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Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

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Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#141

Post by woodruffw »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #126
MereInterest wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the takeaways, though I'd also add an additional one, that you should use systems that have reversible transactions. That way, when you fall victim to fraud, you can use the court system to recover your losses.

This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”. The fact is wires can also be irreversible and you cannot use the court system as a blunt instrument outside your jurisdiction. The value transmission medium isn’t the problem here.

> This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”.

No, it isn't. It's a reminder that we have all of this financial structure for a reason. The person you're responding to didn't make any light of the potential victim or call them a degenerate.

In traditional finance, you (Joe Shmoe) can't just wire someone ~100M USD, regardless of jurisdiction. There are controls, most of which have been written in blood or tears. Cryptocurrencies will also grow those controls, and we will all rightly question its value when it inevitably does.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#142

Post by bko »

MereInterest wrote: post #118
chrisco255 wrote: post #11

This was a multi-week long social engineering scam targeted at Thomas. Thomas has a Discord for a drone transportation startup, and the scammers proceeded to embed themselves in the community and provide valuable labor such as web design and graphics design in order to earn his trust. Thomas's wallet is public and advertised on Twitter via his ENS domain. He had $100M+ in aETH, a derivative token provided by Aave whe…

I like the takeaways, though I'd also add an additional one, that you should use systems that have reversible transactions. That way, when you fall victim to fraud, you can use the court system to recover your losses.

You're mixing up reversible transactions and court system. If someone defrauds you in an irreversible transaction, you can still sue that person for damages if you know who they are. Similarly if someone defrauds you in reversible transactions, you can't just wave a wand and get your money back. You can sue them if you know who they are, or you can request a reversal from your bank/cc provider (may or may not be honored) but you're not completely safe. Most fraud happens in fiat and there are real victims out here.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#143

Post by charcircuit »

kelp wrote: post #32

This was an absolutely fascinating and chilling story. The thing that struck me about it is the scam didn't work for a few reasons: 1. He typically had a practice of not using his main wallet for things like this. 2. He got wary and actually read the smart contracts. This is a level of technical competence required that's going to mean most people have to offload this to a trusted intermediary. And then what's the po…

>And then what's the point of all the decentralization ideology? Because we just re-invented banks.

There's nothing wrong with centralized services built on a decentralized network. Take a look at the web. Sure you can use a centralized service like facebook to make a facebook page, but if you want you can host your own website.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#144

Post by woodruffw »

gonehome wrote: post #139
randomhodler84 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”. The fact is wires can also be irreversible and you cannot use the court system as a blunt instrument outside your jurisdiction. The value transmission medium isn’t the problem here.

Yeah the op comment wasn’t made in good faith. Try getting your money back when getting scammed via venmo or PayPal - rarely any better, and if you’re selling you’re more likely to get scammed with those services than crypto.

I have done multiple clawbacks via payment processors. In each case, I escalated (vendor -> processor -> my bank -> CFPB) until the dispute was resolved to my satisfaction.

In nearly all cases, no separate restitution was required: the processor or my bank was able to reverse or halt the ACH transaction before the money settled. In the handful of cases where settlement had already happened, they were able to countermand the transaction.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#145

Post by whatshisface »

Grustaf wrote: post #138
whatshisface wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NFT part keeps track of who owns what domain. It would improve the situation by getting rid of the questionable organization running things presently. (See: the .org scandal)

Obviously the NFT would "keep track of", but you have to be more specific. And changing the organisation is a completely separate question from which database technology they use. IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is.

If you're asking for the implementation details, there's a group trying to do it right now. You should look them up if you're interested.

>IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is.

It's true that it won't make the managing organization less corrupt - it will make them nonexistent. That's the idea behind decentralized decision-making. The people running the database don't have to have the power to change it or bend the rules: that's what this whole crypto thing is about.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#146

Post by xwdv »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #76
xwdv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, if they got this close, it’s only a matter of time before they take it all. He should strongly consider cashing out and leaving only an amount he is willing to lose in ETH. Hell, given my distaste for crypto, if I were more unethical I may even attempt such scams, but I’d balance it out by donating the stolen money to environmental initiatives to combat global warming (after giving myself some fair comp…

It’s like the televangelist. Money affinity scamming. You need to conspicuously show your wealth on chain so people think God (vitalik) made them rich. Unless you flex with your $100M in aave on your main with an ENS name, how will your victims know you are rich and worthy?

If I had $100M, I find it hard that I’d care that much about things. I barely give a fuck now and my net worth is only 1/58th of that. I’d probably just build a passive income stream and chill the rest of my life.

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#147

Post by bko »

woodruffw wrote: post #141
randomhodler84 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”. The fact is wires can also be irreversible and you cannot use the court system as a blunt instrument outside your jurisdiction. The value transmission medium isn’t the problem here.

> This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”. No, it isn't. It's a reminder that we have all of this financial structure for a reason. The person you're responding to didn't make any light of the potential victim or call them a degenerate. In traditional finance, you (Joe Shmoe) can't just wire someone ~100M USD, regardless of jurisdiction. There are controls, most of which have…

You ever heard of asset forfeiture? There's two sides to everything. Not really "owning" something is great if you're the victim of fraud, but has its downsides when you become a target and someone wants to arbitrarily capture your wealth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#148

Post by nightfly »

shbooms wrote: post #50
HWR_14 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who invite me over for a sandwich would be insulted if I entered their house, took the sandwich they made me and left. In fact, I probably would never get invited over again.

true, but if they invited you in and told you had to go stand on a very specfic place in the room, facing a certain direction and to only start eating when they said so, that would be very suspicious and likely result in you opting out.

Like sitting at the dining room table, and eating only after saying grace?

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#149

Post by TacticalCoder »

MereInterest wrote: post #118
chrisco255 wrote: post #11

This was a multi-week long social engineering scam targeted at Thomas. Thomas has a Discord for a drone transportation startup, and the scammers proceeded to embed themselves in the community and provide valuable labor such as web design and graphics design in order to earn his trust. Thomas's wallet is public and advertised on Twitter via his ENS domain. He had $100M+ in aETH, a derivative token provided by Aave whe…

I like the takeaways, though I'd also add an additional one, that you should use systems that have reversible transactions. That way, when you fall victim to fraud, you can use the court system to recover your losses.

> that you should use systems that have reversible transactions.

OTH I'm pretty sure that if the mark had been using such systems years ago, he wouldn't have $100m+ worth of ETH now ; )

Re: Social engineering scam that nearly cost me all of my ETH

#150

Post by cjlars »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #126
MereInterest wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the takeaways, though I'd also add an additional one, that you should use systems that have reversible transactions. That way, when you fall victim to fraud, you can use the court system to recover your losses.

This is just saying “that’s what you get for playing with crypto you degenerate”. The fact is wires can also be irreversible and you cannot use the court system as a blunt instrument outside your jurisdiction. The value transmission medium isn’t the problem here.

Big difference between manually initiating the transaction and amount vs accidentally signing away everything because of one obscured line of code.
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