If I remember correctly, the database of Mt.Gox was leaked since ages. Also, iirc, it's already being heavily analyzed (I think Kraken does that in detail, to help customers get at least a bit of their funds back and to find out what happened there). It's public domain.

The leak of the database brought the conclusion that there was a bot duped "Willy", probably coded by Mark Karpeles, who manipulated the price up to over 1000 USD - all the way from slightly over 100 USD. It was all Mt.Gox.

I also think the file size (716 MiByte) matches the old file.

As I understood it, IP whitelisting on cryptsy.com is not there to prevent any non whitelisted IP from connecting, but if you're using the cryptsy API, whitelisted IP addresses are not blocked from connecting, if they e.g. send more requests than a usual user would do.

So, in general (and if I got this right), IP whitelisting is nothing that matters for you.

Just thinking about believing that it might make sense to invest in a site which states such returns should be punished. There is no way such returns can be delivered.
Man, even saying "if it sounds too good to be true…" leaves a stupid feeling in such an obvious case.

OP: I'm trying to feel sorry for your loss, but it's really not easy. Maybe you can make back your loss at a site which has 10000% return? :> (scnr)

Hey,

while I'm clearly on cryptsy's side in this case (I never ever had a single problem with this exchange, and even my only support ticket I ever had there - 2FA needed to be disabled due to my phone being stolen, back then - was resolved in a matter of minutes.

But of course cryptsy can change a user's password. As soon as there is an administrator who has access to the database (alternatively, this can also be the webserver process which MUST have access to the database in order to actually set a user's password, initially), the passwords can be changed.
There is no way around the fact that the owner/administrator of a website has control over the users' passwords (be it plaintext, hashed, hashed & salted or whatever). That's just fact. If you register somewhere as user, you are trusting that service with your password and you have to know that that service has full control over your account.

This is more or less what I meant with my post. Though there are several systems which potentially suit a purpose better, at the end of the day, that means nothing if the user isn't able to configure the operating system to work flawlessly and securely, because he doesn't understand it.

For that reason, I often recommend against using GNU/Linux for new users if it's pretty much clear that they wouldn't have any idea about how to securely use it. And I'm sort of a huge proponent of GNU and Linux based operating systems.

Hi,

the bold part doesn't work, for the most part. Often, those distributions that are more easy to use have more potential security risk (simple equation: to make the user feel more comfortable, more GUI tools are included, which bring potential risk… more software installed == more risk), whereas those distributions which are known for their security are harder to use.

At the end of the day, even a GNU/Linux system (read: any operating system) is only as secure as the user who uses it. The best GNU/Linux system is worthless if you e.g. have your SSH daemon open for access to the public internet and use a weak password for your super user.
If you want a secure system, there is no way around learning. You'll have to get into the basics and specifics of Linux (the core), how to use and how to protect it. I'd say this is a process which might take years, if it ever ends at all.
I'm using GNU/Linux since around 6 years 100% (meaning, I'm completely Windoze free), and before that, I was using GNU/Linux for several years, too, but always had Windows as my main system.

If you're going to make that step, be prepared for a long journey which is often frustrating, but also very interesting and fascinating.

Of course it is good that it exists! It's just important for users to know that they're not supposed to blindly swallow anything they're fed here. This subsection of the forum doesn't prevent anybody from doing his own due diligence, but nevertheless, it's an important part of the forum.

knightdk, DannyHamilton: now, several days later, I want to thank you again for your help. It has really motivated me to wrap my head around raw transactions, and to get to know the "inner workings" of Bitcoin a bit better. Result: my very first successful raw transaction from said 3FuckUp address - without any fuckup!

https://blockchain.info/address/3FuckUpFfo28hxXb89C19Az2kfGh7JhGY4
https://blockchain.info/tx/8c2d600f0cb0d6715fc364c254fd46577ed729e01a98cf6ae3190bea78c8b5f2

(Please ignore the names of the used "vanity" Bitcoin addresses; they resulted from myself playing with the vanitygen tool and they reveal absolutely nothing [I hope] about my character, heh).

Transaction received!

Often, it really is easy to be the smart one, after.

But I partly disagree with you. Before reading on, please understand that I don't suspect you on any of this, but in a virtual world like the one we're "living" in, there is no such thing as "proof". And if there is, it is very hard to obtain. There is always one instance you have to trust to consider any kind of proof valid.
Screenshots can be faked easily, or correspondence can be published out of its original context to make the other party involved look bad. It's not that it didn't happen before on this very forum. People were taken for a ride, sympathizing with the poor victim just to find out that the victim is one hell of a con artist.

That's what makes scams even harder to spot. And I'm not talking about those obvious "pay me 10 bucks and I'll repay you 1000" scams. Who falls for this doesn't deserve better, imho (though 10 bucks wouldn't be that expensive of a lesson). I'm talking about matters which are arranged between users with little to no insight for the public.

I don't know, and tbh, I don't want to get dragged into something, here. What my post should imply was simply that this forum is so full of shit, with users smiling at each others' faces when silently pissing at each others' legs whenever the other one isn't watching closely that it's just hard to judge who is a scammer at any given time.

We have seen so much, here. Users with best interests who turned out to be scammers, eventually. Just look at Maidak. Everybody said "don't worry, he'll show up and pay you with good interest, for sure", and what happened?

At the end of the day, reading The Sun (or whatever boulevard newspaper you prefer) helps me more to find out about scammers on BCT than reading its own, dedicated scam accusations section.

And I cannot even say that it makes me sad, because that would just be naïve. This is a board about some pseudonymous internet money, of course there are scammers out there, and of course they want whomever's money, and of course you'll end up being scammed if you participate in trades here or use only some of the services being advertised here.

Why didn't I really get scammed here, before? Because I didn't do any business here, with none of you!

Sorry, but whoever told you that THIS was a design... was lying.  

LOL! This is exactly what I thought when I read this post:
He must also be "new" here. :>

Hey,

I had a very similar situation here where I helped a user with the setup of a server side software. First, I was hired to do development stuff, but as he got more and more interested in the matter, we agreed that he could also hire me for consulting purposes.

As I found out later, I was supposed to be paid from the profits the software I was to help with generates. Not cool.
We have agreed on a per hour rate before, and later, I was told that the user "thought we were chatting just for fun", when I worked myself through the code to help him resolve issues on his own. Also not cool.

He is a very friendly guy, too, and I'm 100% certain that his intention was not to scam in any way... some users just don't know how to manage a deal professionally, and the one who pays is the developer, eventually. Maybe because many people still think that what we do is not any serious work, but more like playing Tetris, because a computer is involved in what we do. And those are also used for playing games, aren't they? :>

I did not open a scam accusation thread, because he said that he will pay at some day, plus it's in the range of 1-2 BTC, only.


Long story short, I hope you get your situation solved and things turn out to everyone's satisfaction. Sorry I cannot help with anything specific to help your case.

@ranochigo and DannyHamilton: thank you both for your answers. Very enlightening, helped me a lot to understand how transactions work in general. Much appreciated.

I absolutely agree on this. What I wonder even more is why so many users jump in and take that nonsense from the OP as evidence.
The experiment with language analysis, which tsacepilot ran was way more interesting and trustworthy (even though I still think it might be some sort of coincidence... I don't know that much about this topic, so...)

Give this guy a rest. He was already removed from default trust.
Some people just won't stop until the corpse is fully desecrated.

I have a question concerning this. I read that e.g. blockchain.info will "forget" (a.k.a. remove from mempool) a transaction after 48 hours, iirc.
Is that a special implementation at blockchain.info or is that something that applies to any wallet, no matter if it's on a mobile phone, a web wallet or a locally installed one on your PC/Notebook/Mac/whatever?

And, do such transactions indeed appear in the block explorers (as they were propagated to the network, already), stay in mempool and as soon as the period of 48 hours has passed, they disappear from the block explorers (if they were not included into a block)?

Are they sort of "unpropagated" then, or do they have a flag set which "undoes" those transactions, or do they disappear forever from the blockchain then?

I'm downloading the blockchain since days.

During days, I need my notebook for work, and during night, I start Bitcoin-qt. I'm "only" 30 weeks behind, now, and I think I can manage to complete the download by next night, or max. the one after.
The "14-BLOCKCHAINS" folder contains blockchains of several coins I have local wallets for, and they're symlinks pointing to an external drive which is mounted on startup, so I don't clog my system drive.
I'm expecting some 45-50 GiByte when the sync is complete.

It really takes some time to download the full blockchain, and wallets like Electrum are a good alternative for those who just want a plain wallet with good security features. However, I am planning to do some coding which involves querying the blockchain, so I really have to download the full blockchain before I can start my work.

That's what I'm doing, anyway - online and in real life.
I could not really decide for one, so I sent 0.01 each to FreeSnowden / (tx) and to SigilSocial / (tx).
What a wonderful idea - you just reminded me to do a donation AND use Bitcoin for something practical. To be honest, the last time I actually used Bitcoin for anything (besides trading) was quite some time ago. Shame on me for that.

Oh, didn't know that it's already that short before next season's start. I guess I have to order a big box of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey popcorn, soon. Payment in Bitcoin, of course!  

Yep - it was just recently that I read someone attaching some 4.x BTC fee by accident.
I thought about trying to write a piece of code which automates the process for me. I'll use a more or less empty wallet, with only very small amounts, just to make sure. But thanks for the disclaimer - can't be stressed enough, also for anyone else reading this.

Tx sent: https://blockchain.info/tx/baee75e61bb4e261730c2938ac489ae8ce11042a5b1d979b25be05c2a576567c

No worries - did you try to "read" the key?

This pretty much tells me what I wanted to know.

As both of you helped me a lot to understand what I can / can't do, and why this is the case, I'm asking both of you to leave me your BTC address here, so I can send the promised .01 - it's not much, but consider it a thank you for your efforts.


.edit: Dr. Who is just great. Awaiting the next season!