I'm concerned about all the dozens of messages I've received about you using merit as a carrot. :/ (Please don't lie to newbies)
Aww, c’mon! Is nothing sacred?
PGP and Bitcoin belong together. Most hardcore Bitcoin maximalists are also hardcore PGP users. One of the earliest contributors to Bitcoin was practically the co-author of the original PGP. (Well, PGP 2; PGP 1 was uselessly insecure junk.)
For those who don't know me, I'm Hal Finney. I got my start in crypto working on an early version of PGP, working closely with Phil Zimmermann. When Phil decided to start PGP Corporation, I was one of the first hires. I would work on PGP until my retirement. At the same time, I got involved with the Cypherpunks. [...] When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.
For my part:
I have been warring with OgNasty for almost three years. We ~ed each other when I was at Member rank, and I currently have two red tags on him. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him. Nonetheless, I can acknowledge that his thread hereby is
a legitimate use of source merit to promote the community’s best interests—to promote
crypto, actual crypto, not just “wow moon ath lambo” nonsense.
If I had merit source privileges, I might run such rewards-for-learning threads myself (and I have even considered applying for source privileges, for similar reasons). Although I usually despise merit giveaway threads, this has a constructive purpose; and it is not a ploy of, “beg for me to like your post because I am too lazy to pick good posts and/or I enjoy having losers kiss my arse to read their worthless drivel”. If done with caution to avoid sending merit to spammers, this thread is a good idea. As a practical matter, it will work better than
my PGP “bounty airdrop”.
After 20+ years of my miserable losing battle to make people use PGP, and my 3 years of fighting to make people STOP SENDING UNENCRYPTED pmS!!! on this forum, I am willing to refrain from gratuitously criticizing a PGP advocacy thread. If I dislike the person running it, then I will either stay away, or politely contribute.
Wherefore I
spent some effort to contribute positively. Too bad: OgNasty
nastily insulted my contribution, and refused
to acknowledge that I had, in fact,
sent him an encrypted message. (As if that were something that
I would get wrong!) So as to avoid derailing this thread from its PGP mission, I considered opening a Reputation topic, “Does OgNasty know how to decrypt a PGP message?” Then, I saw that he sent merit to
a most excellent Newbie—which he
probably appreciates, since I know that he generally has no problem
sending merit to weird things. As such, I decided to drop it.
What could be wrong here?
If this thread were giving
security-ignorant,
technically inept advice, then that would need correction. I made some such corrections to some other users in my first post on this thread.
If OgNasty were dropping merit on bounty spammer accounts, then this thread would be a problem. But it seems that he is cautious against that; and he made a good point here:
My merit giveaway threads have been a bit of an eye opener on these bounty spammers. Who are these bounty managers that are paying these accounts? What sort of fraudulent bounty alt account schemes are these people enabling that people are spending their time making these accounts? Why does the community tolerate this? Not the topic to discuss this issue probably, but I have a hard time not pointing the finger at bounty managers who are clearly failing the community.
It reminds me of Lauda’s encrypted private
rants speeches about
what she called “the enablers”. Most of the spam and scams on this forum could be stopped, if not for the enablers. Beware, Mr Nasty: If you talk that way, you will soon fall under the witch’s spell.
An encrypted message
not sent for merit—just because it is fun to send private messages in public:
gpg -a -s -e -r 0xA338C617DE66E656 -r 0x5A00591B2F307E0C < 2020-12-18.ognasty.txt > 2020-12-18.ognasty.asc
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----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=bWhN
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----