update: casascius.COM is GOOD but casascius.NET is EVIL / FRAUD / SCAM / 1%

[mizerydearia]

Imp Note: HumansMen aren't perfect <- Sexism

Sorry to be sending e-mail to the Mt.Gox leak list.

Please be advised that a recent e-mail purporting to be from me regarding Casascius Physical
Bitcoins is fake and leads to a phishing site.  Don't give out your info unless you're sure you're
at the right place.

The real Casascius Physical Bitcoins website is at https://www.casascius.com.
If you do not know how to verify my PGP signature, consider looking me up on the forums to make
sure you have the right address and are not being phished.

Sorry for the hassle and the inconvenience, but I suppose this was going to happen sooner or later.

Mike Caldwell

Note: I received this email three times. O_O

If you received it 3 times, it means you had 3 accounts at MtGox... =)  I only sent it once.

Hint: I never received a phishing email most likely because I was not affiliated with the collection of email addresses that were sent phishing emails.

Note: Casascius is real human existence (that frequents freenode irc network) and has contributed stuffs, however, this particular email seems a tad bit obnoxious.  Although, at least he apologized.

Musical Note:

Consulting with Casascius on freenode IRC network he confirmed that email is authentic and from him.

I shall try this, one for each of my projects, and of course, provide an apology to excuse my sending to thousands of emails to propagate the message that contains links to each of the projects. ^_^  It shall be very effective without any backlash, eh?  Yay traffic to my websites!


Perhaps there could be a better way to reach large audience of bitcoiners than relying on leaked email lists to better propagate these types of informations in a way that is more solicited/expected/desired?  Maybe someone can establish a site/service for this particular purpose?

[casascius]

It appeared that the leaked e-mail list was targeted, and that's why I sent to it.  I certainly do understand that receiving the e-mail is obnoxious.  I suppose I have to weigh it against how obnoxious it is to hear about people getting scammed.

It should be obvious I hate spam as much as the next guy, and I feel I'm running the gauntlet even trying that (with respect to my ISP).

If you received it 3 times, it means you had 3 accounts at MtGox... =)  I only sent it once.

[I.Goldstein]

I stand by Casascius and his actions. The inconvenience from a soliciting email is arbitrary compared to the potential theft that could from being a client to casascius.net.

I thank him for being responsible and vigilant. Shine on you crazy diamond.

[xxxcoin]

I also did receive the email from casascius "warning" me about the fraudulent site, but I did not receive any other emails from the leak list that is supposedly being spammed.

 

[mizerydearia]

Within minutes of collaborating regarding this issue and establishing better understanding of the issue, although it may seem a bit obnoxious to have received the email as I had referenced/suggested in my initial post, I do agree that it is helpful to better spread awareness of this concern/issue.  I have changed topic (in my own way) to reflect better reality of what is important: that there is a fraudulent site still that may trick/deceive/scam users and that they should avoid it.

Add to your hosts file:

Code:

0.0.0.0 casascius.net

[xxxcoin]

So it is acceptable then that an unsolicited email was sent out to a hacked list "warning" people of a fraudulent site?

I received the email but it was not wanted by me, I did not ask to be notified about this and never did I provide my email address for this purpose to the sender.
It was also completely irrelevant to me since I have not used either site nor would I have planned to.

I shall try this, one for each of my projects, and of course, provide an apology to excuse my sending to thousands of emails to propagate the message that contains links to each of the projects. ^_^  It shall be very effective without any backlash, eh?  Yay traffic to my websites!

Exactly.

[Inaba]

This is bullshit.  I received a blatant marketing email (and nothing else) from this site.  After examining the headers, it's clearly from his site and sent from him.  Not hacked, not fake, not phishing.  A pure, unadulterated spam email sent to the leaked MT Gox list.  

This guy is a spammer and should be painted as such.  No one should do business with him and he should be fair game for being ripped off left and right to pay for his spam.  I charge $1500 per spam piece for reading, so he owes me $1500... whatever else other people charge, that's what he owes if he wants to pay for my time of reading garbage and using my bandwidth and hard drive space to store the email on my servers.

Just a point of reference:

Mail was sent from 62.76.188.230, casascius.net resolves to that IP address.  

[Raoul Duke]

Wanna know something funny... The scammer used a Google Analytics code in his site, so maybe contacting Google to shut his account down and report him as a phishing site to his host and registrar can at least take the site down.

[casascius]

This is bullshit.  I received a blatant marketing email (and nothing else) from this site.  After examining the headers, it's clearly from his site and sent from him.  Not hacked, not fake, not phishing.  A pure, unadulterated spam email sent to the leaked MT Gox list.  

This guy is a spammer and should be painted as such.  No one should do business with him and he should be fair game for being ripped off left and right to pay for his spam.  I charge $1500 per spam piece for reading, so he owes me $1500... whatever else other people charge, that's what he owes if he wants to pay for my time of reading garbage and using my bandwidth and hard drive space to store the email on my servers.

Just a point of reference:

Mail was sent from 62.76.188.230, casascius.net resolves to that IP address.  

And that's the scammer site...  the real one is casascius.com and 50.73.45.250

[Gavin Andresen]

I think Casascius did the right thing.

He has no way of knowing how many people got the phishing email, and no other way of contacting people who might fall for the scam.

If you're upset because you have to poke the 'delete' button on your email one extra time... then I think you're overreacting.

[molecular]

So it is acceptable then that an unsolicited email was sent out to a hacked list "warning" people of a fraudulent site?

I received the email but it was not wanted by me, I did not ask to be notified about this and never did I provide my email address for this purpose to the sender.
It was also completely irrelevant to me since I have not used either site nor would I have planned to.

Oh come on, I think it's ok to warn people. Don't be so uptight. Complain to magicaltux about all spam

[molecular]

This is bullshit.  I received a blatant marketing email (and nothing else) from this site.  After examining the headers, it's clearly from his site and sent from him.  Not hacked, not fake, not phishing.  A pure, unadulterated spam email sent to the leaked MT Gox list.  

This guy is a spammer and should be painted as such.  No one should do business with him and he should be fair game for being ripped off left and right to pay for his spam.  I charge $1500 per spam piece for reading, so he owes me $1500... whatever else other people charge, that's what he owes if he wants to pay for my time of reading garbage and using my bandwidth and hard drive space to store the email on my servers.

Just a point of reference:

Mail was sent from 62.76.188.230, casascius.net resolves to that IP address.  

You're still adressing the wrong person here. casascius.com is 50.73.45.250.

[Inaba]

Don't get me started on magicaltux and his inept security.  

I withdraw my previous statements in regards to casascius.com since .net is located in Russia and .com is in Utah.  I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt in this instance.

[Vandroiy]

Thanks for the warning! These days, I could use a browser addon that warns when hosts are in countries like Russia (as this one).

All this scamming has become a massive annoyance. This is one of the cases where we could have another organization funded with Bitcoin, Job: gather donations, select a scammer at random, trace, attack (report to police, DoS, hack, whatever). Post results. Just for the heck of it.

They never got me so far, still, if I ever happen to identify one of these people, they will not have a nice time with me.

[Inaba]

I think Casascius did the right thing.

He has no way of knowing how many people got the phishing email, and no other way of contacting people who might fall for the scam.

If you're upset because you have to poke the 'delete' button on your email one extra time... then I think you're overreacting.

You would be wrong, then.  He may have no way of knowing how many people got a phishing email, but he also has no responsibility to protect people from making stupid mistakes.  What he DOES have a responsibility to do is be a good net citizen and NOT spam people.  In this, apparently, he failed.  Much less egregious than commercial spamming, but no less irresponsible.

Your attitude of "IF you're upset because you have to poke delete button on your email one extra time" is exactly the reason we have so much spam.  You are the type of person that makes spam possible.  You just ignore it instead of actively combating it.  You and that attitude towards spam contributes to the problem.  If no one took that attitude, we've had made much more significant inroads into migrating to a more secure email protocol... but instead, it's too much trouble for people like you, so you just "deal" with it.  Your apathy causes spam.

And as a point of fact, it's not "just pressing delete one more time," billions upon billions of spam is sent each day.  That is billions of "pressing deletes" and it is a large portion of bandwidth and a significant portion of storage space.  You clearly have never had to manage a large scale email system.  Let those of us who have to deal with the aggregate consequences of spam make the decisions as to what constitutes over-reacting.

[molecular]

Don't get me started on magicaltux and his inept security.  

I withdraw my previous statements in regards to casascius.com since .net is located in Russia and .com is in Utah.  I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt in this instance.

Cool. Thanks for being reasonable. After reading your harsh language I didn't expect this. Kudos for still being able to think in an agitated state.

[molecular]

Thanks for the warning! These days, I could use a browser addon that warns when hosts are in countries like Russia (as this one).

Actually: wouldn't it be real easy to detect this mtgox-related spam? Just make a central place and have 5 people forward md5sums of all their emails. If they all receive that mail, it's most likely spam to that list, rigth?

Is there a system for this kind of thing?

[Vandroiy]

Mail was sent from 62.76.188.230, casascius.net resolves to that IP address.  

This is confusing. The spammer is warning about himself?

Maybe he's switched to troll mode now and is replicating the warning email so people flame about casascius spamming?

Oh, whatever. I just got two of the physical Bitcoins, they're awesome. I'm considering buying a bunch of them, so the fraudster site was really dangerous for me. So I appreciate the warning (even though I never received it per email).



Think about it this way: between an advantage of a fraudster or casascius, there is no doubt what should be put preference. These physical coins are a huge marketing boost for Bitcoin, it would suck if a scammer were to ruin that business.

[molecular]

Mail was sent from 62.76.188.230, casascius.net resolves to that IP address.  

This is confusing. The spammer is warning about himself?

No, I think Inaba was still talking about the first, original spam message.

[Wody]

Dear casascius.

Today I found in my email a spam coming from your website and IP-address, advertising for your website casascius.com. Sending such unsollicited email to people in my country is a crime. In addition, because of costs of spam for me, I also charge per spam, feel free to pay the bill by sending 100 bitcoin to: 1DESYhdFBUdQyTWBpLif6BQdr3FRcKBHWL