Live data from Hacker News

Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

blog.keys.casa

131–140 of 211 posts

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#131
post #124
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close reading reveals that in the story, only the robbers claim that he has a wife and no other facts point towards it.

And Chase just transferred the money without any knowledge or indication of him actually having a wife? I mean it's possible, but if it really was as easy as just getting some information and posing as a wife, then this kind of fraud would be very widespread.

> And Chase just transferred the money without any knowledge or indication of him actually having a wife?

Sounds like the wife excuse was only needed because the scammers were female. If the scammers were male they could have easily impersonated him directly. It's not like the bank keeps voiceprints of their customers for identification.

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the article seems part-advertisement It's all advertisement. The first paragraph is "Spoiler alert: their funds secured via Casa multisig remain safe." > the risk is real. I'm not so sure, I think there's a good chance this was made up. Unless this victim let on how much cryptocurrency he had early on in the conversation, this whole scenario seems too high-risk/low-reward to be very real. I mean, a Tinder acc…

Here's one take: You don't go around calling yourself a crypto trader if you do not have a significant stake. The victim engaged with the thief because they too had "I am a crypto trader" in their bio, which indicates they may be equally wealthy. It's a kind of financial classism, common financial ground, possibly "falling into wealth" from low investments, etc.

> Here's one take: You don't go around calling yourself a crypto trader if you do not have a significant stake.

I think the flaw with that is that I could totally see some unemployed dude who took his meager savings and went all /r/wallstreetbets into dogecoin describing themselves the same way on a dating app. I guess the question is, which one is closer to the more typical case?

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#133
post #98

I've been working in the payments industry on and off for 15 years. I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal (except for physical cash). As a last resort victims can file chargeback with their issuers or police. To begin with there are several layers of protection built in at acquirer, issuer, network and so on. Almost at each step there's an option to reverse the payment (or issue a comp…

Transactions have to be irreversible so that law enforcement is impossible, which is the main selling point of cryptocurrencies. Of course that's a downside if you are the one who would like law enforcement to happen (either because you are the victim of a theft or you want to enforce on others). Also fraud can be done with reversible transactions as well, in particular the reversal can be fraudulent; in general, rev…

I thought that the selling point was avoiding centralization. I suppose some measures could be implemented to avoid robbery.

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#134

I've been working in the payments industry on and off for 15 years. I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal (except for physical cash). As a last resort victims can file chargeback with their issuers or police. To begin with there are several layers of protection built in at acquirer, issuer, network and so on. Almost at each step there's an option to reverse the payment (or issue a comp…

> Are there plans to build equivalent features on Blockchain for crypto currencies? Basically every crypto enthusiast out there touts the non-reversibility of crypto transactions as its primary feature , not a bug, and that is why I see crypto as generally useless for your average person.

Banks basically act as escrow service, and it's not difficult to build this feature with smart contracts (as long as vendor is comfortable with the money being held by Escrow for a period of time, say a month).

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI this comment actually had the effect of confirming that the story is all but made up - there is nothing remotely resembling evidence anywhere, including in this ostensibly defensive comment.

Our client's privacy is more important than your curiosity; it's as simple as that.

[deleted]

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#136

I've been working in the payments industry on and off for 15 years. I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal (except for physical cash). As a last resort victims can file chargeback with their issuers or police. To begin with there are several layers of protection built in at acquirer, issuer, network and so on. Almost at each step there's an option to reverse the payment (or issue a comp…

As a person living in an authoritarian state, the inability of the government or other authority to reverse a payment looks like a very attractive feature to me. Yes, it does have downsides. They just don't look as troublesome as being completely cut off all financial services with a simple stroke of a pen - which was experienced by many members of political opposition in my country. "... but but Drugs! Criminals!" i…

Is the public nature of transaction worrisome to you? Seems like that might also be a political issue.

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#137

I've been working in the payments industry on and off for 15 years. I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal (except for physical cash). As a last resort victims can file chargeback with their issuers or police. To begin with there are several layers of protection built in at acquirer, issuer, network and so on. Almost at each step there's an option to reverse the payment (or issue a comp…

As a person living in an authoritarian state, the inability of the government or other authority to reverse a payment looks like a very attractive feature to me. Yes, it does have downsides. They just don't look as troublesome as being completely cut off all financial services with a simple stroke of a pen - which was experienced by many members of political opposition in my country. "... but but Drugs! Criminals!" i…

This is really the heart of the matter. On hand , yay, great we can subvert nasty states using cryptocoin, but also could undermine legitimate democracies. Swords cuts both ways. No one can deny the wave of ransomware and cryptocoin are not related.

How do we balance it so it can provide a net positive for humanity?

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#138

I've been working in the payments industry on and off for 15 years. I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal (except for physical cash). As a last resort victims can file chargeback with their issuers or police. To begin with there are several layers of protection built in at acquirer, issuer, network and so on. Almost at each step there's an option to reverse the payment (or issue a comp…

> I am yet to work with a payment method that does not support reversal

Strange, because from your comments you are based in India and there's simply no way to reverse a bank transfer there or in my own country, can you confirm this? What I've read over the years suggests the complete opposite of what you've said.

A brief internet search brings up:

> Adhil Shetty, CEO & co-founder, Bankbazaar.com, says, "The most important thing to understand is that if a transaction has been made, the bank cannot reverse it from its end without approval from the beneficiary. Bank can only act as a facilitator."

https://www.businesstoday.in/personal-finance/banking/story/...

> According to the Reserve bank of India, it is the senders responsibility to link and transfer money correctly by cross checking the account number and name of the beneficiary. Banks will not be held responsible.

https://www.allonmoney.com/banking/money-transferred-to-wron...

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#139
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the big innovation. You're right that a lot of folks don't want features like that, though I just had to point out that this isn't an " innovation " by any wild stretch of the imagination, but rather simply a policy in some implementations. It's mutable, too, for both banks and crypto: either could allow/disallow such a policy if those involved cared to make it work that way.

>simply a policy in some implementations Reversals would mean that there is some authority that can declare arbitrary transaction to be valid or not, and cryptocurrency is exercise in creation of payment system without such trusted party. So no, would not call it simply a policy.

It's definitely a policy, in that it's a design-decision that could be changed to make it operate differently. For example, if a good majority of a crypto-currency's miners elected to fork to a new policy, then it'd just happen.

And cryptocurrency isn't really about lacking a trusted-party so much as decentralizing the trusted-party. Which might sound pedantic, but it's an important distinction: there can be an authority that makes decisions, just it'd be decentralized.

Future crypto-systems, e.g. probably a next generation that'll replace early systems like Bitcoin, would probably take a smart-contract approach. For example, a payment could be reversed under conditions encoded in a smart-contract.

A well-developed system would likely end up including a system of checks-and-balances, appeals, manners of collecting evidence, etc., where trust is decentralized.

For example, most folks would generally agree that a mature, well-developed system should allow someone to recover funds extracted from them under threat-of-violence if everyone agrees that that's what happened. That current systems are too limited to make such an obviously-desirable thing happen is an obvious non-ideality. Once someone makes a good system that fixes such problems, in a generally agreeable way that people can trust, it'll likely become a preferred system; it and its clones, etc., would displace older systems, and this whole no-reversible-transactions thing would become a minor footnote in early history.

Re: Casa Client Case Study: The Tinder Trap

#140

While the article seems part-advertisement, the risk is real. Best not to let strangers know your worth, and use multi-factor authentication everywhere. It's a disgusting (and beautiful) world we live in!

I once asked about the best way to exchange a significant amount of crypto in a public FB group (I know, poor opsec). That night, someone on the other side of the world shared a random PDF with me. I was smart enough not to touch that bad juju PDF, but I wonder if it was an attempt to hack me. Anyone know?

> I was smart enough not to touch that bad juju PDF, but I wonder if it was an attempt to hack me. Anyone know?

There's no way anyone can answer that unless you share the PDF for analysis (and I couldn't even answer then).

Post reply on HN