[ANN][AUR] Auroracoin - a cryptocurrency for Iceland

[pleiotropik]

Just posted this on the auroracoin facebook page:

Coins... currency, are social entities: They exist inside the web that is formed by humans and their relationships: work, debt, love, family, country county, taxes... etc. The "maturity" of a currency is attained through time as the relationships enumerated above start using channels, conduits. As such, the speed of adoption or repudiation of a currency is entirely dependent on the evolution of these relational webs, their utility as reservoirs of shared "trust/distrust". if the algorithm that facilitates the cripto revolution is sturdy, social webs will evolve and adapt to the transactional opportunities afforded by the "public ledger" of the criptocoins...
But to expect that this evolution will happen overnight is to not understand how social webs evolve over time to adapt to new inputs; It is to be expected that Aur, -as BTC-. will go through plateau phases of valuation at the same time that an environment of con artists, merchants, speculators etc. will emerge to try to take advantage of the gullible or of those that have no patience or time or are in dire need of a few Krona.
The experiment has started.
The crucial element now, besides the distribution mechanism is the speed of adoption of the cripto as a transactional entity in this specific case of Iceland, but it also applies to all criptos.
BTC is further down the road of maturity for the simple reason of its longevity (5 years since 10,000btc bought one pizza)... The "Character" of the icelandic community will be reflected on the gyrations of Aur. Good luck!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AuroraCoin/

[hammer1]

The link between your name and your kennitala is publicly accessible.
The þjóðskrá, or national registry, is still public. Well, not completely public -- but anyone with Internet access to their Icelandic bank account, which means the majority of Icelandic adults, can search the þjóðskrá on the Internet. The search feature works in two ways. You can find the kennitala that corresponds to any person’s name, or the name that corresponds to any kennitala. The results pages also list the street address of the person involved.
--
Wish the site was working for me --- does anyone know if it asks for anything more than a number / name / address? Cause then anyone with access to the database can just keep downloading coins to different wallets. Maybe that's why the site isn't working...

[The_Gloomfrost]

So as I understand it - claims are checked via a name and SSN from a public repository then authed with FB?

What prevents someone from picking out random combos of SSN+Name from the public repo then creating associated FB accounts with them?
If the person exists, try again with a different person.

I'm positive not 100% of Icelanders have facebook so there are probably lots of opportunities here. Likewise, how is an icelander supposed to claim their coins if they DON'T have facebook?

[illodin]

I'm positive not 100% of Icelanders have facebook so there are probably lots of opportunities here. Likewise, how is an icelander supposed to claim their coins if they DON'T have facebook?

They get an SMS with a PIN number.

[molecular]

AUR can be a success if merchants learn how to accept it as payment before consumers learn how to dump the coins on exchanges.

The clock is ticking.

In other news.. AUR has disappeared off CMC?

..aaand it's gone.

Just stale datapoints, since the block explorer is down.

These slow blocks get a lot of transactions, looks like auroracoind gets jammed when there are enought of them.. I have to reset auroracoind every now and then..

Trying to keep this running:
http://auroraexplorer.atorox.net/chain/AuroraCoin

I've been having massive problems with bitcoin-abe. ([Broken Pipe]). I think it's related to mempool transactions (we've got many of these building up because we're finding no blocks)

Reset of abe database hasn't helped. Having auroracoind reload the blockchain helped.

Don't know what to make of it, asked in bitcoin-abe thread.

[crocko]

Here, another clone of AURORA: BitLeu (aka BTL)

Now BTL on the market !

https://bittrex.com  is the 1st exchange where you can trade BTL !

[molecular]

Just posted this on the auroracoin facebook page:

Coins... currency, are social entities: They exist inside the web that is formed by humans and their relationships: work, debt, love, family, country county, taxes... etc. The "maturity" of a currency is attained through time as the relationships enumerated above start using channels, conduits. As such, the speed of adoption or repudiation of a currency is entirely dependent on the evolution of these relational webs, their utility as reservoirs of shared "trust/distrust". if the algorithm that facilitates the cripto revolution is sturdy, social webs will evolve and adapt to the transactional opportunities afforded by the "public ledger" of the criptocoins...
But to expect that this evolution will happen overnight is to not understand how social webs evolve over time to adapt to new inputs; It is to be expected that Aur, -as BTC-. will go through plateau phases of valuation at the same time that an environment of con artists, merchants, speculators etc. will emerge to try to take advantage of the gullible or of those that have no patience or time or are in dire need of a few Krona.
The experiment has started.
The crucial element now, besides the distribution mechanism is the speed of adoption of the cripto as a transactional entity in this specific case of Iceland, but it also applies to all criptos.
BTC is further down the road of maturity for the simple reason of its longevity (5 years since 10,000btc bought one pizza)... The "Character" of the icelandic community will be reflected on the gyrations of Aur. Good luck!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AuroraCoin/

I agree and love the expression "cripto".

One remark: Bitcoin might be further along, but AuroraCoin might overtake it because of the specifics of the community it targets.

[NickPortland]

It doesn't bother anyone that people in California and Australia are claiming the coins? Or that the ID number isn't only for Icelandic people? Or that there is an easily accessible database of 70,000 numbers that were hacked (i.e. I could probably go claim some coins right now. Actually....)...no doubt there is some widespread fraud here.

As far as I understood the process, first you input your Kennitala (and here anyone could copy/paste one) but then you need to confirm your ID by means of:

-Facebook account, must be preexisting to Airdrop
-SMS received on a icelandic phone


So I don't think fraud is as simple as you make it out to be

[NickPortland]

So as I understand it - claims are checked via a name and SSN from a public repository then authed with FB?

What prevents someone from picking out random combos of SSN+Name from the public repo then creating associated FB accounts with them?
If the person exists, try again with a different person.

I'm positive not 100% of Icelanders have facebook so there are probably lots of opportunities here. Likewise, how is an icelander supposed to claim their coins if they DON'T have facebook?

If you read the forum, you'd know FB accounts have to be older than the airdrop.

And that people without FB can use SMS

[molecular]

It doesn't bother anyone that people in California and Australia are claiming the coins? Or that the ID number isn't only for Icelandic people? Or that there is an easily accessible database of 70,000 numbers that were hacked (i.e. I could probably go claim some coins right now. Actually....)...no doubt there is some widespread fraud here.

As far as I understood the process, first you input your Kennitala (and here anyone could copy/paste one) but then you need to confirm your ID by means of:

-Facebook account, must be preexisting to Airdrop
-SMS received on a icelandic phone


So I don't think fraud is as simple as you make it out to be

If it's true that most claims are not fraudulent then AuroraCoin is already a HUGE SUCCESS. Well over 1% of the population have claimed coins. That's above any kind of adoption rate we've seen so far, no?

Congratulations are in order for balduro (given the claims are real). Thank you, man, for pulling this off. Well done.

EDIT: Let's hope the fork works as intended... those block-times are unbearable.

[hammer1]

So, I'll admit that it is harder than it seems to get coins fraudulently, but it seems like it's happening.

There are various reports on reddit and facebook that people have been trying to get their coins to find that they have already been claimed by the same ID.

http://www.reddit.com/r/auroracoin/comments/21b8am/im_an_icelander_that_wanted_to_claim_my_aurora/
http://www.reddit.com/r/auroracoin/comments/21c8bw/villa_%C3%BEegar_er_b%C3%BAi%C3%B0_a%C3%B0_s%C3%A6kja_fyrir_%C3%BEessa/

Pétur Neisti Erlingsson Það stendur að það sé búið að nota kt mína, hvað er að frétta? Var einhver snillingur sem tókst að taka alla auranna af flestum íslendingum?

It says that it is created using my id, what's up? Was some genius who managed to take all the aura of most people?
--
I will say that it is fascinating. But I am quite skeptical that there are really thousands of different icelandic people who have already claimed their coins.

[The_Gloomfrost]

It doesn't bother anyone that people in California and Australia are claiming the coins? Or that the ID number isn't only for Icelandic people? Or that there is an easily accessible database of 70,000 numbers that were hacked (i.e. I could probably go claim some coins right now. Actually....)...no doubt there is some widespread fraud here.

As far as I understood the process, first you input your Kennitala (and here anyone could copy/paste one) but then you need to confirm your ID by means of:

-Facebook account, must be preexisting to Airdrop
-SMS received on a icelandic phone


So I don't think fraud is as simple as you make it out to be

What if they created a fake FB account before yesterday, but after they learned of the blueprint auth means..?

[leewilson]

So as I understand it - claims are checked via a name and SSN from a public repository then authed with FB?

What prevents someone from picking out random combos of SSN+Name from the public repo then creating associated FB accounts with them?
If the person exists, try again with a different person.

I'm positive not 100% of Icelanders have facebook so there are probably lots of opportunities here. Likewise, how is an icelander supposed to claim their coins if they DON'T have facebook?

If you read the forum, you'd know FB accounts have to be older than the airdrop.

And that people without FB can use SMS

So all the possible hackers who actually kept up with the coin knew to go ahead and create a facebook account before the airdrop.
And the majority of citizens of Iceland did not.

And the sms only works for some, maybe be just one carrier? Even the numbers listed in a national directory some work and some do not.

So you are required to have a mobile phone of potentially a specific carrier and a facebook account prior to the airdrop...seems you left out all of the older generations (the ones you most likely needed to convert towards the idea of crypto)

[NickPortland]

So, I'll admit that it is harder than it seems to get coins fraudulently, but it seems like it's happening.

There are various reports on reddit and facebook that people have been trying to get their coins to find that they have already been claimed by the same ID.

http://www.reddit.com/r/auroracoin/comments/21b8am/im_an_icelander_that_wanted_to_claim_my_aurora/
http://www.reddit.com/r/auroracoin/comments/21c8bw/villa_%C3%BEegar_er_b%C3%BAi%C3%B0_a%C3%B0_s%C3%A6kja_fyrir_%C3%BEessa/

Pétur Neisti Erlingsson Það stendur að það sé búið að nota kt mína, hvað er að frétta? Var einhver snillingur sem tókst að taka alla auranna af flestum íslendingum?

It says that it is created using my id, what's up? Was some genius who managed to take all the aura of most people?
--
I will say that it is fascinating. But I am quite skeptical that there are really thousands of different icelandic people who have already claimed their coins.

It's probably Icelanders scamming other Icelanders...
I guess someone from Iceland could claim tons via sms using different numbers, maybe?

[leewilson]

It doesn't bother anyone that people in California and Australia are claiming the coins? Or that the ID number isn't only for Icelandic people? Or that there is an easily accessible database of 70,000 numbers that were hacked (i.e. I could probably go claim some coins right now. Actually....)...no doubt there is some widespread fraud here.

As far as I understood the process, first you input your Kennitala (and here anyone could copy/paste one) but then you need to confirm your ID by means of:

-Facebook account, must be preexisting to Airdrop
-SMS received on a icelandic phone


So I don't think fraud is as simple as you make it out to be

What if they created a fake FB account before yesterday, but after they learned of the blueprint auth means..?

And what if legitimate citizens of Iceland only created a facebook today in order to receive the airdrop?

Nothing like a well thought out plan.

[NickPortland]

CUT

So you are required to have a mobile phone of potentially a specific carrier and a facebook account prior to the airdrop...seems you left out all of the older generations (the ones you most likely needed to convert towards the idea of crypto)

Yeah cause:
-no person above the age of 50 has FB or a mobile phone
-it was imperative to convert grannies to cryptos, nevermind 99% of young people don't have any idea what cryptos even are..

[NickPortland]

It doesn't bother anyone that people in California and Australia are claiming the coins? Or that the ID number isn't only for Icelandic people? Or that there is an easily accessible database of 70,000 numbers that were hacked (i.e. I could probably go claim some coins right now. Actually....)...no doubt there is some widespread fraud here.

As far as I understood the process, first you input your Kennitala (and here anyone could copy/paste one) but then you need to confirm your ID by means of:

-Facebook account, must be preexisting to Airdrop
-SMS received on a icelandic phone


So I don't think fraud is as simple as you make it out to be

What if they created a fake FB account before yesterday, but after they learned of the blueprint auth means..?

And what if legitimate citizens of Iceland only created a facebook today in order to receive the airdrop?

Nothing like a well thought out plan.

Well when you launch your own regional crypto you can choose door by door paper wallet distribution as a means of airdrop.

Should be fine for San Marino or Vatican City, only taking a few days

[yaboymarvo]

I feel bad for anyone who actually thought this was going to be a success. Glad i sold all mine when it hit 1 billion for a day.

[1369]

This is great stuff to read & follow! Really hope this works despite all the challenges ahead for the developers.
I was inspired by the auroracoin airdrop & created a similar, but FAR simpler system, distributing the coin I support to the Twitch.TV population using their account system & PM's for distribution.

[hammer1]

So, I found a kennitala online, co-opted an old Facebook account and changed the info to match. I got past the first screens (clearly there's no safeguards to see if the person is located in Iceland or not), but the Facebook authentication failed. Interesting.