Blowing the lid off the CryptoNote/Bytecoin scam (with the exception of Monero)

[mmortal03]

What sort of day will it be when monero blows past dash in market cap?  A good day I'd say, and possibly sooner than I'd thought.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4UqMyldS7Q

[StarTilla]

Is it a coincidence that minergate.com have all this coins pools (AEON, DASHCOIN, Moneta Verde, QuazarCoin, FantomCoin, ByteCoin, Infininium-8, XDN)?

And some of their miner's exe files are marked as dangerous by antivirus (trojans with MS SE and Kaspersky). https://minergate.com/downloads/admin

Advertising on Minergate.com takes us to hitbtc.com and to DCT (new coin https://freewallet.org/currency/dct). Both suspicious for me. Especially freewallet.org which include orthographic errors even in press kit:
"Freewallet is a team of developers, who aim to solve the “last-mile” problem for cryptocurrencies by creating mobile-first cryptocurrency wallets. Starting from January, 2016 the team has developed and successfully released a number of cryptocurrency wallets, namely FanctomCoin Wallet, Ethereum Wallet, Bitcoin Wallet and Monero Wallet."

Had some clues on minergate so decided to register account on bitcoin forum to ask this question. Not sure if new thread should be opened.

[owlcatz]

This is why I always tell people to avoid minergate. They once ripped me off .8 XMR as well. 

[smooth]

Is it a coincidence that minergate.com have all this coins pools (AEON, DASHCOIN, Moneta Verde, QuazarCoin, FantomCoin, ByteCoin, Infininium-8, XDN)?

And some of their miner's exe files are marked as dangerous by antivirus (trojans with MS SE and Kaspersky). https://minergate.com/downloads/admin

Advertising on Minergate.com takes us to hitbtc.com and to DCT (new coin https://freewallet.org/currency/dct). Both suspicious for me. Especially freewallet.org which include orthographic errors even in press kit:
"Freewallet is a team of developers, who aim to solve the “last-mile” problem for cryptocurrencies by creating mobile-first cryptocurrency wallets. Starting from January, 2016 the team has developed and successfully released a number of cryptocurrency wallets, namely FanctomCoin Wallet, Ethereum Wallet, Bitcoin Wallet and Monero Wallet."

Had some clues on minergate so decided to register account on bitcoin forum to ask this question. Not sure if new thread should be opened.

Agree with you except on this point:

And some of their miner's exe files are marked as dangerous by antivirus (trojans with MS SE and Kaspersky).

It is very common that miners are falsely flagged by AV. However, if one wanted to be paranoid that would make miners a good place to actually hide malware....

[Varuna]

I would like to add something creepy about the theory stating that Sabelnikov IS Saberhagen.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.
These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as need arises.

THEREFORE:

A man (or a team) creating a botnet (Kelihos) mainly involved in spamming and the theft of bitcoins [1] chosed to name himself (themselves) Sabelnikov, and then the man (or team) creating Cryptonote (and a series of scam coins) decided to name himself (themselves) Saberhagen, which is the surname of the man who wrote some novels about robotic self-replicating machines, which are very similar to a botnet...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelihos_botnet

CONCLUSIONS:

What are the real intentions of those people?
Fostering wide adoption of Cryptonote-based coins (maybe excluding Monero) in order to transform the coins' networks in gigantic botnets?

My opinion is that the whole Cryptonote thing has to be avoided like AIDS or pest and should be investigated a lot more.

[generalizethis]

I would like to add something creepy about the theory stating that Sabelnikov IS Saberhagen.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.
These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as need arises.

THEREFORE:

A man (or a team) creating a botnet (Kelihos) mainly involved in spamming and the theft of bitcoins [1] chosed to name himself (themselves) Sabelnikov, and then the man (or team) creating Cryptonote (and a series of scam coins) decided to name himself (themselves) Saberhagen, which is the surname of the man who wrote some novels about robotic self-replicating machines, which are very similar to a botnet...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelihos_botnet

CONCLUSIONS:

What are the real intentions of those people?
Fostering wide adoption of Cryptonote-based coins (including Monero) in order to transform the coins' networks in gigantic botnets?

My opinion is that the whole Cryptonote thing has to be avoided like AIDS or pest and should be investigated a lot more.

Even evil botnet overlords know that questions aren't conclusions--they're rhetorical devices of fear, uncertainty and doubt used to misalign the paltry brains of lesser creatures.

(where do you get your weed?)

[Varuna]

...and regarding all CryptoNote-based coins:

[1] Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel for Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday, saying the case was closed. But he did provide a statement.

"In the Kelihos case, we were able to identify the developer of the code as well as find out how the code was written and distributed," Boscovich said. "It's important to note that this investigation also revealed how cybercriminals leverage people in the industry to develop code for their illegitimate purposes and that, in some cases, the developer is unaware of how their code will be used upon completion."

[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2492811/data-center/russian-coder-puts-microsoft-botnet-accusation-behind-him.html

[smooth]

Fostering wide adoption of Cryptonote-based coins (including Monero) in order to transform the coins' networks in gigantic botnets?

No this theory is retarded. I have some monero nodes running on my own systems and they are not part of any gigantic botnet.

Moreover, there is relatively little of the original cryptonote code left anyway. Huge portions have been reviewed, rewritten, reworked or replaced and that will continue. Any plan to use Monero to distribute malware would have been long since subverted.

[Varuna]

Hi Smooth, thanks for your reassuring words.
I tend to become a bit paranoid when I see lots of people trusting a single entity (in this case the CryptoNote team) without substantial proof of bona fide.
I hope that the Monero team succeeds in reviewing the code in its entirety soon, so that any remaining doubt is dispelled.
I like Monero a lot and I don't want to spread FUD on a project which is gaining traction and has the possibility to succeed where others (mainly Bitcoin) failed, that is mass adoption by non-nerd people.

You have to admit, though, that the whole Saberhagen thing is creepy. Why did the CryptoNote author choose that surname as pseudonym?

Anyway I think that someone who really wants to do evil at a such big level does not fill the code and the documentation with hints to his intentions...
He may simply have a strange sense of humor :-)

[smooth]

You have to admit, though, that the whole Saberhagen thing is creepy.

No dispute. There are all kinds in the crypto world. Reasonable to be paranoid/careful too.

[Finger]

Thanks for this great topic o0
I literally will rethink my strategy because as happened i infiltrated to bcn/xmr market time ago & playing games with bots ...

And other thing is that its really weird after years of constant learning about cryptocurrencys overnight one can change a mind to unlearn whats learned. Scams really hits to fail mass adaptation. Win-win here was free bitcoin faucets, and alts failing here much from what i see.

[owlcatz]

Bumping considering the price change in BCN today.... Still a scam.. Thanks!   

[desjardins]

Bumping considering the price change in BCN today.... Still a scam.. Thanks!   

Such an obvious pump and dump 

[mrb]

rethink-your-strategy doesn't appear to be active anymore, but I'd just like to say that the original post in this thread is great detective work!

Someone should really do some serious editing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote which misrepresents the whole CryptoNote/Bytecoin story.

[btc-mike]

Someone should really do some serious editing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote which misrepresents the whole CryptoNote/Bytecoin story.

The wikipedia article appears to have been written by the Bytecoin/Cryptonote team.

[rethink-your-strategy]

rethink-your-strategy doesn't appear to be active anymore, but I'd just like to say that the original post in this thread is great detective work!

Someone should really do some serious editing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote which misrepresents the whole CryptoNote/Bytecoin story.

I'm still around when I get emails about thread updates. That Wikipedia article is fucked and definitely needs editing. Know any Wikipedia editors?

[jwinterm]

rethink-your-strategy doesn't appear to be active anymore, but I'd just like to say that the original post in this thread is great detective work!

Someone should really do some serious editing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote which misrepresents the whole CryptoNote/Bytecoin story.

I'm still around when I get emails about thread updates. That Wikipedia article is fucked and definitely needs editing. Know any Wikipedia editors?

Not sure if sarcastic, but anyone can edit Wikipedia articles. That's the whole premise of Wikipedia.

[Shiroslullaby]

One of the most interesting topics I've read on this forum and a great piece of detective work. 
Definitely a good idea to keep this topic alive with the recent spike in activity of Bytecoin.
(Even though its probably a quick pump and dump)

[Hueristic]

rethink-your-strategy doesn't appear to be active anymore, but I'd just like to say that the original post in this thread is great detective work!

Someone should really do some serious editing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote which misrepresents the whole CryptoNote/Bytecoin story.

I'm still around when I get emails about thread updates. That Wikipedia article is fucked and definitely needs editing. Know any Wikipedia editors?

Not sure if sarcastic, but anyone can edit Wikipedia articles. That's the whole premise of Wikipedia.

Some get locked and you need access to edit them. Mostly it's the political ones like global warming but if there is complaints a member with access privileges can lock it or verify you to edit it. But what you just stated was the initial intent.

There are topics that have edit wars and I'm not surprised that this would be one. I used to laugh at people that used wiki as their evidence in an argument but these days the info is much more reliable it is a laudable effort that had born fruit.

BTW I read  it years ago and pointed that out as well when I first got into XMR but completely forgot about it since then.

[AgentLvM]

Now I know all truth about you, BCN scams. So, MinerGate is the project of the same team, or no ?