Re: Farewell

[Kruw]

So what is the lie o_e_l_e_o knew was being told?

The lies begin immediately after that, where he starts going around every thread claiming that Wasabi coordinators can spy on you (when, as proved in the previous post, he knows that Wasabi coordinators can't affect your inputs or collect your data):

April 24 2022 - o_e_l_e_o highly recommends the custodian he partnered with that stole everyone’s deposits and turned over their data to the government and then lies about spying on Wasabi users being possible:

ChipMixer easily has the best and longest standing reputation among all bitcoin mixers.

CoinJoin service: Wasabi / Samourai / JoinMarket

Wasabi now spy on their users and censor transactions, so I would no longer recommend them.

April 25 2022 - To further fool this user to lose their funds and data, o_e_l_e_o blatantly lied about the verifiable open source software by falsely claiming that every user and every UTXO stored on a Wasabi wallet will be monitored and surveilled, and that this survelliance applies specifically to Wasabi:

About 6 weeks ago, Wasabi announced on twitter that zkSNACKs, the entity which runs the coordinator for the all the coinjoin transaction which take place through Wasabi wallet, would start censoring some inputs and refusing to allow them to partake in coinjoins. Wasabi then explained on Telegram that they would be hiring a blockchain analysis company, which would monitor and surveil every user of Wasabi and ever UTXO stored on a Wasabi wallet and decide which ones were and were not allowed to partake in coinjoins. They have since revealed that they did this voluntarily to protect their own operations and therefore their own profits, and not because they were forced to because of any government, law, or regulation.

Wasabi is now pro-censorship and anti-privacy. They should be avoided, unless you like seeing your coinjoin fees go straight to a blockchain analysis company which is being paid to spy on you and you specifically.

May 2 2022 - o_e_l_e_o falsely accuses coordinators of being able to collect data:

Blockchain analysis is ultimately a process of deduction and induction.

A process which becomes much easier when the centralized coordinator is actively working with blockchain analysis companies and handing over all the data they collect.

May 12 2022 - o_e_l_e_o falsely claims that users are required to trust open source software:

No idea, and given how shady Wasabi have been about this whole thing, don't expect them to be honest and tell us. Any "privacy" firm coordinating with blockchain analysis firms is not to be trusted though, and especially not one which is actively using your coinjoin fees to pay blockchain analysis firms.

June 12 2022 - NotATether emphasizes that the Wasabi Wallet software is “clean and uncompromised” in a thread posted about running the open source coordinator software:

The situation map is currently thus:

- The Wasabi wallet itself is still clean and uncompromised.
- But the default CoinJoin server used by Wasabi wallet (zksnacks) is now blacklisting "tainted" coins, an action which is intolerable to the community.
- Ignore the signature campaign for now, it is irrelevant to remedying the situation.


This thread exists to gather open source software on Github/Gitlab/etc. which allows the running of a Wasabi-compatible CJ mixing server. Software that cannot be plugged in to Wasabi should not be listed here. Since this battle is being fought against their main CJ server, and not analysis companies/exchanges/governments, we still have a chance for winning this, even if we are 3 months behind schedule (the announcment for the blacklisting was made last march).

Discussion on how to make such CJ software work for Wasabi (as well as the other way around) is also welcomed. Special attention should be given to getting these to run on low-powered Linux servers (think 8GB of memory or less).

June 12 2022 - o_e_l_e_o emphasizes not to use open privacy software no matter who coordinates the transactions because his feelings are hurt:

I also wouldn't recommend using Wasabi at all, even with a non censoring coordinator. The Wasabi devs have revealed very clearly where their priorities lie: Those priorities are not with their users or protecting privacy, but solely with making profits. Obviously Wasabi is open source, but I'm still not going to use a wallet which is run by a team who are willing to voluntarily sell out their users for profits.

June 15 2022 - o_e_l_e_o falsely accuses Wasabi of sacrificing user privacy:

It's not like Wasabi where they are sacrificing the privacy of the average user to cater to the bigger players.

August 13 2022 – o_e_l_e_o discourages tens of thousands of people from using open source Bitcoin privacy tools by lying and saying Wasabi compromises privacy:

Such an approach would require encouraging tens of thousands of people to download and use Wasabi and compromise their own privacy in doing so. Not a great approach.

November 5 2022 – Wasabi enables coinjoining, generates a new address for each payment, and prevents spying using block filters. Yet o_e_l_e_o is lying to encourage people to offboard software that preserves privacy and leak their addresses to the Samourai coinjoin coordinator instead:

One of reason Wasabi Wallet 1.0 become popular is due to user-friendliness while preserving few advance feature (address/UTXO selection).

There are plenty of other user friendly non full node wallets with such features. Granted, most don't provide coinjoins, but when you are also being spied on, censored, and having your addresses reused, then some might say a wallet without any of those features is better than Wasabi.

It could be replacement of JoinMarket-Qt which need full node since Wasabi Wallet 1.0 is one of very few SPV desktop wallet with strong privacy feature (Tor by default and BIP 157 implementation).

If you don't want to run a full node then I would suggest Sparrow wallet as the next best option to access coinjoins.

Novermber 6 2022 – o_e_l_e_o lies about being able to spy on Wasabi users and tells everyone to send their coins to the custodian he partnered with that stole everyone’s deposits and turned their data over to the government:

And if you depend on third parties, then you are subjected to their rules, spying, and censorship, as we have seen in the case of Wasabi.

By using Sparrow you are still depending on third parties, but at least those third parties aren't in cahoots with blockchain analysis companies. But if that is still too complex for the average user to use without compromising their privacy in some manner, then you can just stick to ChipMixer.

February 28 2023 – o_e_l_e_o lies about Wasabi feeding details to a blockchain analysis firm to avoid the truth that you can change coordinators:

People who are using Wasabi aren't generally going to bother changing coordinator, because anyone who actually cares about privacy and not having their details fed directly to a blockchain analysis firm isn't using Wasabi in the first place.

March 8 2023 – o_e_l_e_o lies about BTCPay Server, claiming that coordinators can spy on them and claiming that they are “risking address reuse”

It is a mistake for BTCPay to implement this. Even if someone manages to get enough volume on a coordinator which doesn't spy on users and directly fund blockchain analysis, then they are still risking address reuse and therefore complete failure of what they are trying to achieve by coinjoining in the first place.

April 15 2023 – o_e_l_e_o falsely claims that Trezor allows blockchain analysis to monitor outputs in their hardware wallet

Cool, so I can get blockchain analysis entities to specifically monitor the outputs in my hardware wallet now. Just what I've always wanted!

April 28 2023 – o_e_l_e_o tries to sabotage a user’s privacy by convincing them not to use the coinjoin feature in Trezor, which protects your xpub and IP address from being shared, and protects your on chain data from being tracked:

I regret ever suggesting that anyone should buy a Trezor, and I will never do so again. They have shown themselves to be anti-privacy and anti-fungibility, and are therefore not just selling out their users but are actively working against bitcoin itself, in order to line their own pockets.

As he says, however, if you already have a Trezor device (and no other hardware wallet you can swap to or can afford), you are probably safe to keep using it provided you don't go anywhere near the coinjoin feature. I also don't have a single shred of trust left for Trezor, though, so I would make sure you are using it through something like Electrum or Sparrow pointed at your own node and absolutely not relying on Trezor's servers. And when it comes to the time to upgrade or replace your hardware wallet, obviously do not buy another Trezor.

August 21 2023: BlackHatCoiner confirms that what a coordinator does with their money isn’t important for the coinjoin user:

I would also say "Service uses the fee you pay to hire a blockchain analysis company to spy on your inputs" is a pretty big con of Wasabi which you've missed.

What the default coordinator does with the money it makes isn't important for the coinjoin user, but for the integrity of their business.

Sure, but it is an objective fact that Wasabi use the fees you pay them to pay blockchain analysis companies for information about your UTXOs. And I would argue that is incredibly important for the coinjoin user.

What's important here is to break down what's user's best courses to accomplish mixing. Even if funding blockchain surveillance is completely contradictory to being proclaimed a pro-privacy service, that doesn't change their coinjoin process. Just as if Samurai announced that they're funding the Ukrainian war, it wouldn't change the effectiveness of the coinjoin. It'd ruin their reputation, and people would stop using it; not because of effectiveness, but ethical concerns.

You can see in these quotes how he ushered multiple people into leaking their data and losing their coins to the government.  And o_e_l_e_o didn't even hesitate to lie about a legitimate privacy tool that could not scam him even though the OP of the thread specifically requested a legit service because he did not want to get scammed again:

Can you anyone recommend a Bitcoin mixing service that is legit, please? It seems there are a lot of scamming bastards around that purport to provide this service (I just had the misfortune of dealing with one).

Sincere thanks in advance.

[mrust_mobile]

Kruw, You could have continued posting your arguments in the wasabi topic but instead you came here… You could be right about wasabi, or maybe leo was right. I don’t really care because I am not interested in using that wallet anyway and haven’t read a single post in that thread. Why did you carry that debate to this topic? If people are interested in that discussion, they can go there see it themselves. The guy is dying, at this point do you think he cares what you think at all? I didn’t agree with him on many occasions too. (In other topics) That doesn’t mean I should be a dick like you.

[Kruw]

Kruw, You could have continued posting your arguments in the wasabi topic but instead you came here… You could be right about wasabi, or maybe leo was right. I don’t really care because I am not interested in using that wallet anyway and haven’t read a single post in that thread. Why did you carry that debate to this topic? If people are interested in that discussion, they can go there see it themselves. The guy is dying, at this point do you think he cares what you think at all?

This isn't a "debate", it's proof that he's lying.  o_e_l_e_o has known the entire time that the privacy of the inputs in your wallet is not affected by coordinator policy, and that your data is not vulnerable to collection:

TIMELINE

March 14 2022 - o_e_l_e_o admits coordinator policy doesn’t affect your inputs, admits to BlackHatCoiner that switching coordinators solves the censorship problem, and admits to BlackHatCoiner that his motivation is simply to fight against Wasabi anyways:

Even if this change from Wasabi won't affect any of your inputs, they are no longer an entity which I can trust to fight for my privacy.

Would it be possible for some to start running coordinators?

Absolutely. The coordinator code is open source, so anyone can download it and spin up their own instance. That would solve the immediate problem if everyone switched to a different coordinator, but it doesn't stop these other coordinators being pressured in to implementing the same restrictions and it doesn't change the fact that Wasabi did this in the first place instead of fighting against it.

March 15 2022 - o_e_l_e_o admits that the data feed is a 1 way street from a blockchain analysis company to the coordinator, and that no data is provided to blockchain analysis:

In fact, they need to cooperate with blockchain analysis to obtain information about "taint" UTXOs.

Well, they only need to cooperate in this sense to have the blockchain analysis entity feed them data about which UTXO's to block. But as I said, if they cooperate like this then it won't be long before that cooperation becomes a two way street, with them feeding data back to the blockchain analysis entity.

[Stalker22]

Vod is the first and only person in this ENTIRE THREAD to address how o_e_l_e_o acted, everyone else just broke down emotionally because apparently just discovered everyone is a mortal.

You are a fucking idiot, simple as that. Fortunately, the community sees through your flawed judgment.

People have the right to have a different opinions.  And thats okay - we all have our own views.  Thats why there are platforms for discussion, such as this one.  But thats no reason to be a dick and wish death or harm on someone.  Thats the whole point here and you are the only one who doesnt see it!  There is no point in arguing with you about anything after this. 

[Kruw]

People have the right to have a different opinions.  And thats okay - we all have our own views.

You are confusing an "opinion" with "knowingly lying about innocent privacy projects to stop people from using them".  o_e_l_e_o was harming the innocent on this forum for years, and I've provided proof of it.

But thats no reason to be a dick and wish death or harm on someone.

I didn't "wish death or harm on someone".  I posted the proof that exposes o_e_l_e_o was tricking Bitcointalk users into leaking their data and losing their coins to the government.

[Vod]

Vod is the first and only person in this ENTIRE THREAD to address how o_e_l_e_o acted, everyone else just broke down emotionally because apparently just discovered everyone is a mortal.

I was trying to help you, and I came back to read this?

I did not address how anyone acted; I tried to help you express any actual concerns you had.   Not only did you mislabel my actions, but then you tried to use them as your evidence/"proof".

   

[Kruw]

I was trying to help you, and I came back to read this?

I did not address how anyone acted; I tried to help you express any actual concerns you had.   Not only did you mislabel my actions, but then you tried to use them as your evidence/"proof".

   

I didn't say you condemned o_e_l_e_o, I merely said "you addressed how he acted".  I am not pretending you validated my claims, I'm merely pointing out you are the first person to even approach the subject of o_e_l_e_o's conduct on this forum.  The proof I've provided is o_e_l_e_o's own words, not yours.

[Vod]

I didn't say you condemned o_e_l_e_o, I merely said "you addressed how he acted".  I am not pretending you validated my claims, I'm merely pointing out you are the first person to even approach the subject of o_e_l_e_o's conduct on this forum.  The proof I've provided is o_e_l_e_o's own words, not yours.

I did not address how he acted.   I did not mention anything about his conduct.  You have not provided any proof.

[mrust_mobile]

Let’s say for a moment, Leo was wrong, he deliberately bad mouthed Wasabi, he for some reason didn’t like the software, he misguided people… what are you trying to achieve here that you couldn’t in the wasabi thread?

Will you feel better if we agree with you?

[Kruw]

I did not address how he acted.   I did not mention anything about his conduct.  You have not provided any proof.

Here's where you addressed how o_e_l_e_o acted:

Do you have proof that o_e_l_e_o knew they were lies?

So what is the lie o_e_l_e_o knew was being told?

Let’s say for a moment, Leo was wrong, he deliberately bad mouthed Wasabi, he for some reason didn’t like the software, he misguided people… what are you trying to achieve here that you couldn’t in the wasabi thread?
Will you feel better if we agree with you?

I mean to establish how o_e_l_e_o deceived Bitcointalk users into leaking their data and losing their coins to the government.  In order to create these victims, he resorted to knowingly spreading lies about legitimate heroes in order to elevate the reputation of the custodians he was promoting.

Despite the huge threat of government punishment, these heroes develop privacy software.  Despite the lack of incentives, these heroes make their work open source to copy.  Despite these heroes standing in the way of the threat of a surveillance dystopia where you live a life of complete obedience, o_e_l_e_o fabricated lies and backstabbed these heroes.  No one has attempted to cause more damage to a free future than o_e_l_e_o.

[OgNasty]

Not everyone's grave is worth crying over.

I enjoyed reading the reactions to this quote. It’s actually pretty thought provoking and interesting to me that people allow their bias to cloud their judgement to the point it makes them see a lack of mourning as celebration.

[suchmoon]

Time to let it go.

Someone dying seems like a good time to let go of your grudges against that person. Try that.

Why didn't you make any attempt whatsoever to address the proof I provided against o_e_l_e_o?  It seems like you are just here to talk shit instead.

Except you didn't provide proof, merely a collection of cherrypicked BS, fallacies, and offended fee-fees. It's a waste of time to argue with people who are as detached from reality as you are, particularly when you're doing that just to stir up more shit against a person who you know can't speak for themselves anymore. Way to win an argument, tough internet guy.

I enjoyed reading the reactions to this quote. It’s actually pretty thought provoking and interesting to me that people allow their bias to cloud their judgement to the point it makes them see a lack of mourning as celebration.

There is a difference between lack of mourning (no one forced Kruw or Timelord or any of the other shitheads to mourn) and actively attacking a dying person. I wish that neither yourself nor your loved ones get to experience the latter.

[Hhampuz]

Not everyone's grave is worth crying over.

I enjoyed reading the reactions to this quote. It’s actually pretty thought provoking and interesting to me that people allow their bias to cloud their judgement to the point it makes them see a lack of mourning as celebration.

"Good Riddance" is most definitely a celebration. Especially since it was a thread made by leo himself basically saying goodbye and explaining the situation. There is no world in which behaving like that can be considered acceptable, especially if the only issue at hand is a difference of opinion.

[Kruw]

Except you didn't provide proof, merely a collection of cherrypicked BS, fallacies, and offended fee-fees. It's a waste of time to argue with people who are as detached from reality as you are, particularly when you're doing that just to stir up more shit against a person who you know can't speak for themselves anymore. Way to win an argument, tough internet guy.

What do you mean I "didn't provide proof"?  I provided a long list of direct quotes from o_e_l_e_o himself: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482198.msg63517432#msg63517432

There is a difference between lack of mourning (no one forced Kruw or Timelord or any of the other shitheads to mourn) and actively attacking a dying person. I wish that neither yourself nor your loved ones get to experience the latter.

Everyone who builds open source non custodial privacy projects is also a dying person, no one forced o_e_l_e_o to attack them either, did they?

"Good Riddance" is most definitely a celebration. Especially since it was a thread made by leo himself basically saying goodbye and explaining the situation. There is no world in which behaving like that can be considered acceptable, especially if the only issue at hand is a difference of opinion.

If o_e_l_e_o said he was going to go offline forever because he was going to become a Buddhist monk or Amish farmer in his "Farewell" thread, my "Good Riddance" response would be the same:  I care about the truth.  Liars being mortal does not stop the truth.

[Hhampuz]

If o_e_l_e_o said he was going to become a Buddhist monk or Amish farmer and go offline forever in his "Farewell" thread, my response would be the same:  I care about the truth.  Liars being mortal does not stop the truth.

So you are basically saying you have no basic human traits and operate under the same guise as a weak AI or pre-programmed chatbot? Noted. Here's a truth for you, which you should be able to accept; You're an asshole.

[Kruw]

So you are basically saying you have no basic human traits and operate under the same guise as a weak AI or pre-programmed chatbot? Noted. Here's a truth for you, which you should be able to accept; You're an asshole.

Actually, o_e_l_e_o is an asshole.  Do you think o_e_l_e_o stopped to consider the mortality and illnesses of these heroes?

Despite the huge threat of government punishment, these heroes develop privacy software.  Despite the lack of incentives, these heroes make their work open source to copy.  Despite these heroes standing in the way of the threat of a surveillance dystopia where you live a life of complete obedience, o_e_l_e_o fabricated lies and backstabbed these heroes.  No one has attempted to cause more damage to a free future than o_e_l_e_o.

Do you think o_e_l_e_o stopped to consider the mortality and illnesses of his victims?

Can you anyone recommend a Bitcoin mixing service that is legit, please? It seems there are a lot of scamming bastards around that purport to provide this service (I just had the misfortune of dealing with one).

Sincere thanks in advance.

Stop excusing o_e_l_e_o for being mortal, the innocents he was attacking and deceiving are also mortals.

[suchmoon]

What do you mean I "didn't provide proof"?

fallacies

Everyone's dying who builds open source non custodial privacy projects, no one forced o_e_l_e_o to attack them either, did they?

Fallacies is all you got, isn't it?

You must be fun at funerals. Or weddings probably too.

Priest: "Speak now or forever hold your peace".
Kruw: "The bride criticized the wallet I'm shilling. And other people have weddings".

[Kruw]

Fallacies is all you got, isn't it?

You must be fun at funerals. Or weddings probably too.

Priest: "Speak now or forever hold your peace".
Kruw: "The bride criticized the wallet I'm shilling. And other people have weddings".

Ah, so you know what fallacies are?  Then you can recognize that you created a strawman:

-In this metaphor, the bride falsely accused the software contributor in order to steal from people that the software contributor was trying to help.
-Many people do not get married, while literally everyone dies.

[Timelord2067]

"Good Riddance" is most definitely a celebration. Especially since it was a thread made by leo himself basically saying goodbye and explaining the situation. There is no world in which behaving like that can be considered acceptable, especially if the only issue at hand is a difference of opinion.

I'm sorry you feel that way - Leo knew he was unwell for a decade ^{(yet chose to behave in a certain way)} then choose to abruptly terminate his participation in the forum without (on his part) making any gesture to mend broken fences.  Having read his posts I knew the only way to get a response was a little shock and awe when I reached out from my side to see if he would clear his conscience before he finished posting.

Leo removed his DT trust/distrusts enmase after he made his last post.


I won't be responding to any more of the woke posts in this thread about this subject.

As I said in a post that was deleted by an admin/mod that has a personal vendetta against me:

A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by a Bitcoin Forum moderator. Posts are most frequently deleted because they are off-topic, though they can also be deleted for other reasons. In the future, please avoid posting things that need to be deleted.

..

Stop trolling and let the man die in peace.

Good bye Leo - rest in peace and thank you.

[JayJuanGee]

Leo knew he was unwell for a decade ^{(yet chose to behave in a certain way)} then choose to abruptly terminate his participation in the forum without (on his part) making any gesture to mend broken fences. 

We do not know enough to make that kind of a conclusion.  Sure Leo said that he knew about his illness for 10 years, yet we cannot conclude that he had enough information in order to take a course of action that would have had been more appropriate than the one that he had chosen to take - including the fact that many folks will fight their illness and even the idea of their mortality for much longer than is reasonable in order to expect any kind of recovery or any reversal in the degeneration that they might be undergoing. .and yeah we do not even know those kinds of specifics with any kind of level of detail or even generally, so we just might try to reasonably infer from what he had said.

I got the sense that Leo was purposefully being vague in his Farewell OP about specifics of his illness in order to potentially lessen the chances that some folks might read more details into his chosen explanation than what would be warranted. .and sure I suppose with any of us, we run risks when we choose to share any of our personal details.. and maybe we should not, even though Leo had stated some of the reasons that he had chosen to provide a kind of overview of the situation rather than details as a courtesy to some folks who he felt that he should provide some kind of framework to understand why he was going to be disappearing from the forum.. so maybe one of the lessons of how much Leo chose to disclose might be 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't."