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Mail server up, I'm doing some modification to the escrow service right now. If you experience problems let me know.
Also there's someone who tried the service and didn't claim back his bitcoin (I say that because saw test into the product description) if it's really a test let me know if everything is ok for you.
Thanks
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The bad point of this is I don't want to receive drugs and other illegal goods into my country, so if someone sell something illegal and it's intercepted to duty, then I don't want my escrow take the blame. So this can be great or not, I'm thinking about it.
Maybe saying something about it in the terms or service could make people refrain from it. Like "If goods are found to be illegal, they will be reported to the authorities". yes that's what I was thinking  . Just want to make everyone happy at the same time of not getting into trouble. |
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Oh also wanted to told everyone, I just made a server switch and didn't configured the email info[AT]btcrow.com
If you have questions during the email migration you can reach me on this thread / by PM or with my nym on hushmail: btcrow[AT]nym.hush.com
[EDIT] I'm also available for online chat at AIM: NsoftDev
Also as a beta if you have any problems just let me know it will be a pleasure to help you durring the process.
Thanks
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Well it seems a good escrow service is needed more than ever now.
My experience with clearcoin was that the seller was unwilling to send the product after I suggested clearcoin. He was a poster without a lot of posts and I wasn't about to trust $600 worth of bitcoin to someone I didnt know. Although clearcoin was good it did favor the buyer. As the buyer I could very easily cheat a seller and then have the added bonus of contributing to a charity to counteract all the bad Karma I just did! My bitcoin would go twice as far that way! I'm not sure there is an easy way to solve that though. Maybe I just should have asked for a valid tracking number.
Something that would be a great addendum service is using a re-shipper for a fee along with your escrow. That way it isn't up to the buyer to verify receipt. A trusted third party verification seems to me well worth whatever fees were involved.
The #bitcoin-otc web of trust is nice but you basically have to be involved in a lot of high risk small transactions to build that reputation it seems. I personally prefer to do my trading on an exchange, although I am glad it is there for us all. The reputation system though is what makes it really unique. It also is anonymous.
I think you could very easily allow people to login anonymously in a similar fashion with GPG verification if they wish to, or if that is too technical (which for me it was very confusing) then they can log in with an email and password verification. Every undisputed transaction should reward the person a few points of trust rating, disputed but resolved transactions be listed as well as disputed unresolved transactions.
Seeing someone rated on an escrow service would certainly do a lot to instill trust.
In fact this is exactly why I started this escrow service, I believe that both buyers and sellers need to be secured and protected against each others. I'm currently thinking about the trust "feedback" for escrow users. But the point is I want to keep it anonymous without email or anything related to the real person behind account. I'll probably use certificate such as Webmoney does for loging into account. (that's easy for people who don't know technical stuff and it's great for login security). Why not make a service that has the Buyer send Bitcoins to the Escrow and Seller send Product to the Escrow. The Seller would also have to include his Wallet Address and Description of whats being shipped. And the Buyer would provide the End Shipping Address. Once the Escrow receives and confirms both, he ships the package to the Buyer and releases funds to the Seller.
Advantage-
-As long as the Escrow is trustworthy, this system takes into account the empty box situation
Disadvantage-
-Service costs more
-Longer shipping time
-More work on the escrows
If anything you can use this type of service for more secure transactions. And also offer the quick transaction for people who rather have less security.
This is an awesome solution for what people fear when using escrow. The point is yes it will involve more job and of course probably hiring more people to ship and receive packages. The bad point of this is I don't want to receive drugs and other illegal goods into my country, so if someone sell something illegal and it's intercepted to duty, then I don't want my escrow take the blame. So this can be great or not, I'm thinking about it. |
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Without published and detailed dispute resolution policies, an escrow service is useless.
I'm working on it, as a beta I really appreciate all comments / suggestions. |
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The weight of the package can be anything the seller puts on the label, doesn't prove anything.
The clearcoin way I think is currently the most superior method for escrow, I think I'd even prefer it over the paypal "seller protection". Because the more I think about it, the more I like it (even though I'm almost always the seller). There's almost no possibility of fraud for any buyer and seller.
* as a seller, you have to ship the real product in a satisfactory manner to the buyer, or else the buyer won't release the coins
* as a buyer, you have zero incentive to screw over the seller because you are not getting your money back either way, and the seller has your name and address, you wouldn't really want to piss the seller off especially if it's a big-ticket item.
* if there's a dispute over the product description/quality, then both the buyer and the seller has an incentive to resolve it fairly, because the buyer want a good/working product, the seller want to get their money, there's no incentive for either party to screw over the other party.
And what if the buyer is not happy of what he received, and the seller say that he sent the good thing. Then the the buyer put pressure against seller to ship other things or he won't release the money. In this case even if the seller sent good item and everything is ok the buyer can still put pressure and seller won,t have any coins in his pocket. Having another address to receive package is also possible. |
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I think an ebay-like feedback system would be the only viable way. could still be cheated but at least you have to pay escrow commission in order to fake a review.
I agree can be good to be inserted into the service, the thing I wanted to do is using a system without logging any informations such as login and password. So I'm thinking about it now. |
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I am very curious how can you resolve the disputes if the buyer decide to cheat on seller. Whom will you trust?
When the seller accept the transaction he must have in hand a proof of the product delivery etc to make sure the buyer don't cheat on him. If this is a service he must proof that the service have been completed. Suppose the buyer sends payment. The seller sends an empty package (but keeps the tracking number as "proof of delivery").
How will you ensure that the buyer receives the promised product?
That's a very interresting question. And I'm glad you asked. I don't know if it's like that in every countries but when you send a package for a product they will check the weight of the package and you can ask to write it in the box. Of course it still can be bypassed. With other site like ebay using paypal this still can be made, btw i'm working on this issue and if anyone have suggestion about it he's welcome  . Feedback about first impressions/ associations.
I personally like crows, but a lot of people associate corvids with stealing. The thieving magpie and so on.
Definitely not an association you want to evoke if you want people to trust you with their money!
Perhaps you should choose a more innocuous bird to represent your brand.
BTChicken ? BTCrane ? BTCackling goose?
oh thanks for the suggestion I choose this name cause I was thinking it must be apropriated to use a related name. I'll think about it, thanks for the suggestion. |
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Hi, would like to introduce my service here and make it the official thread for suggestions, comments and all related to my escrow service.
What is BTCrow:
Btcrow.com is an escrow service who protect both sellers and buyer for bitcoins only. It didn't track data such as email and other personal informations. It's simple to use and provide a resolution center in case of dispute. Buyer can release the funds when they receive goods or service and seller know that the buyer have the needed coins to pay him.
Why BTCrow:
I searched on on the web to find escrow service for bitcoin and I found 2 of them very interresting. They are simple and work great except at one level: They do not really protect the seller.
I mean that if I'm a seller and want to sell goods to a bitcoin holder, then I use current escrow service and it show me that the buyer have the funds to complete the transaction, but, the buyer still have full control over his funds, mean that he
1) Can receive the product and not release the funds (wait 30 days)
2) Can receive the product and use the holded funds to make donation to EFF etc etc
So in my opinion this is not protecting the seller cause he can loose money by sending product and not receiving a single bitcoin.
BTCrow provide a resolution center wich provide to both party the security that they will receive what promised (funds / product or service).
Let me know what you think about it.
Thanks
BTCrow
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Sorry for the double post, BSD system is A LOT less used than nux system that's why you,ll see less vulnerability. I'm a vulnerability researcher and I can ensure that when I have time to research for something I won't be loosing my time doing research for software not used a lot, I'll do research for IE / Firefox / Real Network etc... Of course the BSD are designed to be more secure but if you badly use it or you do not know how to use it, it will be less safer than running a nux or windows with good security mechanism on it. |
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@muad_dib At first your post seemed wise, but 1) Use the right software. IIS is a big no-no Also Linux should frowned upon. Unix is the way to go. I stopped reading right here. I don't know who you are, but you know nothing about security. I loled a lot on this one and I completely agree. Even if I prefer nginx or apache to run software and get an extra level of security you can also secure an IIS very easily, and this without knowing a lot about computer security. Look how much flaw from new nginx and apache have been reported and look how much flaw on IIS have been reported (securityfocus) you'll see that what you say is completely out of bound... Also php / perl / etc can be attacked if badly codded, daemon running on linux can easyly be attacked too, so this is complete no-sense. |
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True... My 3 accounts have been frozen  same here, buying bitcoin with paypal is really not a good idea.dot |
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Good post man, keep up the good work! |
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I was wondering if there was a way to require wallet be stored on an external drive? Would get people to treat it more like a credit card and keep it off networks when it wasn't in use...
I think we need something less complex for the average users, this is one problem about security in general, more you put security measures in place more you'll loose users because they don't want to use it. Do somethign completely transparent without asking effort to users and you,ll find a good solution for this. I you find it, let me know lol I'm still searching. |
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I am currently cracking the leaked password file just for fun and because I am curious. Guess what? 1) Hundreds of accounts with their usernames as passwords. 2) Hundreds of accounts with the password " 123456" 3) Hundreds of accounts with the password " testtest" 4) Hundreds of accounts with the password " bitcoin" Are you guys STUPID? TO THE THOUSANDS OF USERS WHO ARE THIS DUMB:
YOU DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR BITCOINS, IDIOTS. This is the MAJOR problem of password mechanism. Users aren't able or too lazy to remember something more complex. Even if you force them using something complex, they will bypass this security measure by writing it down into a .txt or a paper on their desktop. Got a good conf at hackfest 2010 talking about weakness of password mechanism. Cause if you check that the password strenght is only measured by the brain. How a brain can remember a password, for a lot of people if you're able to remember a 9 char password with letter / numbers / only one special caracter the most recent hardware and technics including GPU cracking won't ever be able to crack your brain. We need to educate people in order to have good security but this is impossible to educate everyone. Passwords, encrypted or not are really not a good authentification mecanism. |
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The problem is how do you get bitcoins back if they are stolen? With money, you can go to the authorities and have some chance. Bitcoin is just going to attract criminals and they'll just swap in for cash.
I don't think criminal will swap it for cash in near future, since more and more merchant now offer services and others good with bitcoins, criminal will only do money laundering to cash it out. I tought about a protection mechanism to prevent this, such as reversal but without reversal, and I didn't find anything working. If we ask exchangers to track orders and don,t process bitcoins stolen, how do you prove that this is a real steal? So for getting criminal out of our wallet, we need to have something such banks have. A "strong" protection at the start. I work as a computer security consultant and I can really say this: people don't know how to secure their things and even if they know they just don't want or are too lazy (for the majority) to do it. So I think that the current software (bitcoin client / bitcoind) must include protection for wallet.dat in order to prevent malicious people to just steal it and get your money. just my 0.02 BTC. |
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I checked the wiki, but not much detail on how one goes about reversing a transaction after its made.
News reports that mt.gox reversed all its transactions, how is this accomplished?
I thought bitcoins was send and receive only, not sure how you "cancel" a transaction after its sent out.
Couldnt this be used for fraud?
As already replied by xane, bitcoin transaction can't be reversed. That's "for my part" the major problem of bitcoin system. You need to entirely trust someone when you send him funds. That's why escrow services exist such as ClearCoin, Eptiv and my new opened one BTCrow. Of course you need to trust the Escrow service itself, but once you have good experience with one of them you don't have to trust other people for your transactions. The limitation of the current Escrow Services are the lack of support for merchant carts etc. I'm working on it for mine to integrate merchant api for safe trading. |
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Hi, As stated into my introduction post I am an experienced coder and I'm glad to join this community. I'm also aware of the forums rules and I want to be more implicated into the bitcoin community. I already launched an escrow service: http://www.btcrow.com, In fact this is the first escrow service to protect both buyer and seller, cause the payment can be disputed and my service will assist people to make sure they make safe purchases. I need reputable members here to test out my service to validate my service to gain trust. I also have other project in development and want to have more access in order to trade into the marketplace forum. If you need further informations from me you can contact me without problems. Thanks in advance. |
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PayPal might freeze trades with bitcoins. I think it's because they don't allow currency trades over paypal or something along those lines.
It's probably safer and easier to just make a dwolla account. That eliminates the trust issue that comes with private trades too.
I second this paypal in their ToS clearly say that they are not a currency exchanger, a lot of people already got their paypal account suspended because of bitcoin trading. I do not recommend to anyone to use bitcoin and paypal. |
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For my part I think that the bitcoin will be much more than 5$/BTC, With all what happen and all new people hearing of bitcoin, this will surely interrest people in accepting bitcoins for their business. I have for my part also ideas to use bitcoin for about whatever.
In fact with bitcoin you just need something to offer or to promote others people product then you'll make bitcoin same as real world make money.
I know I'm new here, but I strongly believe that BTC is a real curency, and will be widely accepted.
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