Username Changes

[cryptosec.info]

Username Changes

I personally think this should be also prioritized by Theymos. Why? I'm pretty sure some people here did a bad move in the past by using a username that is either:

• Somewhat related to their real name
• The same username as their other usernames on other websites

Which is a huge risk, as people can get doxxed easily. Similar to what happened to Hhampuz(if I remember correctly, not sure if it was him).

How to stop people from abusing this feature
Put it behind a decent paywall. Probably something small but significant like 0.005 BTC or something. While it's quite cheap, it makes it somewhat unspammable.

How to stop shady people from hiding using name changes
Put a name change history on people's profiles. Yes, people here on bitcointalk can see your previous usernames on your profile(probably make it so that only members and up can see them?). But people outside of bitcointalk cant find your bitcointalk profile by Google-able your past username by using the same technique used by Whois, whereas they made the email address an image instead of plaintext to make it not Google-able. This might not make doxxing and connecting accounts impossible, but it does make it a bit more difficult.

Example screenshot below, using a whois query on google.com




P.S. Well done on the captcha bypass thing.

[1715235063]

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[Steamtyme]

Honestly I'm opposed to username changes, unless there is a publicly available list of previous names.

When you've been here for a while you get to know the names of people you like to interact with and others you don't feel like wasting your time on. So if all it takes for some trolling spammy SOB, is a minimal payment to change their name, all bets are off.

I understand why donators received that as a perk, especially when the forum was smaller and easily traceable as it's not a massive list of people who currently have the ability. Even now the donators that are still around could be easily traced after a name change by past post history and staked addresses.

Just my opinion but not worth the annoyance, especially since the forum isn't hard up for cash BTC.

[cryptosec.info]

Honestly I'm opposed to username changes, unless there is a publicly available list of previous names.

When you've been here for a while you get to know the names of people you like to interact with and others you don't feel like wasting your time on. So if all it takes for some trolling spammy SOB, is a minimal payment to change their name, all bets are off.

Yes. That's why I suggested a name change history section on profiles for this. Along with my suggestion of making the previous username an image as to prevent this from easily being Google-able.

This suggestion was mainly for potential privacy issues for a good number of people here.

[3acaga]

I think that there’s nothing wrong with changing your username, but the history of your account should have a history of changing the name for everyone.
That all saw what name was earlier in the account and its history.

[The Cryptovator]

I am really not agree with change username. Because if scammers scam to peoples than change username how you will find? Even peoples are not encourage to check feedback before dealing or trading, than how we expect everyone will check history for changed username. Scammers could change randomly if there is need small fee. On the other hand reputed members will never change user name. Obviously they will not agree to lose previews reputation.

[Avirunes]

I am really not agree with change username. Because if scammers scam to peoples than change username how you will find? Even peoples are not encourage to check feedback before dealing or trading, than how we expect everyone will check history for changed username. Scammers could change randomly if there is need small fee. On the other hand reputed members will never change user name. Obviously they will not agree to lose previews reputation.

They gonna still be identified from the UID.There are many people who have used original names or part of it as their username so this would serve as chance to correct that.

It's just that we will be dealing with no.s instead of names while investigating or tagging.

[Crypto Girl]

I am really not agree with change username. Because if scammers scam to peoples than change username how you will find? Even peoples are not encourage to check feedback before dealing or trading, than how we expect everyone will check history for changed username. Scammers could change randomly if there is need small fee. On the other hand reputed members will never change user name. Obviously they will not agree to lose previews reputation.

If the problem is the change of usernames repeatedly then limit it, we can just only one chance to change the username and so we should be wary in choosing a new one. And user can change his username upon acquiring a full member rank.

This shouldn't be a privilege to newbies.

[xtraelv]

Already available. Just pay 20 50 BTC for VIP membership.

[hilariousetc]

Username Changes

I personally think this should be also prioritized by Theymos. Why? I'm pretty sure some people here did a bad move in the past by using a username that is either:

Somewhat related to their real name
The same username as their other usernames on other websites

And what happens when people change their name here to try hide their 'crimes' or wrongdoing (either here or elsewhere)?

Which is a huge risk, as people can get doxxed easily. Similar to what happened to Hhampuz(if I remember correctly, not sure if it was him).

People should be careful with what information they put online and we can't be responsible for this. If someone is lazy with their personal info then that's something they are responsible for and need to protect themselves.

How to stop shady people from hiding using name changes
Put a name change history on people's profiles. Yes, people here on bitcointalk can see your previous usernames on your profile(probably make it so that only members and up can see them?).

If your info is online then someone can find it and implementing name changes (that are even logged) isn't going to stop anything. People could just create an external site that logs all name changes and that shows up on google. This seems like a feature that will just be abused by the nefarious more than will actually save innocent people, and again, people should just learn to be much more careful with their personal info because once it's out there it's likely not going to go away regardless of whether we let people change their name here.

[vlad230]

Already available. Just pay 20 BTC for VIP membership.

You beat me to it

Yeah, the option is already available but buying a VIP membership is extremely expensive nowadays. The price for it is in fact 50 BTC not 20 BTC.

When the 50 BTC for VIP membership & 10 BTC for Donator status fees were created (on Aug 19th 2011), BTC was about $10. So VIP would cost you $500 and Donator $100.

Check for yourself here:

If you donate 10 BTC (which pays for about a month of hosting), you get donator status:
[...]
If you donate 50 BTC, you get VIP status, which allows you to set a custom title:
[...]

Donations page with more info: https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html


Going back to the original question, I'm thinking about how people could abuse this but since the profile is still tied to a user ID and you'll still see the trust rating for the user that just changed it's username, this won't affect anything.