If something like BIP 47 (Reusable Payment Codes) was used, then your wallet could warn you every time you're sending money to someone new. This'd probably make phishing a lot more difficult. (I think that probably the particulars of BIP 47 are not quite optimal, though.)

The payment protocol already uses HTTPS to some extent. Does it handle EV certs very well? I'm not sure (I haven't looked into it a lot). Though I don't like the CA architecture too much.

Also, Sirius created identifi.org for helping with the trust issue. Dunno how popular/useful it is.

In general, it'd be good to add more trust/identity features to the Bitcoin ecosystem at the wallet level. Though this should be done in a way that doesn't compromise anonymity, fungibility, censorship-resistance, etc.

Shoot, that really sucks. I removed the ad and added some warnings.

This sort of thing unfortunately can't really be prevented. Even if anyone had the time to exhaustively check a site for phishing links (etc.) before advertising them, the website could just change the links later. The only solution is for Web users to be constantly vigilant.

I sent you an email earlier today about it.

I saw that there was some downtime, apparently due to the database being too busy. How long did it last?

I did it for a short while, but it looked stupid so I changed it back to black.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. About 25% of ad income goes to the forum moderators as thanks for all of their work. (There are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees.) The rest is stored in the forum's treasury (verifiably), where it sits until the forum needs it.

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.

The ad lasts at least 7 days starting from when I put it up. (However, if you look at the ad history you'll see that ads usually get at least 8 days, and sometimes as many as 12, but this is random and definitely not guaranteed.)

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 0.50.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Probably the end time will be 7-12 days from the time of this post, though it could be anywhere between 4 and 22 days from now. (I will probably end the auction 1-3 days before the ads are scheduled to go up.)
- 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 1.65 Technomage
2 1.65 dicecoin.io
4 1.65 FortuneJack
1 1.60 GotaPauj
1 1.50 victorhing


This is invalid. Bids must be evenly divisible by 0.05. I kept your bid @ 1.60.

I'm not sure what would cause that. Next time it happens, check the page source and see whether the data is actually missing, or if it's just being hidden by CSS somehow.

Careless use of Adblock Plus's Element Hiding Helper could do that. (Either by you or by EasyList.)

The XT supporters make their true intentions clear:


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3siyff/theymos_asked_for_a_reason_to_propose_any_block/cwxuv81

That's definitely part of it. This is really clear when you compare the XT/101 discussion on Reddit (which is filled mainly with the normal Reddit crowd) to the discussion on bitcointalk.org (which still has a lot of the original Bitcoiners and quite a bit of the original Bitcoin philosophy).

Definitely.

If your topic is about MMM as it relates to the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole, then Bitcoin Discussion would be appropriate.

There was a problem on the server causing this. I fixed it.

This is so stupid. It is possible (but certainly not assured) that a coalition of Coinbase and some other big exchanges could apply enough economic pressure to force through a hardfork vis-à-vis the economic majority, but:

- If they fail, it will massively damage them.
- If they succeed, it will massively damage Bitcoin. A large percentage of users will refuse to switch, so they've automatically reduced the size of the Bitcoin economy -- both the price and their number of customers will go down. And BIP 101 itself is basically suicidal.

It looks like BitStamp is one of the most sane exchanges nowadays.

P.S. I was trying to find that quote from Gavin where he describes his vision of Bitcoin's future as being one where full nodes are only run by what are essentially banks. It was several paragraphs long. Does anyone have that?

This has been discussed before. XT is an altcoin, and services that move from Bitcoin to XT are altcoin services. On bitcointalk.org, altcoins and altcoin services belong in the Alt Cryptocurrencies section. On /r/Bitcoin, altcoins and altcoin services aren't allowed.

The info is all correct in IE. I have no idea why IE would receive correct HTTPS info and other browser would not. I was guessing that IE accepted some government MITM CA that other browsers reject.

Maybe the other browsers have some broken HTTPS data cached, or maybe IE is configured to use a proxy, or maybe the forum's real IP address is cached by IE but not by the other browsers, which are seeing a MITM IP (or vice-versa).

It's not a problem for people to create these accounts. They're all banned anyway. They just use up a member ID and a tiny amount of space in the database.

Maybe I'll make it so banned users aren't shown in the memberlist, stats, etc.

Connect via IE, click the padlock in the URL bar, click "view certificate", and go to the "certification path" tab. Screenshot that. Also go to the "details" tab, select "public key", and copy/paste the big block of text in the lower pane.

I'd guess that probably your country is blocking it or doing some sort of MITM attack. If the bitcointalk.org server or an upstream ISP had banned your IP from connecting (which is very rare and done only to specific IPs, not huge ranges), I think you'd get a "could not connect" error, not an SSL error.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. About 25% of ad income goes to the forum moderators as thanks for all of their work. (There are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees.) The rest is stored in the forum's treasury (verifiably), where it sits until the forum needs it.

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.

The ad lasts at least 7 days starting from when I put it up. (However, if you look at the ad history you'll see that ads usually get at least 8 days, and sometimes as many as 12, but this is random and definitely not guaranteed.)

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 0.50.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Probably the end time will be 7-12 days from the time of this post, though it could be anywhere between 4 and 22 days from now. (I will probably end the auction 1-3 days before the ads are scheduled to go up.)
- 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
2 3.70 victorhing
4 3.65 FortuneJack
1 3.65 NitrogenSports
2 3.60 MariaQin

No, the default forum time is UTC, which doesn't use daylight savings. If daylight savings affects you, you need to update the offset in your profile whenever it happens.