TradeFortress is a scammer.

[drawingthesun]

I'm interested also in what YOU think

I think that is very bad  for bitcoin itself if someone can exploit his reputation as user of this forum to organize a scam letting people to steal other's bitcoins, whatever are his intentions.

Remember TradeFortress set this mess up to show how the ripple system works. If this much confusion comes from 1 person imagine how it will work with billions of people...

Also TradeFortress has not profited from this mess, others have taken advantage.

And TradeFortress did say he would cover some losses because his intention was not to scam but to show how flawed ripple is. (And TradeFortress didn't lie and has not profited either)

Personally I am skeptical about ripple working after its been open sourced and decentralized, especially when the only currency you can trust is the XRP which OpenCoin own almost all of them.

[ervalvola]

@Deprived:
  probably you don't read my previous posts. I'm totally conscious that he didn't explicity promise to repay those IOUS.

The trick consist of another mechanism, which i explained so many times, and is based on trust (ripple's one), not on his IOUs.

Please, find the time to read the denunciation thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207535.0)or my previous posts here. At least 1 bitcoin was taken away from a noob, but this trick could have caused much higher losses.

[runam0k]

I'm interested also in what YOU think


I think that is very bad  for bitcoin itself if someone can exploit his reputation as user of this forum to organize a scam letting people to steal other's bitcoins, whatever are his intentions.

Benefit of the doubt: he wasn't scamming, but he was utterly reckless.  Bottom line: people who partake in the "social experiment" can lose bona fide BTC IOUs.  Worse, they were drawn in to the "social experiment" with the promise of 1BTC that they could cash out.  That is BAD for the forum, particularly given this was posted in the n00bs section.

Lesson learned?  There should at least be a PSA about removing the trusts or dumping the Ripple account.  Not sure how you handle the lost IOUs of value... the TF IOUs clearly aren't going to pay out.

[freedomno1]

Hes making a point of the flaws of ripple
Would say its not a scam but a way of pointing out an obvious exploit in the system
Better to force awareness than have this become a real scam

[ervalvola]

@Runam0k: i totally agree with you in all your points ; )

@drawingthesun:
      TF later denied to cover the losses, this would have been very nice (considering that we are talking about only 1 BTC).
       But... did he show anything? Besides in that thread there were a lots of noob, only 1 BTC was stolen, and he has contributed to explain Ripple's trust lines... great fail in my opinion ; )


But to understand how rash he was, you have to think how many bitcoins could have been stolen with that mess... hundreds...

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

4) That Bitcoin you withdrawed to Bitstamp, was previously owned by you?

Most of the questions you can answer yourself, and the others are pointless, but 4) to bitstamp transactions > 0.01 were not mine.

Try to be consistent.

If you now states that those 0.01 bitcoin was "your fucking bitcoins" you can please give us the ripple address from wich they came and prove that it is yours?

But please, most important are the last questions.

I am consistent, I have not withdrawn a Bitcoin to bit stamp (I don't even trust them enough for more than a couple of dollars). So, like I said, transactions > 0.01 are not mine, my test transactions which were .01 and smaller amounts on other accounts are my coins.

Also, I feel the need to say this because I know you will get it wrong - not all of the 0.01 may be/are mine, anyone who I gave BTC to could have done it, and I don't know other peoples transactions or care enough to check.

I'm happy to sign a message for you to prove it.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Re covering losses: nobody has claimed any with me. I cannot have a policy of covering all losses, as I do not know if they are the same person pretending they lost, but I'm happy to work on a case by case basis. In addition, I did not directly cause anyone any loss, the flaws in the ripple system had allowed other people to.

[drawingthesun]

Re covering losses: nobody has claimed any with me. I cannot have a policy of covering all losses, as I do not know if they are the same person pretending they lost, but I'm happy to work on a case by case basis. In addition, I did not directly cause anyone any loss, the flaws in the ripple system had allowed other people to.

Is it possible to make lots of fake Bitcoins and withdraw them through Bitstamp?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I send 100 BTC to Bob. Bob had 100 BTC in Bitstamp IOUs.

Bob makes another account, and makes it look like someone else exchanged his bitstamp IOUs when he did it himselves. He comes to me and asks me for 100 BTC "he lost" (to himself).

[mmeijeri]

Would say its not a scam but a way of pointing out an obvious exploit in the system

It's not an exploit. It's a feature, not a bug. The mistake is to trust someone you don't know and to choose an excessive amount for that trust line. When you trust someone in Ripple, it's not like friending them on Facebook. It's not a game, it means real trust, not pretend trust. It means you are willing to make payments on their behalf and trusting you will be repaid in an unspecified but reasonable amount of time. You are extending the person unsecured credit. I think 1BTC is high already, and 100BTC is insane.

[mmeijeri]

TradeFortress, what did you do to issue IOUs? I just don't know how it is done in Ripple.. Did you have to create and sign a contract?

The recipient has to grant you a specified amount of trust, which in essence means he is extending you credit in the specified amount. The balance between the two of you starts out at zero. When one person makes a fiat payment in Ripple and the balance of the trust line is sufficient to allow it, Ripple will make the payment by adjusting the balance. If it is insufficient, it will try to adjust balances they have with third parties they both trust, such as gateways. If that is insufficient, it will try to involve even more people according to the trust graph. If the sender's wallet balance plus any unused trust lines is insufficient to cover the payment, it won't be made. If it is sufficient, it might still not be made if there are too few paths between sender and recipient and all relevant trust lines are maxed out.

Your total wallet balance is the sum of everything people owe you minus the sum of what you owe other people. Ripple does do the netting for you, but you do still have to periodically settle with people you have a trust relation with. Clearly, these trust lines in Ripple should correspond to real trust between real people in the real world. You should never grant more trust than you are comfortable losing.

[mmeijeri]

There should at least be a PSA about removing the trusts or dumping the Ripple account.

Yes, remove the trust line before you make any further Ripple payments. And be aware that Ripple may make you automatically make payments on behalf of anyone you trust, so remove it regardless. The next time TF or anyone else you trust makes a payment, it could be taken out of your account. If someone else trusts you, you could end up owing that person bitcoins. The sum of the amount you owed others and others owed you might cancel out, but that is cold comfort if TF won't pay up. It certainly doesn't excuse you from paying up yourself, even though you are the person who was scammed.

[arsenische]

Just a small question. If IOUs are not a binding contracts because they don't have payout terms, then was Matthew N. Wright's contract binding? I re-read his offer, there is no dead line for paying there: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.0

The only deadline there is for Pirate's payment, not for Matthew's. Thus his trolling contract wasn't binding either?

PS: 0.06 btc sent to TradeFortress, he might need it to repay his debts, lol. Thank for pointing out to potential issues with Ripple!

[ervalvola]

I am consistent, I have not withdrawn a Bitcoin to bit stamp (I don't even trust them enough for more than a couple of dollars). So, like I said, transactions > 0.01 are not mine, my test transactions which were .01 and smaller amounts on other accounts are my coins.

Also, I feel the need to say this because I know you will get it wrong - not all of the 0.01 may be/are mine, anyone who I gave BTC to could have done it, and I don't know other peoples transactions or care enough to check.

I'm happy to sign a message for you to prove it.

No, you are everything but consistent. Of course i got it wrong, I made the question for this specific motivation: you couldn't be in control of what ious the system would have swapped.

But you can know it after, if you have lost at least 0.01 bitstamp ious in that trick, which i don't think.

Re covering losses: nobody has claimed any with me. I cannot have a policy of covering all losses, as I do not know if they are the same person pretending they lost, but I'm happy to work on a case by case basis. In addition, I did not directly cause anyone any loss, the flaws in the ripple system had allowed other people to.

fake argument. It's all public and documented in the ledger, noone can lie about it. Just ask for the ripple account of the person who is claiming the loss and ask them to prove its property.


PS: would you please ask the other questions?

[ervalvola]

Is it possible to make lots of fake Bitcoins and withdraw them through Bitstamp?

You can alwais create fake credit of any currency by issuing trust to another account you own, as TF did with that 10000000 btcs in his account.

But to withdraw them to a gateway, someone with ious of that gateway must TRUST you, i.e. accepting your fake ious for reliable's one.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Fake argument? Lol, I've already addressed it, try to read. Someone who I sent 100 BTC to could pretend that they "lost" their 100 bitstamp IOUs, when they have not lost it, and just traded it to their alt account.

This is about the fourth or fifth time you disregarded what I have read, so you've being put on my ignore list. I have noticed that Ripplers (including open coin inc employees) tend to read the first couple of posts, jump right back to the last posts, and disregard everything in between more than the average user.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Is it possible to make lots of fake Bitcoins and withdraw them through Bitstamp?

You can alwais create fake credit of any currency by issuing trust to another account you own, as TF did with that 10000000 btcs in his account.

But to withdraw them to a gateway, someone with ious of that gateway must TRUST you, i.e. accepting your fake ious for reliable's one.

FALSE. If you trust someone who have trusted me, or if you have trusted someone who have trusted someone who have trusted me, [ infinite web of trust ], then you will accept my IOUs and give the sender your bitstamp / etc IOUs.

Even if you have never trusted me, your Bitstamp IOUs could be being substituted for my IOUs.

Hence why Ripple is broken. You know, try reading RippleScam.org, I wrote about it. Before I waste any more of my time responding to your continued garbage, I've added you to my ignore list. Go back to ripple forums (or primary school and learn how to read)

[ervalvola]

Fake argument? Lol, I've already addressed it, try to read. Someone who I sent 100 BTC to could pretend that they "lost" their 100 bitstamp IOUs, when they have not lost it, and just traded it to their alt account.

This is about the fourth or fifth time you disregarded what I have read, so you've being put on my ignore list.

I didn't disregard anything. YOu don't understand ripple i guess. You can CONTROL anything there.

Is it possible to make lots of fake Bitcoins and withdraw them through Bitstamp?

You can alwais create fake credit of any currency by issuing trust to another account you own, as TF did with that 10000000 btcs in his account.

But to withdraw them to a gateway, someone with ious of that gateway must TRUST you, i.e. accepting your fake ious for reliable's one.

FALSE. If you TRUST someone who have TRUSTED me, or if you have trusted someone who have trusted someone who have trusted me, [ infinite web of trust ], then you will accept my IOUs and give the sender your bitstamp / etc IOUs.

Even if you have never trusted me, your Bitstamp IOUs could be being substituted for my IOUs.

Hence why Ripple is broken. You know, try reading RippleScam.org, I wrote about it. Before I waste any more of my time, you're now on the ignore list. Go back to ripple forums (or primary school and learn how to read)

FALSE what?
It is exactly how it run. Trusting someone who trusts you is the same thing of trusting you. You're only adding a corollary to my explanation.

PS: would you please ask the last questions?

[Este Nuno]

After reading and thinking a little bit about this I think what TradeFortress did was more akin to vandalism than outright scamming.

You could maybe make an argument for fraud. But really what he did and what his intentions seem to be fits almost perfectly as digital vandalism against Ripple.

[dchapes]

But really what he did and what his intentions seem to be fits almost perfectly as digital vandalism against Ripple.

Except that the actual vandalism/damage to the Ripple system was non-existant. If someone cons a bunch of newbs into publishing their bitcoin secret keys that doesn't damage bitcoin or cryptography or prove any big flaw in either; it just shows newbs (and others) are gullible and can be conned. The only real damage (beyond those conned) is the misinformation. He (and others) are just using this as an excuse to spread more misinformation like this statement:

Even if you have never trusted me, your Bitstamp IOUs could be being substituted for my IOUs.

Which is completely and utterly false. Ripple only gives you balances from people you directly trust. He's either purposely lying/exaggerating or he completely doesn't understand Ripple.