Theymos: What the fuck is up with BFL and TradeFortress?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

They do extreme caching, don't they? I recall a few years ago when they were real laggy / slow and had plenty of "you broke reddit"!

[solex]

They do extreme caching, don't they? I recall a few years ago when they were real laggy / slow and had plenty of "you broke reddit"!

Ah. I never bothered looking at it until late last year :-)

[Terk]

This just makes me all the more impressed at how silky smooth and blinding fast reddit is. They must have crushing volumes, but their site responds to every click instantly, no double rows (as you constantly see on MtGox as well). Looking forward to bitcoin sites reaching a reddit level of technical maturity.

Well, this is not a rocket science to build a software that works reliably. You just need some real software developers for that (as opposed to 90%+ of people who call themselves software developers).

Reddit doesn't work that smooth either, as I often see error messages. But I always take error message over pretending that everything went fine (when it didn't). And I can allow some occasional errors on a reddit-like site but not necessarily in a place which wants to hold and manage my money.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

This just makes me all the more impressed at how silky smooth and blinding fast reddit is. They must have crushing volumes, but their site responds to every click instantly, no double rows (as you constantly see on MtGox as well). Looking forward to bitcoin sites reaching a reddit level of technical maturity.

Well, this is not a rocket science to build a software that works reliably. You just need some real software developers for that (as opposed to 90%+ of people who call themselves software developers).

Reddit doesn't work that smooth either, as I often see error messages. But I always take error message over pretending that everything went fine (when it didn't). And I can allow some occasional errors on a reddit-like site but not necessarily in a place which wants to hold and manage my money.

"This isn't the kind of software where we can leave so many unresolved bugs that we need a tracker for them." -- Satoshi

Take a look at Ripple's tracker.

[Jaseph]

Oh this thread is great in showing that side of ripple which most people don't understand and are not even aware of. The way the system works basically looks like a three-click scam creator for script kiddies.

I am waiting for the first ripple gateway-gate. There will be someone who'll create a gateway and bunch of fake ripple users trading on this gateway like crazy, providing lower spreads and much greater liquidity than Bitstamp's gateway users. Plus some marketing efforts to gain the traction. Most of actively trading ripple users will trust that gateway to be able to trade on it with its users, then one day they'll suck all available BTC.Bitstamp and USD.Bistamp and *.OtherLegitimateGateways replacing them with “equally trusted” BTC.Theirs and USD.Theirs, then withdraw to Bitstamp/other gateways real systems, exchange any USD into BTC and send the real BTC away, then close the shop and laugh.

This is what I learnt about ripple because of this thread so thank you both webr3 and TradeFortress for your contribution in the overall awareness of how ripple works.

Totally on the side: ripple web interface is rubbish. I played with ripple for the first time yesterday, and the interface is totally unreliable. You create a trade order, two seconds later see a confirmation that it has been created and even see it in the order book. You cancel the order to create a different one. You see all confirmations, you see order book showing your orders as you'd expect. You do that creating/canceling couple of times. Then you close the client and open it again and you see that your client was totally out of sync with what really happens on the backend. There were some orders that you cancelled and saw cancelled which actually are still open. There were some orders that you created and saw in the order book which actually aren't there (and weren't executed). I've been using a semi-reliable cellular connection yesterday so maybe it doesn't affect most users in their everyday usage, but the fact that it happens on unreliable connections shows that the software is very broken and if it's rubbish in the web client, you should expect it to be rubbish elsewhere as well.

Considering that ripple idea has some serious no-nos (just screaming to use it as three-click scam creator; founders holding tons of XRP; lot of things happening behind closed doors with no transparency) and their software is rubbish, I think it settles my opinion on ripple.

Regarding scam accusations, I'm too new here to throw rocks so I have nothing to say here. Forgive me off-topic post but I found this thread great in providing warnings on how ripple works and how it can be used to replace real currency with worthless IOUs in clueless users wallets. The whole situation deserves to be described objectively and sticked in the altcoins board to warn people on what might happen when they use systems they don't understand.

I didn't know much about ripple till all this started. I did just a bit of research. To me the whole stinking thing is an attempt to hijack the whole cryptocurrency gravy train and put it under the control of some venture capitalists and silicon valley types. They are going to issue 100 billion xrp of which OpenCoin will hold 50 billion. In other words, they have the money to really try and promote this and if it's successful, they will own half the supply. The whole thing is completely antithetical to the whole cryptocurrency movement, which is a decentralized currency under nobody's control. And then on top of it all, as TF demonstrated the system sucks. Don't drink the ripple koolaid, unless you wanna replace the Fed or other central banks with Open Coin.

[ironcross360]

It does seem to me that Tradefortress is scamming people just to prove a point about the problems with Ripple system. The fact that he is engaging newbs into a system that he considers a scam tells me that at the very least what he is doing is unethical. If I thought someone was a scammer I would not suggest them as a middleman for my transactions.

Yes, I am scamming people but I'm not making any money, and in this special case (where I actually used the liquidity providers flaw) I'm doing it as a proof of concept and giving it back to the owner

Proving the point of why not to use ripple, He proved the point so now leave ripple!

[smoothie]

Two scammers and we aren't seeing any scammer or untrustworthy tag.

TradeFortress is a little controversial (although I believe he is firmly in the scammer camp for deliberately misleading newbies).

But there can be absolutely no question that BFL is a bad actor and needs the label right away.

Why are you abdicating your responsibilities?

His newbie thread was to make a point.

BTC and BTC IOUs are not the same thing.

DUH.

You are just butthurt that Ripple is being exposed for the scam that it is.

[pheaonix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q

thank you for this thread.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/flash-tub/best-weekendweb-10.php

[ironcross360]

Well people lost 1000$ so now what for them? This is why I dont believe in ripple, I only believe in its investments, but ripple isnt the way to go. Stick with good ol bitcoin

[ervalvola]

His newbie thread was to make a point.

BTC and BTC IOUs are not the same thing.

DUH.

Oh, really do you need that thread to understand it? WOW

[Raoul Duke]

Why are you abdicating your responsibilities?

Because they've received a lot of money from BFL both as a forum entity and individually as mods, not all of them but most of them. BFL is obviously a scam and was created to be a scam!

Shit, dude. Do you have any transaction ID's of those payments?
I'm missing my BFL payments and would like to know to which wallet I sent them.
Any help is appreciated.

Sincerely,

-psy

[MPOE-PR]

Did you come here from the trollbox on BTCe? Grow Up.

You know that's exactly the dumbass sort of question that proves my point for me. Shut up and go on a reading binge until you know who I am.

Oh this thread is great in showing that side of ripple which most people don't understand and are not even aware of. The way the system works basically looks like a three-click scam creator for script kiddies.

I am waiting for the first ripple gateway-gate. There will be someone who'll create a gateway and bunch of fake ripple users trading on this gateway like crazy, providing lower spreads and much greater liquidity than Bitstamp's gateway users. Plus some marketing efforts to gain the traction. Most of actively trading ripple users will trust that gateway to be able to trade on it with its users, then one day they'll suck all available BTC.Bitstamp and USD.Bistamp and *.OtherLegitimateGateways replacing them with “equally trusted” BTC.Theirs and USD.Theirs, then withdraw to Bitstamp/other gateways real systems, exchange any USD into BTC and send the real BTC away, then close the shop and laugh.

Sounds like this is exactly the proof of concept TF was displaying.

[misterbigg]

Oh this thread is great in showing that side of ripple which most people don't understand and are not even aware of. The way the system works basically looks like a three-click scam creator for script kiddies.

The problem is that the default 'quality' factor of newly created trust lines by the client is a bad value. It should be zero (meaning "don't ripple through me") instead of one (meaning "exchange these IOUs for any other IOU I trust of the same currency at 1:1).

I've opened a GitHub issue on it.

[solex]

Oh this thread is great in showing that side of ripple which most people don't understand and are not even aware of. The way the system works basically looks like a three-click scam creator for script kiddies.

The problem is that the default 'quality' factor of newly created trust lines by the client is a bad value. It should be zero (meaning "don't ripple through me") instead of one (meaning "exchange these IOUs for any other IOU I trust of the same currency at 1:1).

I've opened a GitHub issue on it.

Seem like they should hire you to kick their system into shape!

[Matthew N. Wright]

Well at least now we know why Theymos isn't doing anything about TradeFortress.

You can see it in the trust page. theymos currently trusts:

            Maged
            OgNasty
            John (John K.)
            Tomatocage
            BadBear
            BCB
            TradeFortress

[Deprived]

MNW's promise was that he will give 100% ROI if pirate defaults. When pirate officially defaulted, he has broken his promise.

Compare to a bunch of tokens / IOUs which has zero terms. No contract unlike MNW, end of story. If I said that I would redeem those for actual BTC, and did not specify a time, then it would have to be a reasonable amount of time.

Exactly why I asked Theymos "If I had made the bet with Ripple IOUs instead, would I still have gotten the scammer tag?". It's a legitimate question that he needs to answer. Apparently scamming expected value, cheating, tricking, promising without delivering, whatever you want to call it-- is fine so long as it utilizes the Ripple system.

I assume if you'd promised to settle in ripple IOUs (without specifying any settlement date for those IOUs) then you could have just issued ripple IOUs and then forgotten about them.

An IOU without settlement terms is worthless.

What you did was make a bet - where established practice is immediate settlemenet in cash as soon as the outcome is determined.  There's no equivalent default settlement terms for IOUs.

Bets need to be settled in cash on demand (unless agreed otherwise).  IOUs don't.

That's the difference - and why you got tagged but TF didn't/shouldn't.  If anyone should get tagged for this it's the ripple developers for promoting a system which automatically treats even explicitly worthless debt as having the same value as payable-on-demand debt.  Sounds like they intend to fix this - but it's hardly a new issue or one which they were unaware of.

And people handing out ripple trust for no reason is hardly new either - as soon as ripple was launched there were threads where bunches of idiots handed out trust at random to one another.

[misterbigg]

If anyone should get tagged for this it's the ripple developers for promoting a system which automatically treats even explicitly worthless debt as having the same value as payable-on-demand debt.  Sounds like they intend to fix this - but it's hardly a new issue or one which they were unaware of.

And people handing out ripple trust for no reason is hardly new either - as soon as ripple was launched there were threads where bunches of idiots handed out trust at random to one another.

These are actually very good points.

[Jaseph]

MNW's promise was that he will give 100% ROI if pirate defaults. When pirate officially defaulted, he has broken his promise.

Compare to a bunch of tokens / IOUs which has zero terms. No contract unlike MNW, end of story. If I said that I would redeem those for actual BTC, and did not specify a time, then it would have to be a reasonable amount of time.

Exactly why I asked Theymos "If I had made the bet with Ripple IOUs instead, would I still have gotten the scammer tag?". It's a legitimate question that he needs to answer. Apparently scamming expected value, cheating, tricking, promising without delivering, whatever you want to call it-- is fine so long as it utilizes the Ripple system.

I assume if you'd promised to settle in ripple IOUs (without specifying any settlement date for those IOUs) then you could have just issued ripple IOUs and then forgotten about them.

An IOU without settlement terms is worthless.

What you did was make a bet - where established practice is immediate settlemenet in cash as soon as the outcome is determined.  There's no equivalent default settlement terms for IOUs.

Bets need to be settled in cash on demand (unless agreed otherwise).  IOUs don't.

That's the difference - and why you got tagged but TF didn't/shouldn't.  If anyone should get tagged for this it's the ripple developers for promoting a system which automatically treats even explicitly worthless debt as having the same value as payable-on-demand debt.  Sounds like they intend to fix this - but it's hardly a new issue or one which they were unaware of.

And people handing out ripple trust for no reason is hardly new either - as soon as ripple was launched there were threads where bunches of idiots handed out trust at random to one another.

This is exactly what's wrong with their system. And new users that don't know any better are liable to trust people without having any idea of possible consequences. I would never use ripple to trade.

[JoelKatz]

If anyone should get tagged for this it's the ripple developers for promoting a system which automatically treats even explicitly worthless debt as having the same value as payable-on-demand debt.  Sounds like they intend to fix this - but it's hardly a new issue or one which they were unaware of.

It doesn't automatically treat any debt as having any value at all. It considers all assets as completely worthless until and unless you specifically tell it to value some particular asset.

[Kouye]

Still, proving how defective a system such as Ripple can be, by luring (newbie) people into loosing actual wealth should not be allowed.