Topic: VIP Member hacked? (Read 2772 times)

Eh. I asked this person a few questions and the answers missed pretty much all of the information that the BTC_Bear who did actually spend all that time with me on IRC would have known instantly. It would have been nice to have seen that my (polite and friendly) acquaintance had returned to say hello. Oh well.

I won't share the PM content without permission from..  whoever this person is. Or, I guess, the real BTC_Bear who can answer my questions and/or sign messages with the known keys that BTC_Bear would normally be able to identify themself with.

I suppose it's possible that BTC_Bear had some kind of stroke or.. maybe like a brain injury or illness of some sort and in that case I'm going to feel like a real asshole. If that's really you, old-schooler, I apologize for being an asshole, but your old self would hopefully have understood. I mean you are the one who set things up just-so..

*shrug*

Honestly, the old BTC_Bear (at least the one I knew on IRC) would have immediately understood the need to lock his account down.

Sadly, the fact that this is even an issue at all means I can no longer fondly reminisce about the Old Days w.r.t the BTC_Bear I knew with any new friends. That sucks.

It bothers me a lot that so many old names have disappeared and gone away in this fashion. These people had a natural and facile agility with Bitcoin and related topics, and seemed to understand in a way the social nature of what was going on—enough to know that being a person in this space has long-term consequences far more dire than, in BTC_Bear's case—not being a person does.

Mr. Bear, if you do read this, I hope this note finds you well and happy, on whatever sandy shore or remote towering rock or dark woods that you're most content with. One day the rest of us will be gone too, and no trace will remain that we'd even shared a laugh. But in the end, wasn't it just our laugh to share anyway?

Oh well.

(edit: Of course, all I know is what I saw on IRC, and I've been bitten before by old-schoolers who turned out to be scammers in the end. So who knows, right? Time and the fondness of memories, and all that..)

I PM’ed him to make him aware of this post and he said he sent you a message.

Hey. PM me, BTC_Bear.

Multiple IRC ops have not seen him for many years, and based on what they've told me I don't see why he would come back at all. One of the OPs confirmed that losing all BTC and PGP keys does not sound like something that BTC_Bear would allow to happen; he has not heard from him for about 5 years.

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Update: I did not mean to delete this post.

No, the hacking of the account being illogical does not mean it is impossible, obviously. But it is evidence (circumstantial) that there is no hack. It should be weighed with other available evidence.

I think you are using the wrong standard.

If a stranger asks you to trade (when you are known to engage in similar trades), you will see this person as not trustworthy, and as such will put yourself in a position in which he is in possession of money that belongs to you. It would not be appropriate to give this person a negative rating.

BadBear had a standard that he wanted to be 100% sure, without any someone was a scammer before leaving a negative rating (which from what I could tell, was more strict than beyond a reasonable doubt), and Tomatocage worked to ensure his ratings were fair and accurate, and I believe he has a very high standard for tagging a scammer (although probably not as high as BadBear).

I don't have an issue with a "tag first ask questions later" trust policy, so to prevent someone from quickly scamming multiple people, and continuing doing so after being called out as a scammer, however once questions are asked, a high standard should be used. I don't think "75% certain" is a high enough standard, especially considering the lack of motive, and the ~month delay in getting "caught", during which time a hacker would likely have tried to either scam or build up reputation, neither of which happened.

Can you red trust for  a possible hack? This still seems strange to me. Proven liars able to ruin the accounts of persons that are possibly not the original owner? who even if they are not may only possibly decide to do something wrong? seems weak sauce and double standards really.

I mean I accept theymos opinion that it is LIKELY this is not the same person of course the % is just kind of a guide some people are taking the 25% a bit to literally. He is saying he is uncertain but feels it likely it is hacked or sold.


For instance how many persons here red trust this possible of possible weak sauce untrustworthy member?

Did those same persons red trust a proven liar lauda?  

Did those same persons red trust a proven greedy and devious sock puppet racist sig spamming untrustworthy scoundrel the pharmacist?

Did those same persons red trust a proven and self confessed trust abuser tman?


So they although PROVEN to have been untrustworthy get a free pass and this possible of a possible untrustworthy person gets multiple red.

So not only did you not red trust them for being proven untrustworthy. you decided to not even neutral them with a comment? on top of that you decided to include them as DT members in a trust position. Oh yeah?

Sorry this is completely wrong and the injustice is a disgrace to this board.


Fighting for fairness and equality for all is part of my reason for wanting to still post here. I will continue to mention it over and over however annoying it gets to hear the truth of this diabolical situation. Until it is fair or there is more effort to make it fair then I will keep pushing using facts and observable events to demonstrate it is simply not fair as it stands.

Honestly if you could stand back and look at how it really works you would see that it is impossible that such a system could ever be accepted by the entire populace.

It simply provides

motive to act selfishly and provides means to act selfishly  to a small subset of current controllers- it simply can not work as it is.

Nobody is going to accept being handed punishment for no crime or a lesser crime than those handing to them have previously committed who are also gaining from giving them that punishment. It will simply inspire energies so great for reprisal the board will eventually become a total uncontrollable war zone. It is only just starting but it will certainly get worse before it gets better.






Anyone reading my entire post history could never conclude that I have ever acted unfairly or have not always fought (even to my own disadvantage) for everyone to have an equal chance.  

i know i could be wrong in my "speculation" but i clearly mentioned this is what I would PERSONALLY be doing, if i was sitting on a ton of bitcoins i would be busy spending them rather than having to see you argue with suchmoon for example.

it's my logic, it may only fit in my world and could be the wrongest speculation ever, which i doubt to be honest.

as for the rest of your post, i do for some reason believe that ; you are not an untrustworthy person, and most certainty don't deserve any of the negatives you got, and that your intention of this whole drama is good, but i personally find you annoying, you almost don't let a topic pass without talking about DT and merit, even this one !

if i was you, i would just think that there is a conspiracy and manipulation from the "gang" but sadly the owner of this place seems to be happy about it - then why do you care so much? let it pass.

I hope nobody minds if I don't participate in the red trust dog pile. I think there is sufficient redundancy now to ensure people get the memo that the account has more probability of being compromised, than not.

Well, that's obviously a matter of judgement or opinion.
I personally consider someone I'm only 25% certain being the person in e.g. the passport he's showing, not trustworthy.
Not trustworthy for me is reason enough for a negative trust rating.

If it is illogical for a user to do A for R and that is your proof of ¬R then I vehemently disagree.

That is called an exploitable vulnerability. A flaw in reasoning. Illogical ≠ Impossible.

I don’t think a 75% chance is appropriate for a negative rating.

I would point out there doesn’t appear to be any motive in hacking the account as to my knowledge he hasn’t even tried to conduct any business. Putting a lot of effort into falsely claiming you are the owner of an account isn’t logical to me in this case.

I think the above is especially important because:

Thanks for doing the research and clearing this up!

Thanks for the input. I've sent messages to some people.

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Seems qwk was right about this one.

Nice, thanks for your research and input on this.  I'm betting he's not the original owner of the account just on language alone, and I'm hoping he'll just come clean now if that's true.  He's already tagged with the possibility of the account being locked still on the table, so he might as well be honest at this point.

After investigation, I consider the evidence to be most strongly consistent with the hypothesis that his email account was hacked and then used to take his forum account.

He has the same email address as before, but it's @gmx.com, and we all know how secure that is. The forum account was first newly-accessed via email-reset rather than by password. IP evidence is also generally suggestive of it not being the same person. I also find his general behavior to be suspicious.

I asked him some challenge questions related to data I have and the real BTC_Bear should know, but his answers were only half-correct, and are more consistent with having access to a bunch of emails going back to at least 2011 than having actually lived it.

However, while he definitely wouldn't have enough evidence to recover the account if he didn't already have access to it, I have enough doubt that I'm not willing to lock the account at this time. There are plausible explanations for the above evidence against him, and if he is a hacker, he's done an unusually large amount of research, at least. I'd say that there's a 25% chance of him being the original BTC_Bear.

I don't have alternative contact info for BTC_Bear or I'd try contacting him. He was very active on #bitcoin-otc IIRC; maybe someone can try asking nanotube or the other #bitcoin-otc regulars.

BTW, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize & thank the original BTC_Bear (whether or not he is the current account owner), who on several occasions went to considerable effort to contribute to the forum in the early days.

Whether you can accept this or not. DT and merit being used to hamper free speech is something a person can care about regardless of whether they have money for expensive things. Some persons believe this board is the start of something huge and do not want to see it take a wrong turn for the worse at a critical moment.

He may be a multi millionaire or not but speculating on his motives for caring about DT are just that speculations from a subjective view point.

I am not trying to pick on you since I actually believe you have some good intentions on this board (from a broad perspective) and perhaps for the boards sake so do SOME of these other busy bodies. However, they are letting their subjective views and biases and egos crush honest persons accounts along the way as collateral damage. This needs fixing.

Theymos could fix most of this with a couple of tweaks.

1. give another icon for possible or proven account sales. This need not be related to scamming or untrustworthy deeds at all then because the account has been recognised as sold or possibly sold. Still need not prevent them from entering campaigns or trading. All that uproar can be fixed.

2. give another link saying " other feedback to consider"  - all subjective petty fighting and ego shit can be posted on there no related to trades and scamming directly.

I would also say bring is some sensible guidelines for DT and merit.

All these types of threads will become redundant junk. With possibly innocent people who perhaps dont even want all this probing and attention getting dragged through the mud.

The owner of the account has access to old posts and PMs so technically it doesn't prove anything.