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

[Inaba]

Yes, that IP is for the original spam message.  I never received anything but the spam.

[mizerydearia]

[mizerydearia]

Dear mizerydearia,

This is obnoxious. ^_^

Dear Inaba,

This is obnoxious. ^_^

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.

l3estest l2egardedsness,
Miz
Dear Wody,

This is obnoxious. ^_^

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

l3estest l2egardedsness,
Miz

l3estest l2egardedsness,
Miz

[xxxcoin]

It's not very hard to set up a server in another country, hide info and then claim rogue.

I am not saying this is the case, but I think a lot of people need to refresh themselves on what "spam" is (and not the meat).

Unsolicited, bulk email = Spam.

[Inaba]

It's not very hard to set up a server in another country, hide info and then claim rogue.

I am not saying this is the case, but I think a lot of people need to refresh themselves on what "spam" is (and not the meat).

Unsolicited, bulk email = Spam.

I agree, which is why I said I'd give him the benefit of the doubt in this instance.  In either case, he's innocent or the backlash will have likely taught a lesson.

[Hawkix]

I filled the form on SCAM PHISHING site (.net) with BOGUS info, and I got this BTC address where the phished BTC should go:

1GHRsryckBsSfKgv6zbun5egbxq8GCT8f1

According to blockexplorer, there is already 33.64 BTC received a few hours ago. So, it looks someone got phished already.

[molecular]

I filled the form on SCAM PHISHING site (.net) with BOGUS info, and I got this BTC address where the phished BTC should go:

1GHRsryckBsSfKgv6zbun5egbxq8GCT8f1

According to blockexplorer, there is already 33.64 BTC received a few hours ago. So, it looks someone got phished already.

He's putting it all on one address? Wouldn't have done that.

I did the same thing and can confirm it's really displaying the same address: 1GHRsryckBsSfKgv6zbun5egbxq8GCT8f1

Only one transaction on that address for 33.64 BTC, poor guy that fell for it

[molecular]

I seriously think this is nothing more than just a Marketing Plan to do exactly what has happened. Generates hits and traffic to Casascius.com. make people virally  aware of Physical Bitcoins, Rank on BitcoinX.com....

and allow plausible denial of course.

Interesting the "Phishing Site" has now disappeared.

Brilliant!

It has not disappeared.

I find the explanation that the scammer is someone else much more plausible.

[mizerydearia]

I seriously think this is nothing more than just a Marketing Plan to do exactly what has happened. Generates hits and traffic to Casascius.com. make people virally  aware of Physical Bitcoins, Rank on BitcoinX.com....

and allow plausible denial of course.

Interesting the "Phishing Site" has now disappeared.

Brilliant!

Perhaps you seriously think other things too, such as that this is not nothing more than just a marketing plan (lowercased because it seems strange to uppercase this phrase) to do exactly what has happened.  In the case that you do think about this and/or other things, you should consider letting this forum know of those such thoughts as well so as to not withhold such informations derived from yuor thoughts. ^_^

[casascius]

If I was going to spam, why wouldn't I just put my YouTube videos back up or make more of them?  They were receiving plenty of hits as it is, before I took them down.  Far more than the number of email addresses in the MtGox database.  How about Google Adwords?  (if I have 50 BTC at $5/ea for purple paint VIP in the forum, surely I can afford it?).  If I really want to get serious, I could start accepting Visa/MC (no reason why I couldn't - I'm able to get one for my SwipeClock software business - just haven't bothered, haven't focused on it).  I hadn't even bothered to put up a "like" button (thanks scammer for the idea).

Your left brain is right in that if I wanted to go to elaborate lengths, from an information-theoretical perspective I could have orchestrated all of this, gone all the way to Russia for a VPN, all for a plausible excuse to turn around and send you a spam e-mail from my own IP.  But if your right brain is smart too, you probably realize it's not very likely given a little common sense.  These coins are a hobby project to promote Bitcoin and do not pay my bills.  I have much better things to do with my time than spam marketing.

[ErgoOne]

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 got one of your emails, and so far one scam spam that matches the description you gave in your emails. Technically what you did (really did, not the scam emails) was spam.  It was unsolicited bulk email.  While there might have been a better way to deal with this than send out that big email blast, however, I'd be hard put to consider somebody who just wanted to warn people about a scam or phish a bad guy.  (And I'm a hardcore antispam activist with a LONG track record in antispam.)  Announcing the scam here would notify some people, but a lot of the Mt. Gox client base doesn't participate in this forum much.  (Some of those who did got disillusioned after loosing a bunch of bitcoins in earlier frauds and wandered off.)  It's hard to imagine how to contact them all in any other way.

My condolences.  This isn't fun, I know. :/

[RandyFolds]

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.  

Can you read?

I seriously think this is nothing more than just a Marketing Plan to do exactly what has happened. Generates hits and traffic to Casascius.com. make people virally  aware of Physical Bitcoins, Rank on BitcoinX.com....

and allow plausible denial of course.

Interesting the "Phishing Site" has now disappeared.

Brilliant!

Or it could have been a bunch of people taking steps to report it...


Fucking A, it upsets me to see people bitching about getting an apologetic piece of spam to prevent them from being scammed. You are a bunch of douches.

[BurtW]

If you check http://blockexplorer.com/address/1GHRsryckBsSfKgv6zbun5egbxq8GCT8f1 you can see that the scammers have now made 53.84 BTC (as of the time of this post).  I suspect they would have made even more if it were not for the quick action on Mike's part.  I know it was a difficult and painful decision for him to send out the warning email but I am glad he did.

Now how can this darn site be taken down?  Surely there are forum members here that know how to kill a phishing web site.  Just checked and it is still there and still taking orders.  How about my favorite alt chain killer BCX?  Can you apply some of your skills to kicking some phishing site's ass?

[[Tycho]]

I wonder if there will ever be a moment in time when most people will pay attention to HTTPS and related warnings in their browsers...

[BitcoinPorn]

Real or not, casascius should not have sent that email to cover up things with the corrected address.  I'm sure not an easy decision, but still the wrong one.

I can't wait to see what new scams will be birthed from the idea that the general public are okay with this apology, we all have casascius in our mind, and if we were thinking about getting a coin before, we now are faced with the decision to not get one anymore, I am in that camp.  Or we buy one and think casascius is such a great guy for doing the right thing.       Still, can't wait to see this system being abused since people here seem to not mind the make up apology email, and from a marketing stand point, it now seems there is no better email to send.

[casascius]

Real or not, casascius should not have sent that email to cover up things with the corrected address.  I'm sure not an easy decision, but still the wrong one.

The wrong one for any particular reason?  Or just because you state it is so, despite what appears to be the majority here disagreeing.  I am not sure I buy the slippery slope argument - as though somehow my warning leads to legitimizing Viagra and fake diploma spam.  The vast majority of responses to my message were appreciative.  You'd accept an unsolicited e-mail from your kid's school if it burned down, I assume, right?  How about if it was an Amber alert, where the odds of you encountering the missing kid are about 1000000:1.  There are circumstances that warrant it, and I am appreciative that most here seem to agree with the judgment call I made.  I hate spam too.

If there is anything I should have done differently, I should have avoided putting a link to my website in my message, so there was no possibility of it being construed as a veiled ad.  I could say I'll remember that for next time, but I'm not a habitual spammer and am not anticipating there ever being a next time.

[RandyFolds]

Real or not, casascius should not have sent that email to cover up things with the corrected address.  I'm sure not an easy decision, but still the wrong one.

I can't wait to see what new scams will be birthed from the idea that the general public are okay with this apology, we all have casascius in our mind, and if we were thinking about getting a coin before, we now are faced with the decision to not get one anymore, I am in that camp.  Or we buy one and think casascius is such a great guy for doing the right thing.       Still, can't wait to see this system being abused since people here seem to not mind the make up apology email, and from a marketing stand point, it now seems there is no better email to send.

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what happened here, at least by the account in this thread.

Cover up?

[casascius]

My theory is, if you are stupid enough to be scammed by Casascius.net and don't pay attention to URL's especially when it involves BTC, you are too stupid to own them and deserve to be ripped off. That's why I say MyBitcoin was a huge success from one point of view. A brilliant exploit of a lot of very stupid people.

Digital Darwinism and nothing more.

How was someone supposed to know the site was fake just by the URL?

[BitcoinPorn]

The wrong one for any particular reason?

Things are right or wrong.  The shade of grey is the fact that you took action that you felt was right, good intentions, makes for a good grey area that scammers seem to like to have sex with.  Do not think I am accusing you of anything with my post, I honestly believe you were left with that choice to cover up your own name with information readily available on how to contact all the people that were just contacted with false info.   I assure you I could care less about one piece of email that I wouldn't have opened anyways.  Which I checked, it seems the initial email I got was sent to junk, along with your follow up email, so seeing them is a non-issue.  

It is one of those in the overall scheme of things, this was not the right thing to do, overall.  This specific case, seems like everything is working out well enough.

"If there is anything I should have done differently, I should have avoided putting a link to my website in my message, so there was no possibility of it being construed as a veiled ad."  I agree with this.  This alone would have made this thread possibly non existent.

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what happened here, at least by the account in this thread.

Cover up?

I disagree, I think you misunderstand my post or you are in denial of the possible implications of seeing this apology email going off so successfully in the public.  

Anyways, cover up to what?  I am not sure what your reply is trying to state.  Tell me a tale.

[mizerydearia]

casascius.net is redirecting me to casascius.com  

It shouldn't be so surprising.  Consider the idea that the person behind the domain is aware of this thread, realizes that they are only half-evil (e.g. greyhat/grayhat) and decided their evil ploy was foiled/discovered immediately and decided to abandon it and work on other evil ploys....and in addition to abandoning it, they also courteously prepared a quick fix to redirect to the original domain.

Also...

Some of those who did got disillusioned after loosing a bunch of bitcoins in earlier frauds and wandered off.

loosing?   seriously?  wtf is happening..  It's been liek a month since I have seen someone correctly spell "losing."

Fucking A, it upsets me to see people bitching about getting an apologetic piece of spam to prevent them from being scammed. You are a bunch of douches.

Upon initialization of this thread, I was under the assumption/presumption/idea that there was no spam.  This was based on my personalized reality that I had not received any phishing spam and in anticipation of perhaps later realizing that there was or wasn't such spam as to be reported or not by others.  And less than five minutes later after initiating the thread, I learned that that was a case of phishing in relation to casasacius and without censoring or modifying (too much) my initial post (I did change the topic a bit), I shifted the focus/message to be more accurately depicting.  Of course, there were a few others that also took similar approach as mine in which they jumped to conclusions, in which their jumpages may not have provided additional considerations of their conclusions being inaccurate or obnoxious.