How does evil fee makes sense?

[Pmalek]

From the top of my head, I've seen a few threads where certain users has had difficulties registering without triggering it even with IPs allocated by their ISPs.

A fresh proxy could probably help in situations like that. They are free and available from many countries around the world. If one location doesn't work, one can always try with a different one, but newbies probably don't know about that. However, that still creates a big number of abandoned accounts. But hopefully that will decrease now as word goes around that there are users who can whitelist legit individuals who got affected by the evil-fee virus.

I'm pretty sure the price of "evil" is adjusted when Bitcoin goes up or down in price, just like the Copper Membership.

Theymos said more than two years ago that the most expensive evil fee someone has to pay wouldn't cost more than the price of the copper membership.

[ranochigo]

A fresh proxy could probably help in situations like that. They are free and available from many countries around the world. If one location doesn't work, one can always try with a different one, but newbies probably don't know about that. However, that still creates a big number of abandoned accounts. But hopefully that will decrease now as word goes around that there are users who can whitelist legit individuals who got affected by the evil-fee virus.

Units of evil applies to the IP range. That would probably result in most IPs being tainted, as long as a few of the IP within that range are blacklisted. I highly doubt you would be able to find any free proxies from a scraper that would allow you to register without any units of evil. They are abused to death and needless to say, I suspect a huge bunch of them are honeypots, intended to log and track those who don't know any better. If we've reached the stage where even IP ranges belonging to residential ISPs are being tagged, then it would be far more difficult to find clean proxies.

[Stalker22]

Is there a way to check the evil IP database before registering? That might reduce the number of abandoned accounts.
Is there a list of banned IP addresses and ranges somewhere?

[Pmalek]

Is there a way to check the evil IP database before registering? That might reduce the number of abandoned accounts.
Is there a list of banned IP addresses and ranges somewhere?

Such information wouldn't be available for the general public, but theymos could probably export it if he wanted to or needed to do it. The admins can see which IPs the users used when registering, what they use when posting, logging in, etc.

Even if there was such list, chances are slim that people who have never been on Bitcointalk will check it. Those who have seen the evil fee notifications would be surprised because it's not something you see on other boards.

[Saidasun]

Is there a way to check the evil IP database before registering? That might reduce the number of abandoned accounts.
Is there a list of banned IP addresses and ranges somewhere?

This would make the evil ip feature pointless because people who want to bypass it including the spammers would just cycle through their ip address until they have one that does not match in the database and they could do this automatically

[LoyceV]

Is there a list of banned IP addresses and ranges somewhere?

Nope. But there's old data: Evil score visualization

[Upgrade00]

Even if there was such list, chances are slim that people who have never been on Bitcointalk will check it.

+1, only accounts which have already been on the forum would be savvy enough to access such information and use it, a newbie who sees a ban message when they have literally done nothing would just close tab and move on, except they were referred to the forum by a veteran member.

Perhaps, it is time for the mewie welcome message.

[worldofcoins]

But I don't think the abandoned accounts are much of a problem.

It's not that they are any potential problem but accounts do take some storage memory doesn't matter how big or small.
With crypto being more popular I'm certain there are going to be a lot more new users in the forum in the next 5-10 years and 1 User creating multiple accounts to evade the evil IP fee will only make the problem worse.
It doesn't matter if store is no issue.

Is there a way to check the evil IP database before registering? That might reduce the number of abandoned accounts.

I don't think even if he releases the list of IP address ranges then it would reduce the number of abandoned accounts.
Reason: Those who are new and while creating an account here wouldn't know that whether their IP is a part of it or not.
Fix: The link to that post can be shown somewhere on the registration page.

[Rikafip]

I'm curious now, are they still members of this forum?

Sadly, both left after a while. They said they couldn't understand much of the discussions that went on here because of the terminologies used in most posts. My pleas for them to continue and persevere didn't yield any results so I let them be. I don't think they even made it to Jnr rank. I count their temporary departure as loss to them because they don't recognize what they missed.

Well that's sucks, that they didn't have a little bit more patience since you really did all you could, and even spent some money. This forum can be a very confusing place for someone that is completely new to bitcoin, and to the forums in general.

Like in any other forum, retention rate here is probably very low so I think that majority of users give up before they even reach Jr Member rank, like your friends did.

[Pmalek]

Fix: The link to that post can be shown somewhere on the registration page.

theymos has already created a link from the page that instructs users to pay the evil fee to the Bitcointalk thread where users can be whitelisted for free in case they were caught up in the mess and have evil on their IP without having done anything wrong. I think that's a good improvement. Let's just hope they understand what they read and know what is being asked of them. 

[Daniel91]

Fix: The link to that post can be shown somewhere on the registration page.

theymos has already created a link from the page that instructs users to pay the evil fee to the Bitcointalk thread where users can be whitelisted for free in case they were caught up in the mess and have evil on their IP without having done anything wrong. I think that's a good improvement. Let's just hope they understand what they read and know what is being asked of them. 

OK it’s a really good change and I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner.
When this situation with the evil fee happened to two of my friends, they actually immediately gave up this forum because they were shocked by such a request to pay the evil fee.
They didn’t even know at the time how to open a bitcoin wallet or how to send someone a btc.
Personally, I think that this problem could have been solved in another, simpler way and then a lot less potential new members would have given up on this forum.
All newbie members with suspicious IP addresses could be denied the right to write in the market section for 6 months or a year.
This would discourage spammers from registering and other new members would not give up on the forum.

[Pmalek]

When this situation with the evil fee happened to two of my friends, they actually immediately gave up this forum because they were shocked by such a request to pay the evil fee.
They didn’t even know at the time how to open a bitcoin wallet or how to send someone a btc.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. To be honest, I don't know how I would have reacted myself if I had seen it. I don't think I would have paid the fee.

Being asked to pay with bitcoin before even learning how to use it reminded me of a sketch I saw at the beginning of the pandemic. I guy walked into a pharmacy to buy a mask, but the pharmacist asked him to leave because he wasn't wearing a mask. He told her that he was there in order to buy a mask, but she wasn't having any of it and said rules are rules and he needed to leave. A vicious circle.

[LoyceV]

Personally, I think that this problem could have been solved in another, simpler way and then a lot less potential new members would have given up on this forum.
All newbie members with suspicious IP addresses could be denied the right to write in the market section for 6 months or a year.
This would discourage spammers from registering and other new members would not give up on the forum.

This won't work: I've seen many spammers that activate hundreds of accounts for the first time after years. Spammers can patiently plan for this, while normal users would be annoyed by the limitations.

I don't know how I would have reacted myself if I had seen it. I don't think I would have paid the fee.

Many sites can't even be accessed through Tor, or only after solving a (painstaking) Captcha. Unfortunately, anonymity often causes bad behaviour. How cool would it be if there's a more universal way to proof you're not a spammer, that's accepted by a lot of sites? I wouldn't pay for a single site, but a "universal" anonymous payment to pay for many sites at once doesn't sound so bad.

[skarais]

On several occasion, I found people who really wanted to learn about bitcoin because they knew that I was one of the users of the bitcointalk forum (perhap because I wasn't very private before). They need to register an account to learn, but unfortunately they have to pay some satoshi to be able to use the account because a malicious IP was detected. I don't know if it's just for one or two regions or if it also applies generally to anyone who wants to sign up for an account.

The widespread account registration service on local Indonesian Jual & Beli board might help them even if they have to pay a small fee ranging from $0.5-$1 to register an account, I think. But I never know whether such a service is allowed on the forum or not, but on the one hand it will be very helpful for beginner who want to learn bitcoin and register an account. Maybe using a VPN will also help based on some people's experience, but I can't guarantee that.

[Rikafip]

When this situation with the evil fee happened to two of my friends, they actually immediately gave up this forum because they were shocked by such a request to pay the evil fee.

I think that part of the problem lies in the way that evil fee message is constructed. When a person who never visited bitcointalk before in his life (and  often knows very little about bitcoin) sees that "welcoming" message "Your IP address has previously been used for evil on this forum..." of course that strong reaction is expected, and in huge majority of cases they will go elsewhere. It's not 2011 anymore, people have plenty of other choices and in question is can this forum allow to loose potential good members over this. In the end, I know who won't have any issues paying the fee; those that are registering in order to profit.


I know its still early, but I have a question for those that have power to whitelist new users: any cases yet in which system flagged someone by mistake?

[LoyceV]

I have a question for those that have power to whitelist new users: any cases yet in which system flagged someone by mistake?

Probably, but I can't know for sure. Just keep an eye on my list, as long as they don't get banned, they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

[worldofcoins]

Or maybe remove the Evil IP completely?
This is a hypothetical situation.
->  <-
These days most people are using VPN to protect themselves from their ISP and HTTP protocol websites, And I don't know if anyone has static IP these days.
So 1st person from the same ISP does bad stuff on the forum and gets IP red flagged
Then the 2nd person gets the same IP by the same ISP or the IP within the Evil IP range and has to pay the Evil IP fees,

[HaleyOccam]

I know several personal examples of people who I invited to join bitcointalk forum and they couldn't registered because they got evil fee notification and asked to pay with Bitcoin.
Keep in mind that they never before heard about bitcointalk forum, they never registered in this forum, and they don't own any Bitcoin for paying this evil fee :/
I even tested and confirmed this myself from different location, using different device, maybe because some networks are using shared IP addresses.
In the process of punishing spammers and banned users we are also punishing innocent newbies and that is a fact.

The problem you mentioned does exist, and the evil tip will not be too much, but this is a very bad experience for newcomers. Whether it is an IP problem or not, the final complaint will be placed on the Bitcoin forum, facing unprincipled The bounty hunter team, I still agree with this point. There is a saying that it is better: I would rather kill 1,000 people by mistake than let a bastard. Each has its own reason, and at the same time, we should quickly find a way to reorganize the bounty plan section.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Humanity is known for paying for the sins of our ancestors so this is no biggie, besides lets look on the bright side of this. People tend to value what they paid for more than what they got for free. So they they'll value their account more and not out if ignorance break the forum rules with the hopes of opening a new one freely without any obstruction. Before the introduction of the evil fees, the registration of the forum was free for the now blacklisted IP address and giving them privilege the create multiple alts and disturbing the forum but things ar different now.

Let consider this for instance, why are they registering (picking up interest) to join the forum, if the answer to is to seek for knowledge from the forum then a little fees won't be much to ask since you're basically coming to learn which people normally pay for. Now if you're coming for business then a little fees shoudn't be an issue too considering what the forum can offer your business.

All I'm trying to say is, the fees has its positive side and to extent, it has served it's purpose of creation. If the forum was to remove the evil fees of a thing, I'll still be cool with that decision. Theymos knows what's best for the forum.