community sentiment is about the accusation.  I did look through the first few posts, and it definitely looks like enough evidence to link the accounts.  There's no fakkin' way I'm handing out any merits to an alt account of someone who got banned for plagiarism and then tried to evade the ban.  I just want to be reasonably sure before I make a decision.

I heard about said egg shortage but since I so rarely eat eggs I haven't been following it closely.  But I'd suggest that the fact that you got some eggs on the cheap might be a result of the situation changing and the media not following up on the story of Massive Egg Inflation.

That's one possibility, and it came to mind only because I haven't been hearing much about supply chain shortages, COVID, or the war between Russia and Ukraine.  The mainstream media has a longstanding habit of following a breaking story for a while but not until things have resolved.  Note: I don't really follow the news these days, so those things I mentioned could still be in the headlines but they haven't been in the recommended vids on YT anyway.

So Jet Cash, eat them 21 pence eggs and party like it was 2015, 1999, or whatever your year of choice is.