Isn't it time to stop making the BTC-addresses of sig.participants publicly?

[m2017]

Since the time of the first signature campaigns on the bitcointalk, nothing of any real substance has changed. Specifically, anyone wishing to participate submits an application that includes their BTC-address (in the relevant topic). If the campaign manager accepts a participant, they add that address to a spreadsheet - which, in most cases, is publicly accessible. I have only ever encountered one such spreadsheet that required to provide email address to the manager before being granted access (accordingly, access was restricted to all outsiders). In short, this is all information you are already familiar with.

What is the point of this conversation?

Discussions regarding privacy and confidentiality are nothing new to the bitcointalk community. This raises a question: why do campaign managers require users to publicly disclose BTC-addresses, and why do they keep lists of campaign participants accessible to the public? Such information includes specific personal data (such as bitcoin balances, usernames, BTC-addresses, transaction histories, and links to other addresses), which, given the transparent nature of the blockchain, creates a fertile ground for analysis by anyone with internet access. While the BTC-community is quick to express outrage over data breaches (such as those involving hardware wallet manufacturers), it remains largely indifferent to the public exposure of BTC-addresses. Granted, this level of transparency (BTC-address required for participation in signature campaigns) has proven useful for tasks like identifying multi-accounting, but isn't it time for campaign managers to implement some changes?

Everyone knows that bitcoin is only pseudo-anonymous, and it would be imprudent to openly reveal BTC-addresses, wouldn’t it?

A few thoughts:
Perhaps, when applying to participate in a signature campaign, it would be better not to disclose the BTC-address openly; instead, it could be sent to the campaign manager only after the applicant has been accepted into the signature campaign. This would prevent all applicants from flooding campaign managers with private messages, as they would only share this information once officially accepted.

Another point: the spreadsheets could be made private, accessible only to the signature participants. Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, as signature participants themselves could be the source of a leak; therefore, access could be restricted so that each participant can only view their own personal tab within the spreadsheet, without being able to see the information of other participants.

Naturally, this would require additional time and effort from the campaign managers, especially considering the number of signature campaigns they oversee and the total number of participants involved.


What do campaign managers, signature participants, and, more generally, users and readers of this forum have to say about this? What is your take on it?

[Bitcoin_Arena]

The major reason the addresses and the list of participants are in most cases public is simple. It's for the sake of accountability and transparency. Start encouraging hiding lists of participants and payouts, and you will breed fraud, corruption, and conspiracy theories.

People need to see who has been picked to join the campaign, who has been removed, and who is receiving what.

1. If you are uncomfortable with people knowing how much BTC you own from the signature campaigns, then move the funds to your unknown private address.
2. Often use fresh addresses for different campaigns
3. Avoid participating in signature campaigns.

[LoyceV]

I'd say this belongs in Service Discussion, not Meta.

transparency

It's been brought up before, and it always comes down to this.
Anyone's free to make a private deal, and any campaign manager is free to change their system. It's a free market, and I don't think the forum should enforce anything in this area.

I see the point though, and it would have been a nice experiment to run a campaign with only Silent payments, but I've never seen one. It just adds complications that so far nobody wants to deal with.

[Woodie]

With all the data mining happening, let's not make it easy for prying eyes..this is a welcome move but for the sake of accountability, access to these spreadsheets can be extended to a few privileged users of the forum that can do their own investigations should something be off, otherwise welcome move!


Btw how did the Sin*** payment address end up being blacklisted, was it not for the same reason such that payments for the last round didn't go to the campaign participants as those funds were hot 🔥and I believe exchanges monitor these addys to, and if not luck funds will be withheld.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

It's not a forum policy or a standard of signature campaign management but some managers have different management styles with some hidden information in their campaign spreadsheets.

Campaign managers can do their spreadsheets by their own favorite ways, there is no rule from the forum about it.

Like Ab de Royse777
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3kRCqwEhWK8oH5wuxUtddKvwo0U3-vD/edit?gid=1254750203#gid=1254750203
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BNBx69RUlQtxeDqd7Slh6hgcu661DK2G/edit?gid=1049415710#gid=1049415710

icopress
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Lf5eO1TQvUG8DP5G2ucSZUGsqO7khV_PaU05s8gd5cA/edit?usp=sharing

Btw how did the Sin*** payment address end up being blacklisted, was it not for the same reason such that payments for the last round didn't go to the campaign participants as those funds were hot 🔥and I believe exchanges monitor these addys to, and if not luck funds will be withheld.

Exchanges have their anti money laundering tools and they can find that your bitcoin from campaign payment is from a mixer or a sanctioned entity.
Be careful using Binance & Centralized Exchange.
Sanctioned Services and the service traceability to this forum, Any danger?

[_act_]

I also do not think this should be on the meta board.

This is a good suggestion, but campaign managers have different ways of managing their campaigns. Anyone that do not like his bitcoin address to be seen can decide not to apply to join a campaign.

I do not think the campaign money received by users on this forum should be a threat to them.

If some people know your identity on this forum, you can always move your bitcoin to a mixer or an exchange and then send it to another addresses on another noncustodial wallet.

[Findingnemo]

This isn't related to meta but to the service discussion because campaign managers are solely deciding how the application format should be and how to apply for it, so if it requires btc address to post publicly in a thread, then it is how it is.

And in ALTT manager hidden the BTC address and many other details except the list of users who are participating while others are still following the old application format.

[Hypnotizer]

What do campaign managers, signature participants, and, more generally, users and readers of this forum have to say about this? What is your take on it?

The signature participant can do their due diligence to avoid anything that can leak the information about how big their stash is by creating a new and different address for recieving signature payments.

It’s as simple as that, clearly separating your Hodl address from your signature campaigns address can prevent this without compromising the accountability and transparency involved in signature campaigns and this wouldn’t add any more workload to the campaign managers.

I remember reading a post on this forum recently, the poster said he checked an address of one of the big members on the forum and was surprised by the amount of stash he saw. So this concern is valid but the participants themselves can prevent this..

[LoyceV]

What about all the alt accounts that got busted after sending their signature earnings to the same address

[hilariousandco]

If you're concerned about privacy then this is something you should speak to the campaign manager about. I'm sure some may help you out if you explain your reasoning but otherwise transparency is usually better for reasons others have already mentioned.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

If I can remember correctly I think, this topic has actually been discussed before. Anyways the thing is you can't make the campaign payment process totally flawless privacy and transparency wise. Even if you don't make it public, the process is still flawed of address reuse.

On the other hand publicly making it available calls for transparency which is very important in a forum like this. If you further want to improve privacy you can do that later by bridging or consolidating.

[Livingleged]

~snip
What do campaign managers, signature participants, and, more generally, users and readers of this forum have to say about this? What is your take on it?

My take on this would definitely be transparency over privacy in this case, unless you want campaign managers to start experiencing a situation where users/participants will take advantage of that privacy and finds a way to get them self accepted into two different campaigns with one account and be switching signatures and avater on different days of post count and payment.
That would really be easily pulled up by criminal if the spreadsheet are personalised, Think about that.

[coinlary]

~snip
What do campaign managers, signature participants, and, more generally, users and readers of this forum have to say about this? What is your take on it?

My take on this would definitely be transparency over privacy in this case, unless you want campaign managers to start experiencing a situation where users/participants will take advantage of that privacy and finds a way to get them self accepted into two different campaigns with one account and be switching signatures and avater on different days of post count and payment.

That's not possible.

The campaign manager monitors both signature and avatar of every user in a particular campaign they are managing. Even only change in avatar means you've moved on to another  campaign and you will be removed withoutbeingpaid. I did experienced that when I moved from Rainbet to Rollbit earlier  this year.

The only exception is if you rent out the signature and Avatar separately to different campaigns.

At the same time, I don't really see a direct relationship between that and your bitcoin address submitted to a campaign, all the necessary reasons to make it public has already been mentioned by others.

[GhostOfBitcoin]

If I answer your questions, from my perspective: Since Bitcointalk is a public forum, there is an aspect of transparency and community auditing here.

Again, while the idea of hiding the address or submitting it later during a signature campaign application might sound good, practically it would significantly increase the manager's time and workload.

Because addresses are available in the public spreadsheet and public forum posts, it makes the job much easier for other community members to catch alt account farming, farming accounts, and spammers which you have seen plenty of proof of from previous cases involving multiple/connected accounts.

If the spreadsheet is made private, transparency is likely to be destroyed, and there will be no way to monitor from the outside whether internal corruption or nepotism is taking place.

While it is true that public Bitcoin addresses create privacy risks, working on the forum requires accepting this level of public auditing. Furthermore, those who are particularly concerned about privacy can regularly use new addresses or mix/swap their funds to another address after receiving payment.

[PrivacyG]

I thought some of the requirements were not really productive to the Forum or necessary at all, such as joining a Telegram group, being asked to often check Google spread sheets, a minimum post count per week for a particular section and others.  There are other things I would never do, such as creating an account on a website where I would then receive my payment as a 'deposit' and having to go through withdraw process, possibly Know Your Customer and all of that to get my payment finally in my own Wallet.

But I never thought it is a bad idea to make the Bitcoin Addresses of participants public.  Most of us have it posted on our profile any way and publish an Address at least once per account life time.  If there is a Privacy related problem about that Address or Balance showing up, there are ways to break the link.  Coin Join, Monero, what ever.  I always argue that the way Bitcoin functions in a public, fully transparent way while having the option to break the link if you want is the best way to do things.  Imagine Signature Campaigns started by Mixers, if these had private payments then Bitcoin Talk would have looked way more shady to any body who wanted to investigate the situation.

I was curious recently if there is any Monero paying Signature Campaign, and I do not believe there is any as I found none.  Which is kind of a surprise, but also kind of not.  I am pretty sure I have seen spread sheets before where I knew some well known Members were part of that campaign but did not appear on it, so just like hilariousandco thought, I am sure some managers also do 'private' deals if they consider them to be worth it.

Privacy is extremely important but there are some situations where I believe going fully private is not necessary, not worth it or can even possibly be damaging.

[m2017]

The major reason the addresses and the list of participants are in most cases public is simple. It's for the sake of accountability and transparency. Start encouraging hiding lists of participants and payouts, and you will breed fraud, corruption, and conspiracy theories.

I, for one, thought it was simply because that’s what everyone is used to.

Reporting could be made partially hidden - that is, without including the BTC-addresses.

People need to see who has been picked to join the campaign, who has been removed, and who is receiving what.

That’s not the point; the goal is to hide only the BTC-addresses. There’s no reason to hide any other information.

1. If you are uncomfortable with people knowing how much BTC you own from the signature campaigns, then move the funds to your unknown private address.

So that it’s easy to track on a blockexplorer?

2. Often use fresh addresses for different campaigns

Each of which is available in the spreadsheets for any sig.campaign (even those that ended many years ago).

3. Avoid participating in signature campaigns.

This is exactly why I like this forum. Whenever bring up a problem, someone is bound to offer a "brilliant" solution (instead of actually looking for the best one) along the lines of, "If you don't like it, don't use it".

4. It’s actually surprising that don't suggested using mixers or swaps. Those are all just "crutches" for a workaround, when the real solution could be much simpler.

I'd say this belongs in Service Discussion, not Meta.

Thank you for pointing out my mistake. The moderators have already moved the topic.

It's been brought up before, and it always comes down to this.
Anyone's free to make a private deal, and any campaign manager is free to change their system. It's a free market, and I don't think the forum should enforce anything in this area.

I never said that the forum itself should regulate this. The forum users need to arrive at some sort of "unwritten" standard (which the majority will accept voluntarily, because it is advantageous) that works for everyone (after all, the current standard for running sig.campaigns had to emerge somehow, didn't it?). This can't happen without discussion or, alternatively, it would have to be imposed by force by the campaign managers.

I see the point though, and it would have been a nice experiment to run a campaign with only Silent payments, but I've never seen one. It just adds complications that so far nobody wants to deal with.

I, too, am coming to the conclusion that this is primarily a matter of additional complexities, rather than it being impossible to implement.

With all the data mining happening, let's not make it easy for prying eyes..this is a welcome move but for the sake of accountability, access to these spreadsheets can be extended to a few privileged users of the forum that can do their own investigations should something be off, otherwise welcome move!

Access for BTC-community-respected users (auditors) to perform detection.

Start encouraging hiding lists of participants and payouts, and you will breed fraud, corruption, and conspiracy theories.

If one silently accepts the current state of affairs, nothing will ever change. That is why discussion is necessary - to at least attempt to find a good solution.

Btw how did the Sin*** payment address end up being blacklisted, was it not for the same reason such that payments for the last round didn't go to the campaign participants as those funds were hot 🔥and I believe exchanges monitor these addys to, and if not luck funds will be withheld.

Thanks for the tip, that thought hadn’t occurred to me. And, in fact, this could also create a problem for sig.campaign participants, if not now, then at some point in the future.

It's not a forum policy or a standard of signature campaign management but some managers have different management styles with some hidden information in their campaign spreadsheets.

No one is challenging (and heaven forbid anyone should try! ) a campaign manager’s right to independently develop their own approaches to managing sig.campaigns. I am simply calling for a discussion on this topic, one that includes the managers themselves, in the hope that some of them might take the arguments raised during the discussion to heart and decide to adjust their personal management approach.
 

Like Ab de Royse777
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3kRCqwEhWK8oH5wuxUtddKvwo0U3-vD/edit?gid=1254750203#gid=1254750203
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BNBx69RUlQtxeDqd7Slh6hgcu661DK2G/edit?gid=1049415710#gid=1049415710

icopress
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Lf5eO1TQvUG8DP5G2ucSZUGsqO7khV_PaU05s8gd5cA/edit?usp=sharing

This suggests that some campaign managers are, in fact, aware of the risks associated with publicly disclosing BTC-addresses. Nevertheless, these campaign managers continue to follow the traditional application process, which requires users to provide their BTC-addresses as part of their submission. Consequently, anyone interested can still find all these BTC-addresses within the relevant discussion thread - even if they aren't consolidated into a single spreadsheet.

Alternatively, participants could provide one address when submitting their application, and then, upon acceptance, share a different BTC-address directly with the manager; this second BTC-address would then be the one actually used to receive rewards. How about this option? But this is on the condition that the spreadsheet is made inaccessible to the public (though other participants will still be able to see this information, won't they?).

It’s as simple as that, clearly separating your Hodl address from your signature campaigns address can prevent this without compromising the accountability and transparency involved in signature campaigns and this wouldn’t add any more workload to the campaign managers.

So, the sheriff isn’t concerned with the Indian's problems? I gather that most people hold the view that everyone should look after their own privacy.

What about all the alt accounts that got busted after sending their signature earnings to the same address

One could allow "detectives", users like @lovesmayfamilis to audit the hidden spreadsheets containing participant data, as they would likely continue their hunt for such alt accounts.

I wouldn’t assume that the established format for sig.campaigns and the application submission process were designed specifically to track down multi-account users and cheaters. It’s more likely that, when these sig. campaigns first emerged, the possibility of people creating alt accounts wasn’t even anticipated. It was only later that particularly cunning users realized they could use this as a way to earn some extra money.

If you're concerned about privacy then this is something you should speak to the campaign manager about.

You’re probably right. It’s the simplest approach and the one that requires the least effort from everyone for maintaining privacy. I’ve taken in everyone’s input, and now I have some things to reflect on.

Thank you all for your advice, recommendations, and the thoughts you’ve shared.

If I can remember correctly I think, this topic has actually been discussed before. Anyways the thing is you can't make the campaign payment process totally flawless privacy and transparency wise. Even if you don't make it public, the process is still flawed of address reuse.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see that discussion. Could you share a link? Perhaps I’ll find some other useful ideas there.