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Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

practicalsecurity.substack.com

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Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#31

Post by pizzalife »

SkipperCat wrote: post #24
georgeecollins wrote: post #22

One thing I feel like I have learned from Reddit/ TikTok is the average person is terrible with money. Some VCs argue we should lower the bar to investing to democrative it. I am all for democracy, but maybe we would be better served if the average person didn't try to be a tycoon.

One of workplace tragedy in America is how we moved from professionally managed pensions to individual 401k retirement plans. Most folks have no business deciding asset allocation, managing risk, etc.

Most 401ks will just default to a target date fund, which is usually a total market stock ETF + bonds. That will certainly perform better than most actively managed pension funds.

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#32

Post by teractiveodular »

bediger4000 wrote: post #20
Algemarin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, taken to an extreme. A lot of theorizing about ROC curves and optimal operating point formulae, and absolutely no empirical, qualitative evidence (such as any interviews with actual scammers). For example, there is no actual sample data provided to substantiate even the premise, let alone the conclusion of this claim: > In choosing a wording to dissuade all but t…

Thanks for being more eloquent about critiquing that paper than I could be. But that leaves the observation about grammar and spelling in spams and scams unexplained. How should we explain scams terrible presentation?

Occam's razor: the messages are created by the uneducated dregs of society in countries where English is not a first language, and that's the best they can do.

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#33

Post by dullcrisp »

smeej wrote: post #23

This is...not realistic on any level. I've been professionally investigating cryptocurrency scams/thefts/fraud since 2017. This is at least twice as convoluted a process as is necessary to separate people from millions and millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies if the site stays up for a week. People don't bother spinning up stuff like this when the easy stuff works just fine.

But don’t you want to buy the book to learn how not to fall for these scams?

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#34

Post by redorb »

paulpauper wrote: post #26
smeej wrote: post #23

This is...not realistic on any level. I've been professionally investigating cryptocurrency scams/thefts/fraud since 2017. This is at least twice as convoluted a process as is necessary to separate people from millions and millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies if the site stays up for a week. People don't bother spinning up stuff like this when the easy stuff works just fine.

Yeah a fake livestream of Elon Musk or Mike Saylor still makes hundreds of thousands of dollars/day undetected and untraced, no FBI involvement or arrests at all, still going strong to this day. Why waste time with this crap.

I've been reporting fake tesla and space x accounts so often on youtube - that I eventually wrote a script to copy and past into the report.

Most of the time they do get removed - sometimes successfully before the QRcode is displayed. They even bot the streams so it appears like 30-40k people are watching creating 'social proof'

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#35

Post by landryraccoon »

smeej wrote: post #23

This is...not realistic on any level. I've been professionally investigating cryptocurrency scams/thefts/fraud since 2017. This is at least twice as convoluted a process as is necessary to separate people from millions and millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies if the site stays up for a week. People don't bother spinning up stuff like this when the easy stuff works just fine.

I'm curious, do you advertise your services to the public? I have a relative who's been victimized by a cryptocurrency scam. Would you mind if I contacted you about it?

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#37

Post by Terr_ »

Terr_ wrote: post #29
georgeecollins wrote: post #22

One thing I feel like I have learned from Reddit/ TikTok is the average person is terrible with money. Some VCs argue we should lower the bar to investing to democrative it. I am all for democracy, but maybe we would be better served if the average person didn't try to be a tycoon.

I think the tricky thing is the distinction between: (A) Democratization: Let everyone participate as individuals on a freshly equalized playing field that was previously so slanted they couldn't even try. (B) Democratization: Encourage lots of small disorganized weaker players into the market as unwitting prey for existing interests that have already established themselves with regulatory or competitive edges that t…

P.S.: A closely-related rant over another situation involving market-access and devil-in-the-details: Various attempts to "privatize social security" often with the pitch of "giving individuals more control."

In this case I'm not focused on whether individuals can act wisely, but rather that such plans often means replacing an insurance policy with an investment account. Those two kinds of financial instruments have extremely different features, benefits, and risks!

So even if believe that's a great idea, be be suspicious of anybody who seems to be trying to hide that aspect of their plan from the public, since it means they're trying to get voters to make an uninformed choice.

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#38

Post by yieldcrv »

smeej wrote: post #23

This is...not realistic on any level. I've been professionally investigating cryptocurrency scams/thefts/fraud since 2017. This is at least twice as convoluted a process as is necessary to separate people from millions and millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies if the site stays up for a week. People don't bother spinning up stuff like this when the easy stuff works just fine.

As a counterpoint it is very realistic. If you ever launch a token and run your own telegram channel, all sorts of specialists come out the woodwork with extremely convoluted schemes

The sad thing is that the legitimate ones look just like the illegitimate ones

My first top exchange listing was through a DM

I’ve done partnerships with no name exchanges that turned out fine, also initiated over unsolicited DM

been scammed a few times by people that didnt deliver, and had no intention to

both the legit and illegit ones have no references because their clients are all other token projects whose community needs to feel everything happened organically

scammers take advantage of this desire for secrecy

it’s really just all about niche and specialization

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#39

Post by Algemarin »

Calavar wrote: post #28
Algemarin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What more do you want? For it to be clear how unrealistic the odds are. They're not exactly broadcasting "you're 40 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the jackpot", instead their site screams "Millions Could Be Yours!". That is the dishonesty and obfuscation. Millions _could_ be yours, but they are very unlikely to be yours, in fact realistically approaching zero. While advance fee scams say "m…

At a certain point it falls to personal accountability. A would be lottery ticket buyer can get all that info in 30 seconds by googling "How likely am I win to win the lottery?" If they don't do that, that's on them. Advance fee scams are different because 1) they are telling outright falsehoods and 2) they come cloaked in a broad variety of disguises, which means that a naive web search is not guaranteed to unveil t…

A user can just as easily identify a scam such as the one in this post by also taking 30 seconds to do a web search for some phrasing from the email.

And "if they don't do that, that's on them"? This is victim blaming in both cases.

Re: Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam

#40

Post by raincole »

TheDudeMan wrote: post #6
wslh wrote: post #3

I suggest you the following exercise to see it with your own eyes: enter a Telegram channel on a top 100 cryptocurrency, say that you are trying to recover your wallet and... Suddenly a lot of scammer will contact you in less than 5' with techniques that you cannot imagine are real. For example, telegram handles with the same name as the channel admin but using unicode characters to make tou think it is the same acco…

What is the standard solution to this type of phish? This problem did not exist in the ASCII world, of course. Unicode is useful, but what is the best way to prevent this malicious use of it?

I do think it's good for certain things to be ASCII-only. People will say it's Americentrism or Anglo-Saxon-centrism. Ok so be it. Make the account handles and email addresses not inclusive and ASCII-only.
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