Trust No One

[13Charlie]

I agree about not trusting anyone at the bank, but you shouldn't even trust your computer even if your have the "best" antispyware available.

[LTC555]

What's the point of bitcoin if you have to be so paranoid?

I put this post in the Newbies area for a reason

I believe that bitcoin will someday be orders of magnitude more secure (and more valuable). If you buy bitcoins now, you are an early adopter getting in while prices are cheap and betting that security and utility will improve.

In the meantime, yes, you must be absurdly paranoid. These websites cannot be trusted any more than you absolutely have to. To actually hold onto your coins long enough for your investment to pay off, you need to push the paranoia up to the tinfoil-hat level. This is the price of being an early bitcoin adopter.

Trust nobody but Jesus

Nope.  Not even Jesus.

[altopel]

Interesting 

[JAGEPRICE]

fuck scammers

[Bitbuying]

Bitcoins are too easy to steal.   Then when somebody has them, they're gone!  Never trust anonymous people on the internet.  Even people that you can ID will rip you off sometimes.

[Jakers]

Best practice is to do the trades in increments when you're in doubt.

So if the trade was for $100 ---> 25% at a time

Trade was for $1000 ----> 10-20% at a time

And so on until you feel you can trust the person, and you can start sending more.

[gabbergabe]

I would steal, or rob(ok not literally but something drastic) before i let a loan default or get a SCAMMERTAG here. I believe in Bitcoin and where is going and I  also believe that the biggest players are all right here creating the foundation for people like me who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth to have a fighting chance, my only chance at a better fincial life by allowing me to be apart of it somewhat in the beggining, sure  2 years would have been better but its better then 5 years from now. So with that I want a good name, and I want to make money and music the rest of my life but I want to do it legal and on my terms. And bitcoin seems to help me in that way.


otherwise I stay a machinist the rest of my life and watch my health go to shit and my knees along with it....

[Flyingpenis007]

Bitcoin is thriving because people put trust into the currency.

So you do need some trust. But yes, I do agree with your sentimental points. People online are not meant to be trusted ever. Question everything.

[joinmicah]

I have to Thank You for your Post you really opened my eyes to keeping BITCOIN ANONYMOUS and Secure people need to lock their wallet better than Fort Knox.

[BitMillions]

Best practice is to do the trades in increments when you're in doubt.

So if the trade was for $100 ---> 25% at a time

Trade was for $1000 ----> 10-20% at a time

And so on until you feel you can trust the person, and you can start sending more.

That's a great way to start, but there are some people that will build trust and then scam quite a few people at the same time! That happened to me once, so I know there are some scammers that work this way..

[baboonfish]

there are always selective scammers too, make sure they are named and shamed!

[nnn]

I wouldn't keep any really money in BTC for the moment... and I certainly wouldn't keep that in an exchange account.

[timmolter]

I trade on Mt.Gox, but never leave a balance there, neither in $ nor BTC.

[bobjava]

I am a complete noob to bitcoins, and after reading a portion of this thread, I am wondering if I am better off just sticking with cash.  It's very disheartening to see how seemingly simple it is for someone to steal bitcoins from my computer. ..

[KarmaByte]

Encryption is your friend! I don't think it's necessary to remind people not to keep records of their encryption keys out in the open. I guess not everybody is able to remember a 25 character string with random case, though. I actually have a couple of wallets backed up to ... gmail, s3, usenet. A copy of the encryption key in a safety deposit box helps too, if you're liable to forget whether the 14th character was an uppercase or lowercase t..

I guess it's excessive, really. It's very unlikely that anybody that would break into my home would also look for documents containing encryption keys.. And then think to use them ... or even know what they unlock. But I guess some of us are just enthusiastic about security.

[HBBZ]

I'm very surprised to realize that we can trust each other in Chinese cultural background more than you guys, though we have our blind spots and problems.  excitement!

[laubzega]

Bitcoins are too easy to steal.   Then when somebody has them, they're gone!  Never trust anonymous people on the internet.  Even people that you can ID will rip you off sometimes.

You know, IDs can be bought for Bitcoins...

[setkeh]

People Shouldent trust people fullstop after all we are people

[twolifeinexile]

People Shouldent trust people fullstop after all we are people

I like this ideaology, hope bitcoin make it real

[UncleBobs]

Can escrow services be trusted?