Poloniex Reward - [Reduce your exposure to Polo]

[DavinciJ15]

Hey everyone

I have a large amount of money in Poloniex.   Thus I would like to verify Poloniex's claim that the outage was caused by the datacenter.  
I will pay 0.25 BTC to anyone who can find out the hosting datacenter company name and if any other businesses using their services were affected by the outage.
This is critical we must know if Poloniex is being honest with us or deceiving us if they lied or mislead the public I am withdrawing all my money out.

This is the second outage for Poloniex this year and they have not added more than one hosting company? Fine I hope they do that soon.
Also they lost 13% of the bitcoins because of a coding error in 2014.

I have not been a victim that suffered major losses because of an exchange hack or theft yet and I don't plan to be.  

When MT. Gox lost so much money in fines and such I got out.  
When Cryptcy was slow to withdraw I got out.  
When Bitfinex had too many exchange failures I got out.

As an FYI if you have over 100k USD in any bank in the world, get out or keep your cash balance below 50k USD in many different banks.

I really hope Polo is not misleading us.

[jacafbiz]

We need more information about the outage, since none of these exchanges can be trusted. I believe before the end of today new information should come out.

[electronicash]

Like they said, you can never expect what will happen in the future. any exchange that you thought is safe may one day give us a hard blow.
A lot of us would really like to check whatever is the truth. can you give us more information about that outage?

[danherbias07]

I just got this thinking but it is just my opinion.
1. Bitfinex is gone so where would past members go?
2. What would be the next trusted exchange site that have a lot of users also?
3. Poloniex was known by a lot of users specially here and even outside. A friend told me about it.
4. Since many will be investing their money here the devil may come.

I hope not but I am starting to doubt also. I dont got proofs it is all just got me thinking. I think we need others to participate to prevent another bitfinex.
Help each other and warn them if ever something fishy is happening.
Are we not selfish enough to do that?

[vlom]

please tell us what exactly happened. and tell us when this has happened.

without more information it sounds like fud.

thanks

edit: just found this. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1501116.0

[B1tUnl0ck3r]

I just got this thinking but it is just my opinion.
1. Bitfinex is gone so where would past members go?
2. What would be the next trusted exchange site that have a lot of users also?
3. Poloniex was known by a lot of users specially here and even outside. A friend told me about it.
4. Since many will be investing their money here the devil may come.

I hope not but I am starting to doubt also. I dont got proofs it is all just got me thinking. I think we need others to participate to prevent another bitfinex.
Help each other and warn them if ever something fishy is happening.
Are we not selfish enough to do that?

you could even add in the order first Mtgox and then cryptsy... I forget one in australia. the problem is that I fear your logic isn't bad at all, even quite the contrary. What the hell is going on ?!?

[Zemomtum]

please tell us what exactly happened. and tell us when this has happened.

without more information it sounds like fud.

thanks

edit: just found this. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1501116.0

I do not see anything usual in the past few days. That thread was from more than two months ago, too early.

[DavinciJ15]

I have emailed the exchange and I asked them to name the datacenter hosting company they replied...

Hi Davinci,

I'm sorry, but for security reasons, we do not disclose the locations of our infrastructure.


Best regards,

Joshua Anders
Poloniex Support

I responded asking them if other companies other than Poloniex have been affected and can they name them.  They responded right away...

Hi Davinci,

Since it was a datacenter-wide outage, it would be unlikely that we were the only ones affected.

I responded with this...

"ah uh, Is there any way you can prove that this was a datacenter problem without compromising security?  You do understand that because Bitfinex went thought the same issues before a sudden hack you can see why I want to make sure everything is on the up and up.  Finally if I am unsatisfied with your answers I must follow my own security protocols as they have kept me out losing money at MT Gox, Cryptsy, and Bitfinex thus far.  I really don't want to follow my security procedures because it's a lot of work but I must protect my money."

No response!

My security protocol goes like this lawsuit loss, funds lost once but no capital lost to users, or exchange outage, strike one. If anything like that happens again strike 2.  On strike 3 I must remove 50% or more of my assets, a 4th strike keep it to a bare minimum of assets at the exchange.  Finally strike 5 virtually nothing is left at the exchange beyond a few hundred dollars worth.

It sucks I have a lot of coins on the exchange but it looks like this is strike 3 for me, I must follow the rules to keep myself out of exchange risk.

[ethereumhunter]

did poloniex get hack and losing the member fund? i think poloniex staff do not want to give their detail about datahosting, because its so dangerous to share info with someone that they don't know. did you get some unsual experience? can you share with other member so maybe other member can give alternative solution?

[DavinciJ15]

did poloniex get hack and losing the member fund? i think poloniex staff do not want to give their detail about datahosting, because its so dangerous to share info with someone that they don't know. did you get some unsual experience? can you share with other member so maybe other member can give alternative solution?

The lack of transparency and security via obscurity has got me concerned this was my last message from them.

Support are not in a position to offer such information - I suppose any information that we could provide to prove such a thing would ultimately then compromise our own security in the process.

We certainly understand your concerns given recent events. There are many details we cannot share publicly for security reasons, but we can say that we keep the majority of our customers' funds in cold storage. We also have sophisticated methods in place that are designed to detect and prevent suspicious withdrawals from hot wallets.

Your greatest risk is an account breach due to your login credentials being stolen through phishing or social engineering. This is why it is so important to have 2FA enabled on your account.

Also critical: the email address the account is registered under needs to be carefully protected as well, including a unique password and 2FA. Ideally, these accounts should be accessed either from a dedicated computer or a computer that is used for as little else as possible. Any sort of remote access software, such as TeamViewer, should be completely removed.

Sorry if I wasn't able to provide you with concrete answers. I would always recommend being vigilant in the world of crypto and a part of that is working our what works best for you with regards to where you leave your funds.

Please let me know if you need anything else though.

Best regards,

Javan Green
Poloniex Support

I responded...

I have taken all of the security measures you suggested.  However I must follow mine regarding exchanges.   If I can not prove Poloniex's claims that the issue is datacenter related I must follow my security protocols for exchanges and assume that the issue was not a 3rd party problem.   I have already cancelled all my bid orders and planning to transfer the bitcoins and over this week reduce my exposure to your exchange by 50% or more.  If you have a 3rd party auditor such as Deloitte or any of the big 5 this would go a long way to ensuring that our money is safe.  If you do have an independent auditor I would like to contact them and review their report.


I will keep people posted here.  But it would be wise to reduce your exposure any way you can at this point.  There is a good chance nothing will happen however should another event occur that can not be proven as fact you will need to reduce your exposure to limited. Consider that Polo is the number 3 exchange they have a target on their backs as they have grown rapidly. 
Have they tightened up their security measures?
Have they added layers of protection methods?
Have created fake exchange servers for hackers to fall into?
Do they assume that the hack will come from internal staff?

We just don't know.

[edmundduke]

Using a 3rd party to validate could work but i do understand why they do not tell where the datacenter is located. It would most likely result in way too much hacker interest and massive amounts of trolling/manipulating ddos or other means of taking it down or slowing it to a crawl.

[vlom]

@OP: thank you for the update. i appreciate that you ask polo and shared the information you received from them with us.

i hope that polo is telling the trues and nothing will happen with this exchange.

[reb0rn21]

@DavinciJ15

I totally agree with you, but you never can be 99.9999% safe with exchanges, I too was burned by mtgox and had to take out crap alts out of cryptsy

But them not disclosing data center location is not a red flag, I too would not disclose location for security reasons

But then we what can we be sure of... outside audit yes, but still who guarantee they will not be hacked, this bitfinex has proved exchange still have not learned the mean of secure cold wallet storage!

[DavinciJ15]

@DavinciJ15

I totally agree with you, but you never can be 99.9999% safe with exchanges, I too was burned by mtgox and had to take out crap alts out of cryptsy

But them not disclosing data center location is not a red flag, I too would not disclose location for security reasons

But then we what can we be sure of... outside audit yes, but still who guarantee they will not be hacked, this bitfinex has proved exchange still have not learned the mean of secure cold wallet storage!

I can agree however, when I worked for a software company and we could not prove it was not our fault even when it wasn't our response as it was our fault and we are working to prevent it from happening again.  If you can't be transparent with other people's money you take it on the chin and blame yourself.  The reason is it is very convenient for them to blame a 3rd party without proof.  Finally I asked if Poloniex has 3rd party auditor such as Deloitte that could independently verify their statement without compromising security.

This was their response...

I am really sorry but we can not share any information regarding our data center / hosting. This would be a terrible breach of security.

I'm afraid that as of yet I will not be able to share any information that would satisfy you.

I responded with...

So can I assume from your repeated response that you do not have a 3rd party auditor?


Finally as you know banks operate on security via obscurity and that does not work if fails every single time.  The evasive support shield has reduced my confidence in these guys.
Look I don't expect them to come out and say they are closing the doors because of a hack on the weekend and everyone to lose everything.   No that will take months if they have been hacked.  In the meantime if you rationalize away this huge incident you are doing yourself a disservice by not reducing your exposure by some percentage points on this exchange.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[DavinciJ15]

Question to everyone is there Windows PC based multi wallet Application in existence that I can use to store my coins? 

[reb0rn21]

Question to everyone is there Windows PC based multi wallet Application in existence that I can use to store my coins? 

I would like to know that too, I was not happy with using some not update wallets, so far i have electum for both LTC and BTC, visualy they are the same but you must install both, I am happy with it and feel secure, backup sacred words at the paper for both coins

but you must google which coins they support, because they have different page for LTC and BTC, etc

[bitcoinci.com]

so do you tink poloniex also will be hacked like bitfinex ?

[traderethereum]

Question to everyone is there Windows PC based multi wallet Application in existence that I can use to store my coins? 

you can search for applications. if you have money, then i suggest you to buy android phone and then you can download mycelium as your bitcoin wallet. i think its safe to use mycelium and many people have been recommended.

i am not agree to save almost all our money in market exchange, put it into USB wallet or cold storage i think its a good idea.

[DavinciJ15]

so do you tink poloniex also will be hacked like bitfinex ?

If they can't prove it's a datacenter problem and they come out and blame the datacenter instead of taking full responsibility for the outage then yes that's bit shady and I have to assume they are not being honest about what happened.

[DavinciJ15]

Question to everyone is there Windows PC based multi wallet Application in existence that I can use to store my coins? 

you can search for applications. if you have money, then i suggest you to buy android phone and then you can download mycelium as your bitcoin wallet. i think its safe to use mycelium and many people have been recommended.

i am not agree to save almost all our money in market exchange, put it into USB wallet or cold storage i think its a good idea.

I am going to make one for myself already have a lot of the code done for managing many wallets, just need a front end.