Two announcements:

1.
Starting with the round being bid on here (round 184), the ad area will be slightly changed so that it has a maximum width and height, and any content outside of this space will be cut off. I don't think that most ads will typically be affected by this, but possibly certain ads will require redesign.

The change will be similar to:

When using ad_test.html, you should surround your ad with the above HTML in order to achieve accurate testing. I will update ad_test.html after round 184 starts, once I have 100% finalized the changes.

2.
For future auctions, it occurs to me that a modification to the auction rules might make things easier for some people. You would always bid the maximum that you're willing to pay, but you would actually only pay the lowest amount possible. For example, say that the following posts were made:

A: 5 @ 1
B: 5 @ 3
C: 5 @ 2
A: 5 @ 4

Then the steps leading up to the final result would be:

So it's like an auto-bidding bot, except that it would magically increase the bid amount an instant before the bid that makes this necessary.

This way, you might have to watch the auction thread less closely in order to win slots. However, it is more difficult to figure out the current state of the auction with this method.

Do you think that this would be a good change, or not?

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.
- The bidding starts at 0.25.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

This bid is so high that I feel that I must assume that you mean something else, the most likely alternative being 0.35. 0.35 is too low to win any slots, so I apologize if you meant something higher.

Auction ended. Final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
5 0.45 KiboPlatform
1 0.45 Winner
3 0.40 Coinbet24.com

Fixed, thanks.

Thanks, I changed it to a built-in utility that SENPAI_NOTICES_YOU mentioned on Reddit.


Probably this most recent thing doesn't change much. I consider Electrum to be reasonably safe, though not very private at all.

One way you can lose money is that the Electrum server can say that you received x BTC that you didn't really receive, and then you could irreversibly send out some product in response to this non-payment. (This might require some mining power to pull off, I'm not sure.) This is more of a threat for automated services, though.

Mods can choose to not leave a MOVED post when moving topics. If you see that a mod has accidentally left one which contains personal info in the title, please report it. I deleted that one.

There's no flaw in 0.13.0. The concern is that for the next major release, an attack might be attempted as everyone rushes to upgrade. If the Core devs had to do a non-SegWit 0.12.2 bugfix release, then the warning would apply equally to that.


Cobra signs all of his commits to bitcoin.org. Unless his PGP key and several of his accounts were compromised, he's the same person


Cobra has full control of the domain name. I'm the backup in case he gets hit by a bus or something. To my knowledge, there's no way to improve this "one person compromised -> domain compromised" situation without creating some sort of legal entity (and even then I'm not so sure).

There's no flaw in 0.13.0 itself. The concern is that for the next major release, an attack might be attempted as everyone rushes to upgrade. If the Core devs had to do a non-SegWit 0.12.2 bugfix release, then the warning would apply equally to that.

That guide for verifying Bitcoin Core is also available here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1588906.0 . I added a news entry pointing there as well.

I recommend taking this threat very seriously. It's possible that bitcoin.org has received bad info, or maybe the attackers will give up now that they've been outed, but it's better to assume that it is a real, serious threat.

And it's not just bitcoin.org that could be targeted. bitcointalk.org, /r/Bitcoin, individual Core devs, etc. could also be targeted. Triple-check everything. If any major sites get taken over, try to spread the word as quickly and widely as you can.

Of course, you should always be very careful and verify Bitcoin Core software (and other software!), but this is a reason to be especially careful.


You have to check the hash against some reference hash. The most secure way to make sure that the reference hash is reliable is to check that it's signed by someone you trust.

It is important to verify the integrity of Bitcoin Core before running it. Depending on how you downloaded it, it may have been modified in transit to do something evil when run. The server hosting the download may also have been compromised.

Even if all of your favorite Bitcoin websites are yelling at you to immediately download something lest you lose all of your coins, you should NEVER run Bitcoin Core software without verifying it first.

Easy way 1

Final Windows and Mac installers are digitally signed by The Bitcoin Foundation. (Note that The Bitcoin Foundation is not actually strongly associated with Bitcoin development -- it is just convenient for them to sign the releases.) On Windows, you can check this by right clicking the installer, choosing properties, and then going to the Digital Signatures tab. Check that it is signed by The Bitcoin Foundation, Inc..

Prerelease versions are generally not signed.

Easy way 2

Get the sha256 hash of the Bitcoin Core release you downloaded. On Linux, you can run, for example, sha256sum bitcoin-0.16.3-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz. On Windows you can run (at a command prompt) certUtil -hashfile bitcoin-0.16.3-win32.zip SHA256. On Mac OS X, you can run shasum -a 256 bitcoin-0.16.3-osx.dmg.

The hashes of the most recent release and prerelease versions are below. Hashes for older versions are available here (SHA256SUMS.asc under each version is a text file that can be opened with any text editor). Simply verifying the hashes of the Bitcoin Core release you downloaded against the appropriate hash in the list here will provide some extra security, but ideally you should also use OpenPGP software such as gpg to verify that the hashes were signed by someone you trust.

0.16.3


To verify the signatures, first install GPG. Then import the necessary PGP public keys (see below). Then get to a command prompt and do this:


Gitian signature verification

Bitcoin developers and other interested people sign every release of Bitcoin Core using gitian. To verify a downloaded version:

• Go to the gitian sigs page and choose the correct version. Versions that end in "rc1" are older prerelease versions of versions without any rc suffix. Choose the link that ends with "-win" for Windows, "-osx" for Mac OS X, or "-linux" for Linux.
• Once you're at the correct version, there are links for all of the different people who signed that release. Choose a few people who you trust. You will need their PGP public keys (see below).
• For each person, download the raw version of both files. With both files in the same directory, run gpg --verify *.assert.sig. Verify that the signature is OK.
• Open the .assert file in a text editor. This is a list of SHA-256 hashes for a bunch of files. You should verify that the Bitcoin Core download you're going to use exists in the "out_manifest" section and has a matching hash. In some cases, you may need to check several files if the out_manifest contains the contents of an archive that you downloaded. Note that Windows and OS X installers generally will not have matching hashes due to issues with embedded signatures in the installers -- use the zip/tar.gz releases instead.

Building gitian releases

You can personally build Bitcoin Core and check that it matches the official release. See here.

Note that the digitally signed installers cannot be verified in this way because you would need to know the private key of the digital signature signing key in order to reproduce the installer.

Common PGP keys

Here are a few PGP public keys that you might need. You can usually just paste the whole thing into a command prompt:
https://bitcointalk.org/verify_pubkeys.txt

If you're using the default trust model, and you've already created a key for yourself with gpg --gen-key, then you'll also want to locally sign these keys. Do that like this for each key-id, saying yes if it asks whether you want to sign all user IDs:


With bash on Linux, this will lsign all of the public keys in that file:


Note that it isn't the greatest to trust random pages on the Internet when importing keys. For example, a bitcointalk.org moderator could replace the above keys with different keys that are all under his control and then post an emergency "urgent upgrade required!" link somewhere pointing to wallet-stealing malware signed by the keys that he placed here. PGP has the concept of a "PGP Web of Trust" that people are theoretically supposed to use to prevent this sort of thing, but it's complicated and doesn't work very well, so pretty much no one actually uses it. If you're not already familiar with PGP, then it's best to just import and use these keys, which will at least protect you from attacks carried out in the future. But if you're serious about security, you should probably read a few guides on PGP and at least try to get verification from several different sites/people about a key's authenticity in the future. For example, many of these keys are also available on bitcoin.org. (All of the Bitcoin Core download/verification info has been republished on bitcointalk.org partly to provide some protection/redundancy in the case of bitcoin.org being compromised.)

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.
- The bidding starts at 0.25.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

You're too new, PM me first next time.

Auction ended. Final result:
4 0.30 Stunna
5 0.30 bit.news

I removed them and banned this person.

Fixed, thanks.

I tried this out briefly. The software looks pretty good, but there's basically nobody trading, which is a shame. Due to this, and because they said on the trollbox that they're not going to allow US customers in the future, I didn't actually do any trading. Deposits and withdrawals work.

I'd really like to see more option trading in the Bitcoin universe, since the "insurance" aspect of options is very useful for removing risk from end-users.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.
- The bidding starts at 0.25.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

Auction ended. Final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
1 0.60 DogecoinMachine
3 0.60 Randian Hero
5 0.55 YoBit

No, he died some years ago, but these coins didn't move until recently.

paraipan was holding 250 BTC for the forum when he sadly died. Now it looks like someone found his wallet, since these coins are on the move. If anyone is able to trace these coins and recover any of them for the forum, you can keep 25% of the recovered amount.

Not allowed.


That's unusual, and would probably depend on the situation.