IOTA: Snake oil insecurity with a centralized kill switch to shut off your money

[nullius]

tyKiwanuka, JollyGood, and Lauda:  Thank you.  OP was promptly updated with flag #1392 against iotatoken.

Ratimov:  Thank you for the translation.  I have linked to it in my thread metadata post.


Laud Lauda: Credit where due!

I appreciate Nullius breaking everything down here (and for starting the thread in the first place), as I wouldn't have read anything about this scam otherwise.

Thanks, but Lauda deserves the credit for the initiative.  When the story broke about the IOTA network “pause”, she asked me for my opinion due to my technical expertise and the fact that I have discussed IOTA’s failings before, as quoted above.

I am not easily shocked.  I was shocked that IOTA has a centralized kill switch; I did not know that, until they used it!  How do ordinary investors stand a chance with them?

I thereupon decided that I needed to do more to warn people so that they don’t risk losing their money.  Whereas that is always Lauda’s goal.  It was easy, too easy for me to sit back in the Development & Technology forum two years ago and sneer at IOTA’s broken homebrew hash—then ignore IOTA, because I would never risk my money on it.  Lauda has a more practical focus on helping others here.

Thank you, Lauda.


IOTA is the worst of all worlds

I don't like the use of a centralized validator, and would not trust any coin that uses one.

I think there is a place for centralized technologies:  Chaumian banks.  It is a matter of trade-offs.  Digicash had excellent privacy and fungibility, but was centralized; Bitcoin is decentralized, but lacks Digicash’s privacy and fungibility on the blockchain layer.  (Lightning mostly solves this problem in a different way.)  Centralized solutions also have high performance and low overhead, generally.

Whereas IOTA has none of these advantages.  It promises to be a Bitcoin-style cryptocurrency, but better than Bitcoin—which it is not!

In the practical terms which matter to the average user, I think that IOTA is really a Paypal-style solution, but with much higher overhead and, I think, lower security than Paypal—and it is a financially unstable altcoin which makes an even worse investment than government-issued fiat currency.  Why would anybody want this?  It combines the worst of all worlds!

Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy:  Paypal.  I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin.

It appears they are rolling back the IOTA blockchain to reverse the transactions involving the stolen coin. Etherum did something very similar in it's early days when a hacker exploited a flaw and drained coin out of the DAO, although it has something resembling consensus before doing this.

I also had that thought about Ethereum.  The form that my thought took was, “This is even worse than Ethereum—much worse.”  The comparison is damning, whereas I myself have previously called Ethereum a...

...Bolt A Turing Complete VM Onto A Blockchain Security Nightmare With Centrally Controlled Promise-Breaking Via “Irregular State Change” Exploding Clown Car Cryptokitties Toy Coin...

...among many similar words of endearment in various other posts.

Ethereum rewrote the history of its blockchain with a hardfork; but it had a blockchain, and even the top-down Vitalik Says So order took some time and effort to push through.  By comparison, IOTA can also rewrite their transaction history with much less effort—and IOTA just recently demonstrated that the people who run it can shut the whole thing off with the push of a button!  Much, much worse.

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[PrimeNumber7]

IOTA is the worst of all worlds

I don't like the use of a centralized validator, and would not trust any coin that uses one.

I think there is a place for centralized technologies:  Chaumian banks.  It is a matter of trade-offs.  Digicash had excellent privacy and fungibility, but was centralized; Bitcoin is decentralized, but lacks Digicash’s privacy and fungibility on the blockchain layer.  (Lightning mostly solves this problem in a different way.)  Centralized solutions also have high performance and low overhead, generally.

I would not like a Chaumian/Digicash-style bank. Digicash does not require the issuing bank to confirm the identity of transaction participants, but there is nothing preventing a bank from collecting information about transaction participants as a condition of signing new certificates. There is also the risk that the bank will become insolvent, or will issue unbacked certificates, or will simply run away with customer deposits.

Lighting is very similar to Digicash, except without the risks related to having a central issuing authority. There do appear to be some problems with it in practice. 

Whereas IOTA has none of these advantages.  It promises to be a Bitcoin-style cryptocurrency, but better than Bitcoin—which it is not!

In the practical terms which matter to the average user, I think that IOTA is really a Paypal-style solution, but with much higher overhead and, I think, lower security than Paypal—and it is a financially unstable altcoin which makes an even worse investment than government-issued fiat currency.  Why would anybody want this?  It combines the worst of all worlds!

Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy:  Paypal.  I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin.

I find the idea of a DAG and having transaction fees that are too small for the average user to measure (a small amount of POW per tx) interesting. The IOTA foundation appears to have a goal of eventually removing their central authority in favor of a decentralized authority who validates transactions, however I am unsure if this is possible in light of the fact that transactions are (virtually) free.

To be fair to IOTA, this is a single instance of reversing transactions in a case of alleged large scale theft, there is a 'slippery slope' argument, but this is not worse than what PayPal does every day. PayPal will routinely reverse transactions, block access to funds, and will blacklist individuals/entities who are doing things that PayPal does not like, even if not against any rules/regulations that PayPal has published.  There is no slippery slope argument with PayPal because they are already at the end/bottom of the slope.

[nullius]

Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy:  Paypal.  I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin.

To be fair to IOTA, this is a single instance of reversing transactions in a case of alleged large scale theft, there is a 'slippery slope' argument, but this is not worse than what PayPal does every day. PayPal will routinely reverse transactions, block access to funds, and will blacklist individuals/entities who are doing things that PayPal does not like, even if not against any rules/regulations that PayPal has published.  There is no slippery slope argument with PayPal because they are already at the end/bottom of the slope.

For me to say, “I prefer Paypal to IOTA” is damning Paypal with faint praise—to make a point about IOTA.

My point is that Paypal does what it says on the tin, and does it much more efficiently than anything like IOTA.

This is not to promote Paypal:  To the contrary, it is a reductio ad absurdum.  If I wanted a centrally-controlled system that is poison to privacy, is cheerful about financial censorship, and can arbitrarily revoke transactions at any time, then I would rather use a system which frankly admits to being exactly that—and which does it using technologies that make sense (I am guessing an enterprise RDBMS), rather than pouring on buckets of snake oil crypto just to make the whole thing look fancier.  Or for a different metaphor:  IOTA is a Rube Goldberg contraption with the disadvantages of a centralized system, plus many additional complications.

Although I do NOT trust Paypal’s security, and past performance is no guarantee that they won’t later suffer an Experian-tier giant hack or other systemic failure, I will also note that in the past 20 years, they have not suffered the sorts of “oopsies” that IOTA seems to have almost on a regular schedule.  Two years ago, the big IOTA news was their broken homebrew hash—two months ago, they had that “corrupted ledger” downtime—now, this...  If Paypal had IOTA’s record for security and reliability, would they still be in business?

That Experian is still in business is not a counterargument here:  You have no way to opt out of Experian, and their customers are others who are paying them for your information.  If Paypal were to suffer extreme and/or chronic security breaches, then I would think—well, I would hope that lots and lots of people would close their accounts and run away!  And that is the point of this thread:  Avoid IOTA, due to a high risk of losing money.

[truth or dare]

tyKiwanuka, JollyGood, and Lauda:  Thank you.  OP was promptly updated with flag #1392 against iotatoken.

Ratimov:  Thank you for the translation.  I have linked to it in my thread metadata post.


Laud Lauda: Credit where due!

I appreciate Nullius breaking everything down here (and for starting the thread in the first place), as I wouldn't have read anything about this scam otherwise.

Thanks, but Lauda deserves the credit for the initiative.  When the story broke about the IOTA network “pause”, she asked me for my opinion due to my technical expertise and the fact that I have discussed IOTA’s failings before, as quoted above.

I am not easily shocked.  I was shocked that IOTA has a centralized kill switch; I did not know that, until they used it!  How do ordinary investors stand a chance with them?

I thereupon decided that I needed to do more to warn people so that they don’t risk losing their money.  Whereas that is always Lauda’s goal.  It was easy, too easy for me to sit back in the Development & Technology forum two years ago and sneer at IOTA’s broken homebrew hash—then ignore IOTA, because I would never risk my money on it.  Lauda has a more practical focus on helping others here.

Thank you, Lauda.


IOTA is the worst of all worlds

I don't like the use of a centralized validator, and would not trust any coin that uses one.

I think there is a place for centralized technologies:  Chaumian banks.  It is a matter of trade-offs.  Digicash had excellent privacy and fungibility, but was centralized; Bitcoin is decentralized, but lacks Digicash’s privacy and fungibility on the blockchain layer.  (Lightning mostly solves this problem in a different way.)  Centralized solutions also have high performance and low overhead, generally.

Whereas IOTA has none of these advantages.  It promises to be a Bitcoin-style cryptocurrency, but better than Bitcoin—which it is not!

In the practical terms which matter to the average user, I think that IOTA is really a Paypal-style solution, but with much higher overhead and, I think, lower security than Paypal—and it is a financially unstable altcoin which makes an even worse investment than government-issued fiat currency.  Why would anybody want this?  It combines the worst of all worlds!

Indeed, if I had an exclusive choice between IOTA and Paypal, the answer is easy:  Paypal.  I say that as a Bitcoin maximalist who holds almost all his own money in Bitcoin.

It appears they are rolling back the IOTA blockchain to reverse the transactions involving the stolen coin. Etherum did something very similar in it's early days when a hacker exploited a flaw and drained coin out of the DAO, although it has something resembling consensus before doing this.

I also had that thought about Ethereum.  The form that my thought took was, “This is even worse than Ethereum—much worse.”  The comparison is damning, whereas I myself have previously called Ethereum a...

...Bolt A Turing Complete VM Onto A Blockchain Security Nightmare With Centrally Controlled Promise-Breaking Via “Irregular State Change” Exploding Clown Car Cryptokitties Toy Coin...

...among many similar words of endearment in various other posts.

Ethereum rewrote the history of its blockchain with a hardfork; but it had a blockchain, and even the top-down Vitalik Says So order took some time and effort to push through.  By comparison, IOTA can also rewrite their transaction history with much less effort—and IOTA just recently demonstrated that the people who run it can shut the whole thing off with the push of a button!  Much, much worse.

Anonymint called it out years ago at a design level, before that the true legend cryptohunter branded it a scam and predicted how it would go down Seems the training wheels were never removed.

No need to give the credit to yourselves lauda and nullius Laudas alt.

Well done though for noticing years later now that most of the damage is done.

[Lauda]

I want to extend this with a flag on the user: mich (UUID = 9645). This account is stolen/hacked/bought and has been for a long time. I do not know who controls it. It shills pro-IOTA (among many other coins) posts despite countless red flags. He is also caught in merit abuse, merit trading et. al. Input? Evidence:

Bosch Rexroth presents IOTA-based IoT solution to an Apple Enterprise team
https://www.boschrexroth.com/en/xc

In a recent tweet, IOTA partner New Mobility Labs stated that Matteo Dariol presented an IOTA token-based solution to an Apple Enterprise Team for an industrial use case. As the tweet states, Dariol, Lead Innovation Strategist at Bosch Rexroth, presented the use case to the Apple team at Chicago Connectory, a technology and innovation workspace for start-ups.

https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/bosch-rexroth-presents-iota-based-iot-solution-to-an-apple-enterprise-team/

Dell is big company to happy to see them with IOTA Working Group

Dell Among Founding Members of IOTA Working Group

American computer giant Dell is among 15 companies joining an IOTA working group to explore how the firm's "Tangle" technology can be integrated into commercial solutions.

https://www.coindesk.com/dell-among-founding-members-of-new-iota-working-group

New app that allows IOTA payments for parking garages
Download the app here- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.trive.trivepark.prod&hl=en_US

Trive.Park enables paying the parking garage with IOTA

Hardly a day goes by in recent weeks without IOTA appearing in the headlines. With the Trive.Park application IOTA is now making progress in the mobility industry. The application is a revolutionary park app based on the distributed ledger technology, developed by EDAG in cooperation with IOTA, just like the CityBot.

https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/trive-park-enables-paying-the-parking-garage-with-iota/

IOTA + google sounds like a a good plan in my eyes

Google-funded TinyGo Might Make IOTA Nodes to Run in Browser Plugin Form

The funding of TinyGo by Google might soon help in making it easy to run IOTA nodes in a browser plugin form with the use of WebAssembly (WASM) or by creating a new compiler based on LLVM, one of IOTA Foundation’s official team member has said.

https://newslogical.com/google-funded-tinygo-might-make-iota-nodes-to-be-run-in-browser-plugin-form/

A separate thread is more suited for this, but I do not feel the member is worth it. I am mostly concerned about the IOTA-related shilling, the other coins I do not care about in relation to this thread.

[Gyrsur]

the timeline of the IOTA hack smells a lot like an inside job IMO. (maybe not on the management level but below?) the hack started shortly after the "reload" feature of the Trinity Wallet was released.

rhetorical question: how fast can you plan and implement such an complex attack if you are not aware of such a "reload" feature upfront?

EDIT: is the user account of Dominik Schiener not known? he has a Bitcoin history (Switzerland based Crypto exchange which did broke) and I assume he was active here on bitcointalk.org too.

https://www.iota.org/the-foundation/team

© 2020 IOTA Foundation - Privacy Policy
Email: contact@iota.org
Board of Directors: Dominik Schiener, David Sønstebø, Serguei Popov & Navin Ramachandran
ID/Company No.: 3416/1234/2
EU public ID number in the EU Transparency Register: 500027331119-04

[tyKiwanuka]

rhetorical question: how fast can you plan and implement such an complex attack if you are not aware of such a "reload" feature upfront?

The integration of Moonpay was already leaked in mid November 2019, when a spanish Trinity tester (accidentially ?) tweeted about it and deleted the tweet shortly after.



IOTA officially announced the integration of Moonpay on December 18th 2019 then.

The IF tracked the attack back starting at November 27th 2019:

This, together with the security analysis, painted a very clear picture of the stages of an evolving attack that dates back to November 27th, 2019.

See: https://blog.iota.org/trinity-attack-incident-part-1-summary-and-next-steps-8c7ccc4d81e8

EDIT: is the user account of Dominik Schiener not known? he has a Bitcoin history (Switzerland based Crypto exchange which did broke) and I assume he was active here on bitcointalk.org too.

This is his account. He officially only joined the IOTA team in early 2016, since he was still busy with some other ventures and he even missed the ICO and had to buy his stack OTC, what you can also track a bit by checking his posting history in bitcointalk.

A well respected german user, who followed IOTA right from the start, talked about that here and here.

[Lauda]

© 2020 IOTA Foundation - Privacy Policy
Email: contact@iota.org
Board of Directors: Dominik Schiener, David Sønstebø, Serguei Popov & Navin Ramachandran
ID/Company No.: 3416/1234/2
EU public ID number in the EU Transparency Register: 500027331119-04

EDIT: is the user account of Dominik Schiener not known? he has a Bitcoin history (Switzerland based Crypto exchange which did broke) and I assume he was active here on bitcointalk.org too.

This is his account. He officially only joined the IOTA team in early 2016, since he was still busy with some other ventures and he even missed the ICO and had to buy his stack OTC, what you can also track a bit by checking his posting history in bitcointalk.

Flag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1416.

I want to extend this with a flag on the user: mich (UUID = 9645). This account is stolen/hacked/bought and has been for a long time. I do not know who controls it. It shills pro-IOTA (among many other coins) posts despite countless red flags. He is also caught in merit abuse, merit trading et. al.
- snip -

Flag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1417.

OP please add.

[Lauda]

Next rating and flag I propose:

IOTA is still in beta development and will be for quite a while, the vast majority of investors understand this, so the recent problems with the trinity wallet doesn't really change the future outlook of the project.

This is a lie. IOTA is a proven scam.

IOTA is a long term cutting edge project in beta development since 2015, I don't expect mainstream machine economy IOT apps until 2022, everything so far doesn't rate as a proof of concept even, most holders understand the timeframe involved, and understand all the criticism over the coordinator,  some speculators will get nervous and dump, haters will do their thing. The thread you linked to has no new allegations, and no evidence, and less than 25% of the mud slung at IOTA over the years. Can't you even bother to catalogue all the conspiracies in one place?

Are you trying to tell me that you are willing to shill this scam despite warnings from major cryptographers to stay away from it? QFR.

Look at the quantity and quality of people in the IF, their backgrounds, skills and experience, the partnerships the IF has made - so you think all these people and companies and academics and organisatjons are scammers, or being fooled? Your claims are not credible, IOTA project has faced many challenges, and mistakes have been made, but the future is still very optimistic. Iota succeeding is threatening to a lot of people, so there are loads of haters.

Need more time to think about it, investigate user and write a proper rating.

[allyouracid]

@Lauda based on your quote, I think a flag is a bit over the top. He seems like a dedicated user who still has hope that the project might fulfill its promises, one day. Haven't checked his previous posts, but based on the quote, I see no danger of fraud etc coming from this user.

[Lauda]

@Lauda based on your quote, I think a flag is a bit over the top. He seems like a dedicated user who still has hope that the project might fulfill its promises, one day. Haven't checked his previous posts, but based on the quote, I see no danger of fraud etc coming from this user.

I am considering it. The very least a negative rating, so that others are informed that the user's claims and statements are untrue.

[ifinta]

Some earlier opinion from me and others:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5173154

Just to remark, IOTA supported by EU - please see the thread, and some document in it......
IOTA has connections to Bitfinex and Tether. IOTA was the first alt at Bitfinex (after Litecoin, but Litecoin was used threre since the start). What should I say???
Tether had some "lost dollars" in last year, the "lost dollars" was always approx. the same "dollars" in volume as the IOTA marketcap had (~billion dollar). It is "maybe" only a parallel and random event
They found someone to pay this bill ( an investor - of course ).

[allyouracid]

IOTA was the first alt at Bitfinex (after Litecoin, but Litecoin was used threre since the start).

I'm pretty sure that ETH was listed WAY before IOTA... I still remember Potter's legendary message on some slack when the DAO desaster happened

I wish I never listed this piece of shit coin!

.edit: here

I think this is a conspiracy theory at best. The market cap isn't defined by the actual money flowing into the projects. That's likely just a coincidence.

[ifinta]

IOTA was the first alt at Bitfinex (after Litecoin, but Litecoin was used threre since the start).

I'm pretty sure that ETH was listed WAY before IOTA... I still remember Potter's legendary message on some slack when the DAO desaster happened

I wish I never listed this piece of shit coin!

.edit: here

I think this is a conspiracy theory at best. The market cap isn't defined by the actual money flowing into the projects. That's likely just a coincidence.

I just checked - as IOTA was selected for the trade on Bitfinex the following alt's was also on the Bitfinex Market tradeable (ok - you have right):
Litecoin, ZCash, Monero, Dash, XRP, ETH/ETC (I hope it is a whole list already)

https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/206

But: every alt's - before IOTA - was a well established alt on the market already at the time its listing on Bitfinex - every was already in the top 100 on the coinmarketcap.com - I think, but
IOTA was the first alt, which had the possibility to start on the market through Bitfinex! It was parallel listed on the coinmarketcap.com...
((in this way was only IOTA the first, sorry because some uncertainty, but it is also a big difference to other alt's. It was a little strange listing from Bitfnex))

What I consider at the start, and later - is documented in an other thread:

If we invested 230 dollar in BITCOIN in late 2015, then we have today ~8200 dollar ("yesterday" 12000 dollar, "tomorrow" maybe 5000 dollar or 150000 dollar we know.......)
If we invested 230 dollar in IOTA in late 2015, then we have today ~2515 dollar

Or?

Just a question. What is the TRUE ROI of IOTA?

The thread above contains also some information about the truth ROI of IOTA, and about the ROI showed on the coinmarketcap.com.
The ROI of IOTA on the coimarketcap.com is also a scam, I think..., I see...

And about your remark: "a conspiracy theory"
Yes. You have right here also: It is a truth conspiracy, I think...
... with very much support from side some governments...
... and the BIG RED BUTTON is a LEGAL TOOL ... just to consider ... What should I say more?

[l8orre]

nice! Troll Time again in the forgotten Bilge Belly of Crypto!

Never gets old! Gibber and gabber away, Trolls, always makes me smile!

[Lauda]

nice! Troll Time again in the forgotten Bilge Belly of Crypto!

Never gets old! Gibber and gabber away, Trolls, always makes me smile!

Working for IOTA or compromised account? Pick your description.

[ifinta]

nice! Troll Time again in the forgotten Bilge Belly of Crypto!

Never gets old! Gibber and gabber away, Trolls, always makes me smile!

Working for IOTA or compromised account? Pick your description.

I think, the post was simple off-topic
He means the Trolls in a film of DreamWorks... Or?

[Lauda]

• Flag #1417 against mich (see below)
• Flag #1416 against domsch (ibid.)

DT members please support this flag. It does not have enough support!

[l8orre]

• Flag #1417 against mich (see below)
• Flag #1416 against domsch (ibid.)

DT members please support this flag. It does not have enough support!

Don't spread misinformation.

It's a just mix of cherry picked bullshit in the thread you're referencing.
If you lost funds, it's probably your own fault. Trinity hack victims will be compensated, IF handled this very well.
I think IOTA is one of the most transparant and fair ecosystems in crypto.

silly little moron missed all boats that sailed in the crypto world since 2013, and now as a therapy for his poor little ego believes himself to be some kind of a scam hunter with the aim of damaging successful projects that launched without him.

check his post history, this is some kind of anally fixated bean counter that keeps tabs on shill acounts on this forum  

@Lauda - got nothing better to do with your time, Idiot?

oh, and before you spin up your bullshit about paid or compromised account again: neither here, just a happy and rich ICO investor that had the foresight and the balls to chip in a BTC to a project that you obviously were too stupid to realize the potential of. 

you know, TWATS like you are muddying the waters for real SCAMS, so you are even too stupid for scam hunting!

.. wow, organizing lynch mobs- are you sure you won't be happier in some SJW safe space?

[ifinta]

Some info from twitter... A very good caricature about some "truth" behind the scenes...
https://twitter.com/durerus/status/1250462823798489088



As I see, David Sonstebo already treated from project side as an official scammer...
YES, he has a firm - for JINN. But... About the "TROJEAN" horse: it has three legs... Sure. Since early 2016......
Please see the Circulating Supply of IOTA:



Some calculations:



Durerus, Luey Forje, ... maybe has 10% - 20% of the whole market cap: from the 2779 TERA IOTA i.e. 400 - 500 TERA IOTA (or more, maybe less???)
They are LEGAL RICH PEOPLE? With the support of i.e. Deutsche Bahn, EU, Tether USD, ... ? With a support - up to ~yesterday - of a official scammer PM, David