Topic: Can we get a background check here? (Read 885 times)

You would also have situations where two unrelated accounts would appear as alts of each other if they by chance had the same exit node on Tor.

Happens all the time here when people use Tor and see and Tor IP ban in place when trying to login.



~BCX~

Disclosing accounts with the same IP's wouldn't stop most scammers honestly IMO, because most scammers would be utilizing a VPN, PROXY or TOR of some-kind anyway.

Theymos and the other administrators know how many accounts have been using the same ip's, and that's enough.

It is and must always be a feature that only administrators and higher levels can use.

We as users just have to use our common sense when trading, and that in combination with a trusted forum escrow. More can you not do.

This is never going to happen for reasons already stated. Not even mods have this priviledge and is only trusted with admins and for good reason. Giving people access to only half the info will cause more damage than good. I remember when BadBear became an admin and he said the first thing he did was check his account and it came up with loads of possible alts including a few big time scammers so without further info you could easily assume a upstanding user is a scammer.


It might stop a few who bother to use it but it will also enable a lot of the smarter ones. What happens when someone checks an account and it seems to be all clear but in reality he's just a really careful scammer or when a good, honest user has used a proxy that plenty of scammers also have? It will just lead to either a false sense of security or a whole lot of unnecessary paranoia.


Yes and that's why it wouldn't work and you need access to way more info to determine alts successfully.

One thing I don't understand about how this would work is that we may log in from different IP addresses.  I have logged in from many different IP addresses including some public and semi-public places.  Would my account be associated with others that have logged in from those places as well?  If you only looked at the IP address where the account was registered, what if someone has two account that were created from two different IP addresses?

Well said, thank you Mr. Spitoon.  I was more referring to a crackdown on scammers--officially, by staff.  I do agree that alts don't need to be listed like a sex offender registry but some folks are just overzealous.  What can you do.

Status Quo tends to start for a reason. It becomes an issue when the philosophy it is basing itself off of becomes outdated or obsolete. Exposing people's alt accounts like that isn't something we'd do. Something I see come up a lot is comparing rules/features here to those of other forums/sites. Think about the demographics of a poker site vs Bitcointalk. Which are more likely to be tech savvy and know how to get around any identifying measures in place? It would show tons of false flags based on people that have used Tor, those who want to hide their Alts would just be more careful, and people would be lured into a false sense of security.

If you are always on your toes, its a lot harder to get scammed. You let your guard down the moment someone says, "yeah you are safe".

Totally agree with you sir.  It's a bizarre stance in my opinion and yes, scammers flock to this place--and so do the suckers.  But you get mods and everyone else who defend the status quo to the death.  There's a lot of features/functions on this forum that are broken and some people just don't see it.  It'd be nice if Theymos chimed in or someone else with pull.

the forum its used on is www.pokerowned.com you will have to register an account to try it out.

I am reading everyones reasoning and i can agree with valid points in everyones replies so far but i personally am tired of seeing 20 new scams everyday in the scam accusation section and somethings gotta happen. This may not be the solution but at least im trying to come up with something vs alot of others doing nothing

http://www.pokerowned.com

No link to try it?

EDIT:  Sucks you have to register to try it.  Honestly not going to take the time, but it seems like it isn't a bad idea.

Stand up and expose people's alts you mean? This is literally the opposite of the reason why most of us use bitcoin, to avoid being tracked, do you think the scammers wont find a way around this? What if the person's IP is dynamic and not static? What if someone else uses my computer, should I be labeled as their alt?

Also, If I log into an account once, will the account be recorded as an alt of mine?
If so, wont it be easy to know the identity of sold accounts by looking at the alt of escrows?

waste of time

If someone has done some amount of serious "damage" via scamming, BadBear has outed their alts in the past.

If you decide to trust someone with a large amount of money whose identity you do not know, then no background check is going to prevent you from getting scammed. It is up to individual users to do their own research to decide if they can trust someone or not.

What do you think would happen when someone who comes back as "safe" on a background check ends up scamming a lot of people? Users would likely blame the forum/theymos because they decided to forgo doing their own research.

I believe the fact that the forum doesnt "moderate scams" or moderate acct sales and other things is half the problem. Users 100% know that they can come in here and fuck someone over with little to no consequences and just make a new acct and start all over. Its time we stand upand do something

The forum values privacy and anonymity which would go against the disclosing all of someone's alts. It is also not very difficult to hide the fact that a particular account is your alt.

The forum is also not in the business of moderating scams which is part of what you are proposing would do.

Mexxer-2's "alts" thread is literally a witch hunt, and the posts by individual contributors are often incorrect and use very flawed logic. Although I have not really looked into how accurate the alts listed in the OP are. I am honestly disappointed that the thread was stickied.

Hey everyone i wanted to put in a suggestion that could help users a little when making trades. Yes i know theres a good chunk of folks that are just too stupid to worry about protecting themselves, but this could be helpful to some of the users who make trades in this forum. If we stop a few scammers a week with this addition its essentially worth it right?

What i propose is a background check. Im a member of a poker forum that has this in place and it seems to be helpful when dealing with users. How the system is in used on this other forum is you go into the background check area.




You then proceed to enter the username you wish to make a trade with.



You will then see all the usernames associated with the users ip whom you searched. You also see a threat level associated with that member as well as some feedbacks left by other users. The whole system doesnt have to be implemented but all the way up to see usernames associated with that persons IP would be the bare minimum.





Now what would make this system even more useful is when users search a name and get the results they can reference a wall of shame or a scammers list. At the very least you can use mexxer-2s thread on alt accounts and cross check if any of the names on the list you generated come up with an alt that may be a scammer. Or obv look up each name thats associated with your search and check feedback.

Not a perfect solution but what do you guys think? Good idea? Waste of time?