Topic: Forum Identity theft (Read 259 times)

what OP described in first post sounds to me like a case of impersonating other member
what I would say as identity theft is when a user's profile was used as reference in off-forum bounties
and the negligence of the bounty manager for not validating participants gives chance to the perp

Well it's not against the rule using a username that's in close resemblance to an existing user name but it now depends on the motive for the action that being said it important we deal with the original and not impostors

While sometimes, it could be merely a coincidence, other times members actually attempt to impersonate recognized members by adding clever touches to names.

It might not be a reason to red tag someone, except they are caught in illegal dealings. But a neutral trust could be left on the account stating it has no links to the original account.
Most times a glance through the account should be enough to know it's not legitimate, especially where you are supposed to have knowledge of the original.

Well, Bitcointalk accounts to impersonate famous members are similar to fake url's, where scammers try to change a letter or use similar ones. Fortunately Bitcointalk letters for creating an account are limited, such as different letters, like from kyrillic don't work.
Some fake profiles are these ones:

theynnos  https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/theynnos-366380
therymos  https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/therymos-392907
OqNasty  https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/oqnasty-360247

'OgNasty  https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/ognasty-1072413
OgNasty.  https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/ognasty-521187
...

these ones are not possible in Bitcointalk:

It is not possible to create a similar name and fake someone else's profile on this forum due to the ranking system. However, people lose their forum profile due to phishing and other hacking methods.  Sadly 2FA is not available yet but might be in the next forum upgrade

Well there are various reasons to which an individual can choose a name and factors can influence it I don't think all should be tagged identity thieves not until when caught trying to illegal defraud people claiming another person's identity.

I really hate fraudsters, what they get I am sure is not worth their effort, because the people they will cheat are smarter and more aware, plus the sins they will receive. the world is something very scary

Well I don't know if this could be a reason why people make there name in resemblance with already existing name could be because the name is catchy and might find it interesting

Another user suggested setting a neutral feedback on profiles that have similar names to the original account and I think that is a good thing to do. This is his post right here.

I don't agree with this statement. It' possible to steal username on this forum - it's done by hackers who just steal users account. Usually they steal accounts to sell it later or just join bounties. But sometimes hacked accounts are use to scam bitcointalk users.

Just yesterday @Jet Cash opened a thread with what you mention, whereby a couple of accounts have been created with a similar name on this forum (see People registering Jet Cash member names here).

While creating a name similar to other’s is not per-se constituent of fraud, it is something we need to be wary of. Whenever I encounter such a situation, I PM the original account owner so that he can be wary of this, in case the look-alike accounts try to impersonate the original ones. There’s a thread on Meta with similar cases reported in the past, and that has sometimes led to the look-alike accounts being banned (see Similar Usernames Attempting To Scam - Defaults Please Tag).

ICOs nearly always require KYC, as do some airdrops. On these occasions, we need to really consider if what we get in return is worth the risk of our personal identity details being potentially compromised for fraudulent obscure purposes behind the scenes.

Members who act as escrow always should have positive trust ratings on their profiles, for confirmation it must be a rating of +2 or above, for them to handle trades. (Just my opinion)


No one has any trademark or hold on a particular name, it's about who used it first, and it's not illegal in my opinion.
Just that members should be very skeptical and guarded when entering trades.
For clarity the real name owner can leave a neutral trust in the account with a similar name, stating that it has no ties with them.

Some people create very similar usernames for some purpose (probably for fraud, maybe because they think this is fun).
But this does not seem to violate the rules of the forum, so we can't do anything to these imitators.
As long as they don't violate the rules of the forum, they don't have the right to interfere with their username, but if we find that they have any attempt to defraud, they only need to report to the moderator, they will be banned.

   Identity theft could be an action of illegal claiming to be a an individual, company organization e.t.c

There are various form in which some one identity can be stolen
+by there names
+ pictures
+ passport
+ website and other social media platform and so on

     Identity theft in the forum
It's not possible to completely steal a member user name on the forum because just like most platform online no two users with completely similar user name

But some ambiguous individuals go on coming up with user name to almost match that of an existing user for example
Orignal--satoshi
Fake----satoshi1

  Very more often notable and credible members get there names altered by some no good members in a bid to act like or supposed to have a link to the original trusted users most times this original members might be escrows and you no what can happen when you mistakenly meet an identity thief to act as an escrow for you.

   There is no way the forum can prevent some one from using a name that has not been used before despite its close resemblance to existing name but we as member can all ways try to always be careful and pay attentions to names no matter how identical the names are if some attention is put in we would be able to differentiate between them.

Beware always deal with original there is nothing good that can come out of fake individuals