Topic: Fighting scam and crime online means supporting privacy (Read 230 times)

I completely that it has become a very common happening. I just shared my thought some few minutes ago on a thread in the forum about similar issue; $473 million lost in just the first half of 2024 to scams and hacks. Even though in that thread I made a call for these crypto platforms to improve their security, I would add here and support what you have mentioned that we all need to work together to fight these bad elements. If they work together to perpetrate their scams and hacks, we should also work together to expose them. In my local parlance, they'll say if you see something, say something.

Criminals are favor to protect their privacy and hide their identities but it's wrong to say if any person who is seriously with privacy, he or she will automatically be considered as same as criminal.

Everyone has privacy and has basic human rights to defend privacy. Blockchain, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency attract people globally to store their wealth, asset and move fund as alternatives for traditional banks. We don't need reports to see this trend actually drains a lot of money from banks to blockchain. So governments and central banks have to do what they see necessary to defend their power and business. By doing this, they violate citizens' privacy and make the world more abnormal, against traditional terms we knew before 2009 or just some years ago.

Unfortunately I believe Privacy will continue to be linked more and more to Crime no matter if more or less Criminal activity takes place.   It is a good initiative, but I think it is not useful to painting a more positive image about Privacy.  We will continue to be seen as Outlaws and Criminals, even if we never do any thing bad.

Or do you think I am wrong and this would help restore its image?

Supporting privacy can greatly help in combating crime and online scammers, but unfortunately there are not many options available to do so, especially with the government authorities’ insistence on fighting privacy on the basis that this is the most effective way to combat crime in its various forms (fraud, money laundering, Forgery...) And she may be right to some extent in that, but this will always be at the expense of individuals’ privacy, just as is done with the banking system that does not support any direction in which there is a guarantee of privacy.

As long as the government is the only guarantor of tracking down and holding fraudsters and criminals accountable, the best advice would be to ensure that any service we use on the Internet has the necessary activity licenses and can be held legally accountable in case of any suspicion.

Scammers do a lot more than just take away people's money unjustly, they paint bitcoin a very bad image and increases the fear people have for the precious coin. I was discussing with a friend who I intend recruiting into the crypto space and he told me he didn't want to loose his funds to scammers. It dawned on me to the extent people now misunderstand crypto and relate it to ordinary online gambling activity or Ponzi to make matters worse.

I wish there can be a joint fight against scammers by all cryptocurrency service providers, like a kind of platform where every service provider has their representatives in form of AI to clear people that intend using it of the originality of any services they are presented with, that way the scammers wouldn't be very successful as everybody knows a common environment to verify every claim before proceeding

Even you have or try to have a maximum privacy its just one click that can destroy this all.
Writing that you can never be a victim of such things is the biggest mistake you can make.
Be always aware that the next thing you download or click on a Link can you get into big trouble when its related to Crypto.

I agree about the fighting of scams by exposing what the intentions are and try to really show the world the possible techniques that they may have in store. Every time I experience something like this, like receiving spam emails and such that are obviously scams, I post it here in Bitcointalk to make others aware that there are actual evil people who do this everyday and it's supposed to be shown with light.

It's always a double-edged sword, you know? Like if you are agreeing with privacy but there's abuse with evil doers. It's very hard to find the balance.

If we understand the way to go about how we can achieve having maximum privacy from what we do, then we will realized that scam will be far away from us and we can never be a victim of such, if we are also to be in considerations of other people who had been scammed before, we will discover how they have lay low their privacy control measures in which serves as entry point to scammers that attacked them because of their mistakes.

Actually the government is also fighting to put and end to those scamming that has been going on in the internet, the government is really pressuring the scammers they are trying so hard to make the internet unconducive for them. first they started from this micro finance Banks it has gotten to there notice that most of those scammers have been using those micro finance Banks as a means of extorting money from people, that is why the government decide to come up with a plan of introducing kYC because they know that's the best way to trace scammers.

I agree that we always should fight and report them wherever we see or find them.
Sometimes there are some points to try to catch them even its a Time consuming process.

Thats not the main problem for catching them and expose the real identity behind all that Fake Links and stuff.
If you know and have the right Tools for and have some knowledge to use them you find them.
On top of that if you have some special connections to the Cybercrime department it helps very much.

A few years back we got a victim from the german board from the Fake Malware download Links i am fighting.
With all the Information i got ( TXid , Btc Address where the coins was moved) it was possible to find the Scammers Account on an exchange.

And here are coming the main problems , mostly the exchange is in an other Country.
The Laws there and terms and conditions of the Exchange and such stuff is the problem.
A court order issued by the public prosecutor is required to obtain the persons personal information in order to then punish him.

And this is where you get stuck

They must do perfect procedure for their scam since their beginning because if procedure is broken somewhere, at start, in the middle or at the end, they will be detected.

Like CM, when that man or that team started their business, they did not think their project will succeed and did not care about privacy. I read discussions in bitcointalk that CM is nearly impossible a business which runs by a single person but let's say we don't care it is a one-man business or a group-business, the fact is they left traces at start and nearly at the end.

Your example looks perfect but with Bitcoin, if they make mistakes, they will be caught too.

Fighting against scammers and online criminals means fighting to defend privacy, it's not completely like this OP.

Even if we cannot catch the scammers who are always trying to remove traces of their fraud behind them and create new schemes, the simplest positive thing we can do is to expose and attempt to destroy and tarnish what they have made and promoted to target and steal from victims, by publishing a topic supported by evidence and explaining the fraud method they used, whether their scheme was a phishing domain, or one of the malicious programs that contain Malware, or fake services and browser extensions, and so on.

Any action we take by reporting their schemes and accounts will be crucial in deterring many beginners from scams. Also, increasing awareness among people and familiarizing them with scammers' constantly evolving techniques and the necessary preventive measures will significantly reduce the fraud rate, thus thwarting the scammers' ambitions.

We should always fight against online scams, and scammers should be punished. However, arresting them depends on their own mistakes. If the scammer knows what they are doing and properly uses the available privacy-enhancing tools, I highly doubt there is any point in spending time trying to catch them.

Picture this: A scammer uploads a compromised version of Electrum on GitHub and directs gullible newbies to it as a phishing attempt. He can use Tor to create the repository and then exchange his stolen bitcoin for XMR. There's absolutely nothing that can be done to catch him.

Fighting online scams, In the first place, scams can never be permanently eliminated but they can be reduced to its minimum. There will always be victims coming from fraud because these set of individuals have failed to give listening ears. Frequently emphasize on the scamming projects and losses involved. I'm a trader and doing what's best for me, always paving path for growth within my space. Crypto can also harm us because there's more to offer and there are traps been lay out in the space.

Well, I think a lot is ongoing by the government, through the SEC to ensure that every privacy tools is not so private so as to keep an eye on activities as regards cryptocurrencies, most especially those with suspicious motives.
In some way, I think the regulation of cryptocurrency in many countries is because of this singular reason of online scams and crimes, most especially money laundering.
It would help to develop oneself in the area of privacy protection and detection of scam ads, because one can never be too sure how they come mostly when one is in need or depressed and looking for a thrill that will last a while.

The forum is one major place scammers can easily get exposed, because for every information you drop here about any new project, the community members are going take time to scrutinize the authenticity of that information you're putting out, so people won't fall victim.
Yes no doubt about the fact that scammers would want to hide behind privacy to perpetuate evil, that is their Modus operandi, however genuine people are still going miles ahead to unravel their evil plan. But one major thing that make scammers succeed their victims is greed from the victims side, because these scammers will bring stories that are too good to be true, instead of you to do your own verification, or just tell the scammer straight up that i cannot believe you, because your story is too enticing and I'm finding it hard to believe, then stop them from further conversation, you will the victim elongating the conversation and supposedly give vital information to the scammer.

Even though its good practice if scammers and scams are getting exposed by people who get scammed by them, I don't think this can completely solve the problem because scammers will always find different ways to scam people and if one of their ways is exposed, they will find another way, they will change their method, they will create more scam platforms or phishing links and other stuff that they use for their actions, and they will still be able to find new victims.

A person can only be safe from every scam if they understand that they aren't supposed to believe everything they see or read over the internet because most of these aren't true, especially if something is too good to be true because scammers mostly lure people with offers that are too good to be true.

Ig we realized the need for privacy, then scammers will not even perceive where we are not to talk of considering using us as their target on scam, in most of the cases of how scam took place, if you dig deep in the causes for that and how it all happened, we would have been the one that have granted them access to make them scammed us by the way of how we have been appearing vulnerable for an attack, which they see and took against use.

Anyone who always fails to expose scammers or other criminals might end up becoming a victim one day. Even if you are not a victim, someone close to you might be affected. I have a tradition of removing any sharp or harmful objects I see around my location because I have the orientation that anyone can wounded by such objects. This is how we should always expose and remove criminals from the crypto space.

We shouldn't say it is not our business because these criminals are giving the crypto space a bad name or reputation. It is our responsibility to report these criminals and warn others not to become prey. I have always exposed projects that I think are fraudulent through my comments, but discovering that @Lafu has a dedicated thread for such reports is a good discovery for me.

Privacy in crypto or at least with bitcoin is nearly impossible now thanks to governments (Pun Intended) for shacking mixers and implementing strict KYC requirements for every crypto service platform.

I want to remind you that online scams and hacks existed even before cryptocurrency and this complete anonymity thing so this is just an excuse from the government to hide the fact that their centralized system is even impotent in tracking down these scammers. I agree we should expose the one behind any kind of illicit activity for the good but we can do a tiny part in the big picture.

Especially in crypto, scammers and criminals are crossing our ways frequently, causing losses and damage to victims.

Unfortunately, scammers and criminals are abusing privacy to hide behind, to be protected from getting exposed and caught.
As a result, it’s happening sometimes for privacy to be tied to scammers and criminals, what’s very sad because privacy is also crucial to protect us against scammers and criminals.

Here, we can start to act and try to bust any scammer and criminal. We can do our part to help that privacy doesn't get abused by fraudulent actors.

If all fraudulent actors cannot be sure to still get exposed despite abusing to hide behind privacy, and all criminal activities will be exposed and get held accountable for fraud, we will see much less fraud. In conclusion, our goal should be to expose criminal people and not allow criminal actors to hide behind privacy.

We can start right here in Bitcointalk, to expose scammers or malicious distributors of malware.
Bitcointalk has an own section, where scam gets exposed, called Scam Accusations. Many members are putting in a lot of effort to bust scammers.
Lafu has started his own initiative to expose malware distributors and he’s vocal to warn about such malicious actors.
Forum members can try to support Lafu and his campaign any time to expose malware distribution.
Privately, we can expose scams and fraud on social media as well and we can make aware about it.

Let's fight scammers and criminals and don't let them hide behind privacy!
Privacy is too valuable to get abused by fraudulent actors!


PrivacyOui