[RESOLVED AND CLOSED] techmrw [NOT SCAMMER!]

[Herodes]

edit: read the last post.


Hm.. not exactly sure where to post this.

Thing is I have a user at bitcoin-otc:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=Herodes&sign=ANY&type=RECV

It's a while since I've been trading, and I noticed recently:

16797    techmrw    -30    Herodes    2012-11-01 07:20:53    -1    WARNING: Nick squatter is using this identity. This person is NOT who he claims to be. Don't get scammed. I will remove this rating if you identify, enforce and auth to gribble.

Well, I'm not on irc all the time, so someone else using my nick, nothing I can do about that. At Bitcoin-otc there's a norm that when trading, the user you trade with should be authenticated and identify with gribble. If someone tries to use another users nick and try to trade without identifying and authenticating, then nobody should trade with this user.

I don't know why techmrw did not follow this simple rule. Although one negative rating is not that much of a big deal, it would be nice to have that rating removed.

I also think that techmrw could've sent me a memo, or tried to reach me on this forum before giving me a negative rating. I am more often on this forum than irc.

Now, this user doesn't seem to have the best rating:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=techmrw&sign=ANY&type=RECV

Since this user, techmrw, doesn't really seem to be on these forums, and seeing his negative overall ratings, I don't know if there's any point in trying getting in touch with him at all.

The negative rating doesn't make any sense and was really surprising. What would be the best course of action here ?

I have no problem authenticating with nickserv and identifying with gribble of course.

[greyhawk]

He seems to have done the exact same thing to dozens of established users.

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=TechMRW&sign=ANY&type=SENT

Seems like a clear abuse of the system. Whoever runs WOT should probably purge the user and all his database entries from the DB.

[Herodes]

I'll get in touch with the owner of bitcoin-otc and see what can be done, tomorrow.

[fbastage]

if you leave the security of your nick wide open to abuse by squatters, you are one of the weak links in the system.  the neg serves as warning about this vulnerability until you remedy the situation.  the negs can be removed.

please try to cooperate to the best of your ability.

[starsoccer9]

gonna have to go with fba on this one. Its not a big effort to just enforce your nick. It just stops noobs and protects users from being scammed and accusing you of it.

[MrTiggr]

Lets also be clear here - to the best of my knowledge those negative ratings are handed out if you do not have nickserv ENFORCE set on your freenode nick.

its not just about gribble and having an authentic nick, its about protecting your own reputation by not allowing scammers to USE your nick at all.

hope that clarifies things
Cheers
T

[Luke-Jr]

Seems like a clear abuse of the system. Whoever runs WOT should probably purge the user and all his database entries from the DB.

Unfortunately, nanotube's policy is to simply ignore bogus/shill accounts and ratings, and none are ever removed. Since OTC has a "gettrust" command that weighs ratings based on how much people you trust have rated someone, that is supposed to solve it in theory.

techmrw appears to be a real person, and only downrated people when they were actually being squatted (at least, I can't disprove this), so he only has a -1 from me. That -1 is mainly because his ratings demand* the squatter user enable the NickServ ENFORCE setting to get the downrating lifted. I also think he should be either automatically or on request removing these downratings after a squatter has left for some time, but given his explanation as to why he does not, I'm okay with him leaving them up until the user has auth'd to gribble.

* He claims it isn't a demand, but it clearly reads like one. Users have a right to choose if they want to enable the ENFORCE setting, so this is unreasonable. Furthermore, considering his description of how the squatters in question are operating, ENFORCE would have absolutely no effect to deter them. Also, there are numerous reasons why a user would legitimately not want to set ENFORCE.

[TheButterZone]

Judging by the date of the rating, your nick has been insecure since at least  2012-11-01. I just nickserv info'd 'Herodes' and this is still the case. I will PM him to remove it when you've secured, or you can. Since you don't have 'emailmemos' enabled and your GPG key does not have an email address, and assuming TechMRW doesn't use this forum, the only way I could see him contacting you would either be to: register here (I think I remember him saying he's not on this forum), or Google "Herodes" and try to find your email address, Facebook profile, or IM usernames amongst all the Herodes Atticus results.

This should NOT be in scam accusations.

It is also a good idea to register your nick with nickserv, and turn on nick protection (set enforce), so that others can't use your irc nick when you're not around.

Whoever runs this wiki (registration is not open to the public) needs to either remove that line entirely or make it 100% explicitly required to register and enforce. Wayyyyyyyyy to many people pissed off about this.

[Luke-Jr]

It is also a good idea to register your nick with nickserv, and turn on nick protection (set enforce), so that others can't use your irc nick when you're not around.

Whoever runs this wiki (registration is not open to the public) needs to either remove that line entirely or make it 100% explicitly required to register and enforce. Wayyyyyyyyy to many people pissed off about this.

Why? It's perfectly correct. It is a good idea to register and set enforce. But it isn't an obligation, that would be overstepping.

[TheButterZone]

It is also a good idea to register your nick with nickserv, and turn on nick protection (set enforce), so that others can't use your irc nick when you're not around.

Whoever runs this wiki (registration is not open to the public) needs to either remove that line entirely or make it 100% explicitly required to register and enforce. Wayyyyyyyyy to many people pissed off about this.

Why? It's perfectly correct. It is a good idea to register and set enforce. But it isn't an obligation, that would be overstepping.

Also, there are numerous reasons why a user would legitimately not want to set ENFORCE.

I can't think of one, and I use illegitimate IRC clients (Adium on desktop, and IRC999 on iOS) that both log me in automatically, any time, anywhere, simultaneously, no matter how many netsplits or other Freenode crapouts happen. Webchat also isn't affected since I don't log into password protected accounts without my password ready to be copied and pasted in <30 seconds.

I've even talked to people with ZNCs and enforce doesn't hurt them either.

[greyhawk]

So what he's doing is trying to enforce people register and authenticate at a central system, selling it as "for your own good"?

Sounds pretty statist to me.

[dust]

The OTC website should display a field in the web of trust database that indicates if the enforce setting is enabled.

It would encourage good practice, improve the integrity of bitcoin OTC,  and make the -10 spammers useless and unneeded.

[Herodes]

In all fairness, the only time I think a negative rating can be justified is when a user has breached the terms of a trade (ie. scammed). In all other instances, imo, there should never be a negative rating.

Forgive me for having too much stuff to pay attention to in 'meat space' to pay a lot of attention to 'securing' my nick name on IRC. I never mind others using my nick while I'm not around. After all, nobody should trade with 'Herodes' unless the appropriate steps are taken to ensure you're dealing with the legit Herodes.

But when negative feedback are given that reads

This person is NOT who he claims to be. Don't get scammed.

, that's uncalled for. I've never scammed and will never scam anybody, and i'm certainly who I claim to be. I noticed someone has tried to authenticate with NickServ with my username, but unless my computer was hacked, and that person had extracted the password from my computer, he'd be unsuccessfull at doing so.

But I'll look into 'securing' my irc-name very soon. I just think that putting in a negative rating on a user that clearly has no negative ratings before, and doing it in this way is a totally ape shit move.

Anyway. I have larger issues to be concerned about.

So long.

[TheButterZone]

The OTC website should display a field in the web of trust database that indicates if the enforce setting is enabled.

It would encourage good practice, improve the integrity of bitcoin OTC,  and make the -10 spammers useless and unneeded.

It could, but how many people are vain enough to check their ratings page on a daily basis? Not Herodes, so in all this time the squatters didn't even have to try to nickserv ident, they could just use his nick, flat out. And then say "oh, I forgot how to auth to gribble, trade with ME, Herodes, anyway!" or some BS to that effect. It's worked countless times, otherwise, THIS THREAD WOULD NOT HAVE EVER BEEN CREATED.

Without someone ;;getrating the owner while they're online and them seeing a -1 as a trigger to look there...

Other things that are somewhat, if not completely ineffective:
;;later tell - gribble doesn't care who's on the nick, so the squatter reads the message and the owner isn't notified
Alert bots - still getting reports of scams/scam attempts even with them running, because people either don't read them, or they don't fire channel warnings on 100% of the squatters
/msg memoserv send nick - As previously mentioned, the 'emailmemos' flag in nickserv is almost never enabled by anyone*, which means you can send a memo and it goes to the email address registered with Freenode regardless of whether there is someone using the nick or not - if disabled, the memo is only delivered via IRC. *In fact, in the dozens if not hundreds of nicks I've info'd, I can only remember my own nick having this enabled.
E-mailing people - As previously mentioned, not everyone has 1) registered on the GPG side of gribble, and 2) put a valid email address in their GPG key

[fbastage]

negging nicks due to nick-squatting is controversial in #bitcoin-otc as well as here.  while I am on one side of the debate, I do not wish to insult you for taking a different stance. but hear me out and consider what I have to say.

this is ultimately one of those debates that pits "personal responsibility to check auth" vs "the common good is supported by warning others".  The way I see it, as scammers evolve and take advantage of weaknesses of the systems we have in place we can either let people get scammed and call it Darwinism, or we can modify our systems and requirements to close certain loopholes or vulnerabilities.  Having seen the hurt caused by scammers in the channel (on top of the huge learning curve already confronting new users) I would rather tighten the system and frustrated the scammers instead of frustrate new users and hamper adoption of bitcoin.

The reputation of bitcoin as being too hard to get into as well as being a haven for scammers is something I would like to see changed for the better, which would mean a growth of btc as a currency and increase of opportunities for adopters. Also, any transaction intercepted by a scammer is a transaction that another provider will miss out on; scammers are literally competing for opportunities that other members of #bitcoin-otc would like in order to make a living.

I think IRC as a platform is pretty mismatched for the functions that #bitcoin-otc and the WoT use and this is a huge part of the problem.  IRC also implies a lot of freedoms (i.e. general lack of authentication, etc) for experienced users while not representing these same things for first-time users; this is another conflict brought by using IRC as the base platform.  But given the convenience and other benefits of interactive chatting, we'll probably be using it for a long time.  While we try to apply a Web of Trust on top of a wide-open IRC system that generally lacks enforcement/authentication, we have to scramble to find solutions to these problems.  I happen to think that the neg-ratings with appropriate warnings is a very effective mechanism to warn people of squatters using otherwise legitimate nicks.

The neg-rating has pissed some people off, but at the same time it has probably saved thousands of dollars of losses and many legitimate users have appreciated having their reputations protected - some have even tipped those who negged them.  

This debate will rage on, no doubt. Both sides have something worthwhile to say and their objections are important.

[Luke-Jr]

The OTC website should display a field in the web of trust database that indicates if the enforce setting is enabled.

What would be even better, is if gribble scanned for unauthenticated users on any nicknames that looked remotely like the one being show on the website and gave a warning about anything possibly fishy.

In all fairness, the only time I think a negative rating can be justified is when a user has breached the terms of a trade (ie. scammed). In all other instances, imo, there should never be a negative rating.

Well, that's the only time I give a real human a -10 rating. But I use -1 to -3 for minor things that I'll want to note if I were to ever consider trading in the future (such as having absurd ideas about the obligation to repay debts, even if they've not failed to yet).

[Herodes]

OK - I finally took the plunge into the bitcoin-otc channel again, I'm ofcourse identified with Gribble and with NickServ. Any way to remove the negative rating on my account from techmrw ? He seems to have not been in irc for 15 weeks, not sure if he ever will be online again ?

Edit: OK - found out how to secure my nickname with nickserv:

Code:

/nickserv set enforce on

[TheButterZone]

OK - I finally took the plunge into the bitcoin-otc channel again, I'm ofcourse identified with Gribble and with NickServ. Any way to remove the negative rating on my account from techmrw ? He seems to have not been in irc for 15 weeks, not sure if he ever will be online again ?

;;seen nick is not a measure of determining someone's online status, only what was the last thing a particular nick said, and when it was.
Only measure for online status is: /msg nickserv info nick

BTW, per the -ratings channel:
Rating removed | TechMRW > -1 > herodes

[Herodes]

OK - I finally took the plunge into the bitcoin-otc channel again, I'm ofcourse identified with Gribble and with NickServ. Any way to remove the negative rating on my account from techmrw ? He seems to have not been in irc for 15 weeks, not sure if he ever will be online again ?

;;seen nick is not a measure of determining someone's online status, only what was the last thing a particular nick said, and when it was.
Only measure for online status is: /msg nickserv info nick

BTW, per the -ratings channel:
Rating removed | TechMRW > -1 > herodes

OK - point taken. Also he's not a scammer. In fact he was scammed, and tried to warn others.. So I will put this as resolved and label him as a non-scammer.