Topic: Letter to Theymos: Provide medium for the forum in the face of the mixer ban (Read 687 times)

It is a completely different approach, yes. It is enabling the discussion of measures that can be made in the future...maybe, more evolved measures. Maybe, more evolved, decentralized mixer, or decentralized exchange discussion, and how to go about building these on the Bitcoin ecosystem. Maybe, discussion about alternative on-chain privacy that is less frowned upon by authorities and less preferable by bad parties. The possibilities are endless with a discussion board that involves privacy. Cyber security and privacy go hand in hand, security keep people safe, privacy keep people safe. The two topics go hand in hand.


Let's not feed this pointless discussion.

Even if this is granted, it has a complete different approach to tackle the issues on ground concerning mixers and I don't think this can change anything, but the whole idea of the cyber security measure is a good idea but considering that with mixers ban may change nothing about the decision already made.


Always say something you have an idea about it, have you ever seen a situation whereby you see loycev getting users unbanned, and if you're mistaking from that of proxy ban, then many other people has that same right to unbanned newbies who have evil record of their IP address used at the point of registration, which i think should be something entirely different from the normal ban we are talking about here in this context.

All you need to do is visit my trust viewer and look at the members who have "~"'d me, to know/reason why, on top of Shenanigans garbage, this thread has continued to be derailed. Those who claim that I am aiming for attention with this thread, are simply here to cause drama.

Shenanigan is one who is here to stir up trouble. Why he chose here, is another story that may relate to the above. I don't know.

Others, like yourself, innocently may not see the link that is clear to me...which I'll explain:


The ban of mixers are a big hit to on-chain privacy.
The cybersecurity & privacy board are a healthy discussion place and a plus to privacy.

No cybersecurity & privacy board + the ban of mixers provides a big message from this forum administration: We do not want to (and we can't) talk about privacy, or enable it.
Cybersecurity & privacy board added + the ban of mixers is another message entirely: We will abide by the authorities but we will keep healthy, legitimate discussion about privacy (a core value of Bitcoin's) open to all, in a board vote which the active/voting community has decided on with consensus.

The timing is not coincidental, I believe there is a need for a response from theymos by the time mixers are banned, so we can know which message the forum is giving us.

It is unfortunate to see that the thread has deviated too far from its path. Perhaps misunderstanding and confusion occurred among members due to the link between the topic of creating a cybersecurity board and the issue of banning mixer campaigns in the forum.

I am one of the members who supported your request and still do, but frankly, I was surprised by the link between the issue of approval of the cybersecurity board and the ban on mixers. Perhaps some members think that you are chasing the opportunity to obtain approval.

Although I do not doubt your good intentions towards the forum, I think that perhaps it is better to postpone the topic until the beginning of the new year and see the results and effects of the decision to ban mixer campaigns.

Quit the witch hunt. This thread has nothing to do with that thread. I've already said that in other posts.

Anyone with half a brain can use this logic:
Cybersecurity & Privacy board with free knowledge would hinder any service offering cybersecurity and privacy related services

I posted that thread purely as a medium for anyone who wanted assistance while the board was being made. The price is purely the cost of my time. It is not some massive attempt for profit. $42 for 1.5-2hrs time? Come on.


Consensus is consensus. If the other 3 million were active, I see no reason why they wouldn't have voted.


Attention seeking....


...You both make me sick.

I haven't bumped that thread nor promoted it since it was created months and months ago. I am not actively trying to gain business. My dedication to a board that the community want, that everyone in the community will benefit from, has zero to do with that thread...and as I've said before, it will only be hindered after the board is added, as a lot of the info I possess will go into the board.

You can both twist things as you like - This thread has a clear intention, to get an answer from theymos in the face of a hindrance to anonymity and privacy that will take place on January 1. It is a clear letter, it clearly updates the progress of what the active members of the community have asked for, and it provides an official, public request.

I don't think you will convince anyone that I am campaigning for this board just to make $21~ per hour from providing security audits for people, and giving information to people that they'll otherwise get for free. Get real.

You're right that Satoshi discussed about privacy in the Bitcoin's whitepaper but that privacy wasn't meant to be something like the one that the mixers give. There were no chain analysts back then and Satoshi mentioned something that was acceptable as part of privacy in those days.


It was directly mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper that public can see who is sending an amount of Bitcoin to whom but they won't be able to link that transaction to anyone. I believe these days it's not hard for authorities and other chain analysis originations to determine that who made the transaction and linking it to an individual isn't that hard anymore for them.

The mixers were playing their part to add that privacy element to the transactions and surely they had achieved their goals because linking of those transactions with someone was pretty tough when the transaction went through a mixer but some of the mixers were doing shady things as well which were noticed by the authorities and that become the reason for seizing of mixers.

It is remarkable and you are not the only one who has noticed that.

In between posting erratically by amongst other things attacking some members and being hypocritical with his gambling views, he has been trying to re-invent himself as a cyber security expert but he has no skills to make that qualification.

Keeping that in mind, he wants to charge $42 for a service that he offers by copy/pasted some text which does not equate to any expertise here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/discussion-cybersecurity-and-privacy-board-poll-request-v1-5434404 and that seems to be the obvious motive behind his constant pushing for theymos to create the board.

For the record: privacy was mentioned in Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin whitepaper:
I already saw a coinjoin campaign that will soon resume.

Obviously, banning mixers from being advertised here doesn't stop them from being advertised elsewhere. But that's not Bitcointalk's (or theymos') problem anymore.

I guess you're trying to live out the meaning of your moniker, "shenanigan". Otherwise, I don't see what could occasion all those wild accusations you're throwing up on this thread. Someone should kindly check up the meaning of shenanigan before they get unnecessarily serious with your POV.

---

On the mixer ban, I'm cocksure there's going to be a ripple effect that will empower other competitors that can wrestle traffic from this forum. Already, I've read about a manager who has concluded plans to move a mixing service they're managing here to a sister forum. In time to come, more managers are going to find fertile grounds to move theirs too; not just only mixers but other advertising promotions. I don't know if theymos' decision to ban mixers here outright will be a good one at the end. This is an experiment we all hope will end well. It's a make or mar moment.

The OP is basing their statistics on a poll of a couple of dozen users out of the more than three million registered users?

Remarkable.

You're right that mixers were intended to offer privacy in the beginning but they were also run and managed by humans and that means the ones who were managing those mixers had their own shady side which none of us was aware of. I know that there are still good guys that are running their mixer sites but in past most trusted mixers have done activities that made theymos to ban even those mixers as well that didn't do anything wrong. The ban on mixers is surely for the safety of the forum and its members and theymos has no personal issues with those mixers and their owners.

Bitcoin was meant to be decentralized and there was no mention of privacy of hiding one's transactions in original code of Bitcoin. Satoshi wanted to have a system where someone can easily transfer funds using a currency that's not managed or controlled by centralized system and he created Bitcoin. I know that privacy is a very important thing for everyone and the board you're suggesting is going to be helpful, but I'm quite sure there will be users who will share or leak a lot of things in that board which isn't going to be a good thing for the forum and its members.

Although, I have supported your initial application of that board and I'm still a supporter of the idea but I think there should be strict rules on that board so it can be useful for the ones who want to be safe from the hackers and scammers. I know that such board can be a useful place to promote awareness about scams and privacy things that could help the ones to be on the safe side but there are some negative things that can also take place on that board.

Well, thanks for the info. Again. Now that you mention it, I sounded like that, but I hadn't thought about it when I wrote the post.


Of course, that's what I think too, no matter how much he denies it.


That not only happens in the USA. In the EU you have laws at the EU level, at the state level, and depending on the state, at the regional level, sometimes more than one level of local laws, county laws, and so on. There seems to be no end to the voracity of the public authorities and the growing regulatory complexity.

Yeah I have lived in the USA and the laws are complex and vast.

50 sets of  state laws
Hundreds of county laws
Thousands of city laws
and federal laws.

on three levels tax, criminal , civil.

I am at my desk looking at 45 plus federal tax books which are just for some of the federal tax laws.

Just thought I'd address this point--it makes total sense that a business would try to remain honest if they face reputational damage should they not do so.  The only problem is that there could be shady shit going on behind the scenes that no one outside the advertiser knows about, and it's not until either they get caught or pull an exit scam that they face the blowback, and by the time that happens they couldn't care less what members of this forum write about them.

Similarly, there are a lot of reasons why corporations should do things, but sometimes they don't.  It could be because of greed, incompetence, or whatever, but in the world of crypto it's damn hard to predict what a project/exchange/business is going to do or why.

I hate the ban on mixers on principle, but I see Theymos's side of it as well.  Try to fight the government and you're guaranteed to lose or go broke trying--and AFAIK mixers aren't illegal yet, but I'm guessing Theymos is anticipating that that's where the US government is going.

Yours is about the most apt reply in this thread because it captures the essence of the motive behind it. This thread seems to be more about attention-seeking on part of the OP for his own agenda consisting of pushing for the creation of the board he dreams theymos will accept.

I could be wrong (I have been in the past about many things) but it seems as though by creating what could be seen by others as some form of misconstrued legitimacy by being the creator of a security board will probably help bring in some extra customers for the $42 he charges for a service based on what he copy/pasted in the OP of this thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/discussion-cybersecurity-and-privacy-board-poll-request-v1-5434404

Some members actually believing he is well versed in the cybersecurity field is about absurd as you could imagine. Here he writes: "Why am I running the service and what qualifies me to do so?" then fails to provide anything of substance (including qualifications and/or experiences) which qualifies him to do so.

As for this thread, in my opinion "Letter to Theymos" should have been "a PM to theymos" first before attention-seeking in the Meta board.

It's a moot point and an ongoing battle. As said in OP, there's no doubt that you can't win with mixers. They're either good people for freedom and privacy, with bad people using them and ruining it for legitimate users, or bad people running them and using others to hide coins...the ratio, unknown.
It's not something that's purely bad or good either way. You're always going to have good users using what they think are legitimate mixers. Those good people are the ones I am hoping will make use of the CS & P board if theymos decided to add it.


That's a damn shame. I guess the trash just has to remain then. It's a little bit ridiculous though.

It definitely didn't indicate to discuss loycev's permissions on the forum and things about user bans.

I've seen many scamming mixers over the years. Until recently, I didn't realize some mixers may just be created by non-scamming bad guys in need of good people looking for privacy. I can't be certain which mixers fall in which category, but by now I think it's likely both exist.
I also considered Bitcointalk the place to be to find honest mixers. It's weird though: that could mean a honest mixer is ran by what some governments consider to be criminals.

"Staff" members can't delete posts. Xal0lex is a Moderator on his own boards, not on Meta.

I thought the same. That probably didn't help in staying on-topic.

You can't do that in Meta.

Mixers offer privacy. Mixers are being taken away. The mixer ban is a hindrance to privacy. The board will be a supplement for that hindrance - and for those that feel hindered by the removal of mixers from the forum, the board might provide legitimate supplements to the removal.



I'd be happy to however I believe that some members whom the community would much prefer over myself had put their hands up in the discussion thread already I'll double check that and edit this post with all of the quotes later on.

The title of this topic is a little misleading as I initially thought that it had something to do about the mixer ban. But actually it's just another request to create the Cybersecurity and Privacy board, which is definitely a good idea as I've previously stated.

Have you figured out who would be the moderator for such a board? I think that might be one hurdle you need to overcome.

This thread has nothing to do with the temporary service I offered, all of the info being used there will be published for free in the board if it's added. I only have good intentions with this board, as do all of the people who voted for it.

As for me "taking advantage" - This is for everyone here. For the safety of everyone, for the security of everyone, and even spanning further than just this forum. For you to think that I am doing this for my own benefit just goes to show how determined you are to hurt my reputation. You are one of the perfect examples of the defaulttrust system being far from perfect.

Take your unbased accusations to the reputation board so I can laugh at you there, not in serious threads...and also, how dare you put my thread on the same level as this total spammer "shenanigan".


I'll be making a new self-moderated topic if a moderator doesn't remove the obvious spam that's occurred here, since this one has been completely derailed with totally off topic spam posts. I have no idea how it got onto the topic of bans and permissions when it had absolutely nothing to do with that topic.


While what you are suggesting is a ridiculous one, it's probably the next best thing to do if a moderator doesn't just delete the completely off topic spam (which they very well should, or merge them into a new thread) I can't believe that this kind of obvious spam is just being allowed in such a serious topic about a 12 month, consensus voted request in the face of a huge hit to on-chain privacy.


Probably the only on topic post in the sea of off topic nonsense. Thank you.

Definitely not demanding theymos. I'm writing a public letter, appreciating a response before mixers are banned. As following that point, privacy will be hindered on this forum - and this board will be a fair medium to the ban. As of Jan 1, it will be 12 days from 12 months since the request was made. That's a long time for a community to be heard, especially when there is a 90% consensus agreeing that the addition is not just in line with Bitcoin, but a need for the community given all of the threats to security and privacy out there.

To me, a response is needed to know whether our security of coins and privacy is cared about, if we are on a forum that is actually not entirely governed by theymos, or if community consensus votes and requests are a priority. The only reason I see for this board not being added as a medium to the removal of an industry that enabled on-chain privacy, is that if a party other than theymos is calling the shots and if the board is against their interests. I think that'd be fair to say, as if theymos did solely govern this forum, then I can't see why at least a yes/no hasn't been provided to date. I'm sure theymos would/is an advocate of cybersecurity or privacy if he runs a forum to do with Bitcoin. Both are in line with its purpose, sovereignty of bitcoin and privacy of bitcoin ownership.

I hope I've worded this correctly. It's not meant to be hostile or assumptive of any party, it's just my thoughts on this interesting set of matters.

Wonderful thread this, I laughed a lot. You have to see what you can see lately in Meta.

First we have our friend BenCodie who takes advantage of the mixers ban to push his much loved Cybersecurity and Privacy board, which seems reasonable to me, and more considering the positive votes it has had in the forum, but it seems to me that the promotion of this topic is not purely disinterested but has quite a lot to do with this:

[Consultations available] Personalized Cybersecurity & Privacy Report for $42

Then we have our dumb friend Shenanigan saying a stupidity of his own and making a fool of himself, which leads to the first 14 comments of the thread having nothing to do with what the OP is saying.

To top it off we have a staff member who acknowledges the following:


But who does not take action on this, such as deleting the ridiculous off topic garbage replies from Shenanigan on the subject.

Of the rest of the comments, only nutildah has an on topic reply, with which I agree.

According to the above, my conclusion is the following: hey BenCodie, please change the thread title to something like: "Discussion, LoyceV powers on the forum." so at least this thread in Meta will look like an on topic one, although what will be weird is the OP, I recommend you also to edit it to match the main discussion of the thread.

Me too Vod. It would be great to have the old Vod back. A lot of us in the early (early-ish) days looked up to you as a force for doing what's right. You've accumulated a lot of wisdom and experience over the years and could easily return to a position of being able to share it with others.


Sounds like its really potent stuff!

For the last few years I have been projecting very negative energy, hoping for a return!  Forget THC, I'd like just 1g of negative energy (worth $62.5 trillion dollars according to Google).

LoyceV is like some forum users who can whitelist newbies. I don't know how they got those rights to do it but I see nothing is harmful for the community with it (I could be wrong of course, feel free to correct me).

Unban, I think it is not a too relevant term to use about LoyceV's power/ rights/ privileges!

• Remove Proxyban (evil fees) - email to get whitelisted for free (LoyceV)
• Whitelisting for Brand New accounts (Enable posting) (Upgrade00)
• Remove Proxyban (evil fees) - whitelisted for free | my list (hugeblack)

They are all not forum moderators!

There are admins who left the forum like satoshi, sirius and recent years, we have only 2 admins: theymos and Cyrus.

• List of the forum's admins/ global moderators/ staffs
• Bitcointalk's important historic changes

Although I don't think such a board would be a totally unreasonable idea, putting demands on theymos has traditionally not yielded fruitful results. I don't think the decision to ban mixers was taken lightly. He puts a lot of consideration into making these types of decisions before announcing them.


You will receive back the energy you project into the world.

In my opinion, this Loycev is very arrogant. Sounds very arrogant. No self-respecting person who accidentally ends up in a proxyban deserves to be treated like that

you really need to follow what LoyceV suggested.

anyway, from what I know Theymos and Cyrus(check the link to see cyrus's position) are the admins on this forum.

Instead of offtopic and trolling, better do some forum research if you're so interested. There is a topic with a list of all forum staff in the same section List of the forum's admins/ global moderators/ staffs. If you had the desire, you would have no problem finding it.

Name one thing LoyceV has access to that you do not.  Liars are not trustworthy, friend.   

Sounds like sorcery. Internet is full of mystery after all.
Fyi user roles features can be given to someone, everyone will know what their roles by special role given by the admins.

You even didn't know how many admins this forum have. You should read more.

Only administrators? Give me full list of these administrators. I thought theymos was the only one administrator here

Whats the difference? Whitelsiting - is a privilege

LoyceV does not have the ability to unban users. Adding forum users to a "whitelist" is a slightly different thing. And yes, global moderators do not see the IP addresses of forum users. Only forum administrators can see the IP addresses of forum users.

This is a "right and privilege" that LoyceV has and the other regular users don't

Don't try to shut everyone's mouths, people see everything. This is not trolling, but a discussion where simple folks will be expose a snickering high-ranking old-timers

Make way for newcomers

First of all, he can whitelist members who got affected with "evil fee" and 2nd, he is not the only one as theymos added few more members that can do that. If you took some time to study the matter you would understand that's actually a good thing.


And yet again you showed that you have no idea what you are talking about. Anyway, I don't wanna derail this thread further so gonna stop now.

LoyceV has the ability to unban?, who did he unban that made you say so? And only admin or probably mods can do that he doesn’t belong in any of those categories. Also I don’t see the issue or unbanning related to this thread.
Don’t derail the thread and allow others make valuable contributions rather than trolling

LoyceV has ability to unban. But he is not a global moderator. How is this even possible?

This has to do with privacy. If LoyceV has ability to unban, than with high probability LoyceV may has access to ip's of users like global moderators has

I see that you keep writing things that you know nothing (or very little) about, but I will ask you nevertheless to mention some of those "rights and privileges" that he has and the other regular users don't and what it has to do with OP's topic of the thread?

This forum doesn't care about privacy. User Loycev has many more privileges and rights than a regular user. He can see things that the average user cannot see. However, Loycev is not an even a global moderator. This is a potential threat to the security of the forum

Dear Theymos,

This is a letter to you, urging a medium for the recent Ban on mixers, and presenting a solution that has been proposed and voted on already for 11 months.

We can all agree that centralized mixers can never be pure, that is out of even the operators control. This point is clearly understood in the recent decision to ban custodial mixers on the forum on basically all fronts, in order to remove liability and to keep this forum safe from persecution. However, the result this will have on innocent users will be significant.

One benefit of allowing advertising of these campaigns (that will become clearer from the ban forward) is the force of good practice on services by holding reputation as collateral in exchange for advertising. Services can not steal from users or do so on an isolated level, they could not be unfair to users in a subtle way, and they must do as the service promises and no less, or else the service will immediately face negative attention from the community. Aside from the economic benefits it provided to users through signature campaigns, the advertising of mixers (and other services) provided oversight to mixers and kept forum users safe, at the cost of the service through advertising costs rather than community volunteering.

As of this ban, the goal of privacy through a centralized mixer will become increasingly risky, and without advertising causing the eyes of many to monitor and ensure mixer legitimacy, the mixing industry will become a very dangerous place for anyone to be a part of. Humans are creatures of habit, until habits are forced to change. For those who don't know other solutions to help achieve on chain privacy, it is likely that they will still seek out mixers and it is likely that the reduced liability following the mixer ban will lead to scams and loss of Bitcoins to the mixing industry. With no names of services being allowed in the forum from the ban forward, it will be virtually impossible to report these scams effectively in the scam accusations board.

The complete removal of these tools are an attack on Bitcoin privacy, and presents risks to privacy and safety going forward if there is no medium solution, so, a medium should be found before January 1 if the privacy of users on this forum are of care to the administration of this forum...and thanks to the work of your community, the medium is already in front of you, theymos.

Over all months of 2023, the community have thoroughly discussed the addition of a cybersecurity and privacy board on the forum. Following discussion, community members who were passionate about this request additionally cast written, reasoned votes in an unofficial community vote

The results of these polls proved that the majority of the active community have achieved two consensus votes to add a board that is focused on Cybersecurity and Privacy

The results of the forum poll in the discussion thread yielded 66 yes votes (91.7%) vs. 6 no votes (8.3%)
The results of the unofficial community vote yielded 26 written yes votes (96.2%) vs 1 written no vote (3.8%)

The community is very much in favor of this board for a variety of reasons discussed. 3 of these reasons are:
- Cybersecurity is an integral topic to support the security of Bitcoin storage.
- System security is layer 0 to the storage of Bitcoin (layer 1, if you will)
- Privacy is a fundamental human right, as Bitcoin has propagated since day 1. Discussion about privacy is integral, especially since privacy can no longer be achieved by paying a service fee (due to mixers being banned)

The discussion of Cybersecurity and Privacy can usher a new wave of legitimate discussion that will empower individuals with the ability to be and feel safe within the bitcoin ecosystem, within this bitcoin community and on the internet, in the face of an increasingly unsafe digital world. The board will help reduce growing vulnerabilities to theft, spying and targeting through discussion about defence from the aforementioned.

With this board, you will be providing not just what the forum should already have, but also a fair medium between the censorship of mixing services, and adding this board will prove to us all that you care for the communities safety of their assets, and privacy of their forum usage, bitcoin ecosystem participation and internet usage.

Please do not leave us in the dark any longer, and provide the community with one of two of the following outcomes to this request before the mixer ban takes effect on January 1, 2024:

1. Provide a reasoned response as to why the community can not have this board despite clear consensus that this is what the community wants.

2. Add the Cyber security and Privacy board in the Other category of the forum:

It has been discussed to have the main board as the discussion board, news, questions, general topics, etc. with a child board purposed specifically to be a knowledgebase, including compiled community contributed information that can help to achieve either cybersecurity and/or privacy. It has also been discussed to make news a separate child board, rather than mixing it into the main board. Do as you wish with this information, alongside the wealth of information in the discussion topic.

Respectfully, a response as to which outcome the community can expect before the mixer ban becomes active on January 1, 2024 would be appreciated.

Thank you.