Master-P SCAMMER. I lost complete faith in this forum now.

[Serge V.]

For additional confidence escrows should limit themselves on the amount they hold. They should have a clear public list of the amounts they hold and recommend other escrows when they reach some threshold.

All you need to be sure that the funds in escrow are safe is to ask the escrow provider to combine his key with keys of involved in deal parties (buyer and seller).

[l8nit3]

This was just posted today, like a few hours ago, arent we jumping a little quickly with 'scam' accusations? Maybe the guy is truly having issues with WD? I may be naive, but i tend to give people a week or so before claiming scam.

[achow101]

For additional confidence escrows should limit themselves on the amount they hold. They should have a clear public list of the amounts they hold and recommend other escrows when they reach some threshold.

All you need to be sure that the funds in escrow are safe is to ask the escrow provider to combine his key with keys of involved in deal parties (buyer and seller).

That is called a multisig transaction, but then what if the seller and the escrow are the same person? Then that does nothing since he can still scam.

[GSpgh]

For additional confidence escrows should limit themselves on the amount they hold. They should have a clear public list of the amounts they hold and recommend other escrows when they reach some threshold.

All you need to be sure that the funds in escrow are safe is to ask the escrow provider to combine his key with keys of involved in deal parties (buyer and seller).

how would that work if escrow colludes with one of the parties?

which is what appears to have happened with Master-P and a few recent transactions

[achow101]

This was just posted today, like a few hours ago, arent we jumping a little quickly with 'scam' accusations? Maybe the guy is truly having issues with WD? I may be naive, but i tend to give people a week or so before claiming scam.

The OP says that it has been a few days since this happened, so I don't think we are jumping quickly here.

[GSpgh]

This was just posted today, like a few hours ago, arent we jumping a little quickly with 'scam' accusations? Maybe the guy is truly having issues with WD? I may be naive, but i tend to give people a week or so before claiming scam.

well he/she had plenty of time to respond here so...

[EcuaMobi]

I messaged escrow.ws about removing Master-p from his trust tree. Somebody do the same.

I did that too several hours ago. But he hasn't been online yet. I'm sure he'll handle that as soon as he reads the messages.

Can't he be removed if enough people on DT negate him on their trust lists? (~ in front of his name)

I think we need to figure out a way using smart contracts to prevent multiple bad actors in a trade from being able to scam.

He can be removed if at least 2 users on DT1 removes him. So it may be worth PM'ing them.
DT2 can't remove someone added by a DT1 member regardless of how many users negate him.

[dooglus]

I figured Master-p here and masterp4 on Just-Dice were the same person, so checked the Just-Dice logs to see how active he has been there.

I found this:

2015-12-20 11:48:42 - a private message, replying to someone pointing him at a master-p accusation thread:

    in a quick view he seems to be refering to a user that do escrow that use the nick of master-p,
    that is very similar to my nick and cause lot of confusion but he and I different persons.

2015-12-20 12:03:48 - a public chat message:

    <masterp4> for clarifications purpose, the bitcointalk user with the nickname of master-p is not me,
    my bitcointalk account is Masterp4 the same whole nickname that i use here.

I've left Master-p negative feedback.

With MultiSig You don't need to trust to the third party, to steal funds from the MultiSig escrow, the hacker need to compromise all parties involved, which is almost impossible.

Please don't use this as an opportunity to self-promote , every system is faulty in some aspects

2-of-3 multisig works fine as an escrow system. Have the buyer, seller, and escrow agent each hold one of the three keys. When the buyer receives his goods he signs a transaction releasing the funds, sends it to the seller who also signs it and the escrow is released without involving the escrow agent.

In the event of a dispute the escrow agent can work with either the buyer or the seller to gain control of the coins.

And so the escrow agent has no possibility of stealing the coins without the help of one of the two parties. The obvious risk is that the escrow agent and the seller may be the same person, in which case fraud is easily possible.

It is however another good reason to ban the buying and selling of accounts on here which I've been banging on about for years.

You really can't stop the trading of accounts and more than you can stop the trade of heroin. You can make it against the rules but that doesn't stop it happening.

One thing to learn for sure,what we call trusted DT members are not to be blindly trusted any more.

For what it's worth, my account won't ever be sold for any amount of money.

[Serge V.]

That is called a multisig transaction, but then what if the seller and the escrow are the same person? Then that does nothing since he can still scam.

how would that work if escrow colludes with one of the parties?

which is what appears to have happened with Master-P and a few recent transactions

If the seller and the escrow agent are the same person in 3-of-3 MultiSig transaction (buyer+seller+escrow agent keys), scammer will need the third (buyer) key to own the funds.

[errorcoin22]

...
You really can't stop the trading of accounts and more than you can stop the trade of heroin.
...

And that's why I built an addition on my house, and invited the h dealer to move in, free of charge, so's he could sell to my kids. Which is basically what bitcointalk did, by allowing accounts to be sold here.

[dooglus]

If the seller and the escrow agent are the same person in 3-of-3 MultiSig transaction (buyer+seller+escrow agent keys), scammer will need the third (buyer) key to own the funds.

3-of-3 is no use because the scammer can hold the funds hostage.

[sardasa]

You really can't stop the trading of accounts and more than you can stop the trade of heroin. You can make it against the rules but that doesn't stop it happening.

-snip-
try to find solution for this.
-snip-

Good idea, lets take the master-P issue as an example. How do you think this could have been prevented even if selling accounts was verboten(!) here? The sale was hidden and it included all commonly used ways to identify someone here, including PGP and bitcoin private keys, as well as a mail address.

^^You want to know what the difference is between providing an effortless, liquid market vs. scammer having to put some effort into his scheme?

@shorena: I guess you got your answer

The efford was done here though. So do I understand you correctly that this is a bad example to discuss because you have no way to prevent this?

Let me rephrase that: You say you have no way to prevent someone that is willing to put in efford in order to scam?

*effort
No. What he's saying is this:
Making it easier for scammers to scam, by letting them buy and sell bitcointalk accounts right here, on bitcointalk, is like making a big sign next to your front door, saying:
Hello burglars!
On a rusty nail below, you'll find the keys to my house. Use them in good health, I won't stop you. Because you'd probably find a way to pick the lock, or kick the door in, so, technically, I can't stop you.
The combo to the wall safe (it's in the basement, behind the gray breaker panel, you would've found it yourself) is 37 right 28 left 16 right. You would have figured it out yourself, it's a shit safe, you can literally hear the tumblers.

Oh, sorry, almost forgot, disable the alarm!!! Keypad behind the coat hanging by the door, code is 1337. So obvious, amirite?

Get it now?

[Tabata11]

Great...I was planning on buying christmas gifts with this money... Now I'm out of money and the gifts :/

[Serge V.]

If the seller and the escrow agent are the same person in 3-of-3 MultiSig transaction (buyer+seller+escrow agent keys), scammer will need the third (buyer) key to own the funds.

3-of-3 is no use because the scammer can hold the funds hostage.

This is much better than lose the funds (give them to scammer). If you need full protection here is the scheme.

[dooglus]

from now on, the campaign manager, the escrow provider as well as the owner of that site should start storing funds in a multi-sig wallet where if anyone goes AWOL, two others can simply approve themselves and send the funds out to the participants. Although it's a tedious process, it'll possibly be the perfect process for running a secure signature campaign.

Is there any kind of service offering automated 2-of-3 multisig? That seems like the obvious way forward here. The company wanting to pay for forum signatures creates a campaign on the site, the forum users each sign up for that campaign. Everyone provides an address. The site makes a 2-of-3 address for each campaign participant, holds funds in escrow, but can't steal them.

If so, why don't people use it?

And if not, I'd be interested in setting something like that up. It could charge a small fee, and give the fees to the people who lost out to this master-p scam.

It would feel a bit icky contributing to forum signature spam, but I don't think that's ever going away anyway.

[mtnsaa]

never heard of Master-P until today but if someone had suggested to use him/her as escrow I would likely have agreed based on trust etc

I wonder if forum escrows had their real identities known would that reduce the likelihood of scamming

unfortunately that opens a whole other can of worms too...

Same here and from what I've read in the thread the account was sold to someone else. This should be completely against the rules in my opinion since it opens a huge can of worms as we all can see. It's also not really ethical from the account seller knowing that the buyer can actually use his name for scamming. I think an easy solution would be that accounts that are sold should reset reputation or show somewhere that it was sold recently.

[worhiper_-_]

I figured Master-p here and masterp4 on Just-Dice were the same person, so checked the Just-Dice logs to see how active he has been there.

How?

[Greenenergy]

I personally asked masterp4 on JD as well, because I thought that he was Master-p.

He said that he wasn't... But the names are just too similar  

[dooglus]

3-of-3 is no use because the scammer can hold the funds hostage.

This is much better than lose the funds (give them to scammer). If you need full protection here is the scheme.

I hadn't seen that thread before. I replied here saying why that scheme wouldn't work.

[dooglus]

I figured Master-p here and masterp4 on Just-Dice were the same person, so checked the Just-Dice logs to see how active he has been there.

How?

It's my site. I have access to the server logs.

Or do you mean why did I think they were the same person? Only because their names are very similar.