Topic: Should all scam busting techniques be made public? (Read 641 times)

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Every case has a slightly different method in solving the crime and I think that every process will be crucial to determine to either let the discussion go further or hit its remark right there and then. Tho, this doesn't mean that I will not agree with your statement @OP yet not fully. Because there will always be innovation to every process and that works for both situations (scammer's end, investigator's end).

It is important to keep few processes (for example keeping it for the next possible discussion if the evidence are not enough) but the priority is to always provide enough details or shreds of evidence.

Keep in mind that by revealing scam busting techniques you are also educating others who may not be interested in scam busting, but may use some of things when evaluating whether to invest their money into something/use some service etc. So if all those evidence and techniques are unavailable to an average forum user, we would miss some serious educational opportunity.

For example, during this bull run one friend told me about some "promising" altcoin project, asking whether I am interested. First thing I did was reverse image search as team looked dodgy, and of course team was fake. Now, if other more experienced scambusters didn't reveal some of those techniques I would think that team is legit, as Google didn't find anything. Only here I learned about Yandex being much better for that purpose, which is my first choice now.



+1

Beyond all of that, when you first enter the forum, are you ever told, "hey, by the way: read these rules, make sure that you don't associate ranks with trust, and learn about our forum systems"?

Hmph.

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I believe that you should share these techniques. If they are effective, then others can implement them and you will have exponential effects. If the fear is of scammers learning about these techniques, then consider the duality: you are unaware of the techniques of which both prospective scammers and scam-busters have knowledge. Perhaps the secrecy is for naught: could scam-busting techniques be disclosed and shared amongst scammers? However, what is easier? Evading 20+ strategies and bolstering your OPSEC, or collectively using scam-busting techniques on those with less-than-perfect OPSEC, where even a passing mistake is archived and potentially linked to multiple accounts?

On a level playing field, it's a lot easier being the one having to throw the dodgeballs.

What I am proposing would only make sense if scammers and wrongdoers were banned by the forum admins. Since that is not case, it doesn't really matter.

Let's say you caught someone in the act of scamming. You have the needed proof to have him banned, but instead of revealing everything in public, all you need to do is present the evidence to those who make the decisions about who gets banned. That's theymos and Cyrus, and possibly other members of the staff who are included in that decision-making process.

Why only them and not the whole Bitcointalk community?
The Bitcointalk community doesn't have a say in who gets banned anyway. theymos doesn't ask the community if he should ban user X or not. He either bans someone or he doesn't. User X will be told he got banned and the reason why. If he wants more information or proof, he can take it up with the forum admins who again make the final decisions whether user X will be unbanned or not.

The usual Meta threads can still be started to appeal the ban or offer support to have user X reinstated.  

But since scammers are not a priority, none of this will ever happen.    

Scams are unmoderated and would not get anyone kicked off the forum whether or not they are guilt, consequences of scams could be a red trust or a flag.
The op was referring to users who expose how they caught out a scam attempt and if it should be public; For one, it is necessary to detail how you arrived at that conclusion to convince others as well. Even though it could be counter productive by making scammers more aware, it is a necessary system.

All bursting techniques can't be made public because it will further increase the scam rate. I urge the techniques should be hidden from everyone but the act of the scammer should be flag public and such account should be kicked off from the forum after gone through some queries and discovered the user is guilty of the acts.

This is my whole point, that if you want to accuse someone you must provide evidence for it and in the process of providing that evidence is you also need to provide on how you get there that is why all scam accusations and reputation thread is giving a lot of information even if this information is public and has the potential to make scammers avoid doing the same mistake all over again. On the idea of having a hidden board for busting out scams is something that won't really cut it for anyone even if they provide the same information and only a few people will see it, it would be unfair for the accused to not answer or rebut on what the accuser is saying to him, basically it would be a 1-sided way of having a negative feedback.

You have to be able to provide evidence and people should be free to try refute it if they can (and sometimes people do get it wrong or use faulty logic or evidence etc and that's where others can chime in with their opinions or more evidence). Imagine you went to court being accused of something and they didn't show their evidence but just told you you were guilty. That wouldn't fly. If we had a hidden board here it would just be some sort of shady secret court and if someone has done something wrong then it should be exposed and you naturally have to lay out your evidence as part of the process. It should be common sense for most people to not do certain things if they don't want to get caught but that's why it's always going to be cat and mouse and looking for where people slipped up because many do at some point along the way. Criminals know about DNA evidence and other ways they can be tracked but they still leave DNA or get caught on CCTV or triangulated via their self phone of car or whatever but once they do get caught the powers that be still have to prove it even if it exposes their methods which most people should be aware of anyway.


Maybe get them on the case of satoshi?  . If you're smart enough it's probably not that hard to be a ghost here.

The point is not about active/inactive threads, its more or less about the info those threads possess. And its not just limited to those 3 threads alone, go to the reputation board and every page has some thread about busting accounts.

I get your point, people are dumb, will make mistakes. So not really worried if some people do abuse the information, I am sure they will be caught one way or another. When you have LoyceV, TryNinja and Vod, the community dont got to worry all that much. 

Two topics are inactive. I agree with eddie13's post about no brain. But the fact is that even while revealing all the methods, those who have absolutely no brain, repeat their mistakes again and again.
Likewise with plagiarism. How many examples and instructions for detecting plagiarism are on the forum, these eccentrics still steal other people's articles.
And I agree that if any major fraud is being prepared, it will be prepared very well.
But do you remember the stories with several ICO, where the office was filmed and the actors who successfully advertised their scams here? And they were also discovered, even though all the evidence was laid out in the public domain.

Should all scam busting techniques be made public? Well, given we are in 2021, even if you want to it won't matter if you do. There are way too many threads that expose alt accounts.

Exhibit A: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/known-alts-of-anyone-user-generated-1206112,
Exhibit B: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/user-generated-known-alts-of-anyone-1702409,
Exhibit C: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/known-alts-of-any-one-a-user-generated-list-mk-iii-2021-q2-2544574

These 3 threads alone are suffice enough for those who want to do the don'ts of the community. Its a lost cause. Same goes for any actual scam investigations, people will look at how frauds and scamcoins have been caught before and will work around it. Too late.

These aren’t rocket science techniques being used here..
Those getting busted are almost exclusively bottom of the barrel morons..

Anyone with half a brain could easily evade ALL of these address linking and even IP linking catches admins could use..

I think this is the negative side of putting up a scam accusation/reputation thread is that you also come up to how were you able to bust the scam down because without providing enough evidence then you won't really put up a convincing story against who you are accusing. Nutildah's thread might be into a lot of detail but even as simple as simple as plagiarized ICO whitepaper accusations would give a lot of detail for people on what to avoid and what to do because the info being given by the OP is something necessary for an accusation. With that being said I still don't think that there is a need for a rank restriction for accessing these boards as you'll be denying the lower ranking members some content of the forum that should be for everyone. Scammers might improve and learn on what they are seeing but it doesn't mean that they won't get caught on what they are doing.

Of course they do. Scammers study and think of new ways to scam people taking into consideration the results of their previous scams. They change their methods and adopt new strategies when the old ones get discovered and made public, or are no longer working as expected.

I doubt they fear that. If they get exposed, they'll switch to a new account or just continue to use the one they already have because scams are not moderated and scammers don't get banned.

There is nothing wrong with that, and you should do it if you want. But the mistakes the scammers did, don't have to be pointed out for them to learn and improve for next time. And there will be a next time. It's not like they will give up.

Everything posted on this forum is public and it's not a violation to look at it. 

You shouldn't judge everyone by yourself. Sometimes people have different principles. If I see that all actions of some accounts look like a fraud, what is wrong if their history is checked? Will I be right in the end? The forum does not prohibit this, and shouldn't it be called a privacy violation? Where is she private here? Nobody hacks anything. You should not please the scammers that they are not needed by anyone, and here on the forum, you can safely deceive, thinking of yourself as the smartest and cunning one. I don't like to think of myself as a cheated idiot. Therefore, yes, I would not open all the ways to find scammers, but I will not sit and watch how someone cleverly fools everyone.
Any deception will come up sooner or later. We need to let all those who consider themselves cunning know that there will always be those who are ready to expose them. And merits is no motivation here.

On second thought, sure!!

Go ahead and create a “hidden” board for alt hunters and cheater busters..

But since it’s hidden to most, it’s only fair that their is to be no merit given in that board and signatures blocked in that board..
See how many posts it gets, lol..

Not sure what you meant by that, but I observed a lot of police techniques.  A common one is to watch how you react to things you did, versus things you did not do. 

Example:
Q: did you ever steal bitcoin?
A: No.
Q: did you meet pirate in Vegas in 2018?
A: No.
Q: did you travel specifically to meet a child that looked like Raegan Revord?
A: THAT'S A FUCKING LIE! 

Completely disagree with you, because even if your points are valid in a sense, it is not at all good to generalize that most or even a significant amount of people studying about a scan accusation and how they were caught will use those methods with a loop hole to plot something evil. Instead, revealing these info will give a strict warning to all future scammers that no matter what you do, eventually your scams will be exposed. It's like saying all murder movies or web series should be banned just because people can get inspired by them and do those acts in real life.

Their is much better information on anonymity opsec out there readily available than anything I have ever seen to bust any scammers on this forum..

I think probably the most complex busting method I have seen used here was to bust QS/Panthers with text pattern matching..


It’s concerning to me, that I believe we should be all for privacy, yet we have so many around here spending all their time invading others privacy so you can catch some guy making a few satoshis from what is likely to be a scam anyway (most bounties/signatures are probably scams)..

Makes me wonder how many hours of searching has been put into ME personally..
Probably a LOT!
Probably know my name, address, and everything, but can’t find anything to “bust” me for..

I’m pretty flipping sure Lauda searched every nook and cranny to try to take me down..
Then we have mooseprong..

See how you feel when you are the target of all this searching..

In this particular case, yes that is true. But in other cases they wouldn't be able to access the section.

Of course, I am not saying he shouldn't. But the methods used in uncovering the scam doesn't need to be made public to the accused. Only the result of the investigation. The methods can be documented in a different section not available to everyone.

For example. If I accuse you of something, I need to make my case and findings public.
A connected thread would lead to a section describing the exact methodology I used in uncovering what you did. But you don't need to know how I did it because that will give you ideas to do a better job next time.

Exactly!

First of all restricting newbies from scam accusation boards will do more harm than good because people who often trapped into scam attacks are newbies and real beginners who should be allowed to read and post on that section to avoid getting caught in the hand of scammers in the future. And investigation board have such restrictions so if we don't want to let the process known to others can be discussed there still it is not an convincing idea to me.

I am more than sure that after such an investigation, those who have alternative accounts on the forum and these accounts are used in dishonest activities, ran to check or delete their history. I fully agree that we should not show all the methods that detectives use to determine fraud.
Scammers have already learned how to independently check photos, and today they are harder to find. The farms that exist on the forum have also gained experience, and they are found by random errors.
BUT at the same time, if I know that there is a farm that does not link its contacts in the forum in any way, how can I prove it? Proofs are always needed for the prosecution, and we are obliged to provide them to everyone, otherwise, we deprive the forum of publicity.

Everyone deserves due process, and should have the right to defend themselves against any possible evidence suggesting they have done wrongdoing. You dont need to disclose how you found certain information, but you should disclose the information you found that is incriminating.

A person admitting they ran a Ponzi is concrete evidence in the eyes of the law, but people who the administrator trust tend to be immune from consequence. 

For the question in the subject - why?  Trapping someone is wrong (would they have done it if you hadn't baited them?) but if they screw up and you catch them - it's still valid evidence even though you didn't inform them.   Most of the major scammers (before the first jump to 20K) probably linked addresses together in the chain, and they will get caught.  But I doubt many people will care at this point, as long as they got some.   

Actually, spotting scammers is a constant challenge. Every single hour passed, there would always be another idea or technique that would be made by scammers since they aren't imprisoned and freely lurking. Also, AFAIK, there are jobs that is really for anti-fraudulent activities by different companies and they train constantly as the technology innovates. It is not just the people that learn from the actions of the scammers, it is also the scammers who learn more (smoother scamming methods) from the mistakes they make -- somehow a gradual learning of social engineering.

Well it's always a catch 22 situation as you have to show the evidence at some point if you want to expose someone and some people will learn from that. You could maybe offer sufficient proof but keep something to yourself id there's more but it's always going to be cat and mouse chase. If you're smart then you'll never get caught or exposed (think satoshi), but if you're and idiot or don't cover your tracks sufficiently then you'll likely get caught eventually (Ross Ulbricht) but at some point how you got caught is going to come to light and is a necessary process so there's nothing you can do about people learning what not to do. A while back I think some people did discuss or propose some sort of hidden sub board for scam investigations but that could be compromised and even so at some point the info is going to become public so there's not much you can do. Scammers and schemesters will likely get smarter and clever trying to avoid detection and scambusters/grasses will also get more determined and thorough. Covering your tracks by not using the same addresses is pretty basic way of not getting caught and most people should know that by now though.


Not everyone knows but it's pretty obvious to anyone that isn't a complete idiot that you can be caught this way.

A newbie here who start the forum journey to earn, starts with bounty. Others are either real users who have no interest in signature campaign (later they may take the advantage of) or alt accounts hiding their negative feedback, evading ban. So, it doesn’t matter if you are using that boards. Alt will have access to that board as well.

What nutildah did was quite simple (for lack of a better word; not trying to diminish his effort) and well known to anyone who cares about privacy. I think the perp also knew it and they switched to better practices later on but those early mistakes can't be removed from the blockchain and can be discovered years later. In other words I don't think that nutildah's post revealed any substantial new tricks, and without disclosing these details the proof would have been incomplete / not convincing.

If someone reads it and learns something from it - more power to them. Look on the bright side - there is also a chance that someone learns how to catch other sockpuppets.

Do you believe those participants are doing a signature campaign on the Chipmixer they don't know about address connection? Of course, they know, but he/she wasn't imagined that he/she will be caught. I assume you mean that we shouldn't reveal all the methods of exposing scammers. But fortunately when you will try to prove someone as a scammer, ultimately the methods of investigation will be revealed. For example, nutildah exposed signature by investigating bitcoin addresses, if he doesn't show the connection between each other, will you believe all those accounts are connected. No one will believe verbal explanations without solid evidence. Yes, we can keep secret investigation tools.

That will not help against a lot of them, remember that all those three accounts would have been able to access the section.


And to the "scammers" since the way I view this if you accuse something it's normal to allow him a way to defend himself, so how would that look if you accuse a junior member of something and not allow him to post in that section? A trial behind closed doors with the accused on a bench in a park and the sentence delivered by uber?   Somewhere down the road you will have to show everybody the proofs you have against him at which point if the scammer is not a full retard he will understand how the evidence against him was found and what mistakes he has done.

oh, forgot something:
One thing I agree on not making public is the way plagiarism and stolen and modified photos are identified and what tools we use.
This would indeed help scammers testing their whitepapers, team photos, etc before they make it public and making harder to catch them.

I have been reading this incredible thread written by nutildah. I can't even begin to imagine how much work was put into investigating the accounts and putting all the pieces together — my respect for nutildah and his research abilities.

But all this made me think. I am sure I can't be the only one who sees something troubling in threads like the one by nutildah. Troubling isn't the right word, but let's work with that for now. Some of you might be thinking: What is this idiot talking about? I will cut to the chase.


When you look at nutildah's thread, you see a dedication to catch wrongdoers and expose them to the public. But in this process, something else happens. You get exact instructions of WHAT TO DO to not get caught. Let's focus only on this segment. Whoever operates multiple accounts or considers doing so, has a lot of great advice on this forum of what not to do, and how to cover his tracks better. Unfortunately, that is the other side of the scam busting medal. You are the scam investigator and teacher to scammers in one person.

Thread titles for these type of threads could very well be:
Step-by-step instructions of how not to get caught when using multiple accounts in signature campaigns! or Avoid these mistakes to protect your alt accounts.


I feel like not everyone should have access to the scam accusations board, or at least to well-constructed threads like the one by nutildah. Now, if that means that I can't read them either, that's OK. We have an investigations board, and that one is not publicly available for JR. Members and lower ranks. Maybe scam investigations could walk down a similar path.

It is going to be very difficult to make changes, and I doubt there will be any. Scam accusations are supposed to be public for everyone, especially for newbies and new people in crypto. But consider the other side of the medal that I mentioned. If the methods, tools, sites, and services that scam busters use to catch cheaters were better protected, it wouldn't give those same cheaters new ideas to improve their 'work' to avoid detection. They would also not know what they are doing wrong that gets them caught.