Topic: [BitCoinTalk][COVID-19] Grim Reality (Read 2375 times)

Bump - India sets another one day record with ~4,250 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Please see this post in the thread [Flag] Bruno AKA Phinnaeus Gage, Gleb Gamow, YuTü.Co.in, Bitcoin 100 & ?? ?? concerning an account that has been hacked after the user has apparently died (as this thread tried to forewarn you all of)

I'm pretty sure Satoshi was well over even late 30's which is not old at all and hopefully covid doesnt alter that.    He has to be of that age to have caught the macro economic contrast from relative normality of previous decades to this century which has got increasingly bizarre monetary policy.   Unfortunately it has to matter because Covid represents an extreme but perfectly natural event in human history, natural deflation and a pullback in an economy where FED policy in theory could never allow deflation or a contraction because it could topple all these giant debt loads.
   The virus is serious but I think the deaths and trouble will not last as long as the badly handled failure from poor policy. I think history and the 1920's shows us that is easily possible not that I think history repeats but apparently governments have the habit of dragging things out which is to make it worse.  They are management at best not the actual economy, stand in the way or over interference and it becomes the problem.
   Young people have the disadvantage of not even knowing what normal is now, it could mean the onset of populism which means we waste time trying things which dont work, it did Venezuela no benefit or anywhere else

Sure, it is a wrong thought from young people. They also never have feeling of first using BTC to buy something, pizza for example. And of course, it costs 10,000 BTC to buy a simple pizza (this is just an example, I have never done that). Nobody will believe that a pizza in the past can turn them into billionaires in the present.

Sadly Bruno Kucinskas Jr. has gone to the great block-chain in the sky. (Obituary)

I have added him to the Honour Role I have started for anyone known to have died at this time.  There is also a Watch List for those who have fallen silent but it is unclear what their changed circumstances are.

Sadly, COVID has also becomes the excuse du jour for scammers as in "I have Covid so I can't refund you or send you what you paid for."  I have personally experienced that twice.  First one (see last post and neg he left me and his current "trust"): http://archive.fo/QmjZb  (he never refunded anyone) and the other one was in a PM to me.  I'm 72 and hiding under my bed.

After I posted about my health issue, I got several PMs from others who were in the same type of boat.  We have no idea how old anyone is on this forum.

Young people seem to think that a person in their late thirties couldn't understand bitcoin, but remember I mined my first hundred bitcoins, ran a mining guild and busted several large scammers before you guys even read the word bitcoin.   

This website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus has an accurate tally of people who have contracted Covid-19 as well as the ratio of recovered to fatalities which is currently running at 81% recovered Vs 19% deaths.

Bumping the thread for Bruno.
Please read: [Plead] Phinnaeus Gage's User Moniker Manifested Due to a Malignant Brain Tumor
I have sent a PM to homer for a new hat so that we can spread it all over the forum.

I've taken note of your thoughts that there will be a <1% fatality rate.  Thanks for your input, it's appreciated.

I do not have any statistics to back up my claim, just an assumption. As far as Bitcoin usage though, it's not unreasonable to believe that Bitcoin users probably skew towards younger users oppose to the boomer generation and higher. 

You might be on to something there.

I'm over 40 but I was already a stunningly unsociable git and this gives an extra reason to be so. However travel is my thing so I might lose my mind before my body collapses. I will wander the world in VR and hook up some sort of smellovision too.

I would also hope that people here have more than the average to be able to sustain themselves if things get tight for a bit.

1% of 110,000 active users is 1,100 users. In my OP I pared that number down.  If we said 1% of 50,000 UID's then that's 500 users.  ~0.5% of 50,000 users is still 250 UID's.  I'd be interested to see any research on the demographics of bitcointalk users to see where you come up with your numbers and break down of age groups.  I'm happy to amend the OP with links to statistics.

I feel like the type of Bitcoiners that are on the forum are recluses to begin with so they have a smaller chance of dying. You combine that with the fact most of the people on here are probably under 40 and you have a death rate significantly below 1 percent.

Source : https://m.slashdot.org/story/367522

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I guess he is worried about his own medical expenses and indicating the same ! I am at max level of sadness though.

That was a quote I saw somewhere showing the greed of people during times of need.  :/

"Acthar used to cost $40, but Mallinckrodt has raised the price of the drug to over $39,000 per vial."

Here in Canada we've stopped publishing "recovered" numbers, since that recovery test could be used to diagnose. 

Bruno, if you need a positive spin on your situation - you have a comfortable place to die.  Soon thousands of your countrymen will be suffering slow terrifying deaths alone. 

Stay free everyone - virus free.

Just to add one info if anyone can be interested in it.

Here in Italy, we have around 10% fatality rate but "Gimbe" a very reputable source says the number is way higher from the reality because a lot of people are asymptomatic and we haven't tested them all.

As reported here they are estimating this as yesterday prevision.


https://twitter.com/Cartabellotta/status/1242929342260244480

The problem with testing everyone is that it takes too long to do the test on the lab, if I'm not wrong they are talking about 7 hours for every test, and positive persons with symptoms need at least 2 tests.

Oh wow, that is not good.

I always enjoyed reading your posts, even if they did sometimes break the rules -- you always had a certain level of energy and enthusiasm in your writing. I also know that at least in your forum related dealings, you would always do the right thing, and would always push for the right thing. I have no reason to doubt you were any different IRL.

It really sucks you have to live your presumptive last days under lockdown due to the coronavirus. I hope you are able to experience something that brings you at least some amount of joy in your last days.

God bless, bud! 

Shit man, I'm not sure what to say... first I'm learning of this. I couldn't believe it until I saw your post/picture from January..  very sad to hear. You were a big inspiration to me back in the BFL days, and continued to be one throughout the years. I had a bit of an issue with the account selling stuff but I got over it, on a personal level. Keep your spirits up Bruno. I wish you the best.

Now, let me rehoist you back up on our shoulders and parade you around the forum in a pink tutu.

Sounds like an extremely challenging diagnosis, all you can do in these cases is your get your house in order and hope for the best outcome.   My father passed in the last year after some bad luck and bad health and I partly blame myself for not recording more of everything he knew as he had done so much for the house and the family for so long and invariably alot of what he knew was unwritten.  Even the smallest of things will be of comfort to loved ones while they deal with everything. 
   Let us know if you ever bored or tracking down something online, Im sure theres someone in the forum who can be of some help on a fair range of topics.

I'm seeing a guy of only 40 years on the news tonight struggling to breathe from the virus, that possibility of being gone before your time is prospect everyone should consider as far as security for those you care for.   In crypto terms that'd be something like having a plan to pass on the security for wallets etc. 

I'm sorry you have to endure this my friend. This is a messy time for anyone but I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for you. Thank you for sharing. Stay strong!

thanks, bud

Oh God  this is the saddest thing I've read today. Perhaps it is helpless when death exists before our eyes that we cannot do anything else. I really do not know anything to help you, praying is not a good thing, it will not help you. Instead, I think it would be better to continue living happily, for example traveling. But in this situation, you can't even travel. Damn virus 
This is the first time I've seen someone with this disease, hopefully you can overcome it to continue living happily 

thank you, guys

(I don't have use of my right hand, hence sentences not grammatically correct. I use Google Voice to copy and paste.)

Sorry to hear that bud.  Hopefully you pass peacefully, and in peace.

I forgive you for anything you ever did to me (although I can' think of anything).

Hope you are fine and get to a better health soon.
 
With LOVE.
Regards,

I sincerely hope that you are resting comfortably and hope that you are able to find closure in real life as well as here.

I have Glioblastoma, given ~2 months to live. I am currently at Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas, under quarantine for Coronavirus,

All levels of Government here in Fortress Australia are echoing the advice of the World Health Organisation.

• Wash your hands regularly including when handling cash
• Maintain Social Distancing (Aust advises 4 sq mtrs)
• Avoid large gatherings (Aust was at 500 persons outside and 100 indoors, but last night have changed that to ten out doors and fewer still indoors).
• • Stay at home.
  • Avoid large family gatherings.
  • Only travel out to buy food.
• Treat health care professionals with respect.  Care for them while they care for you.
• I'm sure there are more - we are all having to adjust to new normals.

I'm sure there are more.


People should continue to remain focused and active during any lock-down or stay at home.  500 out for more than 110,000 active users is a small portion of the users.  The forum will continue.  

Where it *might* come unstuck is if anything were to happen to @theymos or one or two others that hodl the purse strings and/or keys to the forum.


For six months there will definitely be a decline in participation of the forum - that's a given, but I have no doubt the forum will bounce back.  In Australia the staples are being stock piled: sugar, long life milk, pasta & rice, tinned and frozen grains (peas, corn, lentils, chick peas etc)  gravy mixes to name a few have all been panic bought...

...as has toilet paper.  

Stay Safe, keep in touch via electronic mediums.  Be sensible too.

In all fairness, JC's response had a different rationale in comparison to the former. The two differ in reason and are thus different ideas. The derivation of hypotheses changes the very nature of the hypothesis itself. For example, consider the FE gravitational belief of the Earthly plane moving upwards at 9.8m/s² as opposed to another belief in gravitational forces between matter.

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That being said, there is a lot of information parroting and unclear sources unfortunately do not stop the spread thereof.

I can feel huge decrease in the forum activity,not many threads were created,not much posts not sure where we are heading to due to this corina outbreak.I am also at lockdown now for the past two days huge demand for groceries here already.

Be safe guys...

Interesting post.

It was very thoughtful of you to put it on record that how many users are active and what coronavirus can do to us. Im pretty sure this will be scene in coming days.

But the question is, whether we will be still using Bitcoin Forum or any other forum when such high rate of deaths start occurring around us? I mean what would you do? Come on the forum, wander alone and offer xyz stuff to dead people?

Slowly forum itself will become inactive and no one would be there to manage us (if we are not dead in first place).

Grim reality is we are in dangerous pandemic situation and if overcomes the world then there is no meaning to the forum, money, crypto etc. It would be just life!

You can ask the same question to another member who also posted what is "best treatment" for COVID-19. If only the media is to blame in this case, or people who believe all they read/hear?

I heard that 'recommendation' on a local news program but seeing the reply by actmyname it made me look into it. Turns out it was one of those fake tips and tricks that have been making headlines lately. I am now surprised it was even mentioned on that show, which is well known over here for good reporting. Sorry, bad advice on my part combined with not thinking before posting!

But I do still suggest people should drink water and tea instead of fruit-like concentrate juice piss or soft drinks. I am not letting anyone take that part away.   

Thanks for your observations - as I've said to everyone else if you can provide a URL to back up your assertion, then I am more than happy to amend any previous post that I've made in this thread.


Clinical trials of potential vaccines are being worked on around the clock - I did briefly hear another drug to combat a previous virus might actually work on attacking the COVID-19 strain - if I hear anything concerning that I'll pass it on here.

Micro breweries are being converted to produce hand-sanitiser to bolster demand.  An example of which is the former cricketer Shane Warne's micro brewed gin distillery.

https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/shane-warne-turns-gin-distillery-hand-sanitizer-69722955

I did read an advisory earlier on high alcohol spirits as drinks to combat Corona and its actually a danger because it lowers immune response.   As a cleaning agent if you spilled your drink over the table and even better set fire to it, thats great but drinking like smoking I suspect is not the best choice for improving % odds.
    Oxygen supply or highly oxygenated drinks if thats such a thing, maybe or I was suggest Vit C drinks as its very easy to be low on this intake.

Statistically a widespread change to world would likely have some change to the forum but I think its going to be hard to guess how much.   The biggest deal is change in behaviour by everyone ill, survivor or uninfected and thats the biggest alteration.   So I thought OP was about to say more accounts created from a greater online population.    Also Corona can be passed and caught via paper money, surely this should be helping Crypto alot.   A side point is phones should be wiped clean regularly or its reducing benefits of washing hands.
 
On deaths, memento mori.  Unique active accounts 1% with another 0.1% to account for the forum membership in high risk groups who are a minority is my guess.        Overall dont be too down about this all imo, I'm quite certain the chances of dying in a car accident far out rate the dangers of this virus and people ignore this from familiarity hence ironically it becomes an ever greater danger.   Not sure thats a cheery note exactly but the biggest risks in life, the odds can be improved.

I work in a Vaccine industry and we have already started the isolation of strains for Coronavirus. As it seems the study is coming up with complex behaviour of the virus and its self modification in reference with the external environment.

In just few weeks virus has made itself sustain in harsh conditions like heat and cold. It can survive anywhere from zero degree (dormant stage) to over 60 degree's and thus making it more vulnerable.

However, with the isolation we have confirmed the pre-clinical testing to held in next 6 months so as to start developing raw vaccine to be tested in animals.

@Timelord2067, your assumptions are way far from correct as you would never know at what rate Corona will start spreading!

It may just occur that it will start multiplying at far greater speeds than the current one due to its all time evolving phases.

I am not sure if i look into this topic as mathematically fun with some serious background in it but scientifically its not worthy. (Just my opinion).

Can we substitute 120+ proof rum for the tea? Kill the virus on the spot or at least feel good failing.

Should I start snorting hot tea so that I can access my naval cavity, then? Take a look at the anatomical structure of your head...

Done?

Alright, now add in the fact that the circulatory system connects to most of the surfaces there via capillary systems.
Okay, now consider that blood circulates and passes right by your lungs.

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Yeah, call me a sceptic but this is what I expect to find on my grandmother's Facebook wall.

Now that I'm in isolation the only gloves I have to hand are boxing gloves. That's going to make typing extremely hard. Can the forum staff make extra big letters for people in similar situations?



Can confirm. I was giving a Liberian hooker cunnilingus when she suddenly remembered she had Ebola. I had a quick cuppa, killed the virus, and then we carried on as before. I really don't understand why all those nincompoops who died from it didn't do that. Sheesh.

I would appreciate any links you have that confirm that.

It is actually suggested to drink a lot of hot fluids on a regular basis, especially tea. Why? Because the virus stays in your nose and mouth for several days before making its way down towards the lungs. Drinking on a regular basis will wash down the virus towards your stomach where the gastric acid will kill it. So drink a lot throughout the day, whether you are healthy or sick.   

Especially if the power goes off even for a few hours.  


Contactless ATM transactions are happening here and now (tap and go is one name used) but no power, no bitcoin. (True paper wallets etc, but we just talked about NOT using paper/polymer money, so paper bitcoin wallets is out)

Transmission not only with paper money but other objects around us that have been contaminated with covid-19. It is true that paper money is a very vulnerable medium of transmission because it is used regularly by everyone and I'm sure not only Covid-19 may be contaminated but there are many other germs and bacteria.

There are many media that can transmit disease to someone without our full awareness, but if transmission can occur through direct contact with objects contaminated by viruses then wash your hands with antisptic or with running water every time you make a transaction involving banknotes and I think this action is a suggested effort.

Until now to get bitcoin or crypto I think we still need paper money and we still have other problems because not all countries legalize bitcoin and other crypto are used as legal currencies.

Yeah a cc stuck into a machine is safe for the teller.

Just remember to clean your hands after pressing keys on the cc machine

I actually received an email from a coffee shop chain here in Oz that said their employees will wash their hands after handling cash (as well as other time stipulated in the email), however the next day (today) said coffee shop chain's counter staff asked for credit card payment as they were reluctant to handle cash.

yep  4 numbers on wiki are

dead  175,000
dead  575,000

infected  700,000,000
infected  1,400,000,000


so  175,000/1,400,000,000  is the lowest death %    0.000125 death rate     x 3 =  0.000375 death rate

and 575,000/700,000,000 is the highest death%     0.0008214 death rate      x 7 = 0.00575  death rate

I have read this virus is just as contagious and is 3x to 7x as deadly.

So  if :

   500,000,000 infected   187,500 low death rate      2,874,900  high death rate
1,000,000,000 infected   375,000 low death rate      5,749,800  high death rate
1,500,000,000 infected   562,500 low death rate      8,624,700  high death rate.


Those are six simple models  pick your poison  huge difference in the numbers.

that 8,624,700 is  a crazy bad number.

On a more personal note my wife has a first cousin that is a nurse she lives in Long Island New York she and her husband have it.

For the past few days the government and doctors in my country issued a statement that the COVID-19 virus could be transmitted and infected through fiat money used for daily shopping., Because we do not know the money we have used has been used by people infected with the virus, if this happens every day that is infected with the COVID-19 virus will multiply doubled.

Doctor's advice, when we trade / buy with banknotes, it is necessary to wash hands, perhaps, which are held and touched by positive people attacked by a virus, quickly spread to people who hold fiat money.

The only way if this could be infected and killed by the COVID-19 virus, when in contact with fiat money automatically all people in this world must use the crypto currency in the sale / purchase transaction, in my opinion, it is to prevent increased casualties.

I don't think so, they are just comparing the best and the worst death case scenarios and where 575,000 are death out of 700,000,000 infected peoples is the worst case.

Thanks for your thoughts and estimates - I'm assuming in the first part of your post that the second set of numbers above should read 375,000/700,000,000 which would be half of the first value.

wiki has estimates on h1n1 during 2009-2010

175,000-575,000 dead 💀


700,000,000-1,400,000,000 infected.

lets pretend

575,000/700,000,000

worst death rate comes from that.


lets pretend

175,000/1,400,000,000

best death rate comes from that.

so that flu was 1 of 1200 worst death rate.

and 1 of 8500 best death rate.

I had h1n1 in fall of 2009 at the age of 52.

I had a 104.3 fever with chillibain symptoms for 10 hours.

worst flu i ever had.

so if this is 3 to 7 x as bad as h1n1.

we are 1 of 160 at worst to 1 of 2800 at best.

note did the math in my head so i could be off.

but if 1 of 160 people die off world wide that would really be bad. and yeah over 500 people would die here.

if 1 in 2800 die world wide maybe 30 people will die here.

Indeed I am - thank you for noticing.

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A couple of people have focused on DT1, this isn't about them - my example went down the pecking order DT1, then DT2 then non DT ranked members.  I could have easily (If I had a breakdown of the numbers) looked at Legendary, Hero ... down the line.  I also mentioned that although statistically it could be x of this rank, y of that rank and so on none of this can be said for certain and could be x^2.3 of this rank and y^0.9 of that rank.

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This is a perfect example of what I am looking for in this thread - evidence that a user stopped posting at this particular time, not after the storm has passed and they then don't come back (if at all) for a very long time.

 

I hope you and your acquaintance are making a speedy recovery.  Please keep us updated if you can.


Being more socially aware can be a good thing when self isolating and the evidence suggest the older you are, the more likely this virus will claim your life.


My intention with this thread is to alert people here that there will be some users who may just stop posting during this time, some we know well, others we may never have read even a single word of.


All good points in your post, I hadn't intended to focus on DT1, if you have that impression, then I'm sorry you thought that.  DT1 accounts are more valuable for resale once hacked - kenzawak is an example of a multiple hacked account.

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This is excellent news, it just needs to be tempered with the known fact that if a user awakens in a few years time who fell silent now, the user may well have died and the account has been compromised.

If a hacker suspects a particular account became inactive at this time, then they could put more effort into hacking that account unnoticed.


From the scarce hard data I found, the younger you are, the less likely you are to contract let alone die from COVID-19 so the game bois can safely keep playing minecraft in their mom's bedrooms.


How does the saying go, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance...

Which probably won't be the case. This could happen of course, but I wouldn't say its likely. The fact that hackers were brought into the conclusion also seems to be a huge jump. Unless, the hackers have information on you, then I would argue that a active person is far more susceptible to hacks because of social engineering, and various other attacks. There's a big misconception that there's a huge load of elite hackers out there that can work on practically no information, and hack users accounts. However, this isn't the case as I would argue most "hackers" are script kiddies, and the other hackers would likely attack the platform, and not individual users unless they were high level targets. For example, such as Satoshi's account or email, thus the account here has been deactivated. If we were to expect a large amount of accounts under attack, then it would likely be through a database leak, rather than individual attacks. Individual attacks would take far too long, and might even be impossible.



This has been something that I've questioned, and many others have. For example, people who are infected with the disease, but are dying from cancer are included in their statistics. However, it isn't clear what actually killed them, and they're treating it as a contribution to other diseases because of it putting more strain on the immune system, however in actuality it may have not been a contributing factor at all. The death rate might well be blown up due to these reasons, because it doesn't seem like they're waiting for a autopsy to confirm their conclusions as it seems that the statistics are up dated as soon as someone is positive, and then later died. I'm wondering whether the statistics upon review after this settles down will be greatly misrepresented.

Why would people believe anything they read and hear on news, tv and internet?

With stats not limiting only to covid, much more bitcointalk members and DT memberts would die from other old and well established viruses, diseases and old age.
Just sayin.

He is suggesting the amount of inactive accounts will go up 2 or 3 or 5 fold.

Isn't causality fun? There should be some error margin to fix due to the fact that dying of the virus is more involved than "get virus -> organ failure" but the nature of accumulated illnesses after-the-fact can also be disputed.

This kind of meta-analysis should be sought after in order to ascertain the definitive death rate. What are the chances of X occurring in a human with these illnesses? Then, add a strain of covid-19... what are the elevated chances now? Perhaps sigma of the weighted delta probabilities would grant us some more closure on the death rate. I'm not sure how countries' reported death rates compare in relation.

Ok, so I’ve been in contact with a confirmed COVID-19 positive over the past 10 days, but have not developed any symptoms (this is true, and fortunately the person is recovering fine). Should I not post in the coming days, either the synthons have made their appearance, or I’ve got an overwhelming amount of work to do, even on lockdown (although in the latter scenario I could always pop a post or two every now and then).   

By the way, there’s still a lot of fuzz around how the death rate is being calculated in different countries, and how it’s evolution is not necessarily due to clinical reasons, but rather statistical ones. For example, Germany seems to consider amongst the deceased only those where the Coronavirus was the primal cause of death. Other countries are considering those that, having died for any reason, had the Coronavirus.

Additionally, the more tests that are extended over to mild symptomatic cases, the less the death rate ratio. Spain is currently focused on testing those with clear symptoms, but not so much on those with mild symptoms, thus the death rate is higher, and will decrease as the test is extended on to the milder cases at some point.

I can't filter who might have disappeared from the forum because of the virus but you can get some hints by just check regularly Top 1000 merit receivers who were not active the past 30 days. Then you know who is "gone" for a while.
Then I should start updating this list more often.
We have a really bad flu here in Norway (not the corona one) and many people die from this one too, you can't focus only on covid-19, accidents happen every day.
Stay safe people

Oh dear, I must be the DT1 that is set to go. I'll buy some condoms, that should give me some protection.

Nor do I.  I also tend to think bitcointalk members are younger than average and would probably have a lower mortality rate than the general population--but I have no data to support this, just my impressions based on experience. 

I don't know how many members have died since I registered, either.  There have been a couple that the community was made aware of (like Zepher), but unless a member has on-forum friends that they know personally and someone notifies the community of a death, there's really no way to tell who's died.  And the only reason I'm writing this is because 600+ deaths of forum members is weird to ponder. 

And yeah, OP.  More border closings are probably going to happen, and I'm a little surprised countries haven't made that move sooner.

There's a lot of users that keep a eye on "high" level profiles on this forum. When I returned to the forum from a period of activity I had several users contact me to provide a signed message from addresses that I had previously posted on the forum. Dating all the way back to 2015.

As for the estimation of the deaths, that would be assuming that the spread of age on the forum is the same as the statistics in other countries. The statistics are chance of death will widely vary due to the fact that Bitcoin, the internet, and cryptocurrencies in general apply to a certain individual, and I would estimate that the younger generation is far more likely to be interested than those that are in their seventies plus. That also brings up the fact that there's likely a lot of programmers, and other users which can work from home, and significantly reduce the chance of getting infected. Unfortunately, due to the varying circumstances you cannot apply the same statistics of the current virus to the forum users.

I would estimate that the majority of accounts that can be hacked, have already been hacked due to the database compromises in 2015. Most active users would have likely changed their credentials or their credentials were already good enough to withstand the attacks that a malicious user could've performed on the hashed data.

I am just posting to confirm I am dead from Coronavirus. If you want to donate to my afterlife, my tip address is in my profile. Also God says hi.

We shoudn't consider a Legendary (or a DT1/DT2) user to be dead from the COVID-19 if they fall silent. There could be many underlying reasons and their privacy shouldn't be played with one way or another. If a DT1 user wants to leave the forum forever without a good-bye, it's their choice.

If a DT1 member of the forum died and a hacker took control over their account, I'd wish best of luck to the new user with using the exact same words and post structure the member had before. It's usually obvious when a new person takes over an account: take some of the threads/replies post his gap history and take some of the threads/replies pre-gap history and if there's a noticeable difference, there you go. You don't change your posting structure and wording in months.

As far as I know, the post history gaps are usually found by other members of the forum very easily so there's no need to create some kind of "deathlist" to find whether an user has died from COVID-19 or has been hacked after their death. That is usually noticeable. Moreover, we can assume the hacker will most likely reset the password - that's another little red flag. Connect all the dots and it's easy to find whether an user has been hacked or not. On the other hand though, I guess most DT1 users have a pretty strong password on the forum. Like come on - we're cryptocurrency users, we are interested in securing our wallets so we should be interested in securing our BTCTalk accounts too, right?

You asked this question:

"Can we please have a sensible discussion of this issue and any solutions to identifying UID's that fall silent during this period and are potentially hacked/brought back to life later?"

Why would you want to catalog these UIDs that "fall silent" during this period? Why wouldn't we approach the issue as we already do?

I am not interested in your topic around assumptions about members on this forum, I see a lot of assumptions made, there is no basis to confirm  But to talk about Covid-19, this terrible disease made me feel insecure  Ignoring temporarily the place I'm living, it's quite peaceful to worry. But looking at what is happening in Italy, Iran and some countries in Europe, I wonder how much worse it will be in the future. They seemed helplessly the damn spread of it  A real crisis is taking place  Meanwhile, recently, the UK still held a music festival for thousands of people attending, they didn't seem to be worried about the spread.

There is already an abundance of inactive Legendary and Hero accounts. I don't think this pandemic will result in a significant change in the number being hacked or reactivated.

If someone falls seriously ill with SARS-CoV-2 and spends time in intensive care, then they will be at high risk of developing post intensive care syndrome which can bring with it months of fatigue, cognitive impairment, memory issues, focus and attention problems. Bitcoin and bitcointalk might be the last thing on their minds for a considerable length of time. A period of inactivity surrounding this pandemic doesn't necessarily mean a hacked account.

Having said that, as with all accounts which have "woken up" after a period of inactivity, asking to sign from a previously staked address or PGP key is a sensible move, bearing in mind that accounts can be sold along with previously staked addresses or PGP keys.

Quite the opposite actually.

keeping it under 100 chars so as to not get paid for a post that's not informative while simultaneously asking why there's a correlation between hacked accounts and corona seemed like the best option to me

So again, with a fatality rate of 0.1%-0.2% between 20-50 year olds, considering 60% of the (active members of the) forum will get it, that'll mean ~ 60 deaths. Unless some high-profile users didn't secure their accounts properly, and then also died of corona (a statistical wonder for now) i don't really see the issue at hand here. Shouldn't we generally be looking out for accounts that seem hacked, etc..?

But, whatever floats your boat.


This is not a bad idea, but i think that this is already being practiced.

Okay, so then the account also needs to get hacked, after it has (obviously) been inactive for some time. Again, not a bad idea, but i think we all already regularly look/monitor DT1/2 accounts for irregularities.
(Plus the statistical chance of someone getting killed by Covid, that someone being in DT1, the hacker knowing the owner has died, the hacker actually being able to hack the account, seems pretty low to me. (For now.))

I guess i'm just not a fan of all this fear-mongering and speculation over relatively nothing.

I actually expected a more coherent response from yourself - did you just shit-post to get $6 $5 from your signature campaign?

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Your response is typical trolling - a mass extinction would be a far higher proportion of fatalities in which case most people would simply stop using forums.

For the purposes of the forum, I don't see how this would differ from business-as-usual handling of the issue. You're making too many assumptions. If there's mass extinction, I guarantee you we'll have more important things to worry about than whether bitcointalk accounts are hacked or not.

I don't see the correlation between a hacked account and someone dying from corona?

Reserved #2

Other issues and information gleaned.

Links:

Top 1000 merit receivers who were not active the past 30 days. - Author: iasenko

Reserved #1

Corrections, clarifications and concerns.

Links:



[FAKE] Covid-19 WHO website - author dkbit98

Tonight Australia and New Zealand have both closed our borders to all non residents with our National air carriers Qantas and Virgin Australia suspending flights (Qantas) after the end of March 2020 through end of May 2020 and (Virgin Australia) effective immediately.  I have no doubt that Air New Zealand is about to make a similar decision.  Cruise liners have already this week been barred from docking in Australia.

The same decision to close borders or regions is being made across the Globe: Italy, France, Spain are in lock-down and the Canadian/US border is closed to name prominent examples.

According to bpip.org there are approximately 116,862 active profiles as at a little while ago.



If we assume perhaps 6,862 user profiles are shall we say "mobile" alts of main accounts, then the actual number of active accounts drops to 110,000.  If we shave another ten thousand UID's off that number as alts being manufactured for any reason at all be it good, bad, or, indifferent reasons, then we have a certain 100,000 active and possibly unique users on BitCoinTalk.org

Grim reality.

(See links below for references - as the pandemic is evolving, the figures may vary higher, or lower - I will gladly adjust these figures up, down or sideways with links provided)

If 60% of this 100,000 active membership contracts COVID-19 ^{0} then we have over the next four to six months 60,000 of us who will become infected with the Virus.

If there is just a 1% mortality rate ^{1} among this 60,000 people, then six hundred active users will die.

If 3.4% of the 60,000 active BCT UID's contracting the COVID-19 VIRUS are fatal, that number becomes 2,040 fatalities.

At a 5% fatality rate, there will be 3,000 fewer users.

If the number of infections were 30% of all active users not 60% in the example above, then there is still the reality that up to 1,500 active BitCoinTalk users will die. ^{2}

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Interesting, but so?

If the spread of deaths is uniform (it never is) then at least one user on DT1 will die, maybe five to ten depending how old the user really is.   For DT2: Anywhere from a half dozen minimum on DT2 through a couple of dozen members.

Far beyond DT2 the numbers run into the hundreds of casualties.

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Over the next few months unless a user posts, or starts a thread announcing they have contracted Covid-19 and are posting a tentative "good-bye" (and then their account falls silent) we may never really know if a user dies or their account becomes inactive only to reactivate months or years later.

I can see hackers *might* try to hack Legendary accounts for resale or SigCamps and I can also see some lesser ranked Hero/Senior member for example using this pandemic as an exit scam strategy to pull a "too good to be true" exit scam.

Don't distrust, but be extra vigilant when doing trades.

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Source Material.

https://www.covidus.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
https://stsievert.com/blog/2020/03/14/covid-19/
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
https://medium.com/@quinterojs/covid-19-infection-growth-rates-lagged-mortality-rates-and-other-interesting-statistics-ff39f5408a21

Footnote: The W.H.O. website is actually a little thin on numbers of infections and mortality rates from a quick glance over their site.

^{0} Can't find a number on the websites when I went looking just now, so let's start with 60% of us contracting Covid-19...
^{{1 Link} Case fatality rates by age group in China. Now out-of-date, as data only through 11 February 2020} places under 50 year olds at <1% fatality and age 50 - 59 years of age at 1.4% fatality with the number climbing after that.
^{2} If a large majority of the 2.7 Million registered users (let's say 2.5 Million) are real, unique users, then using the figure 60% infections is 1.5 Million users with 1% fatalities (15,000 UID's) through 5% - 75,000 fatalities - At 30% infection those numbers are still surreal - 750,000 infections, 7,500 to 37,500 deaths amongst our ranks.

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Although there are warnings concerning "social distancing" and hand hygiene, I would like to also suggest one safety tip most always overlooked:  Brush your teeth regularly.  It might sound lame, but if you are coughing and spluttering all day long, the infection in your mouth will get re-swallowed and re-spread throughout your system.

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Can we please have a sensible discussion of this issue and any solutions to identifying UID's that fall silent during this period and are potentially hacked/brought back to life later?

Posting "I wish this person/group/country would die" is considered to be OFF-TOPIC and will be reported as off-topic...